Never had a problem with 'em til today. Got a notice that my "expanded basic" will be $49.10. In American Dollars??!! For TV. Well, I guess it's "basic basic" for $9.00. Who ownes these brigands, Exxon-Mobile? Yeah, I'm cheap. But I know how hard I work for my money. Friggin theives!

I got the same gripe here BBJ :nailem:
pisses me off

50 bucks to watch tv? :smash::fishslap:

To have Comcast internet service you have to have expanded basic or better.
I waited 2 years for a new cable to be brought into my house. They left on the ground across my driveway. I finally had to trench and burry the cable my self in PVC pipe . My reseption is garbage and they will do nothing. cost $96.per Mo.

After seeing a few guys from here with Verizon at $15 I think I'm going to switch. I'll get Direct tv to boot 160 chanles for about $35 less per Mo.
"160 chanels and nothing good to watch"

I'm frigged....... Verizon can't get DSL to me.. something about the wires between me and the substation in the center of town, too many patches... well, I said, you guys got like 49 godzillion dollars coming in per month... put in some new friggin wires!... Not in the immediate future, was the monotone response.... prolly explains why my phone goes out when we get heavy rain... I tell the repair guy, go to the big box on 6 A in front of the quick oil change place (2 miles from my house)... problems there.. always get a different guy.. he says huh :huh:.. they never believe me... track it down...
"Sir, you were Right!"... 2 hours later.......:nailem:

All "monopoly" type corporations SUCK :splat:

tv...cell phone......internet....they all suck...they charge all the dough and never work right half the time....only problem is that we "need " this stuff :poke: ....

direct tv will cost me aprox $35.00 a month
for 160 channels or so
which will be a treat...

i said F.U. to charter permanently

direct tv will cost me aprox $35.00 a month
for 160 channels or so
which will be a treat...

i said F.U. to charter permanently
I got DTV raven....63.97 a month with HBO....three recievers
1 is included....5.00 bux each after that.....make sure you have a clear shot at the southern sky too....my pic is not the best at times

i might add additional later on...

to keep the price low...

it's entertainment...

my dad having had seven kids
always said being quite pragmatic
that tv was cheap entertainment
but now adays thats not so true.

net flix is starting to loook good
but their choices for movies
doesnt seem that great... to me.

To have Comcast internet service you have to have expanded basic or better.
I waited 2 years for a new cable to be brought into my house. They left on the ground across my driveway. I finally had to trench and burry the cable my self in PVC pipe . My reseption is garbage and they will do nothing. cost $96.per Mo.

After seeing a few guys from here with Verizon at $15 I think I'm going to switch. I'll get Direct tv to boot 160 chanles for about $35 less per Mo.
"160 chanels and nothing good to watch"
===========================================
verizon has a standard DSL modem but it sucks IMO
because it doesnt have a built in router and the Westell 327W
does which you can request for the same exact price from
verizon... i did and already sent the other modem back.
its both a wireless and 4 x modem (the best of both worlds)

just my .02 cents, but I will never go back to cable...( and my brother is a cable guy ) can't beat the dish....rarely have a problem..1 time during a heavy, heavy rain..and once when we got 3' of snow, and my dish was a block of snow.

===========================================
verizon has a standard DSL modem but it sucks IMO
because it doesnt have a built in router and the Westell 327W
does which you can request for the same exact price from
verizon... i did and already sent the other modem back.
its both a wireless and 4 x modem (the best of both worlds)
Thanks for letting me know

net flix is starting to loook good
but their choices for movies
doesnt seem that great... to me.
I had netflix a couple years ago..no cable...just rabbit ears
I LOVE netflix...they have every movie made to DVD.
very easy to use..and you always have a movie to watch.
I might do it again...just cant justify the coin right now

so right now
you dont rent two
movies per month?

if you have tons of channels
you don't need to i suppose

but they are charging
ten per month now
thats why i'm considering it.

I have had directv since 97 and love it. I forget what the current rate is around 42-45 with the family package, and locals too. I also have comcast internet and don't have the expanded basic or better. I think they make you pay like 57.95 if you don't have any cable tv service at all. I believe I pay 42.95 for internet and 9.00 and change for the very basic 4,5,7 38, 56 etc. If I want to drop the basic (9.00) I will have to pay 57.95. which is more than the ~51 I am paying now so I am sort of locked into keeping basic. Which if I even cared about you can get anyway because it is sent into the house with the cable internet. THere are a bunch of ways of looking at it, so I pay 51 with internet and basic(which I don't use) or 57 for internet alone.

Confused?

Exept for extremely heavy rains, Directv is great! THey don't raise thier prices every january like comcast and picture and sound are great. I am still using same sony reciever I bought back in 97.

I am even happier now that I bought a sony HX-715 Hard disk recorder. It is like a tivo with no subscription. It will work my sony directv recorder and digitally record anything, and you can offload to dvd discs to permanently save stuff
Eric

Karl that box is called a SAC or Xbox. Also no job takes less than 2 hours as no service is so urgent that we cannot take the time to perform our work safely.

HX-715 Hard disk recorder

how much are they? $$

To have Comcast internet service you have to have expanded basic or better.
I waited 2 years for a new cable to be brought into my house. They left on the ground across my driveway. I finally had to trench and burry the cable my self in PVC pipe . My reseption is garbage and they will do nothing. cost $96.per Mo.

After seeing a few guys from here with Verizon at $15 I think I'm going to switch. I'll get Direct tv to boot 160 chanles for about $35 less per Mo.
"160 chanels and nothing good to watch"

The only thing with DSL is that the best Verizon DSL will still feel like 56k compared to the worst cable Internet.

I worked for comcast for 10 yrs and had all services for free....WOO HOO!!

Now that I do not work there I have the basic service as it is just too damn expensive to watch TV. I pay about 90$/month for voice video and data through comcast (49$ for data, 10$ for tv and 35$ for voice).

Verizon is upgrading their network to fiber to the home and will be selling voice video and data services to us and when they do you can kiss Comcast good bye as they will be crushed by Verizon. The only problem is that it will take a few years to get the fiber network rebuilt.

The only thing with DSL is that the best Verizon DSL will still feel like 56k compared to the worst cable Internet.

the slowest cable connection is 384 killibytes per second

verizon dsl is presently 185.....kbps
as ....i just checked mine

but for the price i can't complain thus far...
and they can only go up....from here...
because the dial up isp's speeds
are forcing them to.

so right now
you dont rent two
movies per month?

if you have tons of channels
you don't need to i suppose

but they are charging
ten per month now
thats why i'm considering it.
I havent rented movies for a while,
it wasnt 10 bux when I was in....that might be a limited number of movies you can get
Mine was 3 on hand at all times...no amount

unlimitted
but i dont know
how many on hand
at a time...

I think its 2 for the 10 dollar deal......still cant beat it
I was surprised how quick they came too.......I saw alot of movies:lurk:

If they hauled the "idiot box" out of my house today I would not miss it one bit!:wavey:

I kinda agree BF.. I could adjust for sure. BUT.. I'd hafta hear the NOISE from everybody else in the house... THAT, I could NOT endure..... :behead:

Karl that box is called a SAC or Xbox. Also no job takes less than 2 hours as no service is so urgent that we cannot take the time to perform our work safely.

I know Bill, the tech has to do the service call in a prescribed manner.
Got nothing against the workers. the company sucks.. Even had somebody on the phone, one time when I called agree, same location, under similar circumstances, WE (verizon) need to take care of that.
DUH.. wouldn't it make sense to fix it right ONCE, replace the bad wires, connections, box, whatever, than pay a tech 2 hours minumum, several times a year? :huh:... common sense disappears at a rapid rate, the higher up you go.... unfortunately, the poor decisions made up top, trickle down to the consumer, and wrongfully, the consumer gets pissed at the techs.... because that is the face of the company they see.

I kinda agree BF.. I could adjust for sure. BUT.. I'd hafta hear the NOISE from everybody else in the house... THAT, I could NOT endure.....

and great poetry ....lol
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
there are noise cancellation headphones now.
and/OR the type that are cordless so you can
be listening to your favorite music instead
with a smile on your face as you boogy
through the house... :grins:

Karl, as Bill can probably tell you also, Verizon isn't putting any money into their system in the past few years for a few reasons. #1 being the small telco guys that started a few years ago are resellers of Verizon service. Verizon is still responsible for the lines...why give someone something for free that you have to pay for....

Also they are banking on wireless more and more...cept the only problem is the TRUE killer wireless application has not materialized so they're holding status quo until it does.

If you think you got problems now just wait it's gonna get worse. The more the infrastructure ages the worse it's going to be.
I hate dealing with Verizon and do every week with troubles on customer lines. I damn near had a fistfight with a guy a while ago as he was trying to tell me that my dc radio loop "HAD to have battery" on it or it wouldn't work. I fought with the guy for over an hour one day and said take the battery voltage off the damn line. I said gimme a twisted pair no battery or I'm calling your boss. Gee when he did it worked fine and he was gone 10 minutes later. :gorez:
Never did find out who put the battery voltage on the line to begin with when the lines been there for like 30 years.

I'm going to "buck a trend" here and play "Devil's Advocate" (TWO clichés in ONE sentence!).
I pay $$130.00/mnth for my Comcast Digital Hi-Def TV service w/dual tuner DVR plus high speed internet.
Comcast claims D/L speeds of up to 4 MBS (6 in some areas). I don't know if this is different from actual "connection speed" (if there IS such a thing). Raven, could you tell me how to check my speed? I'm very interested to know. I DO know that I rarely, if ever, experience any connection problems, and when I D/L something, if I blink, I miss it.
We are BIG TV fans here (we have FOUR young children). We have the package that includes all the channels they offer, plus all the HBOs (HD, Zone, Comedy). Comcast's On Demand feature, combined with the dual tuner DVR, gives us great viewing flexibility. We can watch one show while recording another. We can record two shows while watching one of them, and we can record two separate shows while watching a third that we already recorded. Not to mention the ability to pause and rewind live TV (which we use all the time), featuring 4 rewind and fast foward speeds. You wanna REALLY see if that receiver had possession of that ball? Try rewinding the network's slo-mo replay in slo-mo, and all in crystal-clear Hi-Def! I suppose that purchasing a unit such as the Sony hard disk recorder would offer me many of these features, but if it breaks, I have to pay to repair or replace it. If my Comcast dual tuner DVR craps the bed, they simply come out and switch it with a new one.
On Demand is constantly adding offerings. There is a seemingly endless variety of programming that we can tune into anytime, from family oriented, to science and nature, to do-it-yourself, to advant guard, to adult.
And of course, there are MOVIES: The pay movies are a bit different than "old fashioned" pay-per-view in that we have access to anything we buy (for anywhere from 2 to 4 bux) for 24 hours, which makes it more akin to renting a DVD at Blockbuster.
There are also free movies available to view any time at the touch of a button. Most of these are older movies, including many classics.
On the rare occassion that we do have a problem,or need some sort of service, I never have a problem getting through on the phone to a customer service rep, and they are always curteous and eager to help.
Does any given cable company have a monoply in its respective area, thus eliminating competition and increasing price? Most certainly. We have SEVEN TVs in the house; two of them Hi-Def. One in each of the four bedrooms, one in living room, one in office, and just added one in work-out room.
In terms of value, bang for the buck, I'm pretty much satisfied with my service.

Uhhh.. no.. I don't work for Comcast.:laughs:

Raven we do Netflix, and at first I was against it. We get 3 dvd's in the mail, and once you watch one you put it back in the mail and a new one is sent out. The return address for them is in Brockton Ma. You go online and make a list of the movies you want to see, and they work off of your list. Turn around is very quick, and it is like 20 bucks a month. If you want to get real creative, with the right software, and a dvd burner well you guessed it, sent them back same day you could probably do 30 movies or more a month...


Verizon is lagging on the copper facilities, because they are going to FTTP, not wireless. FTTP ( Fiber To The Premise ot House) as others have mentioned it blows Comcast out of the water, and the price can't be beat. We are building a whole new network for it. Itwill be worth the wait....

because the movie's spread was on a brochure...

and you can bet "broke back mountain" won't ever be watched.

the only good thing about hollywooD is the friggan sign...

i partied with this cool hawain dude behind
the "D" for fatty... :smokin: in 72...after this huge hollywood
kegger bash. people were (crashed) asleep everywhere
like seals on a rock....lol
- it was a BoB Marley reggae PARTY.

Karl, as Bill can probably tell you also, Verizon isn't putting any money into their system in the past few years for a few reasons. #1 being the small telco guys that started a few years ago are resellers of Verizon service. Verizon is still responsible for the lines...why give someone something for free that you have to pay for....

Also they are banking on wireless more and more...cept the only problem is the TRUE killer wireless application has not materialized so they're holding status quo until it does.

If you think you got problems now just wait it's gonna get worse. The more the infrastructure ages the worse it's going to be.
I hate dealing with Verizon and do every week with troubles on customer lines. I damn near had a fistfight with a guy a while ago as he was trying to tell me that my dc radio loop "HAD to have battery" on it or it wouldn't work. I fought with the guy for over an hour one day and said take the battery voltage off the damn line. I said gimme a twisted pair no battery or I'm calling your boss. Gee when he did it worked fine and he was gone 10 minutes later. :gorez:
Never did find out who put the battery voltage on the line to begin with when the lines been there for like 30 years.


Verizon is dumping HUGE amounts of money into network upgrades! They are in the process of upgrading to a fiber to the home service in every town they touch...it may take a while to get it done but within 5 years everyone will have new verizon service. I believe some of the towns on the north shore can get the services offered via the fiber!

The best thing about the network is that the govt is not forcing Verizon to resell any of their fiber service to the competition so Verizon is taking full advantage of the opportunity to "deregulate" themselves.

Verizon is dumping HUGE amounts of money into network upgrades! They are in the process of upgrading to a fiber to the home service in every town they touch...
Is this the technology through which they plan to offer the TV service they've been talking about?

Is this the technology through which they plan to offer the TV service they've been talking about?

Yes they will be providing voice, video and data of the fiber network....smokin' ass kicking network...most likley the most advanced in the world.

I do not work for Verizon but do work for one of the companies that is providing equipment to.

We are presently offering all 3 services in Woburn, and I believe Billerica. The other towns that have been wired are offering voice and data only at this time until each town gives liscensing for the video.

After seeing a few guys from here with Verizon at $15 I think I'm going to switch.
Mike, I switched to Verizon DSL for $15 a month from dial-up. It's way faster, had a problem with static in my phones at first but after calling tech support, they sent a tech out to fix the problem. All is good now.

We are presently offering all 3 services in Woburn, and I believe Billerica. The other towns that have been wired are offering voice and data only at this time until each town gives liscensing for the video.

I guess the towns are holding Verizon hostage for certain perks before the "allow" them to offer video services.

It would be cool if Verizon took the towns to court because as far as I am concerned, the towns have no right to tell verizon what they can offer.

I'm going to "buck a trend" here and play "Devil's Advocate" (TWO clichés in ONE sentence!).
I pay $$130.00/mnth for my Comcast Digital Hi-Def TV service w/dual tuner DVR plus high speed internet.
Comcast claims D/L speeds of up to 4 MBS (6 in some areas). I don't know if this is different from actual "connection speed" (if there IS such a thing). Raven, could you tell me how to check my speed? I'm very interested to know. I DO know that I rarely, if ever, experience any connection problems, and when I D/L something, if I blink, I miss it.
We are BIG TV fans here (we have FOUR young children). We have the package that includes all the channels they offer, plus all the HBOs (HD, Zone, Comedy). Comcast's On Demand feature, combined with the dual tuner DVR, gives us great viewing flexibility. We can watch one show while recording another. We can record two shows while watching one of them, and we can record two separate shows while watching a third that we already recorded. Not to mention the ability to pause and rewind live TV (which we use all the time), featuring 4 rewind and fast foward speeds. You wanna REALLY see if that receiver had possession of that ball? Try rewinding the network's slo-mo replay in slo-mo, and all in crystal-clear Hi-Def! I suppose that purchasing a unit such as the Sony hard disk recorder would offer me many of these features, but if it breaks, I have to pay to repair or replace it. If my Comcast dual tuner DVR craps the bed, they simply come out and switch it with a new one.
On Demand is constantly adding offerings. There is a seemingly endless variety of programming that we can tune into anytime, from family oriented, to science and nature, to do-it-yourself, to advant guard, to adult.
And of course, there are MOVIES: The pay movies are a bit different than "old fashioned" pay-per-view in that we have access to anything we buy (for anywhere from 2 to 4 bux) for 24 hours, which makes it more akin to renting a DVD at Blockbuster.
There are also free movies available to view any time at the touch of a button. Most of these are older movies, including many classics.
On the rare occassion that we do have a problem,or need some sort of service, I never have a problem getting through on the phone to a customer service rep, and they are always curteous and eager to help.
Does any given cable company have a monoply in its respective area, thus eliminating competition and increasing price? Most certainly. We have SEVEN TVs in the house; two of them Hi-Def. One in each of the four bedrooms, one in living room, one in office, and just added one in work-out room.
In terms of value, bang for the buck, I'm pretty much satisfied with my service.

Uhhh.. no.. I don't work for Comcast.:laughs:

Except for a couple minor details, I have the same set up at home and love it. Convenient for wife, kids and me. If they're happy, I'm happy.

But, if Verizon can actually deliver what they say is coming, I may have to switch.

http://www22.verizon.com/FiosForHome/channels/Fios/HighSpeedInternetForHome.asp

I'm going to "buck a trend" here and play "Devil's Advocate" (TWO clichés in ONE sentence!).
I pay $$130.00/mnth for my Comcast Digital Hi-Def TV service w/dual tuner DVR plus high speed internet.
Comcast claims D/L speeds of up to 4 MBS (6 in some areas). I don't know if this is different from actual "connection speed" (if there IS such a thing). Raven, could you tell me how to check my speed? I'm very interested to know. I DO know that I rarely, if ever, experience any connection problems, and when I D/L something, if I blink, I miss it.
We are BIG TV fans here (we have FOUR young children). We have the package that includes all the channels they offer, plus all the HBOs (HD, Zone, Comedy). Comcast's On Demand feature, combined with the dual tuner DVR, gives us great viewing flexibility. We can watch one show while recording another. We can record two shows while watching one of them, and we can record two separate shows while watching a third that we already recorded. Not to mention the ability to pause and rewind live TV (which we use all the time), featuring 4 rewind and fast foward speeds. You wanna REALLY see if that receiver had possession of that ball? Try rewinding the network's slo-mo replay in slo-mo, and all in crystal-clear Hi-Def! I suppose that purchasing a unit such as the Sony hard disk recorder would offer me many of these features, but if it breaks, I have to pay to repair or replace it. If my Comcast dual tuner DVR craps the bed, they simply come out and switch it with a new one.
On Demand is constantly adding offerings. There is a seemingly endless variety of programming that we can tune into anytime, from family oriented, to science and nature, to do-it-yourself, to advant guard, to adult.
And of course, there are MOVIES: The pay movies are a bit different than "old fashioned" pay-per-view in that we have access to anything we buy (for anywhere from 2 to 4 bux) for 24 hours, which makes it more akin to renting a DVD at Blockbuster.
There are also free movies available to view any time at the touch of a button. Most of these are older movies, including many classics.
On the rare occassion that we do have a problem,or need some sort of service, I never have a problem getting through on the phone to a customer service rep, and they are always curteous and eager to help.
Does any given cable company have a monoply in its respective area, thus eliminating competition and increasing price? Most certainly. We have SEVEN TVs in the house; two of them Hi-Def. One in each of the four bedrooms, one in living room, one in office, and just added one in work-out room.
In terms of value, bang for the buck, I'm pretty much satisfied with my service.

Uhhh.. no.. I don't work for Comcast.:laughs:


$130 for all that :shocked:
I have comcast and I think I am getting screwed.
It just went up AGAIN and my bill is about 115 or 120 for intenet connection, 2 ditgital boxes with the cheapest plan that comes with that, no HBO, no DVR, no HD

Maybe they gaff me in the town I live in, maybe different towns charge different rates:huh: WTF
I'm calling them when my wife gets off the phone
for 10 bucks more I'll go for the DVR, HBO sucks so I don't care about that so much but if it includes all of them, maybe it's worth it.

quote:
Raven, could you tell me how to check my speed? I'm very interested to know.
============================================

do it free at cnet.....


http://reviews.cnet.com/7004-7254_7-0.html

The sony 715 was not cheap. It was 599.99 I think. I usually don't check after I buy something, but one of the web shopping indexes shows it at 499 to 699. I got mine at circuit city which still lists it at 599.99. So it may be out there for a little less. It does seem high and it is, but the main reason I got it is because I have a 3 year old. We don't watch a ton of tv, but we can now watch things uninterrupted. This gives us the ability to pause live tv, record something at 9:00 come in to the room at 9:15 and rewind to the beginning and watch it to the end. It records to the end while you watch the beginning. We also have a library of shows for us and the little one to watch whenever you want. And you can make dvd's of whatever you record on the HD. You can also hook up a camcorder digitally to it and make dvd's. The video editing is not as good as on a computer but you can do the basic editing out scenes etc. It has this stupid tv guide system (which may work with cable, but I have a dish). that makes it look like tivo, you just click on the program listing you want to record. I have heard bad things about that, but since I just have it tune my dish for me and record it works great.
It does a bunch of other stuff I haven't tried. I also really enjoy not having to dig out a tape when you want to record something.

quote:
Raven, could you tell me how to check my speed? I'm very interested to know.
============================================

do it free at cnet.....


http://reviews.cnet.com/7004-7254_7-0.html
Just ran mine, 728.1 kilobits per second

ran mine and 1318.7 kbps

sometimes the speed of the server sending you the data is not that great.

I got 1400k at cnet but 4026or so from this giganews test .
I have 4.4 mbps max from comcast

Try this one too.

http://www.giganews.com/performance.html

quote:
Raven, could you tell me how to check my speed? I'm very interested to know.
============================================

do it free at cnet.....
Thanx, D00D.
1601.9

I got 6149 kbps from Giganews, but that's D/L speed which I'm assuming is a different measurement than bandwidth calculation.

What are some of you guys saying about VerizonDSL at $15 a month. Mine is around 46 or so. They suck you in with introductory offers for 3 months then whack you. Although I am pretty happy with the DSL.

When that fiber comes around that will be nice.....but look for a hugh rate increase.