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Cable TV Prices Rising At Four Times the Inflation Rate

An anonymous reader writes "A new FCC report (PDF) has found that U.S. cable TV prices are rising at four times the rate of inflation over the past two decades. 'Basic cable service prices increased by 6.5 percent [to $22.63] for the 12 months ending January 1, 2013. Expanded basic cable prices increased by 5.1 percent [to $64.41] for those 12 months, and at a compound average annual rate of 6.1 percent over the 18-year period from 1995-2013. ... These price increases compare to a 1.6 percent increase in general inflation as measured by the CPI (All Items) for the same one-year period.' Equipment prices rose faster than inflation, too. The report also found that the price increases weren't helped by competition — in fact, the prices rose faster where there were competing providers than in areas where the main provider had no effective competition."

196 of 286 comments (clear)

  1. Better service though... by Firethorn · · Score: 1

    The report also found that the price increases weren't helped by competition — in fact, the prices rose faster where there were competing providers than in areas where the main provider had no effective competition."

    True, but it notes right in the article that 'expanded cable' is basic + the most subscribed to package, and in areas with competition that the extra $3 buys you more service on average in competitive areas. IE if people get a better deal they're willing to buy more.

    Unclear in the article would be the effects of FIOS service, which is even more tightly bundled with internet services than traditional cable.

    --
    I don't read AC A human right
    1. Re:Better service though... by Technician · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The truth is there are a lot of cable cutters. The basic subscription is only to get a break on Internet. DSL and basic phone service is the same thing. My home phone has no long distance plan at all. It is redundant and expensive compaired to my Cell or VOIP which include all of US and Canada as a local call.

      WIth Netflix, Hulu, etc, unless you want the sports package, why would you even have cable at all, other than to get a break on the Internet package.

      Intenet without basic TV is often higher in price or not offered at all, so the basic TV added is close to zero additional cost.

      I've cut Cable TV long ago. I'm not an armchair quarterback.

      When working nights, and infomercials plug up the daytime TV, there is little to watch, except on Netflix. TV seasons, science, etc shows can be watched at your convience commercial free. Cable companies hate that. To keep profits up, with cord cutting, they soak the sports junkies that need real time program delivery.

      --
      The truth shall set you free!
    2. Re:Better service though... by cdrudge · · Score: 1

      WIth Netflix, Hulu, etc, unless you want the sports package, why would you even have cable at all, other than to get a break on the Internet package.

      Just a guess, but to see current non-broadcast television shows (e.g. Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Walking Dead, etc), sporting events on channels that aren't dedicated to sports (e.g. NBA on TNT), television and financial news talking heads (e.g. MSNBS, CNN, Fox News, etc), plus any shows that you don't want to wait months, years, or never to see on Netflix, Hulu, et al.

    3. Re:Better service though... by msauve · · Score: 2

      Not just that, but 40 years ago, basic cable wasn't much more than a community antenna offering better reception of OTA channels. No CNN or MTV or HBO (well, they're technically 42 years old, but had maybe 10,000 subscribers then).

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    4. Re:Better service though... by ah.clem · · Score: 1

      Agreed. Dropped TWC almost 4 years ago, only have Internet (which might come with some television channels but never cared to look). Still too damn much money, but no other serious option. Netflix and Amazon with a Roku for films are good options (as long as it's a Roku 3 - Amazon and Roku seem to have broken the delivery on the Roku 1 and 2 but of course, that is just my experience and opinion - Netflix is great with a Chromecast, I sure hope Amazon and Acorn get added to Chromecast so I can toss these Rokus to Goodwill) and I pay $5 a month for Acorn.TV - a good selection of British television shows shown without commercials. I won't give Hulu a dime as they charge a subscription fee then *still* toss in commercials - but I guess a lot of folks will put up with that - Hulu apologists always remind me of the "little bit pregnant" line; in any case, not a lot to see in American television shows in any case, IMO.

      --
      "Life is not magic." Dr. Ron Weiss - "If we don't play God, who will?" Dr. James Watson
    5. Re: Better service though... by BrennanPratt · · Score: 1

      Hulu is essentially IP television. Sure they're double dipping getting ad revenue and subscriber fees, but its still a step forward from fixed schedule garbage television.

    6. Re:Better service though... by MightyYar · · Score: 2

      plus any shows that you don't want to wait months, years, or never to see on Netflix, Hulu, et al.

      One interesting side effect of my cheapness is that I've fallen so far behind on TV shows that they are all new to me when they hit Netflix. Because I don't see the commercials, I don't even know about current shows, let alone miss them. I hear about shows a little from co-workers and friends, but honestly TV just doesn't unite the culture like it once did - there are far too many choices for everyone to be watching the same show.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    7. Re: Better service though... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Too bad Hulu requires a cable subscription in my area

    8. Re:Better service though... by Firethorn · · Score: 1

      The truth is there are a lot of cable cutters. The basic subscription is only to get a break on Internet. DSL and basic phone service is the same thing. My home phone has no long distance plan at all. It is redundant and expensive compaired to my Cell or VOIP which include all of US and Canada as a local call.

      I've effectively cut my cable several decades ago. Of course, I grew up in a non-cable house. Whenever I end up in a hotel/motel room I generally flip through the channels but end up on one of the 'how X is made' or dirty job type shows. Which I don't value at ~$50/month.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
    9. Re:Better service though... by DaHat · · Score: 1

      TV just doesn't unite the culture like it once did

      That might depend upon the culture of the water cooler you hang out at... the fact that Game of Thrones is said to still be the most pirated tv show in history suggests otherwise.

    10. Re:Better service though... by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      You just have to decide if those shows are worth that much money. Do you need to spend $75-$100 a month just to get the latest Walking Dead, or can you wait part of a year until the episodes show up on streaming? Are the shows really that important?

      I have found it a bit annoying that not all the movies I want are on netflix. But then I realize that with my satellite I never got a choice of shows anyway. I'd find a movie showing a couple times during one week only and then record it, but that was the cable choosing for me which movies they were going to show. So on netflix I just treat it like the movie they don't have will show up maybe in a year or two, which is a lot like having to wait a year or two for a movie to show up on cable.

    11. Re:Better service though... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Game of Thrones is on Amazon Instant Video already, though you get to see it one year after it airs.

    12. Re:Better service though... by peragrin · · Score: 1

      but they only watch 17 channels. while it isn't always the same 17 channels, I would be shilling to bet on the 200 channels tha the average person gets that if they could have a bundle that only gave them 40 channels that included the ones they want for the same price they would be just as happy with cable as they are now.

      right now cable tv providers are the most hated group. you don't get much choice you don't feel like your paying for something that you use(using just 10% of a service does that).

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    13. Re:Better service though... by peragrin · · Score: 1

      Game of thrones is the most pirated because HBO won't let it go. in order to watch game of thrones without paying $100 a month for cable(and yes that is what your bill is including the HBO pricing) you either have to wait 1 year and then pay full price for it from amazon, iTunes,etc. or you can pirate it and watch it a couple of hours after it airs.

      HBO is killing themselves by not having even a paid for streaming system.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    14. Re:Better service though... by stdarg · · Score: 1

      Not only does it save money, but many shows are more enjoyable when you can watch an entire season at your leisure rather than waiting a minimum of a week between episodes. Most shows with season-long plot arcs fall into this category.

    15. Re:Better service though... by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      the sports junkie pay about 200 bucks a month for their sports. What the hell? That's an enormous amount of money to pay for a pleasurable past time. In the old days, we would all be able to watch it on weekends and occasional evenings. But these days if you want HD sports, you have to pay extra, if you want to get into their walled garden, extra. It's just sad. Plus you get a bunch of crap you dont' even want. I cut cable long ago, and I certainly don't need to watch sports. I'll go and see it live and support my team and my infrastructure instead of giving my money to a bunch of assholes.

    16. Re:Better service though... by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      Read the books. :-) If he bothers to finish the damn series. I read two books of his and it looked like it was going to go the way of Dragon Reborn series and I promptly stopped. It took him years to come out with a new book. He's dead to me. I got plenty of other book series that I can read now instead of that.

    17. Re:Better service though... by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      I don't understand why they are tying it to a cable subscription? Netflix is doing the right thing. They are doing an awesome job. I hope they grow big enough to just by a studio. I will continue to throw money at them as I like their model over the others. We should always be throwing money at companies who disrupt the status quo.

    18. Re:Better service though... by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      Not quite as harsh, but that's pretty much the same progression that killed my interest in the series. After waiting 5 years just to get the steaming pile of A Feast For Crows, it started getting annoying. Somewhere in the next six years of waiting for the "good half" of the book (his excuse at the time of AFFC was that the book was too big for binding and would have to be split), seeing him bitch and moan on his blog, and so on, I questioned whether I really had any emotional investment left in that particular crapsack world.

      Turns out, I didn't.

    19. Re:Better service though... by Firethorn · · Score: 1

      Hmmm...

      First, 17 channels is the average. I'd only average 7. There are those that average more.
      Second - as you mention, it's a bit like a buffet - the more channels you offer the more people you can satisfy, but on average because the 17 channel figure is known it doesn't actually cost more, while the more channels you can offer the more customers you can satisfy. Well, so long as the market segment isn't saturated. Sales channels pay you to be broadcast, but they're not that popular.

      So areas that have competition probably have to offer you higher value channels for less money. HBO is expensive, but it's also got TV I want to see. In a non-competitive area it might be priced high enough that I don't get it, but low enough in a competitive one that I do get a package with it.

      You have to be careful when considering averages.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
    20. Re:Better service though... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Well, that's the thing. First of all, we don't know what's going to happen with the books, but the TV series is damn well going to be completed either way. And furthermore, they seem to have realized that the later books are getting way too long-winded and started compressing them to maintain the pace, which I approve of. And now they've started actively fiddling with the storyline, as well, to the point where it looks like the TV series will be diverging significantly at the end of this season.

    21. Re:Better service though... by Albert71292 · · Score: 1

      I dropped cable (actually Dish Network) a few years ago. Was paying for 250 channels, and most nights, when I'd find something worth watching, it'd be on one of the local TV stations, NOT on the cable networks, which were filling up with insipid "reality shows". Cancelled service, put up a good quality outdoor antenna, and haven't missed cable at all. Getting 19 over-the-air channels, all the major broadcast networks. Find MORE than enough to watch. Only have 6Mbps DSL though, and sharing it with my son, so haven't subscribed to any online streaming video services. Did the Netflix free trial, but dropped it before I was billed, because of excessive buffering. On days nothing is on TV I want to watch, I fall back to my extensive DVD/Blu-ray collection.

      --
      "A Bird In The Hand Will Poop On Your Wrist"-Benny Hill,1982
    22. Re:Better service though... by duck_rifted · · Score: 1

      It's a death spiral for the cable industry. People began to prefer the Internet due to the misinformation on cable and social connectivity online. So, sub rates dropped. As sub rates dropped, sub prices went up to compensate. The remaining viewers are less informed and often don't engage in critical thought at all, so the quality of programs dropped off. As quality has dropped off, more people have left cable behind. The cycle continues.

      The best things on television are on premium channels that require a basic subscription plus some ridiculously pricey package just to watch the one channel a viewer might be interested in for an hour every week or every other week. That's a ripoff unless you simply have money to throw away. So, the problem persists and worsens.

      Meanwhile, the FCC is determined to solve the problem by giving cable companies the right to price gouge Internet services. I guess the plan is that the Internet will slowly fall apart, with the expectation that people will switch to cable. But now it's a matter of grudge. Thanks to this, I will never again subscribe to cable television, period. The sooner it dies, the better off the world will be, so I hope that many people join me.

      It doesn't matter if they do destroy the Internet. It's not a matter of competing content anymore. It's the principal of the matter that they aim to seize the commons for themselves solely to perpetuate their outmoded and worthless service while simultaneously overcharging and providing the worst customer service of any telecom industry. No thank you. I'd rather burn every electronic device I own than pay them one red cent.

      As for family, I see what a childhood spent glued to the boob tube did not only to our generation but the one that preceded ours. People who rely upon television as their primary source of fiction and information treat reading like it's a chore, and the only ideas about reality that they'll accept are those that entertain them or feed their massive egos. I refuse to allow my children to be tainted by that curse.

      I'm not worried about mod points or anything of the sort. The truth is what it is.

    23. Re:Better service though... by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      I don't understand why they are tying it to a cable subscription?

      Well, they are a division of Time Warner...

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    24. Re:Better service though... by dl_sledding · · Score: 1

      And they will end up just like the "other" studio owners... You don't think they'll raise their prices? I'd love to live in your universe. Greed infects us all. Netflix is a business just like any other business. Money is the only reason businesses exist, and if they can make a dollar more off of you than they did last week they will.

    25. Re:Better service though... by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      They are raising prices. Surprised they've kept it up this long. Best way to stop it is to not consume it. Let them work harder. Now if we can get those sports fans to stop being such suckers..

  2. more money - less quality by OutOnARock · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The quantity of programming has increased with the prices

    ......yet the quality of programming decreases......

    so (quality/quantity) * price is constant?

    1. Re:more money - less quality by Ignacio · · Score: 2

      Nope. A bit of research will show that it is in fact logarithmic. There are obvious diminishing returns once you realize that there are five or six channels showing the same episode of the same show at the same time.

    2. Re:more money - less quality by mc6809e · · Score: 5, Informative

      The quantity of programming has increased with the prices

      ......yet the quality of programming decreases......

      so (quality/quantity) * price is constant?

      I have a friend at BrightHouse Networks.

      According to him (and I suppose he could be lying), it's the price that the content holders are asking that's driving up prices, especially ESPN.

      He tell's me that ESPN gets about $30/customer in an all or nothing deal.

    3. Re:more money - less quality by mc6809e · · Score: 2

      He tell's me that ESPN gets about $30/customer in an all or nothing deal.

      Sorry. That's wrong.

      The $30 figure is the amount each actual viewer of ESPN would have to pay if they were forced to pay for it themselves, but ESPN doesn't allow that.

    4. Re:more money - less quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The mind boggles that people spend so much money to watch some guys throw a ball. I don't want to live on this world any more.

    5. Re:more money - less quality by alen · · Score: 1

      it's $35 per customer and it is the content guys driving up the prices

      netflix pays out 75% of revenues for content

    6. Re:more money - less quality by Miamicanes · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I really wish cable/satellite would adopt "Chinese Menu" pricing for their mid-tier, and allow people who don't care about Disney*.* or ESPN*.* to pay the same price, but substitute HBO and/or Showtime instead (ie, pick two out of four... Disney, ESPN, HBO, Showtime... 3 for $10 more, all 4 for $18 more). I believe it would mostly be revenue-neutral for the cable/satellite companies, and would go a long way towards softening the sting of my monthly cable bill by letting me substitute two channels I don't currently pay for, but would LOVE to get instead of two expensive blocks of channels I never watch.

    7. Re:more money - less quality by jopsen · · Score: 1

      so (quality/quantity) * price is constant?

      I think you underestimate the influence of profit. Pure simple greed. That is mostly likely what is driving prices...
      Perhaps also, the fall of the US dollar, it's not worth the same...

    8. Re:more money - less quality by Zebai · · Score: 1

      Comcast trialed this is the Charleston, NC area, or did for many years. You buy a core package for basic service and then you can addon additional packs by category, sports, news, family, movies etc.. Last I heard of it it wasn't popular enough to keep maintaining and is being phased out. Most people were in the category that they didn't pay enough attention or make the effort to save money or chose to save money by discount hopping.

    9. Re:more money - less quality by mpe · · Score: 1

      Comcast trialed this is the Charleston, NC area, or did for many years. You buy a core package for basic service and then you can addon additional packs by category, sports, news, family, movies etc.. Last I heard of it it wasn't popular enough to keep maintaining and is being phased out.

      A "category", picked by the provider, is not the same as having the customer pick which specific channels they want.

    10. Re:more money - less quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The mind boggles that people spend so much money to watch some guys put on costumes and play "let's pretend!" (aka "acting").

      In other words, STFU. Not everyone has to like the same things as you do. And although I don't watch sports, there is nothing contemptible about it.

    11. Re: more money - less quality by callmetheraven · · Score: 1

      Sports are for morons.

      --
      You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
    12. Re: more money - less quality by buddyglass · · Score: 1

      Obviously. This guy? Total moron. This one too.

    13. Re:more money - less quality by Miamicanes · · Score: 1

      The thing is, if cable/satellite went to true a-la-carte, any short-term savings would be rapidly neutralized by skyrocketing per-channel costs. Instead of paying $89.95/month for 200-300 channels, you'd be paying $84.99/month for 17 specific channels. Someone who literally watched only one or two channels might come out ahead, but the cable industry would make sure that most of us were at least as fucked as we are now, and would use it as an opportunity to fuck other customers just a little bit harder. It's depressing, but deep down inside, we all *know* it's true.

      There's another category nobody in the industry even wants to TALK about (besides complaining about the costs, then passing them straight along to customers) -- the fees paid to local channels that insist on payment in lieu of "must-carry". IMHO, the FCC should amend the "must-carry" rule to REQUIRE cable/satellite providers to break out the total amount they'd otherwise have to collectively pay the local channels, and allow customers to opt out of paying that fee in return for having to use an antenna to watch local channels. The probably couldn't get away with demanding a breakdown of channel-by-channel fees due to nondisclosure rules, but if they disclosed their aggregate cost, it wouldn't really reveal much. I can almost *guarantee* that cable/satellite customers who don't live in New York City would begin opting out EN MASSE if they started seeing line items on their bills like "Local Affiliate Rebroadcast Fees - $17.47 (optional)". In the short terms, the local affiliates would probably raise prices for the remaining customers who don't want to bother with an antenna... but the higher they raised them, the more cable/satellite customers would be motivated to opt out of the fees and switch to OTA reception for them.

  3. Question ... by MacTO · · Score: 2

    Has there been a corresponding increase in service? By that I mean the number of channels delivered for the given tier, since cable companies usually pay the broadcaster a certain rate per channel.

    (I don't subscribe to cable, so I don't know how things have changed over the decade since I've left home.)

    1. Re:Question ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, we can now watch the same advertising on 300 different channels.

    2. Re:Question ... by rsmith-mac · · Score: 1

      There's actually a row in the results table that more or less answers that question: "Expanded basic price per channel."

      That value only went up 2.1%, which is still higher than inflation but not by nearly as much. In other words, more than half of the cost increase from expanded basic came from content additions.

  4. Easy solution by the_humeister · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Don't pay for cable. There really isn't much on cable tv worth watching that can't be obtained through other legal sources.

    1. Re:Easy solution by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 1

      Live sports is tough to find on other sources. Otherwise I would cut the cord in a heartbeat.

    2. Re:Easy solution by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · Score: 1

      It depends on the sport. I'm a nerdy sports fan (we exist!), I split the cost of the Intarweb add-on for NFL Sunday ticket with a friend of mine who has the complete package. My ISP gets me ESPN3 which has a lot of collegiate sports, TNT is doing free streaming of the NBA playoffs, and if you're a basketball fanatic the NBA has pricey online packages that would still come out to far less than you'd pay for a cable subscription. For everything else I have an amplified antenna in my attic hooked up to a HDHomeRun. About the only thing I'm missing is ESPN, and if there's ever anything truly compelling on that, it's off to my local sports bar for a decent dinner and some beer.

      --
      "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
    3. Re: Easy solution by VTBlue · · Score: 1

      Holy shit my HDHomeRun Prime is just sitting in a box cause I don't have cable. I never thought to use it for just OTA. I'm an idiot.

    4. Re:Easy solution by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Live sports is tough to find on other sources. Otherwise I would cut the cord in a heartbeat.

      AM radio? Seems that it covers just about everything you might want, and then there's always shortwave if you can't find it.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    5. Re:Easy solution by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Get yourself some young kids and a wife with irregular hours at work... you'll completely lose track of sports :)

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    6. Re: Easy solution by Hamsterdan · · Score: 1

      HDHR Prime doesn't do OTA unfortunately. ClearQAM and CableCard only.

      --
      I've got better things to do tonight than die.
    7. Re: Easy solution by VTBlue · · Score: 1

      Oh...thanks for saving me trip to the attic lol

    8. Re:Easy solution by DaHat · · Score: 2

      Or you can make sure your wife likes the same college sports as you... then have epic battles over the professional level...

    9. Re:Easy solution by callmetheraven · · Score: 1

      sports are the problem. Sports are for stupid people. Stop it.

      --
      You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
    10. Re:Easy solution by callmetheraven · · Score: 1

      If you have time for sports you're a loser.

      --
      You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
    11. Re:Easy solution by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      Just listen to it on the radio. :-) You can always go back and look at the video highlights later. Sure, it's not the same as watching it live, but they are screwing you over.

    12. Re:Easy solution by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      +1, it's just as exciting as watching it. :)

    13. Re: Easy solution by OurDailyFred · · Score: 1

      While the HDHR Prime won't work for you, the normal Silicon Dust HDHR box (hooks up to an antenna and gives you two streams per box) runs for around $60 at newegg.com and you can run a couple of them (or more) on your network plus they will do a smart recording on Windows Media Center. "Smart" recording means it will record simply based on show title, and it will avoid recording duplicate episodes. You can also specify a particular hard drive for the system, so you can throw in a 3 or 4 TB drive and you'll be able to watch what you want, when you want.

      You can even do "binge" viewing with favourite shows.

      I have two HDHR boxes at my house in Florida, and I pick up about 45 OTA signals, about a dozen or so carry programs I might want to see (the rest are either religious or spanish language). Best of all, I throw the HD into my bag when I head north, and I always have something I can watch when I browse the WMC recorded show listings here up north.

      --
      If your only tool is a hammer, you'll approach every problem as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
    14. Re:Easy solution by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      "Honey, you are perfect in every way. If you just liked NCAA football, I'd be proposing right now."

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  5. AT&T land line by dfsmith · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I want to know how come my telephone line has gone from $7/month in 1997 to $32/month today, with no change in service.

    1. Re: AT&T land line by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      Maybe because less people have landlines these days, so ever subscriber pays a greater share of the infrastructure costs.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    2. Re:AT&T land line by rolfwind · · Score: 1

      Gotta love all the surcharges. Especially the ones that the company says the government tells them they can charge (but doesn't have to).

      Only data-based landline I have is internet. Don't care how many worthless bundles they throw at me.

    3. Re:AT&T land line by UltraZelda64 · · Score: 1

      I want to know how come my telephone line has gone from $7/month in 1997 to $32/month today, with no change in service .

      I think that's your problem right now. If you're sitting there getting increasingly screwed by AT&T over the cost of their telephone service since around 1997, then why the hell are you still with them? What are you waiting for, the two-decade mark?

      Then again, the same could be said of cable TV subscribers. They've been getting reamed for decades, they know they're getting fucked, but they keep bending over more and more every time the company raises their already ridiculous rates. I never even hear many complaints anymore, people are just so damn used to the prices going up. But they never tell the cable companies to go fuck themselves and take their business elsewhere, to an entertainment provider that has more fair pricing and service. So the cycle continues... indefinitely.

    4. Re: AT&T land line by rsmith-mac · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's that and a general decline in long distance usage/profits. Before deregulation the bulk of the profits for telephone operation came from long distance, to the point that local infrastructure and usage was essentially subsidized by long distance. Post-deregulation competition quickly drove down profits, and more recently VoIP and other non-POTS communication methods have further erroded profits.

      The end result is that the bulk of the cost of POTS has been shifted on to local; you now pay for the cost of your infrastructure rather than the long distance "whales." Which arguably is how it always should have been, however POTS (and callers) benefited from the network effect so much that POTS likely wouldn't have been as successful if every subscriber was paying their own infrastructure costs from the start.

    5. Re:AT&T land line by Todd+Palin · · Score: 1

      You probably live in a big city with actual choices. In my small town, I have ONE CHOICE for cable TV, and ONE CHOICE for internet, unless you count satellite or wireless options. In order to tell them to get screwed, I have two choices: One choice is to do without. The other choice is to pay more for even crappier service. I don't use cable TV, but I do spend way too much for a 10 meg internet connection simply because I have no choices.

    6. Re:AT&T land line by mc6809e · · Score: 1

      You probably live in a big city with actual choices. In my small town, I have ONE CHOICE for cable TV, and ONE CHOICE for internet, unless you count satellite or wireless options.

      And why shouldn't we count satellite and wireless?

      I use Fios for internet, TheDish for TV, and I have a cell phone tether plan when I want to use my laptop on the road.

      I agree that satellite internet access is probably a mistake unless you have no choice, but a 4G access point or tethered cell phone is really impressive for something that's wireless.

      I routinely got 10Mbps and sub 100ms ping times while staying on a horse farm in the middle of no where.

      Explore your options and force providers to compete.

    7. Re:AT&T land line by dysmal · · Score: 1

      $32/month? Hells bells! I dropped AT&T for my landline 5 years ago and bundled it with my cable internet provider (TWC) because i was paying $48 with taxes and all of the usual rape'tastic fees per month for basic local landline service. I would have been HAPPY with $32/month.

    8. Re:AT&T land line by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      You can't use something like Netflix over 4G. At least, not more than a few shows. Even crappy Comcast service gets you 250-350GB.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    9. Re:AT&T land line by skipkent · · Score: 1

      I use T-Mobile 4G, and we use it as our ISP at home, we added a line and just use a phone as a wifi hotspot. I get roughly 25mbps of unlimited unthrottled usage. All https and streaming services work even after the "hotspot" quota is reached. Also for general http browsing once the tether max has been reached, use linux FF or have FF identify itself as the linux version, and tmo will think that youre browsing from your phone! Just about the only thing its bad for is gaming with the higher latency.

    10. Re: AT&T land line by Kaenneth · · Score: 1

      the 'Whales' wouldn't have anyone to call otherwise, however.

    11. Re:AT&T land line by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In states like Florida and California, it's because AT&T (as BellSouth & PacBell) convinced the state regulators to let them raise fees by ~$10/month to pay for fiber that ultimately ended up going almost exclusively to their wireless customers after AT&T bought them. BellSouth in Florida was actually chugging along and mostly on-target to be capable of delivering 100mbps to the most urban 80% of the state by 2010 (with enough capacity to let motivated customers pay a higher installation fee to get outright gigabit fiber), then AT&T took over and almost completely pulled the plug on new U-verse build-outs. For more than a year, AT&T literally didn't bring a single new neighborhood in Florida online for U-verse. It didn't really end until a reporter from some newspaper (Tampa's, I think) started to comb through the documents AT&T was officially filing with the Florida PSC, did "ground truth" research to see what AT&T *really* had there, and discovered that almost all of the neighborhoods AT&T claimed were newly added to U-verse were actually just a fiber drop to an AT&T cell tower and a vacant concrete pad for an undeployed VRAD.

    12. Re:AT&T land line by Miamicanes · · Score: 1

      > And why shouldn't we count satellite and wireless?

      Satellite is broadband for the damned & desperate.

    13. Re:AT&T land line by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      How much is long distance compared to 1997? Used to be long-distance users were subsidizing everyone else's phone bill.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    14. Re:AT&T land line by UltraZelda64 · · Score: 1

      "One choice is to do without."

      And *that* is exactly the choice I made. I refuse to pay a monthly bill for a garbage service that acts as a medium for ad delivery more than anything. And an overpriced service at that. Not to mention the shitty programming, I'd rather watch paint dry (and as a bonus, that would be a much cheaper form of entertainment).

    15. Re:AT&T land line by the_Bionic_lemming · · Score: 1

      The Fup prevents Satellite from actually working.

      Unless you only want text based email. - then it's worth the 50 bucks a month plus expensive equipment....

      (Fair use policy - they use that to slow you to 1200 baud speed when you hit the one meg download a month limit)..

      --
      _ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
    16. Re:AT&T land line by Technician · · Score: 1

      Check your cable provider's rate for telephone. Then look for VOIP solutions instead.

      Cable typically charges 29.95 or more + per month.

      There are at least 3 VOIP providers that charge under $10 per month, including fees, which includes all of the US and Canada + and 60 minutes to about 40 counries.

      I have an elderly relative living with us. We bought a phone adaptor. A Linksys PAP2T-NA was about $50 for the box so we don't rent a box. That box is discontinued. The SPA2102 replaced it. A Grandstream GPX1400 is about the same price.

      No Particular endorcement.. Viatalk, Phone Power, Call Central, etc. Compare prices and plans. Warning, not all cheap plans include 911 service. Google Talk/Voice work for free in the US, but needs a phone toforward to if you are not at the computer logged in.

      I use VOIP for long distance when home. I downgraded to a lower cost cell plan with fewer minutes which makes the VOIP a no cost solution.

      --
      The truth shall set you free!
    17. Re:AT&T land line by dougmc · · Score: 1

      with no change in service.

      $7 in 1997 seems too cheap.

      Did you get metered service back then? I remember that being an option where you only got X calls for the month and that reduced the price by like 75%.

      Of course, even then you had to not pay extra for caller ID or touch tone (really? touch tone was extra?!?!?!) to get it that cheap. I suspect that there is some change in service between these two figures.

    18. Re:AT&T land line by dougmc · · Score: 1

      There are at least 3 VOIP providers that charge under $10 per month, including fees, which includes all of the US and Canada + and 60 minutes to about 40 counries.

      I've currently got VoIP through Google Voice. I paid $20 one time to port my number over and no other fees. Service has been perfect, using an OBI box to handle it.

      Alas, google is discontinuing this any day now. But it was a great deal.

    19. Re:AT&T land line by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      That really makes me mad. Isn't there any ethical people there at all?

  6. In the future... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There will be 5,000 channels and absolutely nothing to watch.

    Outside of the baby boomers generation most individuals in my age bracket (28 here) gave up on cable/satellite television due to hyper-aggressive advertising policies, price gouging, and providing little to no value over services that frankly the internet does a better job of. It is simply undesirable to watch/use in favor of essentially anything else.

    1. Re:In the future... by kheldan · · Score: 1

      I gave up on cable a few years ago and went back to OTA and never looked back, don't miss it a bit. What I can't get from the local OTA stations I can get from the internet.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    2. Re:In the future... by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      Plus, you're still paying for college. Most of youngsters are saddled with debt, they don't have money. So they pick the services they most critically need and that is usually a cell phone and internet. Everything is possible with just those two.

  7. Content by Vantage · · Score: 1

    This price increase is cause by the cost of content going up several hundred percent.
    Tell the content creators to lower their prices and cable companies could too.

    As it is, Content creators charge what they want for their creation. As is their right.... Cable companies charge what it takes to make money over the top of that.

    Unlike consumer electronics, somethings get more expensive over time, not less.

  8. The rate is meaningless by freeze128 · · Score: 2

    The rate is meaningless because since 1995, cable companies had to upgrade their system from analog-only to digital, and then also be able to support HD, develop and implement cable-card, develop and implement voip, develop and implement on-demand services, mobile apps, etc.

    All of those things don't have an industry set price, so they pass the price onto you, the customer.

    1. Re:The rate is meaningless by mbkennel · · Score: 2


      Since 1995 auto manufacturers have had to upgrade all sorts of technology, and so have web service providers. And yet....

    2. Re:The rate is meaningless by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      2-3 times more expensive is very different from "4x the inflation rate".

  9. FCC Must Finally Enforce the A La Carte Provisions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    When we were all forced to move from Analog to Digital Television both over cable and over the air the promise that the FCC gave was that more local programming would be available over the air and that Cable Companies would be forced once and for all to provide subscribers the ability to pick and choose their own channel lineup.

    Well If you are like me when Digital happened the Analog over the air tv stations that I use to get were not broadcasting strong enough digital signal to get to my home which is 50 miles away from the nearest tower.. and no i do not live in Iowa or the Nevada Desert I live in Delaware which should get me Philly New Jersey and Maryland stations that I use to get....

    So my only choice is Dish or Comcast.
    Comcast boxes are DIGITAL and comcast can control which lineup is sent to each and every box whether it is a large or small set top because they all work like network devices.

    The Technology has been there for a few years now.. We were forced to no longer be able to get Analog over the Air and if we want ANY TV we must Pay.

    A La Carte rules were suppose to allow me to pick each and every station THAT I WANTED TO PAY FOR...

    I don't want to pay for 70 stations when I only watch 10 and out of that 10 i primarily only watch 3

    I want (NEED) the News.. I want Sports with Nascar, baseball, hockey and I want Discovery.. the rest i almost never watch but maybe I would get 5 more for a single show here and there that I like.

    If comcast wants to throw in Shopping channels or CSPAN or whatever else for free FINE
    and I should get all the Local Channels that Analog once gave me for free.

    WE WERE FORCED TO BUY BOXES AND NEW TVS WITH THIS PROMISE
    I DO NOT WANT TO PAY FOR GARBAGE THAT I DO NOT AGREE WITH OR LIKE

    AND THAT WAS THE AGREEMENT! FOR THE HUNDREDS OR THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS WE ALL SPENT TO UPGRADE

    I want 10 channels and I want to pay $15 a month.. that is more than enough...
    Let someone with 5 kids get every channel in the world I DO NOT WANT OR NEED THAT

    I want Internet WITHOUT CAPS.. If i pay for 3Mbit or 10MBit or 25Mbit then I WANT ALL OF THAT 24/7

    and i want out of this paying for 60 stations that I never watch.. BECAUSE THEY STILL GOT COMMERCIALS ON THEM.. AND I HAVE TO PAY ON TOP OF COMMERCIALS??????

  10. Cannot wait for al la carte by Karmashock · · Score: 1

    ... till then my cord remains cut.

    --
    I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  11. Re:They aren't done yet by sumdumass · · Score: 1

    Maybe.... The cable companies may end up having to sink a lot of money into their networks in order to deliver on the faster content delivery contracts.

  12. TV completely not needed by erroneus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Said it before, I'll say it again. The worst thing the cable company ever did was refuse to give me free TV with my internet. Been well over five years now and I am more productive and lively. Sure, there are some shows I like. I can watch them online when I want to see them. I don't need TV for anything. Let them raise rates until they fail. We don't need them.

    1. Re:TV completely not needed by Vantage · · Score: 1

      One day they will just stop offering video and they will become profitable again.

    2. Re:TV completely not needed by schnell · · Score: 1

      The worst thing the cable company ever did was refuse to give me free TV with my internet.

      WHY the hell would they do that? They pay lots of money for those TV channels. You would not be paying them any money for them. Why, from their perspective, is that bad?

      Maybe did you mean that was the best thing they ever did, since your life is more "productive and lively" with no TV for the last five years?

      --
      "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
    3. Re:TV completely not needed by antdude · · Score: 1

      What about sports like NBA? :P I agree. OTA+Internet FTW.

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    4. Re:TV completely not needed by hambone142 · · Score: 1

      I wholeheartedly agree. I haven't watched commercial TV in about 30 years or more. When I go to womble nzb matrix and look at what's playing, the titles are so inane that I have no regrets. Pure garbage.

    5. Re:TV completely not needed by evilviper · · Score: 1

      I don't need TV for anything.

      "Need" is a strong word. But in general, people who think TV is useless, are themselves guilty of using it poorly.

      Do you know how many hours of science, documentaries, and news is available on broadcast TV channels in a give week? It's more hours than most people can watch... And do you know how much longer it would take to acquire the same information through textual or audio-only description? Certainly quite a bit more, even if it was available, which it isn't.

      Sure, there are some shows I like. I can watch them online when I want to see them. I don't need TV for anything

      That's a bit like saying you don't need a car, you only need a device that does all the things a car does, but isn't a car... Quite the rebel you are.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    6. Re:TV completely not needed by houghi · · Score: 1

      To me the last drop was when they started removing chanels from analog towards digital. A chanel here and there did not bother me. When they took away the BBC from me I started to realize that there were very few chanels left.

      I then thought "Why did I not know so many chanels have already been moved?" and started to analyze what I realy watched and what was background noise.

      I watched tv for about 2 hours per week on weeks when all my favorite shows were on AND I would not go out with any friends. So i reality it would be closer to 1 hour of actual watching. (My TV was on for much longer, but as background noise). That did not warrent the 23.70 EUR per month.

      As an added bonus instead of being a marketing droid for Hollywoord by saying what show you watched, we talk about more interesting things.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    7. Re:TV completely not needed by Megane · · Score: 1

      I believe he was talking about how cable companies (at least Time Warner) require you a subscription to basic-basic cable to be able to get internet service. Basically, it's technically a pain in the ass to prevent you from being able to receive the low channels that are clear NTSC. Single channels could be blocked with a filter, but not whole ranges.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    8. Re:TV completely not needed by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      or watch ted videos, there is also salman khan documentaries, and finally netflix has a shitload of documentaries.

    9. Re:TV completely not needed by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      Our local PBS channel provides us with BBC shows. You might also get streaming stuff from BBC America website.

    10. Re:TV completely not needed by luther349 · · Score: 1

      yep back when you got cable internet basic cable came with it then they started blocking that and charging for that as a extra service.

    11. Re:TV completely not needed by evilviper · · Score: 1

      most anyone with a reading level over 8th grade can absorb information faster by reading it than by listening to someone read to them from a script.

      And that's relevant to RADIO versus newspapers, but has NO bearing on TV. TV has pictures and video... Things which are shown to you with no verbal description. And this is done while other audible information is being relayed to you. It is very easy for TV to provide information vastly faster than you could have read about it.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    12. Re:TV completely not needed by evilviper · · Score: 1

      Every time i turn on discovery or history channel, its assholes building motorcycles

      I never suggested cable. Quite the opposite, actually. All the shows I was referring to, air on PBS stations. Nova, Frontline, American Experience, Secrets of the Dead,

      All the History Channel's good stuff was moved to H2, except for 7-9am EST, their former cable-in-the-classroom time-slot, no longer commercial-free, and mostly just showing Modern Marvels.

      The Discovery Channel's content was scattered around across several channels, but mainly went to The Science Channel.

      Neither is worth the cost of a cable/satellite subscription to view, when you can put up an OTA TV antenna for $20 to $200 and get dozens of broadcast networks with perfect picture quality.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  13. Re:inevitable by mc6809e · · Score: 2

    Capitalism and the markets demand exponential growth in a finite world,

    No they don't. They're just somewhat efficient collective resource allocation systems.

    Exponential growth appears to be a requirement because populations grow exponentially.

    If an economy can't keep up with the exponential growth of population, then there is less produced per person.

  14. Which inflation rate? by 7-Vodka · · Score: 1, Troll

    Anytime you talk about inflation, you have to be cognoscente of the fact that every government on the planet lies about it.
    Their deficit spending, fiat currency, crony capitalism for the elite depends on it.

    Look at Venezuela for example

    Or the US of A.

    I'd be willing to bet that if you price cable services in terms of real assets like oil, gold, silver, food, energy or even a subway ticket in NYC it would be a different picture, averaged out over the long term.

    If you're taking the government's figures on inflation I've got prime ocean front real estate to sell you in beautiful New Mexico.

    How do you tell if the government is lying?

    Their lips are moving (or they've typed something out).

    --

    Liberty.

    1. Re:Which inflation rate? by buddyglass · · Score: 3, Informative

      Given the price fluctuations in commodities like precious metals and oil, you would see the cost of cable (indexed to one of these commodities) show similar wild fluctuations. Its cost would seem to increase rapidly in some years and decrease rapidly in others.

      As an exercise, I looked up BLS price data on various basic food items and calculated the annual inflation rate from December 1995 to December 2013. This is the period in which the linked article claims the official rate was 2.4%. Here's what I got:

      Bread, 2.837
      Beef, 3.744
      Chicken, 2.712
      Eggs, 3.147
      Milk, 1.848
      Apples, 2.682
      Bananas, 1.485
      Tomatoes , 0.760
      Orange Juice, 2.448
      Coffee, 1.549

      So if the official rate is a gross underestimate, what gives w/ these annual rates? Or do you just assert that the historical price data is fudged?

    2. Re:Which inflation rate? by buddyglass · · Score: 2

      Yeah, but we're not talking about the future. We're talking about the period 1995-2013, in which you seem to be claiming the official inflation statistics are bunk. Don't change the topic. Either the official 2.4% stat is legit or it's not. If you're going to claim its not legit then you need to explain the relatively modest inflation rates for a relatively diverse assortment of basic food items.

    3. Re:Which inflation rate? by 7-Vodka · · Score: 1

      Really?

      I find it hard to believe considering oil and precious metals have risen so much:

      Gold for example has moved from $400/oz in 2004 to $1300/oz in 2014

      I'd question your government sourced numbers given that they have the same bias to provide you with lower inflation in these data as in the original data in question.

      --

      Liberty.

    4. Re:Which inflation rate? by 7-Vodka · · Score: 1

      Are your numbers in percentages, or are they in ratios if starting price vs ending price?

      --

      Liberty.

    5. Re:Which inflation rate? by buddyglass · · Score: 1

      Annualized inflation rate expressed in percentage form. So the cost of bread in Dec-2013 was 1.02837^18 what it was in Dec-1995.

    6. Re:Which inflation rate? by buddyglass · · Score: 1

      That you're surprised by the fact that basic food items haven't seen their prices skyrocket like gold speaks volumes. Hint: gold isn't valued at $1300 because a dollar is worth (400/1300) what it was in 2004. Recall also that gold was around $1900 in October 2011. Does that mean the dollar has experienced deflation since October 2011? (No).

    7. Re:Which inflation rate? by 7-Vodka · · Score: 1

      Ok you don't like gold, let's try something simlar to your items.

      • 1995 big mac price: $2.32
      • 2014 big mac price: $4.62
      • Price inflation in this period: 200%

      In other words the dollar has lost 50% of it's purchasing power.

      --

      Liberty.

    8. Re:Which inflation rate? by 7-Vodka · · Score: 1

      Also don't forget to look at the monetary base: http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/04.11/images/stl-monetary-base.jpg

      --

      Liberty.

    9. Re:Which inflation rate? by 7-Vodka · · Score: 1

      And that's being generous as hell, because I remember a 1995 big mac and it puts today's cheap piece of crap to shame.

      --

      Liberty.

    10. Re:Which inflation rate? by buddyglass · · Score: 1

      In other words the dollar has lost 50% of it's purchasing power.

      Maybe if all you bought were Big Macs and you owned no assets whose value was also inflated. It's also worth noting the Big Mac Index suggests the official figures actually overestimated inflation from about 1987-2001. That is to say, the cost of a Big Mac rose more slowly from 1987-2001 than the official inflation figure would have predicted. From 2001-2014 its price has risen more rapidly than the official figure. But how much more rapidly? Well, the official figure would project the dollar to have lost 36% of its purchasing power over that period.

  15. Weaning myself off cable by spirit_fingers · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've been weaning myself off cable in stages. Six months ago I realized that I wasn't watching Starz enough to justify the $40/month charge, so I dropped it.

    Now I'm coming to the realization that I watch Hulu+ and Amazon Prime as much if not more than cable, so now I'm on the verge of cutting my cord to Comcast and just steaming through my pokey old AT&T DSL line. It's not quite fast enough for a 1080p stream, but it looks acceptable to me at standard def on my 55" plasma. So there you go. Comcast has just priced themselves out of my life.

    1. Re:Weaning myself off cable by luther349 · · Score: 1

      my dad still watches tv i quit years ago. i get the same shows without all the ads and can watch them whenever. but he does watch Netflix as well on his blueray player i bought and recently has gotten the hang of a android tablet but a full on desktop machine does still overwhelm him for looking for shows.

  16. Re:Wow, that matches by bmo · · Score: 1, Troll

    You're totally offtopic, but this needs a reply.

    Obama and the Democrats CAN'T be THAT incompetent, can they? One would think Obamacare was DESIGNED to destroy healthcare in the US.

    It was designed that way because it's a HERITAGE FOUNDATION design, which is why Romney picked it for MA.

    For all of the "socialist policies" of Obama, he sure seems to be supporting the right-wing policies of his predecessor and think tanks.

    --
    BMO

  17. We should be able to buy the box with no outlet fe by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    We should be able to buy the box with no outlet fees like how it is in canada.

    Yes in the usa you can get a cable card but on some systems like comcast you only save $2-$3 mo over a box due to there high outlet fees.

  18. Who pays for cable? It's all crap. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    TV, and Cable TV, is crap.

  19. And... by MrKaos · · Score: 1

    it's mostly crap, with ads.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  20. A great (and true) saying: by Irate+Engineer · · Score: 4, Funny

    "90% of Everything is Crap".

    This applies to everything, including cable TV.

    The remaining 10%? Well, 90% of that is crap too.

    --

    Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!

    Vote for Bernie in 2016!

    1. Re:A great (and true) saying: by vandelais · · Score: 2

      But what if it's Scottish?...

      --
      Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
    2. Re:A great (and true) saying: by samwichse · · Score: 1

      "90% of Everything is Crap".

      This applies to everything, including cable TV.

      The remaining 10%? Well, 90% of that is crap too.

      It's crap all the way down!

  21. Hedonic adjustments by nmos · · Score: 1

    They obviously forgot to do the hedonic adjustment to account for the larger screens people are watching on.

    1. Re:Hedonic adjustments by nmos · · Score: 1

      Agreed, I was being sarcastic.

  22. Keeping up with sports without cable is easy by TrollstonButterbeans · · Score: 1

    If you want to watch it live, you go friend's house or restaurant/bar to watch it.

    Otherwise you watch ESPN after-game highlights which shows all the pivotal moments of the game in 5 easy minutes.

    --
    Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
    1. Re:Keeping up with sports without cable is easy by tepples · · Score: 1

      If you want to watch it live, you go friend's house or restaurant/bar to watch it.

      Unless friend is also a cord cutter and you can't go in a bar because you're under 21 or your kid wants to watch with you.

      Otherwise you watch ESPN after-game highlights

      ESPN is cable.

    2. Re:Keeping up with sports without cable is easy by DaHat · · Score: 1

      Unless friend is also a cord cutter and you can't go in a bar because you're under 21 or your kid wants to watch with you.

      Which is why I take my 2 year old to the family section of a local bar to watch college football on certain Saturdays in the fall because I'm not willing to pay for BTN to catch the games which aren't on ABC or ESPN.

    3. Re:Keeping up with sports without cable is easy by TrollstonButterbeans · · Score: 1

      Otherwise you watch ESPN after-game highlights

      ESPN is cable.

      I don't about you, but ESPN.com has so damn many up-to-the-minute highlight videos that I installed Flashblock long ago so I could selectively only play videos that I wanted to see instead of getting them involuntarily shoved down my throat with the volume blasted.

      --
      Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
  23. Dubyacable was coupon-eligible converters by tepples · · Score: 1

    Don't you mean Dubyacable? The transition to ATSC expanded channel selection for most households without cable TV.

  24. Not surprised by finalcutmonstar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Cable tv is loaded with useless channels that the consumer is forced to pay for. Channels that most consumers never watch and/or never heard of come with the package and contribute to the cost of monthly access. Cable providers will never allow the consumer to pick what channels they want so the only solution is to cut the cord and subscribe to services like Netflix and Hulu. The other(not so legal option) is to torrent your favorite shows.

    1. Re:Not surprised by EvilSS · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Cable tv is loaded with useless channels that the consumer is forced to pay for. Channels that most consumers never watch and/or never heard of come with the package and contribute to the cost of monthly access. Cable providers will never allow the consumer to pick what channels they want so the only solution is to cut the cord and subscribe to services like Netflix and Hulu. The other(not so legal option) is to torrent your favorite shows.

      The majority of the blame for bundling goes to the networks actually. They force bundles onto the cable companies, the cable companies then turn around and pass those bundles on to their subscribers. It also doesn't help that they all compete on how many channels you get as a selling point for the consumer (so blame the viewers a bit for being stupid as well). I wouldn't be surprised if a good chunk of those rising prices are due to the networks as well. They are addicted to the fees they are getting from pay TV services. Just look at the carriage contract fights that have been popping up more and more lately.

      The whole damned industry from producers to the cable companies is a rapidly getting out of control and it's just going to get worse. Allowing mergers between cable companies and content providers was a huge mistake and it's going to end up biting everyone in the ass eventually.

      --
      I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
    2. Re:Not surprised by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      It also seems that if I had to pay per channel that I'd be very very picky, even if cheaper than cable. On netflix that $8 a month is great for all those tv shows and movies, but I'd never pay $8 for just one or two shows. It might be better to offer a plan that lets you get say 8 shows for one price but you get to pick 4 from category A and 4 from category B; then pay a bit more and it's 16 shows, etc. Much more flexible than the traditional choice of basic cable versus extra/plus package versus adding premium channels.

    3. Re:Not surprised by luther349 · · Score: 1

      trust me if my dad was not only a computer novice and the rest of the family totally unable to even turn one on the cord would have been cut years ago for a media center pc.

    4. Re:Not surprised by EvilSS · · Score: 1

      The problem with that logic is the fact that the 2 biggest Cable companies are Time Warner and Comcast (soon to merge to our further detriment). These companies are also the owners of the networks that are forcing them to buy them as bundles.

      So companies like Comcast and Time Warner are forcing companies like Comcast and Time Warner to provide their channels as a package deal. Doesn't sound exactly the same when you take that into account, now does it? And that is the major conflicts of interests you get when you have the content producer and distributor are the exact same people.

      This whole problem predates the Comcast/NBC debacle and goes back a few decades. Even so, both of those companies also force their competitors into bundles, which serves them even more since being able to offer ala-cart channels would be a competitive advantage to whoever could pull it off. If they can't do it (remember, they don't produce all the content they resell in their cable divisions) they won't allow anyone else to either. Cable companies would LOVE ala-cart pricing if they could do it. I guarantee you it would result in a bigger margin for them if they could offer it.

      Don't get too sad for them though. Those same contracts that tie them into offering The Knitting Channel HD along with FX and Fox News cut both ways. They are the reason that you can't buy a stream directly from the producers. The cable companies have gotten big enough that they can dictate terms back to the networks like you can't sell streams directly to our customers. Also the reason cable companies are fighting tooth and nail to kill net neutrality.

      --
      I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
  25. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  26. Re:Wow, that matches by timeOday · · Score: 5, Informative

    That is matching the rate of growth of government employees and their salaries. Who would of thought...

    You are stunningly misinformed. In fact the percent of Americans who are public employees is the smallest it has been since 1968.

    It makes you wonder where people get these ideas and why they feel so free to spout off without knowing anything. We have google, where is the disconnect coming from?

  27. Broadcast is dead by norite · · Score: 1

    $7.99 per month for netflix, $6 per month for a proxy server so we can watch BBC iplayer and stream live BBC TV...we never even bothered with cable; we haven't even got a digital aerial.

    You don't miss what you don't have in the first place :-)

    Especially the ads :-D

    --
    -- Fuck Beta
    1. Re: Broadcast is dead by zevans · · Score: 1

      CORRECTION: $6 for a proxy and ME paying GBP145.50 a year so YOU can consume BBC content.

      --
      "... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
    2. Re: Broadcast is dead by norite · · Score: 1

      Yep, and thank you very much! :D

      (Although we had to pay that too, once upon a time)

      --
      -- Fuck Beta
  28. Sports is part of the problem... by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 1

    For those of us who don't watch sports, sports programming is a large part of the cost of cable, and I can't get just the channels want a la carte... everything is in tiers that cram sports into the mix.

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
  29. Local Governments equally culpable by schwit1 · · Score: 1

    http://www.wired.com/2013/07/w...

    Deploying broadband infrastructure isn't as simple as merely laying wires underground: that's the easy part. The hard part - and the reason it often doesn't happen - is the pre-deployment barriers, which local governments and public utilities make unnecessarily expensive and difficult.

    Before building out new networks, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must negotiate with local governments for access to publicly owned "rights of way" so they can place their wires above and below both public and private property. ISPs also need "pole attachment" contracts with public utilities so they can rent space on utility poles for above-ground wires, or in ducts and conduits for wires laid underground.

    The problem? Local governments and their public utilities charge ISPs far more than these things actually cost. For example, rights of way and pole attachments fees can double the cost of network construction.

  30. Re:FCC Must Finally Enforce the A La Carte Provisi by KillDaBOB · · Score: 1

    You either have a crappy antenna for OTA channels, or you live in a crappy, hilly part of the country. I live in an area where I can pick up over a dozen OTA channels (3 channels of PBS, 2 or 3 NBCs with local news/events, 2 ABC with local news/events, etc. I just have to point the antenna in different directions) The farthest station is 70+ miles away; I would bet you need to replace your antenna to get your "lost" OTA stations back.

  31. Re:Wow, that matches by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Informative

    That is matching the rate of growth of government employees and their salaries. Who would of thought...

    You are stunningly misinformed. In fact the percent of Americans who are public employees is the smallest it has been since 1968.

    It makes you wonder where people get these ideas and why they feel so free to spout off without knowing anything. We have google, where is the disconnect coming from?

    Fox news, Sean Hanity, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, a million Facebook posts about evil socialists taking jobs and voting Tea Party is the way out etc. Fox news is number one rated and tens of millions listen to right wing radio. They really believe that 50% of Americans all are welfare queens who make $45,000 and get free iPhones which they call Obama phones. Members of government believe the hype too which is why they are so anti Obama.

  32. lol by Charliemopps · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The inflation rate as reported by the federal government is complete shit. It's likely closer to 10%
    The equipment they're talking about is vastly different than the equipment in the previous year. How many people switched from SD to HD in that time? That was one of the peak years for HD adoption.
    Internet speeds across the industry jumped drastically in 2012 due to DOCSIS 3 rollouts. I, personally, went from 15mb/s to 50mb/s over night with no cost increase to me at all.
    In 2012 most cable companies introduced the new pay as you go plans which allowed you to pay a slightly higher rate in exchange for no contract.

    1. Re:lol by tompaulco · · Score: 2

      No, the inflation rate is a lie no matter who is in the white house. Look at the crap they pull. A case of soda is only 3% more this year than it was last year. Well, that's great, but a case of soda now has 20 cans instead of 24. Same thing with a package of cookies. There are fewer cookies for the same price. A loaf of bread has fewer slices. A 50 pound bucket of chlorine tabs for the pool still costs the same, but now it is only 40 pounds. I'm sure that is not on the CPI, but that is just another example. Meanwhile, things that they aren't able to hide from you, like gas prices, electricity prices, natural gas prices, water utility prices, insurance prices, are going up at 10% to 20% a year. Salaries, meanwhile are staying exactly the same. I have lowered and lowered and lowered my lifestyle over the last 10 years, despite working more and more hours, and taking on an increasing number of outside projects . Pretty soon, I will have to sell my house and downsize in order to keep making ends meet. This is because inflation is skyrocketing, but salaries are stagnant. It is unsustainable. The CPI is a lie.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    2. Re:lol by luther349 · · Score: 1

      enjoy that 50mbs speed with a 300gb cap because that's what there going for next soly to try and stop cord cutting. thank god i have dsl yes its 12mbs but i never have to worry bought stupid ass caps they don't offer tv.

  33. Re:Wow, that matches by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    the percent of Americans who are public employees is the smallest it has been since 1968

    In 1968, America was fighting a major war in Vietnam, and had a space program heading for the moon.

  34. Re:FCC Must Finally Enforce the A La Carte Provisi by Hamsterdan · · Score: 1

    OTA user here. With analog, I could get CBS, NBC and sometimes ABC (RF3,5 and 22). With the switch to digital, I lost all three. In Montreal we have CTV broadcasting on RF12, and ABC is on 13 (so they reduced the power going to Montreal to protect CTV, and CTV might be drowning ABC on the adjacent channel). CBS and NBC used to be VHF-Lo, so the signal pretty much got around obstacles. Now they're on RF22 and 14 (UHF) which is pretty much line-of-sight and doesn't propagate around obstacles. So what I could get in analog with rabbit ears I can't even get with an outdoor antenna which is around 25 feet off the ground. Besides, some channels were snowy but still watchable. With digital, it's all or nothing.

    I'll try replacing my 4-bay bowtie with an old Yagi from '78 (CM 4248) when I get some spare time, but I don't expect much since there's a big building (and the edge of Mt Royal) between my home and the transmitters on Mt Mansfield.

    --
    I've got better things to do tonight than die.
  35. Re:FCC Must Finally Enforce the A La Carte Provisi by Hamsterdan · · Score: 1

    That might explain why the OP doesn't get much channels.

    --
    I've got better things to do tonight than die.
  36. Re:we haven't even got a digital aerial by Technician · · Score: 2

    An antenna is tuened for a frequency band. Nothing special about a "Digital" antenna. A good antenna that could reduce or eliminate ghosting from multipath will work just fantastic for "Digital" TV. I never upgraded to a digital antenna.

    --
    The truth shall set you free!
  37. Re:Wow, that matches by tragedy · · Score: 2

    That article pretty much does say that the plans are very similar at their core, just that the heritage foundation plan had a bunch of other details to it that would have been much worse that the ACA. Basically, the ACA is bad, but it could have been worse. It could have been better, as well.

  38. Re:We should be able to buy the box with no outlet by Hamsterdan · · Score: 1

    Depends where in Canada. Videotron charges outlet fees for extra terminals.

    --
    I've got better things to do tonight than die.
  39. Full of shit by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

    Who was charging you $10 a month in 1994 for cable tv? Nobody that's who.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    1. Re:Full of shit by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      Ten years ago, I was paying about $10 dollars for basic basic cable. You can still get it, but you have to ask for it. Otherwise they sell you extended cable. Basic cable is just the local channels and that's pretty much it. Of course, I can get that for free using OTA antennae. I have 30 channnels using digital OTA. Some of them are redundant, but I find myself watching unique shows. The only thing I miss is the cable access channel. Otherwise, I am good. My wife watches re-runs on netflix, and has switched to watching youtube for particular shows. Hell my wife repairs appliances watching youtube shows. :D

  40. Re:Wow, that matches by BonThomme · · Score: 1

    actually, it was a police action.

    good thing we don't have any of those now...

  41. Re:FCC Must Finally Enforce the A La Carte Provisi by DaHat · · Score: 1

    I want Internet WITHOUT CAPS.. If i pay for 3Mbit or 10MBit or 25Mbit then I WANT ALL OF THAT 24/7

    So you want your ISP to build out support for all of it's users to pay for the max throughput of each modem on it's network on it's back end?

    Somehow I don't think you'll be able to afford that cost... nor will the grandma down the street who pays $40 for high speed internet so she can Facebook with her kids and church friends, as well as Skype with her grandkids once a week... and who ultimately subsidizes your existing internet connection.

  42. Re:Wow, that matches by Darinbob · · Score: 1

    The road to hell has not been maintained and is no longer safe to drive on.

  43. meh... by jason331 · · Score: 1

    I work for one of the major cable companies so mine's free anyhow :)

  44. Re:Wow, that matches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You are stunningly misinformed. In fact the percent of Americans who are public employees is the smallest it has been since 1968 [theatlantic.com] .

    It makes you wonder where people get these ideas and why they feel so free to spout off without knowing anything. We have google, where is the disconnect coming from?

    This will be trolling, but you seem NOT to be foolish enough to trust what you read on the internet. However the starter comment seems as if he believes whatever he comes across, if not he believes what FauxNEWS is saying, this that comment seems like some of their 'honest and fair' reporting, and to be fair you can say that about all of the mainstream press.

  45. Maybe inflation is higher by abies · · Score: 1, Troll

    It is funny that when people observe that almost everything raise faster that inflation, they blame all these providers/producers separately, instead of question reported inflation in first place.
    http://www.shadowstats.com/alt...
    If you look at shadowstats, last year inflation was around 5-%... as observed on cable service prices.

    So real question should be not why cable service prices are rising so sharply, but rather, why CPI cheats? Answers are probably going to be more interesting that "rising cost of equipment"

    1. Re:Maybe inflation is higher by Richy_T · · Score: 1

      No, the answer is obvious and rather dull. The government doesn't want people realizing how much of their wealth it's stealing. People just start wondering why they can't make the rent or have to buy lower quality food or have to keep driving their clunker around.

    2. Re:Maybe inflation is higher by tjb · · Score: 1

      Shadow stats, in their 1980-based data set, claims that inflation has been at least 6% every year since 2000, which would imply a minimum price factor of 2.26. In other words, someone earning $60K in 2000 would need to earn $135K (at least!) in 2014 to maintain the same lifestyle.

      If that doesn't strike you as utter crankery, you just can't be helped.

    3. Re:Maybe inflation is higher by abies · · Score: 2

      Hmm, let's look at gas prices (which are one of the basic indicators of US lifestyle and affect cost of most things)
      http://www.randomuseless.info/...
      Year 2000 - 1.4-1.6
      Year 2014 - 3.80
      Factor of 2.4-2.7

      Beef prices
      http://www.criticalissues.us/B...
      Year 2000 - 285
      Year 2014 - 480
      Factor of 1.68

      There were just two first things I have checked out of 'americal lifestyle' pseudo-basket. Then we have cable tv prices, as described in original post with factor of around 1.6.
      CPI suggests difference of 1.34 between year 2000 and 2014. Shadow stats suggest around 2.26 as you say. Probably one of only importnat things which are following CPI data over this time period are apartment rental prices and this is just because of 2008 crash.

      I will agree with you that shadowstats is reporting too high inflation index - they are not trying to provide real numbers, rather to show the difference in creative accounting after 1980. But do you really think that CPI is valid measurement of what is happening? Why almost every report is complaining that XYZ is raising faster than CPI?

  46. Re:Wow, that matches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That chart actually proves that we have too many government employees. The reason is that the number of people needed to do office type work has gone down dramatically with the invention of computers, copiers, printers, automated mailing centers, databases instead of huge rows of file cabinets, less phone operators thanks to the internet, etc. If you are running a company that does the same amount of business as it did in 1970 and you still use the same amount of office people, we're ether a small business or going to be out competed by somebody who uses modern technology.

    Also, the charts don't show private contractors we are providing services that the government used, too which would be needed to get an idea of how effiecently the government is really using man power.

  47. It's all bullshit by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    How does this compare to the increase in medical costs over the same time period? It's all BULLSHIT

  48. What drives ALL TEH TV NAOW? by zevans · · Score: 1

    The current market seems to be driven by a need to see major series as soon as they are released, if not sooner. Why is that? I hadn't heard many of my favourite albums until they were already 20 years old - what makes TV different?

    --
    "... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
    1. Re:What drives ALL TEH TV NAOW? by Megane · · Score: 1

      what makes TV different?

      Sports? How many people care to watch more than just highlights of The Big Game[tm] after it is already over?

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  49. Re:Wow, that matches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It is because the CBS's and NBC's and CNN's and New York Times's have fallen down on their job of providing all sides and views that many people have resorted to Fox et al. Were the aforementioned organizations more centered and balanced, the rise of Fox would not have occurred.

    Similar dynamics are involved in the rise of the Tea Party. The Tea Party is much like the Occupy movement. Both groups are comprised of people who are politically "homeless" and it is an indictment of the political system that such movements occurred.

  50. Just like college tuition by gelfling · · Score: 1

    BTW for most people in their 20's the most expensive services they have are cell phone and cable.

  51. Re:FCC Must Finally Enforce the A La Carte Provisi by Megane · · Score: 1

    I've heard that Canada's DTV transition hasn't gone very well. But for what it's worth, VHF-lo is horrible for ATSC. Also, try rotating your outdoor antenna to see if you can improve the reception. Antennas can be somewhat directional, and it matters a lot for ATSC, especially with local channels that may have multipath interference. But mountains are definitely not going to make things easy for you.

    --
    #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  52. Do what I did: by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 2

    Stop watching TV. It's amazing how much more productive and well informed I am once I cut the cable....

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
    1. Re:Do what I did: by luther349 · · Score: 1

      crazy isn't it.

  53. for what it's worth... by buddyglass · · Score: 1

    Cable hasn't remained constant over that 18 year period. Nor is it the only item to have seen its cost outstrip inflation. The cost of beef, for instance, which has remained constant, increased in cost at about 1.5x the annual inflation rate over that same period. Unfortunately I could only find price data for basic food items and not other stuff.

  54. Re:FCC Must Finally Enforce the A La Carte Provisi by callmetheraven · · Score: 1

    I want (NEED) the News..

    then why would you want cable, nothing there but propaganda. Stop watching the propaganda and your brain will power up enough that you will stop watching Nascar. too

    I want Internet WITHOUT CAPS..

    then turn off your caps lock for fucks sake

    --
    You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
  55. Re:Um, the Atlantic? Really? by Calavar · · Score: 5, Informative
    I'm giving up mod points to reply this because this is the stupidest BS I've read all day.

    1. We were working to send a man to the moon (300,000+ people involved) which was NOT just some guys in "bunny suits" prepping astronauts and rockets in clean rooms at the cape... there were facilities being designed and built and staffed in many states. (it takes far fewer to maintain and use the stuff in later years)

    I don't think you understand what "government employee" means. The vast majority of those 300,000 people worked at private companies that were completing government contracts related to the space program.

    2. We were doing major construction on the creation of the interstate highway system (passed by Eisenhower in 1956, activity was very high in the 60's) It takes lots more people to plan and build such a system than to maintain it later.

    Again, it's not as if the government went out and bought a bunch of backhoes and bulldozers to do the construction itself. Those highways were built by people working at private construction firms, not government employees.

    3. We were fighting in Vietnam and at a very high Cold War strategic military posture with lots of HUGE highly-staffed bases all over the world; The US military used to do all its own work for things like base security, base food prep, grounds keeping, supply chain operation, troop transport, etc .... but now days many of these things are "outsourced" to civilian firms, and even the military itself is FAR smaller (the US navy, for example has fewer than HALF the ships it had under Reagan in the 80's and while THAT was higher than under Carter it was still historically lower than at many points).

    You just proved the point of the Atlantic. You said that since the 1960s the military has vastly cut down the number of people it employs by outsourcing to private contractors and eliminating inefficiencies. Isn't this exactly what it means to have a small government?

    4. Technology was SUPPOSED to reduce the workforce. Where Social Security checks required armies of federal workers to do the processing in the 1940's, it's now largely a computer task now with the payments often handled by automated "electronic funds transfers" (so the workers on-staff handle the human-interface functions and SHOULD be fewer than the number who used to work at SS). Given that much of what government does involves paper, records, and money, a big bloated government SHOULD require a fraction of the workers of decades ago, since all the work of computing numbers, moving and storing money, data, etc should be done my machines now.

    This has happened. Today, Social Security Administration expenses as a percentage of the trust fund are less than one third what they are today. (source) But that doesn't fit into your pretty little narrative, does it?

    Also, I'm sorry, but anyone who uses the Park Service as an example of big government is a fucking idiot. The Park Service gets .06% of the US federal budget. But wait, it adds up, doesn't it? What if we closed 500 agencies like the Park Service? We would cut government spending by 30%. Oh wait, no we wouldn't. Because the total of all non-defense, non-debt, non-healthcare, non-benefits spending adds up to 9% of the federal government. That's right, even if we shut down every "dispensable" agency -- from the FCC to the FAA, the DoE to the DoJ, the National Park Service to the Internal Revenue Service, the USDA, the USPS, the NIH, the NSF, the FDA, the FHA, NASA, the State Department, SCOTUS, POTUS -- we would only save 9% of the budget.

    This is what all republicans conveniently ignore when they talk about big government. Big government isn't caused by all the agencies they love to complain about.

    At least Obama was trying to chip away at the real problem with health care reform. No, it isn't

  56. Re:Um, the Atlantic? Really? by Calavar · · Score: 1

    This has happened. Today, Social Security Administration expenses as a percentage of the trust fund are less than one third what they are today. (source [ssa.gov]) But that doesn't fit into your pretty little narrative, does it?

    One third what they were in 1968, sorry.

  57. Re:gov employees by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

    We don't have time for that. Daryl Issa wants to talk about Benghazi and is ready to spend millions on his little witch hunt. Daryl Issa (I keep wanting to say Daryl Hannah) wastes more of my money than anybody else. At least they aren't going on junkets like they did back in the early 2000s.

  58. Re:FCC Must Finally Enforce the A La Carte Provisi by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

    Try getting the leaf antenna, it works pretty good. Costco has a competitor as well. I got about 30 channels. Admittedly I live on top of a hill with a clear view of everything. http://www.gomohu.com/

  59. Re:Wow, that matches by luther349 · · Score: 1

    they cut your salary etc wile they buy a fleet of new privet jets don't you love are economics.

  60. Re:Wow, that matches by luther349 · · Score: 1

    yep try only able to get so called temp work when its really permanent just so they don't have to offer you anything and able to fire you anytime for no reason that's the new game in the job market at least whats left of it.

  61. Four times the rate of inflation, or by reboot246 · · Score: 1

    is the rate of inflation wrong? We don't calculate the CPI the way we did just a few years ago. That's why it seems that everything you buy nowadays is going up with each visit to the store, but the government still claims a fairly low rate of inflation.

    Go to http://www.shadowstats.com and read about it. I trust Walter William's calculations a LOT more than I trust government's.

    I'm happy with my Charter cable and internet service. I get every channel Charter offers including all the premium channels. Internet is 30/5, and most times I get over 45 downstream. Cost is only $126/month. That's over $40 LESS than I was paying for fewer channels in 2001 and much slower internet. Plus, back in 2001 there was no HD or DVR service. Yeah, I'm happy. Quit yer bitching.

  62. Fast Lane by vbguyny · · Score: 1

    They need to raise rates to start saving money for the FCC's Fast Lane they are building... right?

  63. Re:Wow, that matches by sarysa · · Score: 1

    Not only that, but with 6 years of the left in power, the right is officially the underdog...for now. Just like the left was the underdog during the Bush years. There's nothing better to get your base riled up than to be the underdog, and to see policies implemented counter to your personal political beliefs. If the right gets back into power in 2016, it won't take the left long to acquire aforementioned status and gain a bit of a boost in the ratings.

    Though admittedly it's a bit more complicated than that. A lot of folks on the right felt that Bush didn't adequately represent them. Such sentiment was one of the seeds of the Tea Party, and it gave Fox News something to latch onto before Obama was even elected. I tend to lean right these days (mainly due to my displeasure with the handling of fiscal matters) so I can only speak from that viewpoint...it might take awhile longer for the pendulum to swing the other way again as I know nothing of their internal bickering.

    --
    Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
  64. Re:Wow, that matches by tchdab1 · · Score: 1

    Since nearly every hospital bed has a TV with cable access, I think it's fair to blame the cable industry for a good percentage of rising medical costs.

  65. Re:Um, the Atlantic? Really? by Patent+Lover · · Score: 1

    Great post. Too bad scores top out at 5.

  66. Re: So, your insurance company by baristabrian · · Score: 1

    He's only *half* black, btw. I thought everybody knew that. Just like eveybody knows he's *fully* corrupt---black or not? Get out much.

    --
    -- "I'm not in a hurry; I'm in Hawaii." The Homeless Guy
  67. Re: Wow, that matches by baristabrian · · Score: 1

    OK, so let's get this straight: Left wing gut says *Obama* gets a pass because he's only doing what right wing nuts' candidate of choice ["Romney"] would have done? Rich. No wonder this country is going downhill. What else can we expect when even "nerds" act dumber than a box of rocks. On the other hand, sir/mam, if what you are really saying is that, "Democrat *or* Republican, either way we're screwed," I think there are a few people awake enough to say, "hear, hear!"

    --
    -- "I'm not in a hurry; I'm in Hawaii." The Homeless Guy
  68. Re:Wow, that matches by duck_rifted · · Score: 1

    Reading is too difficult for most Americans, and they are deathly afraid of being wrong about anything. So, they make up whatever they want to be true, never check it, and flip out when somebody tries to point out the truth. Every little correction to any incorrect "fact", regardless of where they heard it or whether they simply made it up, leads them to react like they're being called stupid. As a result, they're stupid. I'm generalizing above, but this is the most prevalent reality among laypersons and laborers in the United States.

  69. As if. by Rujiel · · Score: 1

    Yeah, i'm so sure that a former cable lobbyist like Wheeler and co. will see to it that cable companies are MORE burdened. You serioisly nelieve this?

  70. he's a paid troll, not a teabagger by Rujiel · · Score: 1

    big difference.

  71. "force providers to compete" Good luck w/ that by Rujiel · · Score: 1

    None of us can force the broadband monopolies to compete when they act in alliance with one another, requiring a new contendet like google to force them out of their sedentary ways. You assume a free market in that realm when none exists.

  72. Re:FCC Must Finally Enforce the A La Carte Provisi by Hamsterdan · · Score: 1

    No need to rotate, all the transmitters are in the same direction (only a couple degrees apart, except for PBS Mountain Lake)

    --
    I've got better things to do tonight than die.
  73. Re:FCC Must Finally Enforce the A La Carte Provisi by Hamsterdan · · Score: 1

    The leaf antenna is much smaller than my 4-bay (therefore not as efficient at collecting weak signals). All the local stations are only 6 miles away, I can get them using indoor rabbit ears. The ones I'm trying to get are about 85 miles away and behind a big building (and part of Mt Royal). Unless I go to about 75 feet high (which is not allowed in Montreal), I probably won't be able to get any US channels from my location. Still, with only 14 channels sometimes I would need a second tuner for my media center, so I've got plenty of entertainment for free.

    I will still try my old '70s Channel Master yagi (big 4248), UHF only, but since RF10 and RF12 are so near, it won't matter much, those I can get just by putting a paperclip in the tuner...

    --
    I've got better things to do tonight than die.
  74. Re: Wow, that matches by bmo · · Score: 1

    No, Obama doesn't get a pass. In order to "compromise" he threw all the other options off the table. Like he's done with just about everything.

    The only difference between getting Romney elected last time and Obama is that Romney would have had us "boots on the ground" in Iran within two or three months of inauguration, because the neocon chicken-hawks had their hooks into him (Dan Senor said we'd invade Iran at the behest of Israel on Meet The Press and Romney never corrected him, for example.)

    --
    BMO

  75. Sports by carys689 · · Score: 1

    Someone has to pay for those multi-billion dollar sports deals.

  76. Re:FCC Must Finally Enforce the A La Carte Provisi by Megane · · Score: 1

    By "rotate", I meant point it in the right direction to begin with, not add a motor to the mast. Even then, I still have to get on a ladder every couple of months to twist the antenna around because its direction gets changed by the wind.

    --
    #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }