Unplugged
Yes, we did it. We canceled cable. The tides of our monthly bleeding to good ol' Time-Warner have been bottled up for good. Being too old now to not have problems with just about everybody, I remember how expensive T-W cable was down in Florida. Magically, Knology moved in and planted their own green box on our boulevard, right next to the T-W green box, and suddenly the cable prices were cut in half! Unfortunately the magic didn't carry well over water and Tampa, with only T-W to play with, stayed twice what we were paying in St. Pete.
And yes, we went with Knology the second they went live. Their cable modem service was tremendously more reliable than T-W's RoadRunner, too (where I had to call them frequently, BS my way past the first level of "tech support," and then speak with someone who could fix what I already knew the problem to be).
Now that we live in tiny little town closer to Canada than to an actual city, we found ourselves right back in T-W Land. Not surprising to anyone, they still suck on the TV end, but the cable modem has been refreshingly problem-free. So every month our bill would go up by one or two dollars, and in December a whopping eleven or twelve dollars (a huge percentage jump), they would drop channels from the lineup (without any notice), and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight.
These increases aren't all their fault, of course. Fox and others who demanded fees for carrying their over-the-air broadcasts isn't helpful, nor are the networks who simply feel they ought to get more. But in a world (or country) where just a few networks own all the channels, where nearly one third of an hour's programming is commercials (and where said commercials are loud and jarring, I suppose to get noticed), and where each channel now seems to show multi-hour blocks of the same show. You know, not everybody loves Raymond, and certainly not for three hours at a time.
In short, we were part of a captive audience in a pool of not only shrinking channels, but shrinking programming options. I don't think they could give me a stronger impression of giving the lowest value service they could. The networks get money from the cable companies just for showing up; they get money for the ever more increasing commercials; they pay less for programming because they show two, three, or like SyFy, eight hour blocks of the same show; they show the same movies several nights in a row; and on and on.
As a consumer I am very unhappy. When I don't have a choice of services, when there's no competition, cable TV is a clear example of how we all lose. Until the Feds require the companies with the cable plants to allow others to use them, we're stuck. And no, I don't want satellites on top of my house (or their set top boxes at each TV), and I don't want to deal with their inevitable rising prices, either. Bottom line, I don't think I should have to pay a hundred bucks a month for television. De-regulation was a good thing for consumers for a good five minutes or so. After that, corporate interests seem to drift away from the rest of ours'.
With an antenna and a digital converter (you remember analog TV's) we can pull in seven channels. Two of them are duplicates, and four of them are Vermont public television channels, but the picture is nice. There's not a network in the bunch but we're so far away from the nearest city (Burlington, VT, Portland, ME, Manchester, NH) it's not really a surprise.
Soon, we may join NetFlix. We could even get a Roku box one day. On the other hand, we may just not bother.
And yes, we went with Knology the second they went live. Their cable modem service was tremendously more reliable than T-W's RoadRunner, too (where I had to call them frequently, BS my way past the first level of "tech support," and then speak with someone who could fix what I already knew the problem to be).
Now that we live in tiny little town closer to Canada than to an actual city, we found ourselves right back in T-W Land. Not surprising to anyone, they still suck on the TV end, but the cable modem has been refreshingly problem-free. So every month our bill would go up by one or two dollars, and in December a whopping eleven or twelve dollars (a huge percentage jump), they would drop channels from the lineup (without any notice), and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight.
These increases aren't all their fault, of course. Fox and others who demanded fees for carrying their over-the-air broadcasts isn't helpful, nor are the networks who simply feel they ought to get more. But in a world (or country) where just a few networks own all the channels, where nearly one third of an hour's programming is commercials (and where said commercials are loud and jarring, I suppose to get noticed), and where each channel now seems to show multi-hour blocks of the same show. You know, not everybody loves Raymond, and certainly not for three hours at a time.
In short, we were part of a captive audience in a pool of not only shrinking channels, but shrinking programming options. I don't think they could give me a stronger impression of giving the lowest value service they could. The networks get money from the cable companies just for showing up; they get money for the ever more increasing commercials; they pay less for programming because they show two, three, or like SyFy, eight hour blocks of the same show; they show the same movies several nights in a row; and on and on.
As a consumer I am very unhappy. When I don't have a choice of services, when there's no competition, cable TV is a clear example of how we all lose. Until the Feds require the companies with the cable plants to allow others to use them, we're stuck. And no, I don't want satellites on top of my house (or their set top boxes at each TV), and I don't want to deal with their inevitable rising prices, either. Bottom line, I don't think I should have to pay a hundred bucks a month for television. De-regulation was a good thing for consumers for a good five minutes or so. After that, corporate interests seem to drift away from the rest of ours'.
With an antenna and a digital converter (you remember analog TV's) we can pull in seven channels. Two of them are duplicates, and four of them are Vermont public television channels, but the picture is nice. There's not a network in the bunch but we're so far away from the nearest city (Burlington, VT, Portland, ME, Manchester, NH) it's not really a surprise.
Soon, we may join NetFlix. We could even get a Roku box one day. On the other hand, we may just not bother.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 7:16 PM
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