What is Digg?92 Comments
- khaosx2030, on 07/08/2009, -0/+77Can't we just eject Comcast into the sun?
- Zippo, on 07/08/2009, -0/+58I understand that separate cable boxes can provide great content like guides, scheduling and reminders, on-demand content, recording, etc... but we all know they're mainly used so that the cable company can encrypt their signal and control how many TVs we watch the content on. I ***** hate it.
Back in the days of analogue cable, I purchased my service and bought a splitter... just like I buy internet and use a router. Digital cable should be the god-damn same. I shouldn't have to have a gigantic box under every TV I own just to have HD cable.
*walks off with cane, muttering angrily about how the old days were better* - gigi52, on 07/08/2009, -1/+42Cable companies have us over a barrel. I like less government, but I see this as a utility - that should have oversight.
- DeskFlyer, on 07/08/2009, -0/+36Why would you want to contaminate the Sun like that?
- dystra, on 07/08/2009, -1/+20stop giving them your money, you people act like cable is a necessity.
- shadowman99, on 07/08/2009, -1/+20No, it's more like selling you a car but forcing you to rent the engine.
I want to own my goddamn cable box. I've paid for it many times over in rental fees. - Raptor007, on 07/08/2009, -1/+18Finally! People need to realize that there's no technical need for a cable box with 99% of HDTVs, because they have internal ClearQAM tuners. But cable boxes are forced down the customer's throats because Comcast refuses to transmit in ClearQAM. I hope this lawsuit forces them to drop their proprietary transmissions and use the standard that practically all HDTVs support.
- flossdaily, on 07/08/2009, -0/+14No. We don't have the technology.
- kolobcreek, on 07/08/2009, -0/+11My buddy had a similar problem with COX Cable. He bought his receiver on ebay. Contacted COX and he said he couldn't use it. He told them according to the FCC he could. After a few weeks and a lot of phone calls they ended up giving him a free receiver.
- Branchex, on 07/08/2009, -1/+12They should just make it illegal for cable companies to rent-out boxes, instead the monthly fee should go towards paying for it.
- al3efroman, on 07/08/2009, -0/+10Yeah, because vertical integration that is detrimental to the customer is totally not what this is about. Your glib statement is much more productive than conversations about consumer protection laws.
- Spanq, on 07/08/2009, -0/+8This is almost as ridiculous as Comcast trying to offer you a "Service Protection Plan." Sure, it's only an additional buck a month and a drop in the bucket, but I've yet to get a straight answer from anyone in their call center as to why I should have to pay Comcast to protect myself against their own failures.
- raptorlightning, on 07/08/2009, -2/+10Clearly because giving the customer the -option- to buy their own box would be a bad thing. 5 dollars a month for 2 years just blew away the 100 dollar boxes you can get that would work just fine, or perhaps better. You can't argue that a monopoly is a good thing.
- Zigma, on 07/08/2009, -0/+7first thing that came to my head was
LOL, attorney general calls comcast to complain about service, comcast is horrible as always in customer service and don't realize they're talking to the attorney ***** general, he says he will sue, comcast calls a bluff, they get owned lol
but thats just me. - Coven, on 07/08/2009, -1/+8wow...
- jbmcb, on 07/09/2009, -0/+6The two way signal was *supposed* to be standard as well. The FCC needs to slap these guys around some.
- chris4404, on 07/08/2009, -0/+5What pisses me off more is I have a CableCARD in my TivoHD and they charge me $2.99 a month for it.
- skellener, on 07/09/2009, -0/+5Cable co's, ISPs and Telcos (wired and wireless) need to all be broken up. In addition, they need to separate connection and content. You either provide a connection (to the internet, cable network, cell network, whatever) or you provide content (tv shows, movies, special services, etc) but you cannot supply both. There is too much conflict of interest between offering the pipeline and offering the content with these companies.
You should be able to buy the device of your choice and connect to the network of your choice and select the services of your choice. Period. The walled gardens of each provider and those costs should all be done away with. People need to have REAL choices for this stuff. This would encourage REAL competition. What we have now are monopolies and collusion. You really have no choices. - Mockylock, on 07/08/2009, -0/+5Indeed. Just another fee you're being charged for ***** that you HAVE to have and have NO use for outside of their network.
- TheBigBad, on 07/08/2009, -0/+4Ah, the witty quips of the faceless.
- Scrappy1850, on 07/08/2009, -1/+5what happened to cable card?:
- LordVance, on 07/08/2009, -0/+4I would figure the same thing, and I don't go with SPP. Every ***** time Comcast has to get involved with fixing ***** at my house (more often than should be necessary) it goes like this...
1) Comcast rep replaces random end cap between the point of entry to my home, and my cable modem/television.
2) Comcast rep goes "Shucks, that didn't fix the problem."
3) Comcast rep sits on his dick for two hours trying to fix the problem.
4) Comcast rep replaces the ***** modem they rent to me and the problem is magically solved.
5) I get my next bill, it has a surcharge for the repair.
6) I call up and get someone on the phone. They explain that the charge is because the service rep had to replace an endcap. I scream bloody hell, get a supervisor on the line, explain that the ***** cable modem was the problem and it had absolutely nothing to do with my internal wiring.
7) They remove the surcharge.
Every. *****. Time. They always, always make sure they switch something out that would constitute a problem with my end, and not theirs. Those ***** bleed people dry if they aren't willing to call up and bitch (or don't know wtf the rep is doing).
(note: feel free to replace cable modem with television box 33% of the time) - carlosos, on 07/09/2009, -0/+3And now the question of why you can't buy cable boxes from cisco or motorola (or whoever also makes cable boxes).
- mustang460, on 07/09/2009, -0/+3videos take a long time to load on 56k
- Scrappy1850, on 07/08/2009, -1/+4or selling you a car and telling you that it only takes chevron gas.
- Qumahlin, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3You never buy receivers on eBay because if they are for sale it means they are most likely stolen. I worked at a MSO before and felt bad for the CSR's who had to explain to a customer that the box they bought use to belong to another customer who never paid their bill and never returned the equipment. From that point the device is blacklisted and will not be re-activated. Of course if the box is from someone who stiffed a different provider your good to go, customer support is always bitchy about activating boxes that aren't registered in the system as having been owned by said provider.
- Qumahlin, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3For that you would have to prove its company wide issue and not merely franchise wise. The majority of customers do receive reliable internet access. Thats the thing about cable systems having been acquired over the years. You can have great service on one system and a block away it can be a nightmare.
Comcast actually spends more than most other providers when it comes to system maintenance and replacement. Don't get me wrong the company is still a trainwreck in other areas, especially management, but when it comes to upgrading systems they are better then most. - Qumahlin, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3SPP protects for issues beyond the point of demarcation. Your cable providers responsibility ends at the tap that feeds/enters your house. Anything related to inside wiring or splitting is your responsibility even if you originally had it installed by the cable provider.
SPP basically means that if you have an internal wiring issue that requires splitter replacement, a new wall fish, etc it would be covered. Without SPP you would have to pay for those services, or you could do them yourself.
For the majority of consumers SPP is worthless unless you live in an older house that has ***** wiring. In those cases just sign up for SPP and then bitch enough about your signal levels and you can get Comcast to basically rewire your entire house for free. - graeh, on 07/09/2009, -0/+3The word "entrepreneur" is for ***** douchebags.
- TheBigBad, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3How can you ask to get rid of WV when you are from Memphis TN aka "Hillbilly Detroit"?
- al3efroman, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3"most receivers from say SA are stolen from that company anyway." citation?
- MrZaiko, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3You take Super Mario very seriously though...
theres no problem with that =) - Jeepinator, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3Who wants to go class-action on their ass for unreliable internet access.
- deathandtaverns, on 07/09/2009, -0/+3Charter charges as much for a cable card as a digital receiver. I love how they give me choices.
- shig, on 07/08/2009, -1/+4Here's a real example of illegal bundling;
http://www.kohls.com/kohlsStore/saleevents/0707/ki ...
Dinner plates AND cereal bowls!!!! Casa Cristina obviously hates the consumer.
(plz don't sue me for libel) - Spire3660, on 07/08/2009, -0/+3Clear QAM doesnt adress 2-way communications. CableCArd does and should have been finished by now, but the cable companies dont like the FCC telling them how to deploy hardware so they are dragging their feet and making it as ***** up as possible.
- cenobyte40k, on 07/09/2009, -0/+3You know if they would just let me put a cablecard system in a PC I wouldn't care.
Honestly what will fix this is if someone (MS, Sony, Nintendo) makes a game system, with a couple of cable card readers, a Blue-Ray player and a way to surf the web, just about all of this mess would be over. I don't know why no one has put the DVR into a Game system yet. - Zippo, on 07/09/2009, -0/+2You still need to buy the cable cards, meaning the cable companies can still control and charge you for how many TVs you can use.
In an ideal world, guides and other programming would be done in a standard code, so that any cable provider can take advantage of it, and you'd just have to plug in the coaxial cable into the back of the TV and let the TV do all the decoding.
But yeah, that'll never happen. - stalky14, on 07/08/2009, -3/+5I don't know how WV franchises are doing it, but here in Portland they went all-digital (except for the OTA "Mustcarry" channels that by law have to be in analog). What they did - and I'm sure it was just to save themselves money, nothing altruistic - was to put all of the basic cable channels that any "cable-ready" analog TV could get before into clear-QAM. So if you have a TV or 3rd party box that can get clear QAM, you get those channels. Of course you don't get their electronic program guide stream, but you didn't get that on analog either. They also will give anyone who just subscribes to basic service, for no additional charge, a dumb converter box (no conditional access system or smartcard or CableCard) that does the D to A, which to the user works almost exactly the same as when cable companies were putting out simple frequency converter boxes for outband, unscrambled, analog channels back in the 80's!
What it boils down to is that this is NO different than the cable boxes we had to use until every TV became "cable-ready"!
Clear QAM is the new Cable-Ready.
Now, if they were encrypting EVERY channel, premium or not, THAT is a completely different story. They do encrypt the HD versions of the basic cable channels, even though you get them for free when you subscribe to the SD ones. I disagree with that, but it doesn't surprise me given that content providers are weirdly more protective of their HD content as if it's somehow more valuable than the SD version.
There are a lot of things that annoy me about Comcast (price being #1), but I think they actually got this one right, or as right as they can under doubtless pressure from content providers... at least in this DMA. - algaeturd, on 07/08/2009, -0/+2So do almost ALL of the other utility companies. And yes, cable is a utility. Not a necessity but it's clearly a utility.
- sgrizzard, on 07/09/2009, -0/+2The real problem is that there are not multiple, competing cable companies... there are only three - the cable company, the satellite company, and the phone company.
At least there is some competition now. Does anyone remember how horrible it was when there was only one way to get cable TV? All of these new innovations by the cable company only happened when they were forced to compete with satellite companies.
You could fix this problem by opening up the cable market to all entrants, and in ten years, there would be a standard. But, you should not blame a monopolist for acting like a monopolist when, by creating entry barriers, you created the monopoly in the first place. - NichowA, on 07/09/2009, -0/+2Good luck trying to work out the logistics on a setup like that. You have a provider who has spent 100% of the money to build the infrastructure, but they aren't entitled to sell services that use that infrastructure? Also, who would service it? The content provider or the "connection provider?"
The reason that cable companies have monopolies is because it generally isn't profitable for another company to try to come in and build a second set of cable infrastructure. The competitor in theory is satellite.
If you really want more choices you'd have to push for partial goverment ownership/subsidy of the infrastructure. If the government owned it, and allowed companies to use it for a fee, you could potentially set up a system like you're talking about. But to do so would be an unbelieveably massive undertaking. - Tenareth, on 07/08/2009, -1/+3Basic cable does not require the box, I'd consider basic cable a "Utility". Everything else is for-pay premium content, whatever they require is up to them.
My TVs pick up all the HD channels (except premium) without any issues or a box. I only need the box for DVR and HBO/etc, which has always been the case.
Seems like a silly argument. - NichowA, on 07/09/2009, -0/+2Yikes. I work for a regional provider (NOT comcast). We used to have a wire maintenance plan similar to that, but it just waived a fee for the truck roll. Any/all wiring repairs short of replacing internal wiring (wall fishing) is free of charge. And believe me, a LOT of people have old, haphazardly-done wiring that takes me hours to fix. I'm honestly surprised we can afford to do it for free. But charging money for replacing a fitting is definitely a money grab. Each fitting is around 25 cents... I go through 25-50 a day. Big deal.
- Paranor01, on 07/08/2009, -1/+3ever heard of flash-rom ? get your troll head unstuck please.
- wicketr, on 07/08/2009, -1/+3First off, only about 15% of the population has an HDTV. So what about the rest of the people? Or are you suggesting the transmit in both formats for the legacy users?
All the companies are moving to tru2way since CableCards are only one directional. Read up here: http://www.tru2way.com/ - thesonofdarwin, on 07/09/2009, -1/+3If you simply have a Tivo box, you can only access their standard definition channels regardless of what you are paying for. If you want to access all of your channels you either need a [rented] Comcast converter or card. For no reason other than they want more of your money.
At least here in Pennsylvania this is the case. - Spuy767, on 07/08/2009, -1/+3All the on demand channels broadcast on subsets of the normal frequencies. When I was living in my apartment, all the cable users were hooked up to the same circuit. I'd be able to pick up what others were watching on demand when they ordered a show. Funny thing was, I'd see when they paused, rewound, etc. Got a lol the first time I was flicking through, and saw some guy pause and rewind the same 15 seconds of a porno about fifty times.
- cherwilco, on 07/09/2009, -0/+1I feel ashamed for getting a little lol out of his comment....just a teensie one though
- stalky14, on 07/17/2009, -0/+1Actually, the way they often did it was with signal traps at the pole. They'd organize tiers into frequency bands and trap out the bands you didn't subscribe too. Quite effective too, as the signals for the channels you don't pay for never even enter your house.
This is still done today for "internet only" subscriptions. IIRC, the DOCCIS stuff is only above like 700Mhz for the downstream and below 100 Mhz for the upstream. It's easy to filter big blocks like that. -
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