According to this article in Eagan Patch, Comcast is raising rates on some subscribers again after upgrading their infrastructure to “all digital” and requiring an additional $1.99 fee for a converter box for older televisions. Some Eagan residents are up in arms over the fees and have asked the city to intervene.
From the article:
“Comcast increases rates constantly and provide [sic] no service improvements in return,” a Facebook user identified as Dallas West wrote. “I’m not paying for another box. No way, no how.”
[...]
Eagan Communications Director Tom Garrison hopes the city can serve as the liaison between the company and upset residents.
[...]
“What we’ve decided to do is try to gather more information on behalf of our residents,” Garrison said. “I think people are certainly hearing about it. They’ve got questions, they’ve got mailings, and we hope to get the good and useful information they can act on.”
Yes, it is true that because city’s have franchise rights for the infrastructure running under their city they theoretically have some control over the cable company’s actions in instances like these. However, it’s unlikely the city win any big battle here as Comcast will announce they made the necessary infrastructure upgrades as requested/required of their subscribers and its franchise agreement with the city and its residents will have to share in some of that burden with the $1.99/month boxes.
What’s sad is that Eagan residents, instead of taking matters into their own hands and cutting the cord with other much more modern, inexpensive, and incredibly viable alternative options to cable TV, they ran to the city to deal with an additional charge. The city should deal with these problems but people should really reconsider the necessity of cable TV in 2013 before continuing to be angry for fee increases which have been happening as long as cable has existed.
What do you think about this one? Did you ever think to talk to your city about ever-rising fees on your cable bill? If you were displeased with the rates would you just cut the costs out and spend your money elsewhere (or not at all–which is a much better option these days? Are you an Eagan resident with an older TV and affected by this? What are you planning to do? Do you think $1.99/month is too much money for digital when digital OTA boxes can be had for ~$30 for life? Whatever you have to say go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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February 15th, 2013 at 7:52 am
I read an article recently about AOL. Remember AOL? America On Line? I do. Turns out they are still actually in business. Not kidding. I was as surprised as you.
The article was about their profitability. It would seem that they made a profit last year. While they have a number of “profit centers” they have one that actually made more profit than the rest of the business alone. This means that this profit center made more in profit than the rest of the whole company alone. The business channel that made the profit? Dial up. I will say that again. Dial up.
Dial fucking bzzzzzzzzzzz… bazing….bazing…bzzzz…..phhhhht. Up.
Is it any wonder that people are bitching about $1.99 in increased fees because they still have a tube television and probably have not yet accessed the internet? Not to me. Not after finding out AOfuckingL is still in business and selling to people with 14,400 bps modems.
The fact they are complaining to the city is also hilarious. Cancel your service idiots. If I were Comcast, I would add a $100 fee for this. Sometimes firing your customers is a good idea, especially the ones stupid enough to complain to the government over 2 fucking dollars. They are more trouble than they are worth.
lefty
February 15th, 2013 at 8:17 am
Unfortunately I still have comcast, but for internet only. For regular TV we use rabbit ears/Roku. If I could entirely dump comcast, I would, in a heartbeat.
February 15th, 2013 at 8:46 am
Jerk-off kid ruining a game/once-in-a-lifetime event because he isn’t given his God-given playing time and he doesn’t like his coaches.
Grown adults, many of whom have no good reason to be out on roads during a snowstorm pissing and moaning about a City/government not having every single road in an entire metro area pristine 24/7/365, especially at the exact moment they think it should be done and in the exact manner they think it should be done.
Now a bunch of freaking whiners screaming bloody murder because a private company they WILLINGLY do business with increases their rate a whole $1.99 for maintaining the infrastructure necessary to deliver their LUXURY SERVICE.
This has been one hell of a week on here.
“OMG! $1.99 more so I can continue to have a perfect signal to watch Real Housewives of Whereverthehell in HD on my 720″ TVs. Unconscionable! Call the City! Call the media! Call the FEDS! This is an outrage!”
Here’s my TGIF message to our Complaint Society, which seems to be just about everyone nowadays: Shut…the….f**k….up. This is not YOUR WORLD. Society doesn’t revolves around you, your needs, and your stupid demands. GET OVER YOURSELVES.
Rant over. Let the thumbsing downing commence.
February 15th, 2013 at 9:25 am
I thumbsing upinged you.
February 15th, 2013 at 9:33 am
Congrats to lefty on becoming the 2nd person to reach the 2000 comment milestone.
MSPD was the first: http://www.lazylightning.org/the-rack-bar-grill-burnsville-mn#comment-283056
—
It took lefty 2 years, 5 months, 13 days, 12 hours, 14 minutes, 23 seconds to reach 2000 comments. Just for reference, it took him 1 year, 1 month, 18 days, 2 hours, 28 minutes and 22 seconds to reach 1000 comments.
You can view his 1000th comment here:
http://www.lazylightning.org/d-spot-maplewood-mn#comment-120512
You can view his 1st comment here: http://www.lazylightning.org/st-paul-pioneer-press-ignores-do-not-call-list#comment-63099
February 15th, 2013 at 9:35 am
ks, I love my Roku and when anyone complains about how much they pay for TV I suggest it to them; in fact, some have even converted.
February 15th, 2013 at 9:39 am
Congrats lefty. Bill will have your “thank you” (expired gift certificate to restaurant that closed last week) in the mail soon.
Here’s to another 1,000!
February 15th, 2013 at 9:43 am
MSPD, I took him out for wings at Runyons. You know you aren’t eligible for anything from Lazy Lightning ;)
February 15th, 2013 at 4:51 pm
I don’t think it is a coincidence that even on my first comment ever here, somebody pointed out that I was wrong.
February 15th, 2013 at 6:56 pm
It seems weird that residents think the city can do anything. But I guess, what the hell. I’d just get Dish or DirecTV and tell the cable numb skulls to go pound sand.
A long time ago I used to think cable was cool. I liked that there were local people I could talk to and they tended to be more friendly and work with you than the phone company. Somewhere around the mid 90′s cable companies started being acquired by larger companies and local service suffered. At one time they were begging for customers. Now they have zero interest in customer service. Their goal is customer fleecing. They promote services that provide little to no value but cost too much. When you have a problem with billing, you can hardly find a human to talk to as their phone system is designed to route you into empty space.
$1.99 bump for the year isn’t too bad, but they are already way over priced. Their profit taking is unrivaled. They have wires in the ground that have been their for years and equipment that easily distributes to a large area, plus a captive market and yet Satellite companies like Dish and DirecTV can still beat their price and afford to have satellites launched into space every couple years.
Cable is a scam. I only have them for internet because their price for value is way high, it is still better than the junk from Frontier (DSL) or Verizon (LTE).
I also use a Roku with Amazon Prime. I’ve watched more stuff on my Roku (old FX Series Rescue Me, and Bob the Builder for my grandkid) than I have on my Satellite TV over the last month. A couple more years for Hulu and such to shake out and I can see the satellite going away and going strictly ip tv. Both of my kids have already done it.
p.s. my satellite service went up $5 this year, though it hasn’t gone up for 2 years, and they did give me a $10 per month credit for the first year. They also paid for my roku when they were having a fight with AMC and AMC was pulled from the satellite for a few months. They also paid for me to buy the amc shows I watched on Amazon. Think Charter would do that kind of stuff? I think not.
February 16th, 2013 at 12:02 pm
I cut the cord. About 2 1/2 years ago. Everything come over either the Internet or rabbit ears these days. Just got too tired of Comcast’s ever increasing bill with no additional channels that I found useful. So I voted with my money and left.
I read more now, I interact with more people now (although admittedly it’s mostly via online games) and watch less TV. The cable company/Hollywood’s loss is my gain.
February 17th, 2013 at 10:36 am
There was a quick video on the USA Today’s iPad app yesterday that talked about cutting your ‘cable’ bill to $8 per month. They showed a Roku box for $50 on Amazon as well as a high-quality HD antennae, then a subscription to Hulu Plus for $8 per month. They said just about everything but HBO was available there.
I don’t really know if I could cut the cord or not. I’m not one for any network TV at all, except for sports, and I don’t really watch any cable channel series either. For me it’s mostly sports (MLB, NFL, and F1 primarily), and I fill in with movies from the pay channels (HBO, Starz, etc.). If I could fill those in with the other methods, I’d be tempted. That still leaves me with needing Charter for internet, though.
I have a couple of Apple TV’s, and I pay for the MLB.tv service, so I can watch baseball through the Apple TV, but the quality isn’t always what it should be for viewing on big TV’s, so I worry about that too.
February 17th, 2013 at 11:44 am
Kinda in Greg’s boat there is no possible way for me to find college hockey and NHL cheaper and better picture quality than there is right now through our satellite provider. Streaming to my tv is definitely a last resort option if a better feed is available. Other than sports I watch the news, but the other half watches other channels.
February 28th, 2013 at 9:42 am
While I don’t know if I sympathize with the complainers, the city DOES grant “natural monopoly” rights through a franchise arrangement, therefore the franchisee does cede some regulatory authority to the franchisor.
Here’s my suggestion. The reason why Comcast started using the DTAs is because they no longer disconnect or install RF traps on the signal into homes. With the DTAs, they no longer have to spend the money on truck rolls to send someone out… instead, they just provision your DTA from the office. Thus, they no longer include channels they pay for on your line. Seems like a common sense approach, and one which should be within the bounds of franchise authority, is to require EITHER A) Broadcast all former analog tier channels on Clear QAM so they can be tuned by any HDTV, and thus Comcast would have to continue with truck rolls and RF traps… or B) Comcast must provide 2 bundled DTAs as part of any tier of cable service that includes encrypted channels. Let Comcast choose, but don’t let them charge a fee to receive something that used to be included.