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Cable Providers Still Have No Answer For Netflix As Cord-cutting Accelerates (bgr.com)
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from BGR about the rapidly shifting roles of cable companies and streaming media providers: While cable providers over the past few decades have grown fat off of exorbitant cable packages that overcharge and under-deliver, the rise of streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video are finally righting the ship and shifting the balance of power towards the consumer. Clearly, the cable industry is in the midst of a transition. Netflix in particular, with its ever-growing stable of original content, has proven to be a particularly painful thorn in the side of cable providers who are increasingly struggling to keep subscribers from cutting the cord. Now comes word via The Wall Street Journal that cord cutting isn't just on the rise, but is accelerating rapidly. Citing data recently compiled by eMarketer, the Journal relays that the number of households with cable 'will fall at an accelerating rate for at least the next four years, reaching a 1.4% decline in 2019, eMarketer estimates.'
monopoly area. Here in Seattle, Comcast has a government-granted monopoly over most of the city, but they don't offer service to much of it. I haven't lived anywhere here in Seattle where I could get cable since 1997. Other countries have cable TV and Internet in cities. Why can't US cities have it too?
You mean consumers aren't willing to keep paying more for an increasingly ad-laden pool of mostly forgettable reality programming? Wake me up when it's over.
The only reason I have any relationship at all with the cable company is that they're the only supplier of broadband Internet in my area. If that wasn't the case, I'd drop them tomorrow. Until then, I'll "subscribe" to their lowest tier programming because it would otherwise cost MORE to buy internet service from them.
That's all fine, except that for large swaths of the US, the cable companies are the de facto monopoly data provider for Netflix and other services that compete directly with their own offerings. The answer in this case is quite simple: increasingly punitive data caps.
Obviously the business model needs to be changed eventually, but this number doesn't seem like anything to be terribly concerned about in the short term. Especially since those who aren't willing/able to change will probably endure more price hikes. See: AT&T.
The cable companies won't find a solution until they accept that they're in 2 businesses:
If the cable company limits it's content-provider customers to only it's network-provider customer base, it won't be able to take advantage of the scale of customer base of content providers like Netflix and Amazon. It won't have the customer base size to use as leverage to get licensing terms, and a smaller base means fewer customers to spread costs across and a higher per-capita cost. If they use their position as a network provider to try to force customers to their content, they're going to face even more of the backlash they're already seeing in support for network neutrality and for municipal broadband and other alternatives to their network access monopolies/duopolies. If they lose that monopoly position, they're done for.
If they had the smarts, they could leverage their positions and their infrastructure into being real powerhouses. But they're too afraid of spending money and too locked into an MBA's focus on next quarter's results to do it, so eventually they're going to be wiped out by a combination of dedicated content providers like Netflix and Amazon and Google plus dedicated network providers operated as either public utilities or as an adjunct to a content provider who considers that aspect of their operation just a necessity for their content distribution and is happy as long as the network part pays for it's own operating costs.
The rest of the world, where internet providers and tv networks have been separate entities forever, says hi.
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
DOCSIS is a nice spec, and can run rings around two wire twisted pair protocols, with the only thing faster being last mile fiber.
With this in mind, cable companies can always look at going to on-demand providers. Since they are ISPs, adding CDN functionality is extremely easy. They can also add even more offerings, such as OpenStack, cloud storage, and many other niceties. But... they don't. If they add something it is ad servers.
The core issue is that younger people don't give a rat's ass about TV. The fact you have to meet an "appointment" for scheduled programming (barring a DVR, of course) was drilled into the heads of older people, but with YouTube, NetFlix, Hulu, and many other content providers offering what you want to see, when you want to see it, any video provider, be it AT&T with U-Verse or Comcast with cable TV is on the ropes.
Couple this with mainstream TV programming being absolute shit, and it is no wonder why people "cut the cord".
Of course, realistically, the ISPs don't have to give a rat's ass. They just can add caps or charge by the gig, and there isn't anyone going to stop them. Well, only Google.
to fuck people over because you have enough money to purchase a monopoly from corrupt government officials.
You forgot wireless. If anything will kill the cable companies it is the wireless providers. It is already feasible in some locations to use wireless for internet. As technology improves - and as more mini- or micro-towers are put up to facilitate demand - there will be far more people tempted to adopt a wireless-only connection. With the adoption of newer, lighter portable electronics there is even an advantage to using a wireless ISP - the cable companies will not be able to compete. Of course, this only appliers to cable companies that do not also have wireless divisions.
I don't have a problem with the general premise - but the idea that people subscribe to Netflix because of its "growing stable of original content" is absurd. Most people subscribe to Netflix because of its collection of third-party content... And that's something Netflix has been losing, bit by bit.
Frankly I'm almost at the point where I'm going to give up Netflix streaming and only subscribe to their DVD by mail service again. Ad-free Hulu is only a few bucks more, and they have more of the TV shows I want to watch.
#DeleteChrome
There are other short turn strategy available to cable companies: raise rates on bandwidth and degrade connections for streaming competitors. Note that they can use the same sort of illegal manipulations to achieve both ends. The goal is to force everyone to top tier (overpriced) service contracts. Since the internet is still does not have common carrier status it is much more difficult to prove wrong doing. I expect that this is nothing new, and it's been common practice for a long time already. It's not like the consequences are negative enough to keep them honest.
Why is Snark Required?
Industry should follow Australia's lead and shut-down the upgrading of network infrastructure so that dedicated video cable links are required.
Dig! That! Hole!
Rome!
Milan!
Naples!
They do not have an alternative, however they do have "answers"...enacting ridiculous data caps and not making advantageous to buy data-only packages. Here, I am paying 50 Euros for 100Mbps cable+TV, if I want it just Internet they sell me a 30Mbps package for 45 Euros. They also have a base package of 15 Euros only for business, which is shit, cannot remember from the top of my head, something like 2Mbps.
Cox rep here.
Our old solution: Flexwatch. It's a bundle that gets you starter cable, a free receiver, and HBO / Starz / Encore / Cinnemax for $26 a month for 1 year. That's basically $0.50 per premium channel for 1 year, and you get the on demand digital versions like HBO Go.
The new solution we're moving to: Data caps that are low enough to nail cord cutters that will cost you about $30-40 a month in overage fees. They've gone live in Cleveland Ohio with plans on rolling them out in a few more areas to test, then nationally if enough people put up with it. Better: When you complain about the overage fees, we pitch you Flexwatch under the excuse that you'll use less Netflix that way.
How is that not an Antitrust violation, given we're the only game in some of these towns? I actually think it is, but we'll see what the courts decide if we're ever sued.
I don't recall the exact numbers, but IIRC it's $10 per 50 gigs over the cap. Which is why we vastly increased our speeds recently -- because Netflix, Hulu, etc will use more bandwidth if it's available, which will cause you to hit the cap faster, which with this new plan with make us more money.
Oh, and if you ever have to call Tech Support, good luck -- we're now "Technical Sales" reps. Our entire job is to get you to buy Cable, Phone, or Home Security while fixing your technical problem -- the training of which amounted to "reboot your modem."
You're wrong on the TV part. The cable providers are in the business of selling advertising slots. The rest is how they achieve it.
You and I are not customers, we're the product (that provides an addition revenue stream).
Unfortunately the amount of bandwidth available for wireless is limited. It may work fine to some extent, but when too many subscribers shares the same space you will get problems.
Of course - allocation of new frequency bands might work, but that will also come at a cost since the new bands will be above 10GHz which would require new equipment.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
In many respects, this is not much of a shift of power to consumers.
Consumers have a limited choice in Internet service providers. The amount of choice is marginally better than the amount of choice in cable television providers.
Once the consumer is online, the primary sources of streamed video are the broadcasters and a handful of other providers. They may be provide more traditional content, like Netflix, or content from alternative sources, like YouTube. Again, a marginal improvement.
The problem with these marginal improvements is that they can disappear rather quickly, and they will be difficult to rebuild because of the high barriers of entry into these industries.
Allow customers to buy channels seperate.
No. I don't care about your stupid package agreements. That's your problem.
No. I don't want music channels, audio music channels, shopping channels, sports channels, news channels.
I DO want 8 channels you offer. I'd pay for them. But i'm not paying for the other crap anymore.
No. I don't care about your stupid package agreements. That's your problem.
You're simply not going to get 20-40-60-80 out of me for tv.
You'll get ~10 and like it. That's what you're worth.
Otherwise... You'll get zero.
True, but cable TV companies can't treat subscribers only like that because effectively nobody subscribes to cable TV to watch ads. The cable companies have to treat us like customers buying content, and slip the advertising in without putting in so much that people stop subscribing.
Problem for the cable companies here being that how much advertising is too much depends on what alternatives are out there. Nobody's going to sit through 5 minutes of ads per 15 minutes for a show when they can go to Netflix and watch without ads, or when they can record the show on DVR and skip the ads. The era of ad-supported content is rapidly fading because the conditions that let it flourish are changing.
I cut TV in 2009. My internet price has risen 55% since then without any increase in speed.
This is, in part, why I refuse to subscribe to Cable Internet service. They are trying too hard to prevent one arm of their business from stepping on another arm of their business. This NEVER works! When you enter a market segment, you have to commit to it, and Comcast and the like don't want to do that.
Sort of related to the above, but the other overriding reason why I refuse to subscribe to Cable Internet is their policies are so arbitrary. I run a business from my home, and I require high-speed Internet in order to do my work. If I was constantly tripping over Comcast's rules and requirements in the conducting of my business (bandwidth rules, port usage, etc.), I would never get anything done. I am fortunate to have a really good ISP that is neither a cable company nor an RBOC. But not everyone has that kind of flexibility, so they have to deal with Cable companies playing silly games with their Internet access.
What is this "cord cutting" nonsense? I signed up for cable for the first time in YEARS. For a broadband Internet connection, the best in my hood. And do not own a single TV - but a nice 36" 16:9 monitor for my desktop. I will never "cut the cord" - just switch for fiber until Google finally gets here.
Cable companies generally supply many with broadband internet and may not have as exclusive access to customers as their television media. But they hold the key to connecting to those Netflix's and Amazon's and Hulu's. So while people keep writing articles on people cutting the cord. They are really only enhancing their relationship with a cable company. They will solely depend on broadband for all their access to content. Its like the oil refinery vs your gas station. You can buy gasoline wherever you want but it all comes from a handful of refineries. Even the traditional media realizes slowly that they can bypass the cable and satellite providers and go directly to the viewer. Albeit again, through mostly cable company broadband in many instances. The hope that a Google fiber or Verizon fiber will somehow push out cable companies like Comcast is not likely to happen anytime soon. No, we are not cutting the cord, only using a different one.
netflix content is on all torrent sites, i would not even download an original netflix content with someone elses internet, its shit content too, just like reality tv
They need to stop charging so damn much! I recently went shopping for Cable service to see what things cost nowadays. The prices are exorbitant and strange!
For example, if I get a "Limited Basic" package, which basically includes just my local TV channels and a smattering of basic cable channels (most of which are home shopping channels), it's like $16/mo. I get one receiver for free, and I can hook up the other two TVs in my house for $2.65/mo each. So after all is said and done, I can get basic cable service for my entire home for about $22/mo. The catch is that I cannot get HD for my HDTV in my living room.
In order to get HDTV at all, I have to go up to their "Digital Starter" package for $50/mo. But only one of the digital SDTV converter boxes (the same one as in the "Limited Basic" package) is included with that package. If I want to get HDTV at all, I have to upgrade that "included" box to an "HDTV" box for $10/mo. But what's really weird is that the boxes for the other two TVs, which are SDTVs, are now suddenly $9.95/mo, instead of the $2.65/mo for the other package. So by the time I'm done outfitting my entire home, the equipment charges are 60% of the cost of the package. That's absurd!
So the bottom line is services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon are simply making it easier for people to get away from the obvious price gouging that's occurring with Cable and (to a lesser extent) Satellite services. If you're fortunate enough to live in an area where HDTV broadcast signals are good in your area, all you have to do is put up an HDTV antenna and hook it up to your TV. And if not, Hulu (in particular) carries many of the more popular network TV shows anyway. Voila! You are now free of the outrageous pricing of Cable and Satellite companies.
Netflix now allows you to set your bandwidth usage in your account settings. I was measuring it for implementing a bandwidth limiter and the 'medium' quality is just about 1.7 Mbps with spikes up to 1.9. Good enough for most content. The 'auto' setting tries for about 3.5Mbps and does not back down gracefully at all (a 1.5 Mbps limiter resulted in incessant buffering even though they have a 700Kbps stream available).
Data caps. If they lose revenue from cable cutting they will make it up by charging more for internet access. As long a they control the last mile to the user they will be simply change their revenue model. Those that own content as well will price the content to makeup for the shift in how it is delivered. The real losers will be the sparsely watch ed channels that, because eo fetch current revenue distribution model, make mor money than they would if the were priced separately.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The cable companies won't find a solution until they accept that they're in 2 businesses: The network provider business, where they supply the basic pipes that connect their customers to the world at large. (...) The content provider business, where they supply content that users view.
They're in the business of "What value are we delivering and how can we convert that to profit?". I do have an economics degree, not an MBA though but I'd rephrase as follows:
1) How can we leverage connecting consumers to services?
2) How can we leverage connecting services to consumers?
3) How can we leverage our unique content?
Without network neutrality there's a ton of dirty tricks you can play using routing, QoS and quotas to sell "preferential access" which is a lot more profitable than being a basic utility. As a general rule, if you get to gouge on a case-by-case basis it is always more profitable than a general price. Whether all packets cost you the same is of course totally irrelevant.
As for unique content, you can of course sell it stand-alone but often the profit-maximizing way is to leverage it to sell far a more generic functionality or service through bundling. HBO clearly used to use their exclusive content to sell HBO the cable channel, of course Netflix do the same with their exclusive content and their service. Again your model is a bit too simple, they don't make content to sell the content but to drive the overall business.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Comcast should sell off their Internet service business to municipalities to operate as municipal networks and focus on being a network neutral content provider business.
Ultimately their dual-use cable network will be an albatross around their network, unable to provide competitive bandwidth and television channels on the same wire without significant and costly upgrades. They're already starting to feel some competitive pressure from other providers willing to string fiber (here in Minneapolis a local ISP has a good chunk of SW Minneapolis strung with fiber and Century Link has strung fiber, too).
On top of it, their content business as offered is shrinking, too, because they're stuck in carriage agreements that require bundling so many channels that the product cost is too high, especially relative to Netflix, Amazon, HBONOW, etc.
Unloading their cable plant networks now allows them to be sold while they're still considered highly valuable -- wait too long, and it's like selling Baby Bell analog copper networks.
They could also spin off their network management to be contract operators of the municipal networks they've just sold.
Since a good portion of folks still rely on cable providers for their broadband Internet in order to use Netflix (and similar services) they don't need to do anything other than slowly raise their prices for broadband.
Netflix doesn't scare them (and if they claim it does, they are lying)
Projects like Google Fiber scare them. The FCC enforcing neutrality scares them. SCOTUS declaring anti-competitive bans on municipal/community fiber scare them.
Comcast should sell off their Internet service business to municipalities to operate as municipal networks and focus on being a network neutral content provider business.
You say that, but it would be a disastrous decision. They cannot continue to exist without sleazy tactics that basically force people to buy their products. It's much like how magazines send out shitloads of copies to people who don't even want them to inflate their numbers because advertising is sold on the basis of number of subscribers. We've been getting Rolling Stone for years without having paid for it once, I think because my lady went to the Grammys once (which she described as a low-rent prom in quality and execution, which is why they only show a small handful of camera angles of it on TV. Everything else looks like shit. end digression) and so they decided she was a worthy target for advertising. But although they've threatened to cancel the subscription several times, they too are circling the bowl. Sources differ on when they jumped the shark but if you've seen their last six covers you know that they are well and truly on the post-shark side.
Well, so are the cable television networks, and they know it. And they're not going to let go without a fight.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Cable companies, here's your answer:
1) Charge $1 per channel per month. That's what I'm willing to pay, period.
2) Let us pick what channel(s) we want. Don't force any "bundling" or packages of shit-channels I'll never watch.
3) No minimum number of channels. If I want 3 channels, let me have 3. If I want 50, let me have 50.
Really...is this so hard to grasp? If you can't make money with this model, say "goodbye" and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Except for Charter, who has been giving away Rokus to use with their $13-20/month service/app.
And let the cable companies have the death they so richly deserve. Better yet, let's pull some eminent domain on their infrastructure.
We probably won't have a choice. They will increase their prices and impose data caps to make up for the loss of advertising revenue from cable television.
The advertisers and their media buying arms are far smarter than just paying rates based on bulk cable subscriber numbers.
I worked in advertising for 13 years and rating and demographic analytics are extremely deep for TV. The agency I worked for had a pretty successful business unit selling media campaigns to reach regional and even national audiences based solely on coordinating local broadcast and cable spots and doing it all to reach specific demographic and ratings targets.
Even magazines have to count giveaway copies differently than paid subscriptions.
yeah, you should be on welfare because corporations are unethical.
Even magazines have to count giveaway copies differently than paid subscriptions.
Right, but cable companies don't have to count subscribers who don't watch TV and who are just subscribing to cable for a discount on their internet bill differently than people who actually do watch TV. There are ratings services which attempt to do that, but they by definition don't penetrate into households they attempt to reach
via television, or households where they don't watch television and so simply don't respond to invitations to participate in surveys.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I do not guarantee this will work, as I have not even tried it myself. But...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Roku/...
Home:5, RW:3, FF:2.............Bit Rate Override
Unfortunately the amount of bandwidth available for wireless is limited.
Hence the smaller towers - which are really just boxes installed along power poles designed to service a much smaller area. This greatly reduces the subscriber / tower ratio.
Fuck Rupert Murdoch. Fuck the cable companies. It's technology disruption time. Like it or not it's coming! So please stop wasting your time trying to stop it happening politically and actually get ready.
Uber to me represents it clearly. Change or be changed.
Oh and as an Aussie I have to say it again. Fuck u Murdoch! Die in hell. Our governments ruined a worlds class national broadband fibre to the home project just to protect his interests. It's fucking treason!
My cable provider is offering a $10 service for movies and TV shows, that you can watch online, on your mobile, etc etc...
Though I'm not entirely sure if you absolutely need the cable service itself to even have access to that $10 service.
(Club Illico, from Videotron)
It sounds like you disagree with the business ethics of the company for whom you work, but you are still willing to take payment from them regardless.
Seems to me you're the problem here.
I dunno. I think his/her one post above made his employment there a net positive for society.
Contrary to all the stories on various millennial and tech sites, cable continues to retain a SIGNIFICANTLY larger subscriber base that NetFlix et al.
What's more surveys find that 66 Percent of Netflix subscribers are still paying for cable. Ammusingly, the same surveys are used by the fanboy sites to illustrate thier agenda that cable is dead and cord cutting is the present and future.
As a cable subscriber that also uses Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, and just recently the free trial of NetFlix, I can tell you that this is due to the positively abysmal libraries offered by these services. My local RedBox offers far better choices than NetFlix or Amazon streaming services of fairly recent movies. It's also 1/5th the cost to rent a BluRay from Redbox versus renting the same video from Amazon. NetFlix DVD services is still a reasonably good choice, but it is slow and cumbersome and even NetFlix is clearly moving away from this service. Then there is the whole issue of bandwidth requirements, throttling, and data caps. This is especially poignant when considering 4K UHD content, limited as that is. There's also the virtual inability to simply have the TV on(streaming) all day long. I won't even get into live TV and sports.
In short, contrary to the fanboyism in today's media, NetFlix et al suck compared to cable. The ability to binge watch Lost or some other 10 year old TV series does not over come this. What's more, cable offers on demand services that would allow you to binge that shit anyway. It may well be true that the YouTube on a cellphone crowd think that NetFlix is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But people that watch a lot of TV and people that watch TV and movies on ever larger screens aint got time for that streaming shit.
You will know that I am right and that you have failed when NetFlix et al start monetizing their users with ads. Cable did it, the internet did it, streaming TV WILL do it.
Internet service has a 97% profit margin, so they could drop the prices massively and still be profitable. IIRC the same is not true for TV because the content providers have a lot of power. People basically want sports, Disney and a few drama shows. The rest is just filler. But the filler's cheap. It's there to add value. If you just paid $5 bucks a month for the stuff you want you'd get more subscribers but you couldn't pay the content providers what they're demanding.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That's basically $0.50 per premium channel for 1 year, and you get the on demand digital versions like HBO Go.
First off, why is paying per channel the model, particularly when you generally get large blobs of channels with only a small portion that one actually want. The netflix model generally gives you far more choices. Let's put it this way, if you took all their programming and divided it up between say 100 "channels", the average variety would likely be far more than cable, for what 15% of cable's price?
Cable needs to either offer true al la carte, if they want these "per channel" prices, or seriously drop rates so that their value is comparable. The non premium channels should probably be free given the commercial loading...
I look forward to the Blockbuster-fication of cable.
The trouble is that Internet has a crazy 97% profit margin. Google is already moving in to lay fiber. So is AT&T. AT&T did just buy direct tv so they might go the data cap route, but most of DTVs profit is from sports packages and pay TV, so they might not care as much about the caps if it means getting that money. Now, this does probably mean $100/mo for no caps, which will suck (99% profit margin anybody? Can I _please_ have municiple internet?). Then there's the possibility of 5G pushing people to mobile broadband, but that's a long shot.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Give more and charge a lot less! If the cable companies did this they could prosper. Netflix offers a lot for eight bucks a month. What can cable do for you for eight bucks a month? Fat cats who are stupid get knocked out of business all the time.
Except Canada, where the major players are still one and the same entity.
With Slashdotters, given that it's laden to the brim with DRM
Simple, here is what cable companies should do.
More commercials, and they should be "in your face", ie, mute button should be disabled, they should run at max allowed volume.
More infomercial channels: these valuable channels help consumers.
More "Science-Reality" shows like:
-Nose Pickers
-War Wars
-Commercial Wars
-Infomercial Wars
More stale static content, preferably lagging 5-10 years from new releases. All the C,D-F grade movies people can stomach, but with commercials.
New idea!
Lets have commercials from 5-10-15 years ago! I'm sure people miss those! We can even have that on a separate channel.
Cox, and isp/content providers in general, need to realize that for cord cutters this is all about money. If they try to squeeze overage fees out of us, we'll simply retreat to OTA TV and our vintage DVD collection. We can get e-mail and facebook on our phones if we have to.
Why would anyone willingly pay $100+ mo for shitty customer service and 15 minutes of commercials out of every hour? I think no commercials, on-demand service for 1/10th of a cost is a very logical and clear winner.
Cable may decline and restructure but it'll be a long slow death. They will still retain huge numbers of subscribers due to sporting events or other big current events that people like to watch.
soylentnews.org
Sooner or later, they'll come round and replace their analog infrastructure with something fully digital, as de facto standards get established. In the mean time, expect denial followed by pain on the isp and the customer end. And more bullshit from regulators.
Last time I worked in the TV biz it was 22 minutes of program for a 30 min show. I don't recall what a 60min show was.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The ads WILL FIND A WAY, bwhahahhaahhaha (sp ref)
I don't hav cable, just Netflix. But I don't even watch Netflix anymore. I have gotten tired of TV all together.
I've heard this before. It's usually presented as a rather condescending hipsterism or a false sense of elitism . ' I don't waste my time watching TV anymore.' But, it just proves my point. People on NetFlix only give up on TV all together, possibly/probably due to the dismal viewing option. But, among people who watch TV, cable/satellite continues to reign. All the while these types of articles about the end of cable and cord cutting taking over the world continue to bleat their bullshit.
I don't think that is true in all areas. While I have been getting an almost abusive level of "offers" for Flexwatch, earlier this year the data cap went from 400Gb to 2,000GB per month. I am actually considering increasing the quality of Netflix because of it. In the 2 years I have lived here, for the same price I originally signed up for ($99, admittedly a bit high) my speed has gone from 100Mbps to 150Mbps and now I think 250Mbps? I have an early DOCSIS 3 modem and now it has become the limiting factor.
Now, is this because Google Fiber announced they were coming here? Whatever it is, if Cox keeps improving and can be price competitive I might not even try Google Fiber when they get here!
To the best of my understanding of the industry, the providers (Comcast, Cox, Mediacom, DirecTV, Dish, etc) are pretty much restrained on how to offer the content based on their contracts with the content creators/networks. Often the networks require that channels be bundled which is why we don't see much "a la carte" choices out there.
I'm stuck with providers like DirecTV for the near future (not that I really mind that) due to my obsession with sports.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
The industry can't die fast enough. Good riddance.
Because they won't get $86, they'll get $0. $3 is bigger than $0.
Yeah, nobody should ever try for "change from within". If you think you are working for someone you don't like, you should burn the place down and rot in jail. Any other option is obviously unethical.
Learn to love Alaska
I am not aware of the current policies, but be sure to know what the limitations of "Flex Watch" are.
You may or may not be able to see Pay-per-view programming, for example.
An internet search brings up one web page, and I feel that it doesn't provide any information about restrictions if you have this package. I feel that the customer would be better served if the company had all the restrictions plainly visible one web site, and if the customer was advised of said restrictions at time of sale. Also, perhaps the customers would be happier if they didn't have to waste time calling in for something that could be easily and clearly documented on the internet.
This is adblocking at its most basic form, choosing not to watch, and there is no ethical arguments from hipsters against it.
Relatives of mine live in a rural area where local township has their own ISP. Pretty slick as this connects them to the internet independent of Comcast and ATT. My aunt cut the cable TV cord as they kept increasing rates, she has dish TV. But for internet (I don't think they do Netflix) they subscribe to this local ISP. I have read other municipalities try to do this but state regulations (promoted by Comcast and ATT) prevent implementation as grounds that local govt is competing with private businesses.
I read about all this with Seattle, wow home of MS and so many dialups. One thing certain high speed internet is very important for local businesses along with good roads and water. Crappy infrastructure makes it tough to do business.
mfwright@batnet.com
Thanks for the heads up. I'll get prepared to change services as soon as this hits my area. Hopefully, the DSL provider out here will be able to compare with speeds, but I'm in an outer suburb so it might not happen.
I've a couple ex-2Wire friends who eventually headed over to COX. I'll have to hit them up to see if they have any information on a time frame.
If you can find affordable high speed internet, the world is your oyster. Netflix is just one of many lo priced, high quality streaming services offering commercial free content. I subscribe to several of them and still save a bundle. For more advanced streamers, there's Kodi, which essentially opens up the Internet.
you have to know it exists and order it directly and explicitly to get it, as they are signing up people for "standard" who ask for "basic". So maybe that's where your confusion comes from.
That might be because in some areas, the $10 to $20 package is called "limited basic", and the $50 package is called "expanded basic".
What do you mean they don't have an answer? Sure they do... data caps! No internet video for you.
...as cable did in its first few years.
Like Boeing was a good way of contracting out NASA work.
There's nothing new under the Sun.
you guys can talk the legs off a donkey.
People who subscribe to other services still need a connection, and cable co's were well-positioned provide it, but stupidly, they continue to act as if they were monopolies, refusing to offer what consumers want and need: reasonable, comprehensible rate structures without hidden charges, and some semblance of customer service. In technical terms, it's a little bit crazy for people to be using wireless broadband for data-heavy internet like video, when all this hard-wired infrastructure already exists. But that's what's happening, only because Verizon and Comcast have missed their chance and botched their business model so badly. Unlike the wireless co's, they now have to maintain their hardwired networks on an ever-diminishing base of subscribers, putting them in a classic death spiral.
This is why T-Mobile's new free LTE for Netflix / Hulu / etc. is so interesting. For $10 a month I get 2 GB of LTE data for anything that is not streaming video, and unlimited streaming video from Netflix (and a number of other providers)
And just like that the monopoly Cox has on interwebz disapears. Because let's face it, at those kinds of overage prices, a mifi is actually cheaper than cable (and significantly faster) :D
You're welcome. A little research planning goes a long way... think about how many drops you want, and do your research on PVR's, etc. You don't have to rent a set-top box from your cable company, you can use your own equipment... You may be able to get three or more drops at no extra charge, ask for details. Cable lineups change frequently, study your plan online, and be aware that things can change on a month-to-month basis... I spent a lot of time educating my customers how, because of changes, that they weren't supposed to get a particular channel, or because they had a particular package, they couldn't receive the channel(s) they thought they should have. I figured thoroughly educating my customers meant that they'd be happier overall with the service...
Remember, the more research you do on your own, the less you're on the telephone, and less chance for something going wrong. Are you wanting a pro install or can you install your own cable modem? Setting up an appointment? Make sure you get the customer service rep to read all phone numbers and the address information back to you. Be meticulous with special instructions, i.e. is there a lock on the gate? Dog? If you're in a new development that hasn't been mapped yet on internet mapping services, please indicate this, or the installer may not be able to find you. Please try to get the customer service representative to spell out words phonetically (http://usmilitary.about.com/od/theorderlyroom/a/alphabet.htm). It can be a pain, but being painstaking and careful means less wasted time for you.
Don't forget to ask for specials. Oftentimes some people are so pressured to have short call times that important details get overlooked, don't let people rush you. Demand customer service excellence and attention to detail, especially when dealing with service appointments.
FCC cablecards https://www.fcc.gov/general/ca...
FCC cable television https://www.fcc.gov/general/ca...
FCC Choosing cable channels, how to file a complaint https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/...
FCC consumber guides https://www.fcc.gov/consumer-g...
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way, by Eric S. Raymond, Rick Moen http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smar...
Using dish instead of cable isn't cord-cutting. Cord cutting doesn't mean you have no physical cable, it means you don't subscribe to classic pay-tv service, which dish is.
Well, Netflix may go that route too. They're focusing on original programming more and more which is not what their original customer based signed up for. It's just going to fragment things too much. 8 dollars here, 8 dollars there, and pretty soon you're paying real cable prices again.
I love the "for one year" part. No one ever says what happens after that.
As a cable cutter of 2 decades because I am not a sports fanatic, I dropped cable when the commercial free channels went away (cable started as subscriber funded and add free for those old enough to remember) which was combined by rising prices, and better content removed and placed in even higher priced priced packages.
In one channel, Netflix offers what cable dropped. Commercial free content at a reasonable price.
If Netflix is paying attention, if they break their model they will loose customers.
Cox, some customers want Internet to receive their content. In the days of increasing competition and larger data plans, if you try to ride the ragged edge of profitability between industry churn and retention, any serious competition for internet services will clean out your customer base that has TV to subsidize your internet service. Unhappy customers will flee as soon as a viable alternative penetrates the market. If you don't want to provide internet becasue it cuts into your base services, you will have the same problem SONY has when they added a media division that crippled their excellent hardware.
Comcast in my market lost me this way. I transitioned from dial up to cable and saw first had the attack on torrent traffic. A Linux distribution gradually slowed to nothing over 3 days, but a direct download mirror would download in less then 30 minutes. The connection fee was about $100 even though the cable was already in place and my home LAN already existed for wireless internet, printing, etc. $100 just to watch the tech plug into a modem, configure nothing, and connect it to my router WAN port always truck me as very wrong and over a barrel.
As soon as DSL was offered, the cable got cut. New customers got a $100 rebate, I more then doubled my speed and my subscription was about $20/mo less.
Comcast still tries to recruit me, and I still remind them why I am not interested as they did NOTHING in advance to retain me, or ensure I was sastified with the service.
Centruy link on the other hand has Increased my service speed without any action on my part. Comcast kept me on a 2 meg connection. Centeruy link signup was for 6 meg. Recently I've had much higher verified speeds, unlike Comcast who often ran well under the plan 2 meg.
Until the cable company makes major restructuring oriented to serving the customer base and providing advertised bandwidth (including peering with Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, etc) the competition is eating their lunch for both internet service and content.
The truth shall set you free!
So the same providers for cable TV also tend to be the exact same providers for Internet. If they can't sell you overpriced TV packages, they (all ISP monopolies) will just start jacking the price of Internet access up and we will be paying $200 a month for Internet access.
At least those of you in the USA can get HBO over your internet connection.
Up here in Canada we have no choice but our local cable providers or satellite TV, and typically a bill over $100 a month for TV with HBO
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
I thought Comcast's answer to this was those data caps.
When I got an unexplained $5.95 charge on my bill, for "sports", I called Cablevision. I don't watch sports, and I don't subscribe to any sports programming. They said it was mandatory. Well, a $72.00 bump on my yearly bill, for no reason, after a forced rental charge of $8 per cable box to de scramble a signal I pay for and that the provider scrambled for their own reasons, made the decision. Turns out it was an ESPN surcharge. Yes, I get ESPN, it is on the lowest tier, but I don't care, and don't watch it.
I get all the NYC stations on an antenna OTA. A Tivo box for DVR and a Blu Ray player get me all the streamed content.
Don't miss cable. I thank Disney/ABC/ESPN for making the decision for me.
I'm 28, I cancelled cable 2.5 years ago, and I refuse to watch another commercial as long as I live. I've hated them since I was 3 or 4 years old and cable did nothing. Fast forward and now how the hell do they think they're going to get around me times a fifty million or so aka everyone my age and younger? They shot themselves in the foot slowly and continuously by basing their business model on annoying the hell out of their customers with pointless, repetitive, low quality crap called commercials and now they've hit a dead end. Cable is dead.
I love the "for one year" part. No one ever says what happens after that.
I'd have to check, but it goes up to ~$66 or so. No contract locking you in, though.
I don't recall the exact numbers, but IIRC it's $10 per 50 gigs over the cap. Which is why we vastly increased our speeds recently -- because Netflix, Hulu, etc will use more bandwidth if it's available, which will cause you to hit the cap faster, which with this new plan with make us more money.
That was the most interesting sentence to me. Greater bandwidth has been easy to provide but was only made available when it became possible to screw your customers with it. I am guessing charging higher fees for greater bandwidth is not as profitable as penalties and forcing customers into tv channels.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Mode him UP!!!!
No FTTP, FTTN, or any other inferior system that allows them to perpetuate the Scarcity Myth.
Upstream bandwidth SHALL BE the same as Downstream Bandwidth.
Any bandwidth less than the FCC definition of 'Broadband' for greater than 1 second SHALL NOT be called BROADBAND.
BTW, this means any provider that throttles BANDWIDTH will NO LONGER BE CALLED a Broadband provider. Long Overdue.
There are less than 30 communities with FTTH, where the same broadband is allowed unfettered and unthrottled upstream as downstream. It's 2015 and there are less than 30 communities in the United States of America.
Back in 2000 Japan got FTTH of 100Mbps/100Mbps for less than $56 per month. Only because of government deregulation of NTT, yes government interventioned increased competition and gave consumers better service.
Here in the USA, in 1976, the Telecom/Cable Industry successfully prevented government intervention that would have done the same for American consumers.
A year later, in Japan, thanks to competition, consumers could get 1GBps/1GBps for $52 per month...yes folks the price went down while getting more, the way economics, supply and demand, a free market is suppose to work.
Of course in America there is too much oligarchy, fascist, 1% involvement in the market that prevents economics from working as expected. There is NO FREE MARKET, nor will there ever be.
In each of the less than 30 communities that have FTTH, and thus true honest choice and options that come with the home owner OWNING THE LAST MILE (bought and sold with the house, cost $1,500 - $3,000 per last mile fiber run, increases value of home by $5,000.00.) the oligarchy of cable/telco/cellular companies unsuccessfully sued in vain attempts to prevent consumers getting what they want. They try to use legal means to prevent the FTTH (Fiber To The Home) rollouts....they almost always lose. The only exception being where the 1% supporting politicians are bought and paid for and work against the people they are suppose to represent...98% these politicians are Republicans and Tea Party...the so called Freedom Caucus...nothing FREE about them...espeically their votes which are bought and paid for by the 1% that own them.
Need proof, look at states like North Carolina, they could not stop Wilson, NC and Raleigh, NC barely got theirs before the state legislature, Republican controlled NC state legislature, passed laws (usually designed by ALEC) to prevent competition, to prevent other cities in North Carolina from getting FTTH. Pathetic....
Freedom Caucus representatives in 14 states have passed laws outright preventing FTTH initiatives. When they can not out right ban it with their Alec-written legislation, they manage to pass laws restricting and making it harder. Again pathetic.
What these yahoos canNOT prevent is what comes with Ultra High Definition televisions...In the January 2016 Consumer Reports, Electronics edition on p49 in "How much speed do you need?" article they suggest that for 1 person to stream content they will need a minimum of 5Mbps. They further state that the FCC recently re-definied BROADBAND as a download speed of at least 25MBps (use to be 756Kbps).
Those that use dd-WRT, OpenWRT or Tomato firmware on a supported firewall, KNOW WITH 100% CERTAINTY that NO CABLE company provides sustained 25Mbps, much less sustained 5Mbps upstream or downstream today, December 2015. Forget your speed tests, they are designed to lie to you. With dd-WRT firmware on a supported firewall/router you see your bandwith in real time, 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. Those with promises from their cable provider of 20MBps ONLY get it during the milliseconds the SPEED TEST is running, the milli-second it finishes 100% of cable providers throttle to less than 5MBps. Even if they promise 20Mbps...they lie.
Is it any wonder people relish the chance to cut the cord from these chronic liars.
Did you know that with FTTH, a provider can make a p
And when the ISP gets too expensive then it's an opportunity for competition that can come in fresh. And so the cycle repeats itself.
There is no opportunity for competition, not true honest competition in 14 states already. In another 17 states, competition is severly restricted and not yet out right banded by the Alec backed Freedom Caucus politicians that are bought and paid for by the 1%.
I wish, simply is not a reality for most Americans anymore.
We've never had cable. Remember, cable is the same crappy programming as broadcast TV, spread thinner over more channels. Any show you want to watch will make it to DVD, and mostly you can get them at the library for free. You just can't get them right now, but who cares? Plenty of other stuff to watch. Plus you watch too much TV. Turn it off, you vegetable, and read a book.
The big cable companies and sat providers should learn this term quickly. They could easily stem the flood and even see growth if they developed a working model of pick your channel packages. The reason the majority of people are cutting the cord is the cost/value relationship. I dont need 120 streaming music channels. I dont need 15 different shopping channels. I dont want 5 public announcment channels and the addtional 15 public service channels. I can get NBC, CBS, FOX, ABC, MEtv, and a few others via over the air transmission. What I do need is the ability to choose my favorite or want to watch channels. If I could pick 20 or so channels instead of the 200-400 unwated that I really like to watch and pay a reasonable price 20/30 dollars a month I would consider the services again. Until then I will just stream at my leasure the shows I want to watch via the service of my choice for less than I pay for basic cable. Its a simple process they are not willing to turn too. Fear of finding that 200 plus streams of ad revenue are low or no value scares them because they will no longer be able to leverage that sales point.
We have a law that you can have a co-op provide internet and phone services as long as a private business as long as no private business states that they want to provide service in that area. They then have a certain minimum amount of time to provide said service or lose the exclusive right. Well, that means big cities have good service through the companies. Rural areas have good service through the co-ops. The fringes of the cities and medium to small towns and cities have phone service and shit DSL (if it works at all). That is because there are two phone companies and they each alternate who claims the exclusive right to provide DSL service as each monopoly claim expires. Because each owns approximately the same amount of the state and alternate areas, there is never an opportunity for a co-op to register to provide service.
And i was never so happy the day I dropped Rogers cable & internet for Teksavvy internet only. Saved my $80/month!
Guess it will be a matter of time before the Cable companies buy out the streamers. Hey, if you can't beat em... buy em.
this is all an argument between people who pay for the privilege of sitting on your couch doing NOTHING, not even LEARNING, and your complaining about ads, or no ads. oh boo hoo, so the cable companies will lose money, and then make it up with data caps? and all the while kick people from grandfathered "unlimited" plans (i am currently on one of those) so they can get their pop too..
yet our oceans are polluted, our food stock is dwindling and the only products that are being reliably sold are death and destruction. The US has a facist running for president on a scary similar platform to Hitler himself. and yet we talk about cord cutters.
how about we cut the cord from hollywood, where the base morals for our sexist, bigoted, racist society comes from? after all why is someone worth so much monsy (millions per project) when all they sow is death, destruction and strife?
this is why humanity will never have nice things.
I few years back I had the opportunity to visit and tour several of Chevron's main campuses. My primary purpose was to see their technology centers but do you know what else I saw? They had entire areas being powered by an on-site hydrogen generator, entire other facilities powered by Solar power, they had power charging stations for electric vehicles, natural Gas vehicle pumps, etc. The employee I was with mentioned that Chevron is viewing itself as an energy company now rather than a petroleum provider. They are rolling with the times, and investing heavily to provide the energy need that consumers of the future will want. We can't say the same for the cable companies, they haven't figured out that the only service people really want or need is Internet. (all of there other services can be provided that way) Netflix, Hulu etc all provide higher quality picture than basic cable (which is still low def)
Why are people cutting the cable? Price. Simple fact. Lower the price to a reasonable level and people will be satisfied. We're supposed to have competition here. Not collusion.
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Here is what they really have going on: They have found exactly those groups that simply can't afford much change, they have enacted their "trials" for data caps, aka 'We are doing this!' and they are leaching the wealth from the lowest denominator by force -- the South, where the money doesn't flow freely. They are finding out wrong. We called them and told them we plan to cancel our TV service when the data cap begins to cost money. (We will). Comcast is not the only option here but everyone has data caps already; it's a great big price fixing scam. The industry decided to make more money. Here is my personal story with these clowns. They have provided excellent availability to my home, no doubts there, although who knows if they even approach the speeds they lie about due to other network factors: I'm sure they count on that on court days and it's probably in the 900 million word contract you make with them. They also sub out all of their tech jobs to people who probably shouldn't drive a vehicle. I've had to help them several times. They just upped our bill by 20 dollars right before they announced their new 30 dollar add on called unlimited internet, which we already had. That is now 50 dollars more for an already ridiculous price. I went back and checked our usage and we burn through over 550gb a month. That is 1 TV and my computing usage, usually on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and YouTube for the majority of the B/W. This plan is designed to wring out cash from the middle class. They may even get push back, but the net result will be more profits, you can bank on that word.