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AOL/TW Plans for $230 Monthly Cable Bill

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the one-wire-to-bind-them-all dept.

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.

5 of 352 comments (clear)

  1. $230 by stinkydog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    $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
    1. Re:$230 by Sgs-Cruz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Jeez, that's the monopoly fee, didn't you know? They landed on DSL Service, Local Phone Service, and Cable Service, and have now appeared to have built hotels on all...

      --

      Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).

    2. Re:$230 by Jimmy_B · · Score: 5, Insightful
      It's very interesting how you came to that $2K/month number. In fact, looking over the components of that, I object to *every* number you put into that.
      I'd expect 24/7 pay-per-view access $10 and up per pay-per-view item... probably $200-$300 worth of use.

      He didn't say "24/7 FREE pay-per-view access", and neither did he say he would be using it 40-60 hours/month, as your number implies.
      24/7 porno
      A few nights a week at $8 per movie - another $100 or more.

      Where'd that $8/movie number come from? And how is this hypothetical buyer possibly going to have free time for this *and* 50 hours per month of pay-per-view?
      any On-Demand movie I want for free
      Another $100 or more...

      For $100/month, you could go to a theater every time you felt like watching a movie, and watch it on much better equipment. Off by a factor of 3 or 4.
      and every single channel they can cram in the cable band.
      Licensing and fees to the subscription channel providers = perhaps $200 or more depending on your market.

      Off by a factor of five or more. Current cable providers fill the cable as it is already; you don't see them getting away with $200/month, do you?
      I also expect an unrestricted U/L and D/L line on my Internet connection
      UUNET/Sprint T1 = $800/month...

      Everyone knows that T1 prices are a joke. Also, the price you're quoting includes business-class service (which you added MORE cost on for later), non-trivial installation, and 100% bandwidth use (which no home user reaches), and is rediculous anyways. Compare against business-class uncapped DSL to be more reasonable.
      the ability to put up a server See above (included)

      "Ability to put up a server" and "ability to put up a 5-million-hit-a-day web server" are completely different things. Many DSL providers give you this privelege, so long as you don't abuse it, and you certainly don't need a T1 for it.
      tech support for any computer problem I have
      Reasonable rate of $65/hour, assuming you're calling only during office hours. Reasonable estimate of 5 hours/month = around $250...

      The only reason for 5 hours/month is if either (a) 4 of them are on hold, (b) the support is extremely incompetent, or (c) the service gives you too many problems in need of supporting. Either way, that's completely unacceptable for $65/hour, so your "reasonable estimate" of 5 hours/month is completely unreasonable.
      and a 99.9% guaranteed uptime on the line
      SLA for UUNET/Sprint. See above. Definitely business grade T1 service.

      Three-nines uptime is "business grade T1 service"? Add one more nine to that, maybe two for a higher price. 43 minutes downtime per month would be consumer-level standard if the DSL providers weren't so blatantly incompetent.
      And I want caller ID, call waiting, every single other feature on my phone, the ability to block business (telemarketer) calls, and the best voicemail system known to man. At least another $100.

      Actually, this is more like $0/month, plus a one-time bill for a fancy phone with an LCD. None of these actually cost the provider any substantial amount, and they're certainly not worth $100/month.
      TOTAL BILL: $2,000+ / month
      You added another $250 in rounding - and, of course, all the numbers you used to get there were bogus anyways.
      And you want this for $200? What the hell are you paying with, Flooz? You'll probably have similar results...
      $200 is low, but it's in the right ballpark. Your figure is rediculous; why it's at +5 is beyond me.
  2. Betting? by Nidhogg · · Score: 5, Insightful
    1. The cable company is betting consumers will see the value of one-stop shopping. But first Time Warner Cable will have get customers past the sticker shock of seeing $230 on their bill.


    Isn't that the same bet that fired off the dot com craze?

    And we all know how well that worked out.

  3. AOL is going to lose out on this one by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.