Posted: 1/20/2003 10:37:09 AM EDT
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Who has the link to the info about having the cable company remove certain channels from their packages? Someone posted the info and I can not find it. The FCC? passed a bill requiring them to do it? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, BigDozer66 |
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According to a press release I read from the FCC, that is an urban legend. The cable company can add service "tiers" containing channels that don't have to allow you to buy [i]a la carte[/i]. So, like the cable company we use at work, they put all of the channels in different tiers ("satellite package" "HBO tier" "Digital tier", etc.), and you must buy many channels in order to add a single additional channel. In order to drop any single channel, you have to drop the entire tier. For example, we don't want all of the home shopping channels, but we'd also have to drop ESPN to do that. Our bill for no movie channels with all of the sports and news channels is about $150 per month! The commercial rates around here are ridiculous. Oh well, it's worth it on Saturdays during football season to get to watch games on our plasma TV with a bunch of guys. In the same press release, the FCC also claimed cable rates had gone down in the past 10 years. What are they smoking?z |
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Quoted: They claim cable rates are down? WTF? I remember paying $8 a month for basic cable in 1985. Cable rates around here go up every year and I'm about to make the switch to a dish. Should save us a couple hundred bucks a year. My gues is that they parse it like this: 1. In 1985, it cost $19.95 for 42 channels. 2. In 2003 it cost $39.95 for 150 channels. Since the cost was 47.5 cents per channel in 1985 and 26.6 cents per channel in 2004, then they can say that the rate went down. No mention that most of those extra channels are home shopping, religious hucksters and thinly veiled info-mercial feeds. Try putting a price on the [i]value[/i] provided. Good luck. |
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Quoted: According to a press release I read from the FCC, that is an urban legend. The cable company can add service "tiers" containing channels that don't have to allow you to buy [i]a la carte[/i]. So, like the cable company we use at work, they put all of the channels in different tiers ("satellite package" "HBO tier" "Digital tier", etc.), and you must buy many channels in order to add a single additional channel. In order to drop any single channel, you have to drop the entire tier. For example, we don't want all of the home shopping channels, but we'd also have to drop ESPN to do that. Our bill for no movie channels with all of the sports and news channels is about $150 per month! The commercial rates around here are ridiculous. Oh well, it's worth it on Saturdays during football season to get to watch games on our plasma TV with a bunch of guys. In the same press release, the FCC also claimed cable rates had gone down in the past 10 years. What are they smoking?z Holy Crap!!!! $150/month??? Damn for about half that you can get ALL the premium movie channels, ALL the sports channels, ALL the other standard cable channels, your local channels, a sh*t load of music only channels, and availability to PPV. Not only that, but if you take the RV on a trip, you can take all of it with you! For crying out loud, get one of the satellite systems. |
| I pay $35 per month for 50-some channels. More than I really need. Also, having gotten very disgusted with MTV about 11 years ago and not wanting it corrupting my children, I contacted the cable company and requested that it be blocked from coming into my home. I do not know if they flipped a switch, pressed a button, or installed a filter somewhere along the line, but that channle has not been in my home since. |
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For crying out loud, get one of the satellite systems. We had a nice satellite dish, before we moved. The sad thing is that we had finally just bought a decoder for it. Watching unedited(!) news while they were being downloaded and watching sporting events without commercial breaks was great. In our new location, a building blocks our view of the southern sky. I've still got the 12 foot dish in hope that we'll move again one day.z |
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I don't know about your cable TV system, here where I live there are three different types of cable TV service (sam company). One is basic, it's analog, you don't need any special equipment to get it. The next is basic plus, it's still analog, you don't need any special equipment to get it. The third is digital TV, you get all of the basic and basic plus channels and then a lot of the premium channels in digital. You need a converter to watch these. If you get the digital you can still hook up splitters and watch the analog stations where ever you want too. You are screwed if you want to do this with dish ans you will need to buy a dual LIB dish, another converter box and another chip plus pay for service on that unit. Quoted: They claim cable rates are down? WTF? I remember paying $8 a month for basic cable in 1985. Cable rates around here go up every year and I'm about to make the switch to a dish. Should save us a couple hundred bucks a year. |
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Quoted: I pay $35 per month for 50-some channels. More than I really need. Also, having gotten very disgusted with MTV about 11 years ago and not wanting it corrupting my children, I contacted the cable company and requested that it be blocked from coming into my home. I do not know if they flipped a switch, pressed a button, or installed a filter somewhere along the line, but that channle has not been in my home since. MTV is the very channel I am talking about! The cable company told my friend that there was nothing they could do! So I thought I would try to find this info for him. BigDozer66 |
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Quoted: Quoted: I pay $35 per month for 50-some channels. More than I really need. Also, having gotten very disgusted with MTV about 11 years ago and not wanting it corrupting my children, I contacted the cable company and requested that it be blocked from coming into my home. I do not know if they flipped a switch, pressed a button, or installed a filter somewhere along the line, but that channle has not been in my home since. MTV is the very channel I am talking about! The cable company told my friend that there was nothing they could do! So I thought I would try to find this info for him. BigDozer66 |
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According to what I have read from cable and satellite companies, they have to providea large number of different channels in packages(or tiers) in order to keep prices low. Ordering a single channel or only small certain group of channels would end up costing more than having all the channels available. In order to avoid having an unwanted channel come up on my screen as I surf my Dish Network channels, I program all my favorites and only "surf" through those channels. All cable and satellite companies should have some form of programming favorites or locking out unwanted channels. BTW..anyone here remember those original pay television services, called ON-TV and spectrum?They were single channel boxes that played all the hit movies. These were avaiable way before cable and satellite were available and way before their was HBO, Cinemax, Showtime and the rest of today's premium movie channels. I can't remember exactly what it cost back then( I had a pirated decoder box anyways [;D]) but I think it was $10-$15 a month just to have ON-TV or Spectrum with just the one channel. [b]ArmaLiter[/b] |