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AOL/TW Plans for $230 Monthly Cable Bill
Jonathan Campbell writes: "According to the article, subscribers will get over the sticker shock preferring convenience over price." Yay, it'll be so convenient having one company control my television, internet access and phone service. I can hardly wait.
I have DSL already... our cable bill for extended Basic just went up to $50/month. We have decided at the next raise cable goes. My DSL may not be as fast but in the 2+ years I have had it I have paid the same amount. I can't say that for cable.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
So you get all your information from the same AOL/TW source, delivered by the same company... can you say "Vertical Integration" children? I knew you could...
AOLTW vs MS. what a choice.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Are there providers in the US that supply ADSL at an unrestricted speed, with no time or download limits, which let you host your own servers if you like; but charge a nominal fee per MB downloaded?
It seems to me that every time /. posts an artical about ADSL/Cable, people start complaining about not being able to host content, or having uplink speed restrictions.
Well how about a simple user pays system? You can do whatever you like with the connection but you have to pay for what you do?
Ok, I admit to being "sticker shocked", but seriously what do I get for that kind of money? I assume that it will be a PPV model in which they hope I will go nuts ordering movies? Or is that a flat rate? Anyone know?
My ISP is also my cable TV and phone service provider... Ofcourse we pay about $100/month for this (we get about 5 HBO channels and 2 Cinemaxes along with the basic cable channels)...
Fortunately not many people have this ISP in my area so the cable modem speeds are pretty high.
But anyway, I think that it's great that we only have to pay one bill instead of three!
------
Sig
Well, I guess it is possible. My current Cincinnati Bell phone bell runs about 200 per month, but that includes two phone lines (one with all of the calling services), two cell phones, ISP, ADSL, and long distance. Time Warner AOHell is going to to have to offer more than just cable and ISP / Cable Modem to get me to pay that much.
Our car-manufacturing company has developed a new revolutionary business model for making cars.
We give away the cars for free and then we sell services for those cars! If you want to we can clean your car, wax it or you can use some of our other services.
We get cash from a couple of VC's, the rest of them simple don't "get it". If we need more we just call "the suits".
I hope that the $230 is if you get all the premium channels, plus road runner, plus digital TV, etc. I know someone with a $150/mo bill now, but they have all that crap.
I've got basic plus Road Runner. If my bill rises too much, I will switch to DSL and satellite.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
The article says video on demand... but who watches that many movies in a month?! The suggestion that $230 is for one stop shopping would be fine, if I actually spent a combined $230 on the various services this encompasses. I don't think I spend more than $10/month over what they already charge me, since I almost never rent movies anyways. This better be an option that I'm not forced into choosing, because if it isn't its goodbye cable, hello satellite.
$230-$80(Cable Basic&2 premium)-$50(DSL)-$30(local phone)=$70
What additional services will they provide for $70?
A pay-per-view p0rn0 and a hooker?
AOL is smoking crack. Provide reliable desirable services first, then decide what you are able to charge for each one.
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
Only if I get my $230 dollars worth. For instance, the cable TV service would have to include ALL channels, and at decent quality. None of this paying more for HBO and cinemax, and none of the stupid "tiers" that AT&T Broadband has.
The internet access would have to be fast, with a decently fast upstream (IE, at least 512Kbps and no restrictions on servers), and possibly even multiple IP's.
I'd pay $230 dollars a month, but AOL/TW better give me my money's worth. Otherwise they can go screw themselves repeatedly with a crowbar.
-Zorin the Lynx
NO FUCKING WAY....
their cable modem isnt even worth the $40 for the crappy rates we get
Isn't that the same bet that fired off the dot com craze?
And we all know how well that worked out.
i pay $130.
i get analog cable, digital cable, and all the movie channels. about 250 channels in all.
i get cable modem access with 1mbit down and 788 up. yes, 788 up.
i get my telephone, call waiting, caller id, and call notes.
i get my home alarm and fire alarm monitiored.
so for me, if they toss in something my TiVo could use (video on demand, video file sharing across my local LAN, etc) then sure i will pay more. i can see $200 being an easy target as they make more things i want.
- BUT -
i currently don't use Time Warner or Road Runner...so they aren't even getting my money now b/c in houston, they don't offer a package like what i listed above.
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
I mean, all the cable companies have to pay for laying the wires, and maintence thereof. The programming costs are covered by the networks, which in turn get paid for by the commercials. So when you end up paying $40+ a month for basic cable, what is that going towards?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Now we KNOW that irradiation is having bad side effects - something seriously bad has happened to whatever they're smoking up at AOL/TW.
Some excerpts take from the memepool mailing list:
r es ting-people/
i hate companies who make up wierd policies. like the attached whitelist
policy.
elijah
On Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 04:03:21PM -0500, elijah wright wrote:
> i hate companies who make up wierd policies. like the attached whitelist
> policy.
The problem isn't the strange policy, the problem is returning a 2xx response
when they should be returning a 5xx (permanent error). Bouncing mail is fine.
Claiming that you are accepting it and then dropping it on the floor is stupid.
elijah wright wrote:
>
> i hate companies who make up wierd policies.
Anyone using AOL to run a business deserves whatever ass-fsck they get.
If you still have AOL/TW stock, you *might* want to consider dumping
it while you can:
http://www.forbes.com/2002/01/07/0107topnews.html
Subject: IP: RE: Let you decide where the truth is -- AOL and Harvard
>From:
>To: "David Farber"
>
>FOR publication, not FOR attribution. Thanks.
>
>Dave,
>
>I work for a company that delivers large amounts of e-mail for Fortune-1000
>companies.
>
>We had a very similar problem with AOL: we started to see many of our
>messages fail to arrive in AOL mailboxes even though AOL reported they were
>successfully accepted for delivery.
>
>Sending one or two messages at a time would work flawlessly, but when
>sending anything larger, some might arrive while many would not.
>
>After a lot of testing, we discovered AOL has some very interesting policies
>regarding email delivery.
>
>In a nutshell, if you deliver more than some number messages to AOL within
>an a certain timeframe, AOL will accept them for delivery but in actuality,
>delete them without notice. The metrics AOL uses to decide what should or
>should not be delivered are not published.
>
>We solved this when, after several months of spotty delivery, we finally got
>to the right person within AOL who informed us they maintain a "white list"
>of companies like ours that are allowed to deliver messages "in bulk" to AOL
>recipients.
>
>Once we found out about its existence, a few emails and a faxed affidavit
>later, we saw all our messages delivered without incident.
>
>I would imagine Harvard fell afoul of these policies.
For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/inte
they have to provide a midget to change the channels for me, and serve me food.
It all depends. If their plan is to raise my current bill to $200+ then no, I will not want to pay my cable bill. I seriously doubt that is their plan. It is more likely they are going to add more functionality to your cable and charge you more appropriately. I just hope I have the option of not taking it. I am waiting for them to start including a Tivo like device in the cable box. HD TV service would be cool to have also. I am willing to pay more for these things. And if that price is $200+ a month then I will have to consider it. This really isn't that large of a jump. Their current max is around $130. Another $30 for HD TV and $4 for the new box, plus 10 Video on Demand movies at 4$ a piece and wow, you are now at $204. Amazing how fast it all adds up.
Well I don't know about other /.ers, but for once I'm glad I have Comcast where I live instead of TW. Also, this should be a good time to buy stock in direct tv and other sattalite services, because anyone with a brain will be switching off their TW cable when this happens.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
All this time, I've been using three first-class stamps to mail my ISP, cable, and phone bills. $230 will be a small price to pay for the "convenience" of only having to use one!
Seriously, I would say I currently pay about $130/month total for cable modem/cable television (Adelphia, formerly @Home/Adelphia) and phone service... I can't think of *anything* that would justify my paying another $70-100 a month for the services I currently receive.
Here in Canada, Rogers charges $40 for internet access, $90 for cable (not basic) and about $40 for cell phone. That only comes up to about $170 per month, which in American Dollars is only about $112.
By time you add up your phone, long distance, cable, and AOL you get around $230! All they are doing is combining the bills into one. People are currently paying this much, or close to it and just don't realize it with all of the bills coming in seperate. I'm not going to find it all that convenient for them to do something like this, but some folks will and it will save AOL-TW a bunch on paying people to process payments.
Imagine AOL/TW only having to pay 1/4 the amount of people to process all the charges instead of whatever they have now. A pile of Data-entry clerks will be out of work because of this... all in the name of convenience.
monopoly?
"Squeezing more profits from Time Warner Cable is a top priority for AOL Time Warner, which is under pressure to please Wall Street."
I KNOW customer service, and QOS are towards the bottom of there list. I guess to eyes of this monolithic bastard they think they are the only company providing the things people want on there t.v. and computers. Well what can you expect from the guy who decided that colorized black and white movies were better somehow...
The only benefit I get from these people is a $10 a month discount in my r.r. bill because I am a student at USF (but in exchange they leach of off USF's network and not there own).
I don't really see where the increased convenience comes in. Currently I have all of my bills drafted automatically from my account. An increase or decrease in the number of bills doesn't really make any difference.
Are they suggesting that there will be increased convenience for customer service?
I would easily pay one fee to one company for all those services, but be damn sure that it is NOT going to be AOL or MS, sorry but it would have to be to a company that has at least proven it self to be semi-retuable. I use comcast now for cable. I don't use cable TV, but I am kicking around the idea. Supposedly the new comcast plan is going to include some form of IP-telephony (at the cost of my newsgroups I hear, so add another bill for 3rd party news server) $230 is PROBABLY a fair price for all the things they claim to offer, but, ever try to get tech support from AOL? Before I moved in with my fiance and enlightened her to the fact that AOL is not the only place to get internet service (people REALLY still dont know this) I tried several times to get a few things working a little better for her. All I wanted was someone who could speak even a LITTLE tech so I could figure out something that was actually quite simple, but I coudlnt solve without a little technical insight onto how the service works. Now, imagine if you had to call AOL tech support because your service is down. Wait you cant. They host your telephone too. Email them. oops. cant do that. Oh well, I guess I'll go watch some TV while they work out the bugs themselves. OH NO! I cant do that either! I think you all get my point.
Don't Tread on Me
That price point seems really high, especially since I'm getting advertising from RCN for the same services (cable/phone/internet) for about half that price. As of 12/01: $123. Back in 3/01: $109. I'm pretty sure in the last year I've gotten offers for AT&T at about the same price level.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Up next: local phone service, to be offered first in Florida later this year and
eventually in New York, though no firm time frame has been set, Luftman said.
Here in Scranton, phone service with unlimited local calls, call waiting, call forwarding, three way calling, caller ID, runs you $50 a month.
And then there's long distance. LOTS of money for TW to be made in long distance.
Over the next 12 months, the cable division plans to aggressively launch video on
demand, allowing customers who have digital set top boxes to order from hundreds of movies
with a flick of their remote control.
Why goto the video store when you can get what you want at home at a comparable price? Right now, pay-per-view movie selection is crappy at best. Think of how you download movies from FTP sites now, and watch them on your PC. Imagine having the same capability with your bigscreen in your living room. Pick from a list of 1000 movies or so, and they charge you a nominal fee for it at the end of the month. No worries about late fees, crappy encoding.
Disclamers: IDNHCTVOLT, IANATWE(I do not have cable TV or landline telephone, I am not a time warner executive)
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
But here's the big question. If AOL/TW were to provide multiple services over the cable infrastructure, the price they charge to consumers should be LESS (certainly no greater than) the cost of the services obtained from multiple providers.
Infrastructure would be less costly to maintain for a variety of reasons. Even if the development costs were high, they could not pass those sunk costs on to consumers: if they charge a premium price, no one would switch to their services. This inability to recoup investment costs because of existing alternatives already available has as much to do with the delayed launch of "interactive digital convergence monopoly provider" services as anything.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Guess we'll have a bunch of data-entry clerks out of work now.
This always was the case in the UK, cableco's have been providing telephony services before the net came along :-
DigitalTV & Phone = £25
Cable Modem = £25
Second Line = £5
My average phone bill = £20
Total = £75 (~$110 USD)
Then you have PPV on top of that if required. The competition like BT charge around £40 ($55) just for ADSL, they completely shaft people but they need the cash to fund their spurious patent claims.
Anyway, you can see why companies love subscriptions, I can't wait until I have to rent all my music!
It looks like the CRTC up here in Canada foresaw something like this when they told broadband Internet providers that they couldn't charge more than C$50/mo for Internet access. Good call, guys.
Couldn't this kind of thing spark an anti-trust action? It sure looks like a monopoly is trying to consolidate its position here.
Here in the UK we allready have that. NTL offers cable modems, cable tv, cheap phone lines all down the same wire all with one bill. $200+ sounds excessive though. They even have pay per view films.
If I did I guess I'd be watching whatever three channels I could get from having an antanae and lots of DVDs.
If there's one law of consumer economics that always holds true, it's that if something is too expensive, people will seek out the alternatives. There are many people who will not be able to afford $230 a month. If AOLTW thinks this is the way to raise their user base, it isn't.
Given a reasonably level playing field, who would win a fight between a bear and a shark?
Now I remember why I don't own a TV. This cable service is charging you $240 for what you could get for under $150. Phone, DSL, and cable locally only cost (added together) about $110.
This is probably just a ploy so they can lower the price and have people react positively. "Oh, we were crazy, no one will pay $240. We lowered it to $120."
For the amount they are asking, I would want to have on demand TV with no commercials.
is far, far greater than that of television. At least to me. The only thing I use the satellite for is hockey. If I could get a $15 a month hockey-only subscription....
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
I pay 50$ right now for Basic Cable and RoadRunner in the Cincinati Area.
Does this mean my cable bill is gonna go up?
I'm sorry, but RoadRunner just isn't worth it.
Wasn't that Iridium's business model? It didn't do Motorola a whole lotta good, either, even after they bought a $2B system from $25M.
woof.
If we all save the money we aren't spending on condoms, we could buy AOL/T-W next year! Or not, when you look at the bucks Rusty's raking in.
my bills as of now, digital cable with all movie channels[cox]=($80), phone&long distance[bellsouth]=($45), DSL [DirectTV DSL]=($49),3 stamps to pay bills=($1.00)....not having my email end in @aol.com...priceless
Yay, it'll be so convenient having one company control my television, internet access and phone service. I can hardly wait.
This comment is just nonsense, and show how stupid the editor is. You are under no obligation to be services by AOL.
Television - get satellite (Directv, DISH) or switch to another cable provider.
internet access- there are dozens of providers, modem, cable and DSL.
phone service - again, there's plenty of other choices.
can we start a petition for editors to stop being such jackasses??
You can get internet, phone, and cable all from cox for quite a bit less than $100/month.
I used to have RR and basic (no movie channels) cable for $90.
I'm ditching TW/AOL for:
Direct TV (amatuer baseball statistician with the MLB package) for $75
Ameritech DSL with 5 static IPs, 1.5 MBps download, 256k upload for another $75.
Ameritech local phone @ $30.
So I'm already at $180. Throw in 7 Playstation/movie rentals from blockbuster and I'm there.
Granted my LLC is going to pay for the DSL, and I don't NEED the baseball package, but the whole article seems to be saying, "Wow! we sure do spend a lot when you think about it as a lump sum!"
And I think that will be a problem for TW/AOL when the next recession hits. Rather than having 4 small entertainment bills that are much easier to rationalize separately - Hard Time Consumer will see one BIG frivolous entertainment bill.
"Yay, it'll be so convenient having one company control my television, internet access and phone service. I can hardly wait."
Don't forget that they also provide a lot of the contents on both TV and the Net.
One of the first things I was taught during my classes in mass-communication was to keep content-makers, content-owners, network-owners, network programmers and network-gatekeepers as separate as possible...
I think you can figure out yourself what happens if all those functions are in the hands of one MegaCorp.
"you have bills!"
I think AOL/TW may have made a tactical mistake.
It seems that if you nickel&dime people, they will pay because the pain of each payment is little. But when you see a big nu mber like $230 dollars, that pain is much much greater than the individual smallers pains. And the individial smaller pains if you add them all up, wont feel like a $230 pain, if you get my meaning.
As many have already pointed out, this is great for competition,
and it may be a shock to the cable tv industry if large numbers of people balk at the large price increases.
Also, as many have noted before, we are at logger heads here, As computer tech gets cheaper and chearper, we get used to it, but the cable tv industry doesnt think like that, they beleive in always increases the price and this just might be the thing to shock them into dropping their prices.
anyway thanks
Sigs are dangerous coy things
Are there providers in the US that supply ADSL at an unrestricted speed ...
There are more serious technological challenges in ADSL. Residential phone lines are a very challenging medium for high-speed data transfer, since they were only designed to carry narrowband voice signals; transmission line effects cause major degradations in these channels. Transfer rates will depend on the quality and layout of the wire in your neighborhood, and distance from the central office. Huge speed increases are highly unlikely for the forseeable future, perhaps ever. By contrast, cable was designed to carry wideband television signals over long distances, and can therefore offer much higher potential rates. Consider that cable can carry around 100 TV channels at 5 MHz of bandwidth each; if you used a cable entirely for data, that's 500 MHz of bandwidth, which (depending on the signalling scheme) could be 1 GBit/s or more.
As a competitor to cable, what you should watch for are companies offering wireless systems that combine high speed internet, video, and local phone service ... I've heard of some promising systems that may come to market soon.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
The problem is not that AOL is greedy, the problem is that we have not assured compitition in the cable market. It is improperly regulated, so we can expect the greedheads to screw us.
They have another thing comming with price resistance however. Cable where I live is already too expensive at sixty five bucks for "basic" and modem service. "Basic" is essentially broadcast TV so we don't get it. The modem charge is about fifty bucks and the bastards block port 80 and 25 inbound. If the try to charge anymore they lose me. I want more from the thing, not less. They can continue to collect $50/month from me and let me figure out how to use it as a phone, or they they can jump in the river.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
For Digital Cable with every channel, and my cable modem. Gotta love that employee discount.
What, me worry?
If you didn't see this coming 2 years ago, you have had your head stuck in the ground...
This is what happens when you allow preadatory pricing... The consumer loves the price wars, until all the smaller companies go under, then the larger companies can charge what this stuff really costs them, + a bit of a profit.
Like it or not, it stall costs big bucks to maintain that internet bandwidth infrastructer we all use, and the companies that have spent billions of dollars over the past few years building it want to see some money back!
I look, for instance, at the menu of services we consume here:
Cable Internet (AT&T) - $50
Local telephone (with all the services but voicemail - Verizon) - $60
Long distance (AT&T) - $50
Cable television (AT&T - local channels only) $14)
Alarm monitoring (ADT) $26
That's $200/month worth of services that are coming in on two wires to my house. And we don't get any of the more advanced cable services - just analog antenna service. If I want analog basic cable, it's another $20. If I want premium channels, the total bill hits that $230 mark and only goes up from there.
What I don't really do at this point, though, is take advantage of any service bundling yet - though AT&T has been pushing real hard in this area to get local and long distance bundled with my cable line. I haven't bitten yet but if I do it'll save me about $15/month. It's just not worth the trouble yet. So I use two wires instead of one.
I have no issue with the total price, so long as they save me money over the cost of buying all the services I need separately from separate vendors. I'll stick to multiple bills if there's no price reason to switch.
I guess the real interesting thing is how much communications takes out of the monthly budget. I look at that $200 figure I cited above, and that doesn't include our cell phone ($35), OmniSky ($29, but it's getting dumped this spring), and my Blackberry ($40, paid by my work). All together, that's a lot of money for communications service of one sort or another. And remember, my cable TV bill is tiny. A lot of people pay for premium services - equivalent to adding my OmniSky to the cable bill.
I wouldn't be surprised to see that the average household communications total bill comes close to that $200 mark already. If AOL starts offering things like security monitoring over their wire as well, the $230 is probably a reasonable goal.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I'm so happy! Yay! Conglomerates sure do add value to society!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Don't get me wrong, I always thought MS was the root of all evil, so this is catching me by surprise too.
Basic Cable: $60
3 Premium Channels: $25
DSL Connection: $45
Basic Phone Services: $30
Some hellspawned idea about "convenience over price": $70
A monopoly and the knowledge you can get away with the latter: Priceless
There are some things money can't buy. For others, there's AOL
They better give you a few public ips, let you run servers and at least 512kps upstream... (getting 256kps now for one tenth that)
I wonder how many starving children in Africa that would feed a month? :P
I pay $25/month for phone, $50 for basic cable + cable modem = $75. Do I really want to pay an extra $155/ month to watch movies whenever I want? I don't think so. $155 rents a lot of videos down the street. That would be 155 of probably the same quality stuff they will be showing "on demand". What is so convenient about it anyway? I just don't get it.
Is someone really willing to pay that much to write out a single check instead of multiple ones and save a trip to blockbuster?
Time Warner Digital cable is $80
Local phone from Verizon is $40
Cable Internet $50
Long Distance Anyone's guess
Does the package include international calls in the price? How about pay per view and all the extra pay channels? If you get unlimited worlwide long distance and local phone service then it's a great deal.
Right now, here's what my AT&T monthly bills (no, they haven't consolidated billing yet) are: $50 for internet access, $25 for a minimal phone line (no features, only dial tone and long distance capability), and maybe $10 for long distance.
That's only $85/month right now. Were I paying for my extended basic cable (available because I must be the only one in Salt Lake City who has the internet and phone package, but doesn't want cable -- no filters available!), I'd be paying another $25/month.
So, that's $110.
Throw in all of the telephone perks: call waiting, caller-id, anonymous call blocking, telemarketer screening, voice mail, etc. Now that's probably another $50/month
So that brings the total to $160/mo!
Now, add all of the cable perks: digital cable (I want my Tech TV!), premium movie channels, PPV pr0n, etc. That can easily be another $75.
So that brings up the total to $235/month!
So the $230/month for TW/AOL's consolidated services is no shock.
Method of processing duck feet
We all know that cable as a medium has more bandwidth capabilities than telco copper....
His point is he wants an ISP that says
"we'll let the line go as fast as it can, and we'll let you do whatever you want, and we'll bill you for your traffic"
Get ready to bend over when you get your bill. .. and my dsl service ..
Whats next, AOL/TW buy a few electric companies, as far as im concerned they can take their cable and shove it. Ill stick with 2 cans and a string
At one end of the curve you have people who have made enough money to afford this service, but they have become lazy enough to pay the extra $70/month for the "convenience."
At the other end of the curve are the people who can't afford the service but are stupid enough to believe it's of value, so they subscribe anyway.
The distribution of people on this curve is great enough that the service sells and becomes a model for other other companies to copy.
AOL/TW already shot themselves in the foot for us. I predict that customers will take that "convenience" and stick it up their fscking ass! Lemme see: satellite instead of cable TV, DSL/satellite instead of cable internet, and phone lines (or cell phones) instead of cable phone. I've seen MS pull some brain dead shit, but damn...AOL/TW is just a lot stupider than I thought. (And it's bad enough that AOL charges $25/mo for a damn 56K service.)
Do everybody a favor and send this story to all on your AOL lamers and TW cable users. Maybe we can get them in droves.
Zodiac Survey
I have AT&T cable modem service, cable TV, and phone service. It worked out to cheaper in the long run to have it all-in-one.
I'm not paying anywhere near $230, but still I've yet to be disappointed with the service.
Did Thurber give a good blowjob? Or was she a toothy little slut?
Doesn't AT&T already offer this? I could have sworn my dad bought a deal like this for only $80 or so. Too bad AT&T cable is going out of business. Perhaps the really cheap price is why?
BlackGriffen
Only a monopolist could concieve of paying 230 a month for a service, in a year 2,760. No I don't think I'll get over that sticker shock. What most will do is ditch tv, stick with DSL and go out to see move plays and movies. If there was viable competition in that arena, they'd be bending over to find a way to provide affordable good services, not ass raping AOL quality ones.
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
I've Got Digital Cable(2 boxes) and Roadrunner I spend a total of 75 a month on that all in one bill, So there's two in one. And to be honest I am not impressed with the image quality of digitally encoded cable. (I'd rather look at a little noise than banding in the large gradient fill areas like skies and walls and whatnot) Then there's the phones I own and maintain service for and never use. And not because there is no one to talk to, I do have family. But I don't find anyone really worth talking to over the phone so much to the point that I would go out of my way to make a phone call. My phone bills are regularly under 50 dollars and that's including local and long distance. So 125 to 230? Um probably not. The article never says what's "included"...it is worded as "offered". I am wondering if/hoping that this is an opt in service with the ability to customize for what you want, and the 230 thing is the Deluxe package. I would probably still choose to keep everything the same. To me, change is never convenient. So why would I pay to be inconvenienced?
If we won't the telephone companies get into cable because its monopolizing, then why would we let aol go into both? This is very obviously the same monopolizing that we've been trying to prevent, and I hope its done again.
Oh, and $230? That seems a little steep. Let's say 80 for internet access, 80 for cable, and 70 for the phone? I wouldn't pay that much for any of them.
I'm already a victim of TW/AOL price inflation. I'm using Road Runner and have Digital Cable, and that's running me over $100/month... I think I'll get rid of the TVI'm already a victim of TW/AOL price inflation. I'm using Road Runner and have Digital Cable, and that's running me over $100/month... I think I'll get rid of the TV service, which will save me $50, and I'll eventually go to DSL, hoping to save a few dollars. Prices are ridiculus with Time Warner. When we had ACC (Old cable company bought out by TW), I paid a full $25 a month and got better service then than I get now. What the hell is going on...
When those fools raise the price to $230/month, that's when I say "Good bye" and look for alternatives. They have no competition here in the Ithaca area, and that's why the can inflate prices so much. I really doubt that they will add the proposed "features," but they still want to charge as much as they can... AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!
If they're going to charge me $230/mo, this is the level of service I'd expect:
1.5mb down / 640k up, or thereabouts, with no usage caps
4-8 static IPs
a kick-ass news server
all ports open, no service-sniffing
the right to run servers and do whatever the hell I want with my bandwidth
priority tech support numbers to people who actually know what they're talking about
pricing refunds for downtime
ok, and throw in the basic cable and local phone. That's about what I'd expect for $230.
Even with all that, I don't think I'd ever trust a "provider" like AOL enough to put all my eggs in their basket.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
the user agreement that I initally agreed to with @home stated that hosting not allowed, explicity it repeated this several times. Well I've hosted a web and ftp server for over two years.. No problem. I cancelled my account about 4 weeks ago. Woke up one morning and told dhcpcd to give me a new address promptly, and of course it obliged :)
So now I'm not paying anything, I'm hosting a webserver and reading slashdot :) Not bad huh ?
the upstream bandwidth is really decent on this part of @home, nearly 60Kbytes/sec average...
Not because people will be against having a sinlge company provide all their services (in fact I'm sure many want it), but because the price is outrageous. Let's take pricing on some local (Tucson) services:
Analogue phone line: $16/month
Basic Digital Cable: $45/month
Consumer grade DSL or CM: $50/month
All tolled that gives us about $111 per month, and yes I factored taxes in that. That makes the AOL package over twice as expensive. Now just for the sake of argument, let's assume they give you more than just basic service. In all reality we know that won't happen, but hey, we'll assume they give you something comparable to what I have:
Analogue phone line: $16/month
Extended Digital Cable: $60/month
Professional grade SDSL: $120/month
That's still only $196. To match the AOL price, I'd have to buy 3 premium networks per month (and with digital cable, that gives me about 10 channels per network). Plus, I really doubt they'll offer anything more than basic digital service and just normal CM service, making the first comparison more likely.
Personally, I think the idea of all-in-one providers is a good idea, provided there are several to choose from. However the reason it would be cool is that in theory it should save you money. Companies should be willing to charge you less overall in return for the fact that you buy more services form them. Cox already does this. You get a discount if you get both a cable modem and digital cable. It's been effective too, it encourages digital cable subscribers to get a CM instead of DSL, and encourages people with CMs and cable to upgrade to digital cable.
AOL is full of it if they think people are going to pay that much more for one provider service, espically since for most people it is probably going to be double the cost. If they want people to go for this they are going to need to make ti at the very least comparable and probably cheaper than getting all the services seperatly.
Unless of course you want the wireless AOL Anywhere Instant Messenger. That will cost an additional $50/month, plus $99 for the wireless unit, plus activation, plus...
One thing I see wrong with this..
Will you be able to get the services seperate? Will you be able to get the services unbundled AND at a fair price? Seems to me this is a trap to force you to use everything. Kind of what the cable company does now with tv/internet billing.
I also find it hard to believe that there are millions of people just waiting for the day they can sit down and watch a movie on demand. Really, how much time is in a single day? People only have so much money to spend on entertainment. That money is being spent now, its not like people have all this extra money waiting to spend on movies and cd's but can not find somewhere to spend it. The % of your disposible income you spend now on media (CD's, rentals, DVD's theater etc) is all that your going to spend in the future.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
I've been all ATT for 18 months. Their combined billing was a joke & I dropped it, but dial tone, in-state and interstate LD, cable tv, cable modem, and cell are all ATT. They even discount $5 for each service with multiple services, so I save with them instead of paying a premium. I ring up at about $205 (including taxes & discounts) with one wired phone line, ATTBI internet, ATT digital cable service (extended basic & 2 premium services) and 450 minute ATT OneRate cell service.
Of course, with new local channel updates to satellite TV, it will be somewhat ironic if I get everything except TV from my cable TV drop. Go DISH Network!
Seriously, how can be suits so brain-dead to actually believe that the people will merrily fork-over $230 per month for cable????
Obligatory lame-ass LotR rip-off to follow:
Ash Cable durbatulûk, ash Cable gimbatul, ash Cable thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul!
One Cable to rule them all, one Cable to find them, one Cable to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them.
-P
I hate people who quote
I don't really understand how cable TV works in the US.
My monthly bill from Rogers is approximately 140 CDN. This includes cable internet, plus about 350 channels on TV, most digital. The CRTC decides what channels are available, or not, and the providers (in this province Bell and Rogers) decide which channels to carry.
Add to this total my 50 dollar phone bill, and we are approaching 200 bucks. As soon as Rogers rolls out local phone service, I will probably add that service too.
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
...but I'd want 1.5mb up/down, with a static IP, and the rights to run servers as I see fit, including, but not limited to DNS, web, etc. That also includes my local phone service and cable TV...
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
Cable Internet (AT&T) - $50
Local telephone (with all the services but voicemail - Verizon) - $60
Long distance (AT&T) - $50
Cable television (AT&T - local channels only) $14)
Alarm monitoring (ADT) $26
I pay $30 a month for my cable modem.
Local telephone service? I certianly don't pay $60 every month for it. Try $30, if that.
Long distance - are we talking about your calls, or the provider? I don't know of a provider on the planet that charges $50 just for their service - that's because they would be out of business so fast they would never be IN business.
Cable TV... wait... you said local? If You want local channels only (which defeats the primary purpose of cable television), I'd suggest you use an antenna. And that comes down to a cost of $0 per month.
As for the alarm monitoring, I have no idea, so I'l stick with your pricing on that. $26 per month.
If we add all that up, I only come up with a fine little sum of $86. Now, that's more like it. If you actually _NEED_ all that crap on your phone bill (460 way calling, or whatever it is now) then you can't possibly expect that everyone affected by this pricing scheme feels the same way. It's absurd to even assume a faction of that. Regardless, if people don't like the fees, they should learn to live with less - OR, get an organized complaint together and tell this monopolistic corporation to take a look at their business practices. I would NEVER commit to paying $230 per month for all that trash. I don't need half of it, and I sure would not want it from them.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
What on Earth do they mean convenience? How hard is it to pay three separate bills each month? With online bill pay I spend about ten minutes paying my bills each month. Not a problem.
...
Also, view on demand is nice, but I ALREADY have a form of this with my Tivo? And I don't have to pay each time I watch something! This is just another example of big media trying to get people used to the pay per use idea so they can increase their revenues.
And where do they get a price of $230? Talk about corporate greed! Here is my monthly bill for the same services
$38 Phone
$49 DSL
$60 Direct TV with Tivo service
===
$147 Total
So I guess the extra $83 dollars per month is for the high quality AOL service ROFL!
I don't even pay that much for a year's worth of net.access from my ISP! Has Lord Dimwit Flathead the Excessive taken over their financial department or something?
Proteus' Child
Doko ni datte; hito wa, tsunagette iru.
What, besides lack of marketing killed it? Bundling all that together made customers realize they were paying two hundred bucks for telecommunications! Guess what'll happen when AOL/TW tries the same thing?
"I think people will get over the sticker shock," he added. "They will like the convenience."
Heck, we bought the Hollywood Diet and pet psychologists.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
question: would those who don't like one company controlling multiple entertainment utilities also not like it if that controlling company was tax funded and was actually a government entity? Then, I would be curious as to how they would differ. (how much more or less, or is it equal?)
If you're trying to replace Blockbuster, then check out Netflix -- no late fees, and the DVDs get delivered by the mailman. I doubt that any "movies on demand" system is going to be a Blockbuster killer, since with a rental system you get to have the movie over a period of days, and the opportunity to watch it multiple times or episodically. (And the episodic capability is really nice if you've got little kids. I've now only got half-hour chunks of time in which to watch movies.)
Oh, go on, check out my job.
$65.00 digital cable
$45.00 cable model service
$60.00 phone
$30.00 long distance
Total - 200.00
Now if time warner is talking about adding on 2 static IP, movie on demand and 2000min of long distance with no time restriction, I would buy it. Is convienance worth it? For me it is, but they have to first prove they can affectively consolidate the billing effectively and make online paying available. I much rather have one bill to pay, instead of spending an extra 30 minutes to pay and file all the bills.
I don't see it their plan as "doomed to fail." If they make it so it is easier for consumer to pick and choose services, then I may have a good chance of being profitable.
Even if they do everything right, it will take twice as long as analyst predict for wide consumer acceptance.
See, I want my phone to work during a power failure, and with the cable infrastructure built as it is, it won't. I want to be able to CALL the power company to report a local power outage. During a storm, I want to be able to CALL the police and fire departments and/or an ambulance if one of my loved ones is sick or injured. Cellular service is spotty at best where I live and therefore, I want the phone to work...just as it has the last 100 years or so. No, I don't care about 'advanced' services during a power failure. My computer and TV won't work during a power failure. Neither will my lights. There's candles for that. BUT I do want basic voice service to continue to work.
So what do they think they're gonna add that'll give me great value for $230? Cable with ALL the options? Please. In Sacramento they're hosed.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Hmm... A little elementary math shows this to be the exact OPPOSITE of what AOL Time Warner claimed during their merger talks: That it would benefit consumers through cost savings passed on in lower prices.
$200 for AOL Time Warner vs. My current bills of about $150 per month.
Cable TV $45
Cable modem $45
Telephone $50-$60 depending on how much I talk
Tell me where the benefit to me is? I'll have the privelege of paying the conglomerate through the nose for these services on "one-bill"?
Thanks, but no thanks.
Who did what now?
How about cellular phone service, with free long distance and unlimited calling, roaming in the entire US? Now how much would you pay? But wait! There's more.... Wireless internet from your phone or wireless PDA? Keep thinking big, you'll get to $230 fast.
I would have no problem with $230/month for a Tivo that could do everything this is promising, but to empty my wallet and end up with AOL - not a chance! I spent a year looking for Southwestern Bell DSL alternatives, more than willing to pay an extra $50/month for a decent product. Perhaps least importantly, I have a hard time imagining this "unit" offering much in the Next-To-My-HDTV-Aesthetics department.
1) Many people won't get and don't need the monitoring on the alarm system (they don't HAVE one)
2) I pay $60 for two lines from Verizon.
3) I pay $50 for a combined loop from Verizon and ISP from Internet America.
4) I don't make many long-distance calls ($50 from AT&T presumes a call volume...)- many people regulate their usage such that they don't have a regular bill for long distance calling.
So, let's re-work those numbers...
Cable Internet (AT&T) - $50
Local telephone (with all the services butv oicemail - Verizon) - $60
Cable television (AT&T - local channels only) $14)
Total for just Cable, Phone, and ISP : $124
Even then, this is kind of extravagant as most people don't have all the features, Cable and/or Cable Internet. Having said this, the amount for that is a very far cry from the $200+ that AOL/TW are grabbing for. Now maybe the bundled deal is nice for those that can afford it, most people will not blow $200+ except the upper middle class and above where the pain of that is not as noticable. (I accept and tolerate the $130 or so I'm spending on things- the $200+ would result in me quickly looking for alternatives such as Dish network and other ISP options.)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The simple fact that it's AOL/TW will (and should) deter most people (at least /. folk) from buying it. Back in the day when my family got AOL, the service was crap and I don't imagine it has changed overly much. The only reason we paid for it was the old-school Neverwinter Nights GMUD, and as soon as AOL cut out NWN, we dropped it like a bad habit.
May all that have life be delivered from suffering.
everyone seems to agree that the price for this while seeming high, is really only a bit over what you would allready pay for cable TV, broadband internet, and phone service.
paying a bit more and getting a "all inclusive" package is great, but they have to offer more than the competition in my eyes to justify the price increase. sending out 3 checks instead of 1 is really not that much work.
so the big question is what will they offer that traditional services dont? The "movies on demand" thing sounds just like PPV to me, if you recieved a certain preset number of viewings per month that would be a nice perk. What about upstream bandwidth, if they could really deliver here that would also be a nice addition, but frankly does anyone expect AOL/TW to give people this, they are probably to concerned that they would be rippin em off with P2P apps.
There is only one place i can see this service delivering a improvement over using indivdual companies for each utility, and thats the phone service, if they can deliver this in their package and not have individual charges for each call that would be a huge item. I'm by no means sure they will offer that, but as i see it thats the only way they can justify the higher price. They have to offer *something* for the extra money, or do they?
I'm a cablevision customer in NJ.
I routinely get between 4-8mbps down. I don't know what my upload speeds are, but I do know it can flood a T1 (1.5 mbps).
I have family cable (not many premium channels since TV is mostly crap anyway).
I pay $79.99/mo. My telephone bill is roughly $40-$50/mo(verizon NJ). That totals $130.00.
What the hell are these guys going to give me for the extra $100.00? I might pay for static IP and no port blocking for an extra $50.00/mo.
You shouldn't smoke crack. It makes AOLTW $230.00/mo idea look good to wall st.
-ted
I don't mind what kind of lame ass package AOL/Time Warner thinks up, and I don't care how much it
costs. It could cost $1000 and I don't care.
As long as I can get the cable modem service
separate from all the other junk and still pay the
same price (~$50 here), I'll be happy.
Now if AOL/Time Warner forces everyone who wants
a cable modem to buy all the other crap, that would
be a different story. I hope they don't plan on replacing all of their cable services with this one package.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
for $230 they'd better be kissing my ass for that much.
just hope aol doesnt make you use their damned interface with the service.
if it was VoIP, i might pay that much, but they better have fiber running to my door.
Lizard "Never let them set limits on your mind!"
Yay, it'll be so convenient having one company control my television, internet access and phone service. I can hardly wait.
You can use DirecTV or Dish Network for your video, DirecPC (or DSL if available) for your internet, and get your telephone service from your local Bell company or a multitude of wireless providers. I'm not seeing the problem here. If you don't want what AOL/TW is providing, there's no reason you have to use it.
Do there numbers come from a specific region of the US? Because here in Columbus, OH, my bills look as follows:
Digital Cable/RoadRunner/Premium Channels: $100
Local Phone/Long Distance Service: 50
Thats only $150 for everything Time Warner is looking to provide. Are prices more expensive in other areas of the US?
If you were to invest $230/month at a 10% annual rate, compounded annually, from the time you were 20 to the time you were 65, you'd have two million dollars in the bank.
So, which would you rather have: AOL's ultimate media package, or multiple millions in the bank when you retired?
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
Here in the ungodly foreign parts (Canada...look it up), we already have a company that can give you phone+TV+DSL, but the CRTC (Canada's FCC) won't let 'em charge everything in separate bills, or all in one bill. (sorry, I didn't quite understand it when I signed in, and I'm still not sure.)
Personally, it annoys me. I have to pay my DSL in a lump sum with my phone, and I wish I could have a separate bill for it. That way, I could more easily figure out what I pay for the phone, and what I pay for internet (and dish TV if I had that).
I don't trust 'em ya see...sneaky bastards keep trying to get me on their call waiting scheme...
You can't take the sky from me...
I spend about $100 for phone and DSL each month, and about $90 for digital cable. Throw in a few movies on demand.... ...however, who really wants to use AOL for broadband? It wouldn't surprise me if they used a proprietary system to discourage actual www activity. It strikes me that their average customer cares less about connection speed than ease of use, and I wonder if this targets the wrong market. Hardcore internet users do NOT use AOL.
Those that suggest you "dance like no one is watching" really want to see you make a complete fool of yourself.
But it won't happen under the current administration. The current head of the FCC says that the concept of a "common carrier" is obsolete.
Hrm a company run on the premise that if they can just do what the shareholders want they will all have their jobs tomorrow. Based off the decission here I would think these people having been in the forefront for so long have lost touch with their constomer base and are in preparation to loose a ton of money in a short period of time. While looking at possible lawsuits and all sorts of other fun stuff.
I thought the benifits of mergers were you could offer your customers more for less. Not that all management gets to put a sack of money in their garage and the companies will make it up by squeezing it out of their customers.
RoadRunner (cable modem), LineRunner (VoIP phone), and digital cable, all from TW. I pay less than half of what this article suggests, and I don't have to put up with the tards from Frontier cutting my phone line and charging me $40 US for basic service.
Long distance is not part of the bargain yet, and they had better make that servive free as it will be no better than any current voice over IP. Unless they tap into the local phone sytem they will you will not be able to place calls to anyone except those who have another stupid AOL modem. If they follow their own goofey propriatory stuff there like they do with their ISP service, then it will be worse than the usual voice over IP stuff as you will not be able to place calls to friends who you give software to. I want them to compete in the telco market, but I want others to be able to compete in the cable market and shake these turkeys down to real expectations.
As for the rest of it, fat chance. For seventy bucks, I can buy one kick ass answering machine, and people generally leave their number on an answering machine. For seventy bucks a month, I'm sure I could get a real ansering service staffed by people who will screen my calls for me, endure direct marketers and other garbage. Will AOL do that? Not if their email service is any guide, "You've got spam!". For movies, the local rental store is lucky if they can squeze $8/month from me. I doubt that AOL can match the local video store for variety and ease of use. They would have to have EVERYTHING and a good search engine. Nice as that would be, it won't be worth more than $8/month.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
You don't pay bills online? How pass :)
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
If only they dropped some of the restrictions in the process. Uncap the upstream and provide static ip addresses with no silly restrictions on server usage.
If these things were to take place, it'd be a bargian compared to what I'm paying for similar unrestricted service. But although they'll definitely lose some customers, I don't see them letting up on anything. Wouldn't make much sense from their point of view.
The fact of the matter is, they're just trying to survive. They suffer from the same problem every other dot com was suffering from. Trying to offer more than they're realisticly able to, and they're losing money in the process. This is all they can do to avoid bleeding cash.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I live in the Boston area and my bill from RCN for the same services comes out under $130 after almost $10 in taxes...
My Local Provider provides digital cable, phone line and DSL for $74.95 per month!! (see Digital Connect 2) AND it says individually these services are $96!!!
FAR from $230...
As far as phone service goes, I can't be the only one that's given up a landline for cellular. There's no need to give ANY of your money to AOL/Time Warner. Remember, they can't sell it if you don't buy it.
...is what will happen when Comcast and AT&T and all the rest of the cable providers see AOL/TM actually get away with doing this! The airlines have enjoyed a legalized price-fixing scheme for years: When one airline jacks up its fares, the others follow suit, and the public follows along like dumb sheep. Does anyone here really think AOL/TM competitors will sit by idly while AOL/TM rakes in the dough?
I think not...the fact that AOL/TM is putting their future revenue-collection tactics on public display is evidence that they could use some "extra" support from the rest of the cable industry to help them out in fleecing their customers.
Here in Iowa we have little Teleco that is fighting to be with the Big boys. Mcleod USA. They ran a full fiber optic network around our city that provides cable, internet and phone all
from one provider. It's acutally very nice.
I get one bill for all three services and the quality has always been great. I loving having
everything on one bill. Saves me having to keep track of three different bills.
I'm getting digital cable, phone service,
and internet service through RCN
for $130 a month right now. What could
I possibly get from AT&T that would be would
be worth the extra $100?
One word. Monopolies. In most of the catagories they're is a monopoly present. Cable,Phone,etc.
The only alternative is to do without. Painful but IMHO a good thing. We watch too much TV and some of us are phone junkies..
The article linked provided didn't do a very good job in explaining Time Warner's services. Their base cable rates will stay relatively the same, but the new Video-On-Demand service is what leads to the 230 dollar bill. For 3.95 you can "rent" a new release for 8 hours. This gives you the ability to play, stop, pause, rewind, etc. the movie. Old releases will be 1.95. No ones cable bill will be 230 dollars unless they order a movie almost every day. My local newspaper published this information in a front page story today. Surprisingly the slashdot link didn't include that info.
because they own the cable lines in most places, they have a monopoly on cable. you can't go to another company and get your cable for less or get better service. the same is true with telephone service. in most places, you don't have a choice of who your phone company is
now what aol is doing now is changing their cable wires from copper to fiber optic. the fiber optic wire will allow you to fit cable, internet, and phone on one wire. this would turn out to be cool if you had a choice over who provides the service. it is obvious aol will not let anyone else use their lines, but hopefully the government will make them
Move to the UK. I have NTL's cable TV, cable modem service and two phone lines. Price? £72.97 per month, ie. about $102.16 (for around 30/35 channels I think).
Cheers,
Ian
$230 a month does not sound too bad. They are talking Canadian, right?
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
...So long as they provide a good service across the board. For a while I had digital TV, cable modem, and phone all from NTL at a really good price. The line rental on the phone was very reasonable and included unmetered dialup internet as part of the package.
:)
Also the guys on the cable modem helpdesk were very clued up and a couple even knew a little linux
The phone and TV/internet line both came in together and were terminated on the same box on the wall.
My only complaint would be that it sometimes takes a while to get through to the right department when you need to call them...
I was about to get rid of Comcast Cable for approaching $40 per month. Big media always shoot for the middle of the road, so any advantage that cable was supposed to provide is dissappearing fast.. no diversity, no depth in the programmming, no risk-taking... I suppose HBO is doing some good things, but I do not want to pay monthly rent for one or two good shows. I would like a movie pipe, but I am not going to pay much more than the video rental cost for any given movie. These companies should get busy supporting smaller special interests more--like real thorough and objective news coverage for chrisssake!--so there actually seems like a reason to pay for them...
In short, I'm going to get my services from as many different places as I can, and as small a place as I can so they'll actually be motivated to CARE if I'm not happy with their service. If you want any decent quality of service, I strongly recommend you do the same.
70+ regular channels of cable and one premium package, plus the silly music channels and 40 digital channels (I'm not sure if those overlap with the 70+)
Basic Phone service
Your choice of their long distance plans, or use another company
a fairly lowspeed cable connection (256kbps) Personally, thats a bit much for me, as I don't watch all that much cable TV. For 20 bucks more you can get 1.5mbps line instead, another premium package and some other useless crap. I could probably put together my own package at a cheaper cost. But the 75/month package is almost a third of what AOL/TW wants to charge. If AOL wants to push the 200 mark, I think a lot of customers will look elsewhere. I guess that AOL/TW thinks theres nothing they can do to lose their monopoly.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Doesn't matter how many hi-definition porno channels they include, $230 is twice what I pay for digital cable + cable modem + local phone.
I will not pay an additional $100 per month for movies on demand. Besides, you know that it will still be PAY PER VIEW. So, for $100, you get the privilege of paying for more!
Forget it!
Will never happen in a million years, AOL!
Is this 230US$ including replacement of irradiated CD's ? :)
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
This article says nothing, I wanna see how the itemized bill breaks down.
Like AT&T global? They control my cable TV, phone, cell phone, and my roommates ISP. (I use someone else for my ISP).
So what's the difference here? You get one bill instead of my current 4? This would be nice if my cable and home phone and cell were on one bill, I'd be able to write one check instead of 3.
I think with the phone you have a choice, but cable you don't. My condo has rules about getting satelite. It has to be approved and proven that it will not damage the property. No real big deal, just a hastle. If I were to throw in a dish and it was determined it did damage to the building or something then I could get in trouble. That's why they have the approval. And yes they can do that it is in the regulations which were approved by the condo owners.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Let's see.
Cable - $39.99
Cable Modem - $49.99 ($39.99 if you have cable)
Phone - $14 - $39, depnding on extra services, without Long Distance.
Hmmm.. at most that's $130... So where does $230 exactly come from?
I mean, come on... I get 3mbps internet for $25, full-featured cable tv (if I actually wanted it) for about $35 complete with on-demand programming and premium channels, and my local phone service is $21 per month. AOL is looking more and more like M$ V2.0. Can someone please explain why on earth I would want to pay almost three times as much to an out of town company who is known to provide crap software and service? (If you are wondering about the software part, ever have to deal with a winbox that had had an "AOL Adapter" installed?)
political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
This must be why I did so poorly in my econ class. I thought that allowing companys to merge and destroy competition lowered prices and improved service to customers. Good thing I got this cushy programmer's job:)
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
http://www.keithandbarry.btinternet.co.uk/
waiting for that glorious day!
this small provider in houston is really ontop of being inexpensive, but their offerings for extras is not much.
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
I think it is unfair to lambast AOL/TW for the AOL part and look past the benefits of the TW part.
"Benefits" including lobbying for the DMCA and the Bono Act?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'm a 100% pro laze-fair capitalist but sad to say this might actually be an area where a government bureaucracy might be better then the scum we have now. These guys have us by the balls... it's a monopoly. It won't be long before they'll be in a position to control our whole economy. Clearly something has to be done to prevent this. The ideal solution would be for someone to develop a quantum entanglement communication device and make these guys obsolete!
I pay $30 a month for my cable modem ... I'd suggest you use an antenna.
Is the $30 because you get a discount for also subscribing to at least one premium channel? Some cable companies charge cable modem customers extra for line maintenance if they don't also subscribe to at least the most basic cable television programming package.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Only Chevron, formerly known as SoCal, or Standard Oil Company of California. However, Texaco and Chevron were both major players in Aramco, formerly known as Arabian-American Oil Company.
Conoco, fomerly Continental Oil Company, was purchased by DuPont during the oil company buyup frenzy in the early eighties, so DuPont was just getting out of the oil business. It never made much sense for DuPont to be in the oil business, anyway.
The oil company merger that amazes me was between Exxon and Mobil, two of the largest of former Standard Oil Companies, Standard Oil of New Jersey and Socoy Mobil, previously known as Standard Oil Company of New York, respectively. Both were players in Aramco, too. The Fed's radar most certainly was turned off for that one.
How to get a free (and legal) satellite feed of CBC in three low-cost steps:
:)
Step One
Step Two
Step Three
I don't know if the FTA broadcast of CBC is still going (I would certainly assume it is!) because I've had no reason to get a DVB receiver, what with CBC being broadcast in a city not to far from mine.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Wait, so you mean the over $150 a month for TV, the whatever a month for LD, and the $20 a month for a cell phone and the $45 a month for internet service wasn't enough?
.)
Bleh.
I want more CUSTOMIZABLE rates damnit!
I do NOT NEED over _*40*_ sports stations damnit!
In the last two months they have added TWO more porn stations! Come on, how many porn stations does one city need? Pretty soon it is going to be a 'choose your fetish' type of a situation!
We already have nearly 10 (I think, may be just five) WNBA stations!!! I don't even watch basketball but I know that those are factored into my bill!
Of course without the 'total TV" package it would cost even MORE to get a bunch of different SEPERATE packages that DID have what I wanted in them.
Did you know that Nickelodeon has its own Game Show network? Yah, seriously. All of the failed game shows that they once had on them are now on it, bleh.
Or how about the ever increasing number of music video stations? I don't know HOW many have been added within the last few months, but they seem to keep on growing. Hell AT&T doesn't even bother sending out New Channels Have Been Added annoucements anymore after all why should they when new channels are being added seemingly daily!
This is getting nuts. Let me just pay say 50 cents per channel and be DONE with it. Yah sure getting all 300 or whatever channels would cost a ton but shit, as it is I don't ever watch but 70 or so. Actualy I myself just watch 3 regularly, Sci-Fi, Comedy Central, and occasionaly CN (Dexters Lab == Kick Ass. The PPG are also nice. And Samuri Jack. heh.)
The Action Channel is occasionaly watched when they have their Anime Marathons on their, but shoot, besides that. . . . Animal Planet is also kind of neat though. The movie channels are nice to have around if a movie I want to watch comes on, but thats it.
I really don't need 10 stations for every sport (I think there is even a set of NHL stations now. . .
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
I've always had premium cable service for
no more than the price of regular cable or less.
The fact is that the cable guy doesn't get paid
much money and I have yet to find one that isn't
bribable. I've never spent more than $100 dollars for this. Heck, most recently, I saw that he was a
fellow Clapton fan, so I gave him a box set that I had already ripped onto my computer. In exchange, he gave me everything except for
a internet connection (I use DSL) all for the price of basic cable. He even was traing another guy and showed
his trainee the CD's I gave him, and said "that's how things work in the real world".
It happens everywhere I go with every cable company. It seems to be a universal unspoken truth.
Excuse me now, I have to see how my Morpheus Dl's are doing.
I trust you are way too smart to pay this much for such
services. Put in other terms, if the media barons were
to offer full time symmetrical 100Mbps Internet services,
unlimited local/national/international phone services,
and unlimited cable TV (no pay per view) services for
$100/month, sign me up!
As an FYI, here's how this compares to the UK, where we traditionally get assraped on prices compared to the USA:
For Telewest cable
Grand total, £93/~$140 without porn, or £119/~$178 with all the porn you can eat. Hey, pretty good compared to the AOL-Time Warner Collective. Although if I've got a cable modem, what am I doing wasting my time (and wrist action) on TV edited soft core garbage?
No, that's unpatriotic. I have to keep the economy bouyant. Of course, after paying $178 a month for every conceivable channel including "premium" content and all the free stuff I can get through the modem, I'd still want to pay another $50 for pay-per-view "premium-premium" content, right? Right?
Or... it's just possible that cableco's are all smoking crack, and we're not as dumb as toast. If so, I expect a lot of marketing droids will have their toes roasted over open fires in the next couple of years.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
no thanks, i'd rather enjoy it now.
My cable company, in my area, provides all three services bundled together; my monthy bill is only $80, and that's with buying the servies a la carte. They have 'resilink' packages where they give you all three services, and throw in a few primium services at a discount.
I'm a current Time Warner subscriber for Cable TV and a cable modem for Internet access. I used to be a TW phone subscriber as well (Time Warner Connect) until they decided to drop phone service in my area (central Texas). My phone was disconnected last May as TW shut down phone operations in my area, and I had to get a completely new number. Incidentally AT&T is still charging me for long distance service on that line and I can't get them to stop.
I also recieved two completely separate bills monthly, one for the cable and one for the phone. I couldn't pay them together.
The DSL from Bell Canada costs only 30 Canadian dollars a month, which is US$18.79. Please tell me, where in US the price for DSL is that low?
You mean 8 times right?
> Pretty soon it is going to be a 'choose your fetish' type of a situation!
6ft tall geekchics with big feet. Hell I'll pay $230/month.
More ontopic, I agree with you about the channels. I pay nearly $100/month for 60-70 digital cable channels, access to PPV channels, including some soft porno ones, some music channels, and cable internet.
Most of the channels are previews that will end by Feb 02, and then the cable co will slap you with yet another tier-based package.
I have to pay $50/month just so I can watch TLC and Discovery. The other 40-odd channels of sports, home shopping and music videos do NOT interest me. Now I'm going to have to cough up more in order to get National Geographic, TechTV and the Civilisation channel? Not this time. I might even downgrade. I bought their stupid digital cable box ($200) so I could get those extra channels. But they are only previews. What a rip. With the technology they have, we should be able to simply choose our channels. I ought to be able to subscribe to a specific channel for a month, or even a day if that station is showing something I want to see. (Sometimes a series or movie will come on a station I normally dont watch.) Not this silly all-you-can-eat, all-we-can-milk-you-for nonsense.
Feet channel 24/7!
". With the technology they have, we should be able to simply choose our channels. I ought to be able to subscribe to a specific channel for a month, or even a day if that station is showing something I want to see"
/5/ showtimes otherwise?
:) For ~$90 a month now my household gets 2 digital cable boxs (crips, I almost called them digicable boxs, yikes!!!) with EVERY channel AT&T has to offer, and 2 analog boxs and regular Cable on as many TVs as we can get line splitters for:)
That is the purpose of buying ALL of the channels.
They want you to PAY _ALOT_ for all of those extra channels for all of those 'just in case' situations. It is how they make alot of their profits.
You think that I would be paying for
Oh yah, and your cable co sucks.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
People will get over the sticker shock when they realize that given a monopoly, they have no choice if they want the service.
-Rob
...the media ownership is worse. If one company controls everything you see, it becomes much easier for them to keep you in the dark about anything unethical they do.
There goes all your news about anything unethical practices or corporate crime committed by AOL/Time Warner/Disney/etc. I wouldn't put it past them.
As a matter of fact, the Black Hills of South Dakota are being serviced by a company named Black Hills FiberCom - and they provide local and long distance phone service, 230 channels of digital cable, and high-speed cable Internet service (1MB symmetrical). Price is $100/mo for the full package.
:)
Won't work? Market penetration is at 50% after 3 years, and rising.
$230/mo is way high, when we're doing it here in the sticks for much less. But everything else here sucks, so don't move here.
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."
if some of these figures seem $5-10 too high, remember that AOL is able to charge a hefty premium in the world of dial-up and will be able to do so for high speed Internet access.
$20 local phone
$55 extended digital cable
$20 long distance (flat rate?)
$60 broadband access + broadband AOL
$10 service/channel guide for TiVO-style box
$25 monthly digital music subscription (they can dream, ok)
$25 couple of premium channels (HBO alone is $20 right now in my area)
$15 three streaming, on-demand movies @ $5 eachj
-----------
$230
- For TV, why not get a satellite dish? Dish Network's "I like 9" plan works out to $25.58/month if you figure in the cost of the receiver/dish, which is cheaper, has more channels, and better picture than TW's standard $36/month service (at least that's what they were charging me, YMMV). Or spend a little more and get their 501 receiver with no extra PVR monthly charge.
- For internet connectivity, I still use RR because it's the best option (which is how competition should work) but there's still DSL, satellite and good-old dialup. For argument's sake, let's say I switched over to a $59/month DSL service just to get rid of anything TW related.
- For phone, if you live alone you're probably better off cutting the land line and getting a beefed-up wireless plan - most of the
/. crowd probably has a cell phone already. Imagine how many minutes you'd have if you added your monthly land line bill to your wireless plan (hint: Sprint's most expensive non-web-enabled wireless plan is $75, probably less than the two bills combined, and probably more minutes than you need).
If you look at the price difference between going all-TW (we'll say $230 for argument's sake) and what you can piece together with competitors, it doesn't seem like TW will be able to justify the high prices. Using the figures I listed above (and you'd be fairly pimped-out, mind you) it's only $160/month, which leaves you with an extra $70 per month for recreational drugs or beer or cigarettes or whatever your preferred means of slowly (and enjoyably) killing yourself.I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Here in Canada I can get Cable TV (Full Tier), Internet (Cable) and Phone service for $100 a month bundled. If what i've read is correct our cable internet seems to be a bit faster on average due to the load on it. This is in CDN dollars too, so that would be like $60 US per month.
Problem solved.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Let's analyze this:
1) The customers AOL loses because of sticker shock will discover that they never needed AOL to begin with, so they won't go back.
2) Since Bob Pittman has apparently gone off his fucking gourd, he is sure to make even more idiotic decisions in the near future.
I ask you, other than an announcement that they will stop sending everybody another useless CD every couple months, what better news could there be?
If you don't mind that it's not suported on mac OS, OSX or Unix, has a cleint that crashes etc.
Reservoir Dogs?
Show me your cable bill and I'll show you $83,000 dollars down the drain.
l at or.htm
F*ck the TV. F*ck Cable. F*ck CNN/Time/Life/Warner/AOL and F*ck Disney/ABC/SportsIllustrated
-->
Just watch Normal for FREE Channels. Really, aside from the occasional game on ESPN (better to go to a pub anyway) and sportscenter, the occasional special on Discovery Channel (NOVA kicks Discovery's ass anyday) and the occasional Pr0n Pay-Per-View (better to rent a DVD (Think Freeze Frame & Zoom)) what do you watch on those 500 channels of crap? Nothing. So why pay for Cable.
Just buy friggin antenna and watch the real stations for free that you watch anyway. I mean really, Simpsons is on Fox, Nicky on WB, StarTrek on UPN, Monday night football on ABC, CBS for NCAA Hoops, Friends on NBC for you girls, Fox again for football. PBS for good science stuff and artsy crap. What's on Cable other than reruns of bad shows and infomercials. F Cable.
Now I do forgive owners of "The Dish" because you can order Playboy TV which is a much better deal than Cable's Pay Per View, and some people like HBO. But for $50-85/mo. Come on now.
Take your $85/mo and invest it an account that allows monthly deposits with an APY of 6% and in 30 years you'll have, according to this calculator:
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~avr/finances/swdcalcu
$83,236.80
Now you can take that to the BANK. F- CABLE.
My local paper did a story on this which I think the Daily News picked up on and glossed over some important details. The $230 a month figure refers only to what they're hoping to make off of people participating in their new video on demand service, which they're test marketing here in Albany and in a few other cities.
The local phone service is something they plan to roll out later this year, in conjunction with those Linux-based Moxi set-tops, but the $230 figure is purely what they hope to make off of people paying 4 bucks a pop to pick from 100 UHF-level movies like Mrs. Doubtfire and Caddyshack. After hitting the "buy" button you'd be able to view the movie for 8 whole hours.
We pay about $110 a month for digital cable (comes with HBO and Showtime) and a cable modem, so we'd have to view 30 of those 100 movies each month to be their desired average subscriber. Or we could drive 5 minutes to our choice of video stores and pick one of a thousand DVD's, 99 cents for 48 hours.
As a digital cable and occasional Nielsen household, we are not impressed. I would bet they'll make a little money off of this and then their revenues will skyrocket when they quietly introduce pr0n-on-demand in a few months.
This was a front page article in Friday or Saturday's paper (prominent enough that it made me wonder if AOLTW owned a piece of the paper,) but there doesn't seem to be any reference to it on timesunion.com.