Slashdot Mirror
Comcast Raises Controversial 'Broadcast TV' and 'Sports' Fees $48 Per Year (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comcast's latest price hikes include a significant increase in the company's widely despised "Broadcast TV" and "Regional Sports Network" fees. The Broadcast TV fee is moving from $5 a month to $7 a month, while the Regional Sports Network fee is rising from $3 a month to $5 a month, according to notices sent to customers in several cities. Combined, that's a change from $8 to $12 a month, giving Comcast an extra $48 a year from each customer that has to pay the fees. Comcast began charging these fees a few years ago, which have risen quickly. Just over a year ago, Comcast raised the Broadcast TV fee from $3 to $5 and the Regional Sports fee from $1 to $3. The two fees have thus gone from $4 to $12, combined, in little more than a year. Comcast customers recently sued the company, saying that Comcast falsely advertises lower-than-actual prices and then raises rates by tacking on these two fees. Comcast falsely portrays these fees as being required by the government, the proposed class action lawsuit said. Charter is facing a similar lawsuit. Comcast says the fees recover a portion of the price it pays broadcast networks and regional sports networks to air their content. But paying for programming is simply part of the cost of doing business as a cable TV provider, and programming costs have always been passed on to consumers in their cable TV bills. By charging fees separately from basic rates, "Comcast has found a way to secretly and repeatedly increase the monthly price it charges for its channel packages" even when customers are supposed to be getting a flat rate during a contract term, the lawsuit said. The Broadcast TV fee was introduced in 2014, initially as $1.50 a month, and the Regional Sports fee was added in 2015 at $1 a month. Comcast charges the sports fee even though it owns many of the regional sports networks that broadcast sporting events in local markets. The price increases were reported by TVPredictions and DSLReports, and customers have been posting letters they received from Comcast detailing the price changes.
These fees are just one way they have to claw those costs back.
Another method is having State Governments pass laws stopping cities and towns from operating their own networks in competition.
Verizon recently introduced a $2.80 (plus taxes) fee for my FIOS router, which they claim is old -- and to "support it" they need this monthly fee.
Never mind that this is their equipment to start with. Now, my choice is to pay the fee every month or buy a "new" ($70) router, with no guarantee that they won't pull this exact same stunt next year.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I filed a complaint about the "FIOS Regional Sports Network Fee" to the New Jersey Consumer Affairs office several years ago. We don't watch sports, and I complained that there should be an option to have sports channels blocked so as to not pay this fee. Sports channels are bundled with other channels, so there's no option of getting a non-sports package. Of course, my complaint had no result.
Wall Street investors want year-over-year profit increases. It is far easier for Comcast to just raise these fees (which really should be a part of the quoted price for the cable TV package) than it is for Comcast to spend money on things that make its customers happy (like quality customer service) and more willing to buy more Comcast products.
The best way to opt out of these fees is not to pay Comcast ANY money and switch to just watching content from streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube!
You will pay. You will not complain. You have no rights against the all-powerful CORPORATION. Unless you incorporate yourself.
I'm not free to cut the cord?
I'm sorry, I don't have Comcast so I don't know what this is.
Wasn't there a time when cable companies had to provide local broadcast channels for free?
Actually, you are free to choose from a variety of alternate programming, including none. Nobody is holding a gun to your head making you pay for TV at all.
Or does making wildly false claims make you feel morally and mentally superior ?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
As far as I can tell they charge a "broadcast TV fee" but DON'T show me most of the OTA channels. Don't they mean "Major network subsidy fee" ?
I find I spend more time on the sub channels which I couldn't find under channels for them :/
MeTV? Heroes&Icons?, AntennaTV? any of those make it? I know it is a tight squeeze with only 200 something channels....
Curious: What does a music station on Cable look like?
Cable providers should be required to carry the local over-the-air channels but not pay fees for these rights. The OTA channels actually benefit because, for any number of reasons, it can be difficult to pick up their signal. Plus their ratings increase through the use of DVRs. Customers shouldn't have to pay for what some can pick up freely with an antenna. The OTA channels get a ratings boost by adding viewers who couldn't actually receive those channels.
Thankfully, I live in a market with cable alternatives to Comcast/Xfinity. Their service is unreliable, their rates are extortionate, and their customer service makes it preferable to deal with Cthulhu. I ditched them ten years ago as soon as there was an alternative, and I have no regrets. My impression was that they regarded me as an enemy rather than a customer.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Comcast has usually been great about keeping the price of internet access alone just slightly more than the cost of internet access plus their cheapest $15 tv package. With the new fees it is now cheaper to just have internet access even with the increase they applied to internet only plans. I'd save $7 a month even before the new fees.
I feel like someone at Comcast fat fingered the new rates :)
Guess I'll finally turn in my free digital adapter that has been sitting in a drawer.
And then they wonder.. why people are cutting the cord faster than ever.
I can access open wifi easily from where I live. I've cancelled my cable TV and phone service long ago. Let the idiots who can't secure their cheap Linksys router pay for my internet. I have no qualms about any of it.
I agree. Most people with a half functional brain cut the cord years ago, if not for prices for the brain-dead pointless TV shows that are on.
Except that who provides your internet? Ah, those same companies! And what can you do without internet? Not much.
We need to break up corporations like Comcast. In fact, Comcast should be one of the first. It is 100% clear that the consolidation and (let's face it) monopolies of these multimedia/telecommunications corporations does not work for the American people. Break them up. Re-nationalize the infrastructure and give the newly formed companies contracts to operate telecommunications services using the infrastructure.
And its legit criminal that they can up my rate while I'm in the middle of a contract term without having ever disclosed to me that they could/would do this when I signed up. Signing up with them isn't like signing up with a T-Mobile either. My phone came with a written contract. I had to sign it at the store. My cableco didn't give me ANYTHING in writing until my first bill. It was all over the phone. These class action lawyers deserve to win this one.
"Nobody is holding a gun to your head making you pay for TV at all."
Ultimately, someone may be. Those under contract, who paid for service at a specific rate are now seeing price increases to the service being disguised as government mandated "fees." Stop paying before the contract ends, and ultimately the full force of government law enforcement (which includes guns) may come into play.
Yeah, it's a stretch in the real world, but so is claiming that such people have a real choice. Do you "you feel morally and mentally superior?"
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
You will pay. You will not complain. You have no rights against the all-powerful CORPORATION. Unless you incorporate yourself.
I'm not free to cut the cord?
...or switch to Satellite TV (which I've done for *years* now... )
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
TFS: "Comcast began charging these fees a few years ago, which have risen quickly. Just over a year ago, Comcast raised the Broadcast TV fee from $3 to $5 and the Regional Sports fee from $1 to $3. The two fees have thus gone from $4 to $12, combined, in little more than a year."
So, a practice that started "a few years ago" and has continued over the past year, has what to do with Trump?
Its time for the yearly rate increases. Its the time of year when contracts need to be re-upped and content providers want more money for the same content. They don't offer one more hour than they did previously and lets face it, the shows are all about the same in the end. Content providers want more money every time and the cable companies pass it on to the consumer. But if you want to bitch about Comcast and other cable companies go ahead. What do you expect them to do? HBO has stopped offering contracts and is betting on its direct to the consumer streaming service. Pretty soon all those scrubs who ditched cable will discover they are having pay twice as much to get the same content they were getting from cable. But please don't let me stop you from blaming the wrong people for the way things are.
I can see it now - they will stop itemizing your bill, and if you request an itemized version, there will be a hefty fee for that. Figure out how to charge someone who tries to figure out the charges. Brilliant!!!
(For the sarcastically impaired, yes, I know federal laws and regulations require the itemization)
This is the exact kind of crap that should really drive folks to do this.
I figured my set up....
For local channels, I set up an indoor HDTV antenna (you can find these on sale, I got mine at Wally Worldmart for $79). I put this up on a pole in my house and works great. I had to get this, in order to get our local PBS (WYES) that is still on VHF, and is very hard to pull in with other antennas. Otherwise, I'd recommend one of the Mohu Leaf HDAntennas. This one worked great except for my local PBS and I like some shows on there.
I bought a Tivo Roamia OTA 1TB DVR to act as my local channel tuner. It comes with included lifetime guide service. Worked great out of the box.
The only drawback of the Tivo unit, is that the Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming which it also does (and searches across), the front ends are horribly laggy, but for OTA needs, it is amazing.
For my streaming needs, I got the Amazon FireTV.
I got this over the FireTV stick for its extra computing power. It streams VERY well Netflix, and Amazon Prime (4K on these too). AND...the power was needed for my streaming app that solves my "cable network" needs.
I did Playstation VUE. I got the 70+ channels package for $35/mo. It has all the ESPNs (I like during college football season), all the cable news I want (MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc), and channels like TCM, TBS, Nat'l Geo, FX..etc...
It also has built in DVR functionality, which makes it great for catching the Walking Dead on AMC to watch at my convenience and skip commercials.
The Fire TV is powerful enough to use the VUE guide....Roku 3 and PS3 could not use the guide very well at all.
So, this is my living room.
For the other TVs in my house (bedrooms, office), I set up a bit of networking for those.
I set up Tivo Minis to stream from the main unit into each bedroom, for DVR and live HD tv. The main unit has 4 receivers, so you can watch different stuff in each room. I also have an Amazon FireTV for each other room, so I can watch streaming or VUE cable channels in each room. Again, each can be watching different things.
The Tivo Minis don't work wirelessly, and I also found the FireTVs don't work as well wireless as they do wired.
So, for each room I have Ethernet over AC....and a little TP-Link switch there too.
So now..everything hooks up nicely, and I dropped from $113/mo for UVerse to $35/mo with VUE.
I figure in about 8 mos I'll break even on the new hardware.
So far, the only caveats....my house has some less than optimal wiring, I think leftover from Katrina rework problems. At times, my Tivo has problems with slow network, but not that often. Also, setting up the Tivo minis...it has to go through Tivo Centrals computers before it can get recognized by your main DVR unit. This is a horribly thought out, PITA...but if you register your Mini online with tivo 24 hours before you hook it up, and then you have the main unit phone home a few times while trying to sync them , it will finally work. They need to fix that. I almost gave up on it, but once it syncs..works as intended and I live the Tivo guide and user interface. Auto commer
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
No TV, no phone from your cable provider. Internet only. You can live without TV. Really. Even sports. Try it and you may be surprised.
I had one for a while when I lived someplace where TV+Internet was marginally cheaper than just Internet. The "digital" adapter output SD 4x3 TV over analog channel 3. Seriously. An OTA HD antenna (if it works where you live) is 100x better. I think the thing was that Comcast was obligated by its contract with the town to offer local TV, but nothing in the contract said it had to be HD. I bet their cheap-ass converter solution saves them a ton of bandwidth. I hardly ever bothered using it.
Except that they know you're a trouble-maker that needs to be delt with.
Scary...
CAP === 'micros'
Every major cable company in the states does this. its not directly about profit. Broadcasters constantly decide when contracts are almost up that their content is worth significantly more, and demand the cable co needs to pay tons more for the exact same content. after a while of this stupid game, they decided to just keep the rates the same, and add on these surcharges to cover these increases.
I wouldnt give comcast a dime, but not because of this. this is specifically the greedy broadcasters fault. and suing comcast over it won't affect them in any way.
I rely on Comcast for broadband because in my town its the only real broadband choice. Sure others offer DSL, wireless, and expensive T1 fiber. But for the price Comcast is OK for broadband internet. However, I wouldn't give them a dime for any TV package they offer. If satellite providers can charge have what Comcast does and make a profit. Then Comcast surely can offer these packages and be competitive. If they cannot, then they need to rethink their business model is.
I do have the above, and it was only a few hundred dollars and easy to set up.
I just listed it in case others wanted to jump in, and save them a few steps of research in what works very well for me.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The cost of communications keeps going up and up. Don't really know why. Fucking monopolies.
Actually, NO, it is not free to cut the cord. I tried to cancel my service with verizon which I've had for at least 7 years and they want to charge me $70 to cancel, claiming I have a "contract", which they are in violation of for raising my rates from the $99 per month to $146 per month with no service upgrades whatsoever.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Nop, you're not free to cut the cord. The company that bullies you to buy cable is the same company that owns your internet.
You don't want cable? fine, you're still buying internet from the same company that sells you cable. You're not cutting the cord, you're just buying a separate service, on the same cord, from the same company.
And for many people, like me (and I live in a major metro area), I only have one ISP available, that is the same cable provider.... that charges an exorbitant amount for what is a slow for developed world internet if you don't buy "the whole package".
Free to cut the cord? Get real.
You are free to cut the cord, but the point is broader than participating or not.
The point is businesses can:
- get 'pay raises' by merely raising their prices; and it's called 'inflation'.
- but individuals are less free to do that unless you are a contractor or incorporated.
For example: is it common to annually walk into your boss's office and announce your pay will be increased because inflation and you feel like it? Or must you do some negotiation, levy your production value vs. the accounting department, etc. and realize you'll do this rarely- not every year.?
It's either that or job hop. But again, businesses can just say 'we raised our prices' and it's quite acceptable. People moan but it comes across as legit. On the other hand, an equally casual announcement of your pay's increase- and taking for granted that it will fly every quarter, or annually... there's no way...
I think they may be referring to unregulated monopolies.
I don't feel sorry for the majority of people. You guys put us in this boat by voting in politicians that push for big government and regulations that have created these monopolies and eliminated choices in the market that may not have been so manipulative. I'm going to remind you how this went down and where these monopolies came from. Back in the 1980s and 1990s when cable companies started rolling out services municipalities granted exclusive rights for lengthy periods of time. The cable companies argued that they had to recoup their investment and they couldn't do that if there was competition in the market place. The problem is when you put in monopolies they never go away. You just guarantee that more regulation will later be needed to stem the ever increasing costs. What municipalities should have done was refuse to regulate and open the market to competition instead with rates for access to polls and such at the cost of maintaining said polls. There is already going to be a limit in what the market can handle so charging excess fees to connect does little more than raise funds for other projects that shouldn't exist and hinder competition.
Cost to connect my neighbour to fiber despite that fiber is *already* nearby and there is a local junction box in which to connect? $17,000 USD and that's a steal compared to what Comcast is asking in many areas. I've seen $60-80,000 quotes. Comparatively the cost to connect me to fiber was only $3,000 one time fee. Why was it so much higher for my neighbour? The poles are licensed already so despite that they had to run a lot of fiber to connect me and it would be significantly less for my neighbour the charge from the city greatly increased the cost to absurd levels.
The only way we're going to solve these sorts of issues is liberty-minded people who believe in private property and the free market get together in one place to eliminate laws where the are no victims. If there is no violence, fraud, coercion, or theft there should be no law against it. The poles should be readily accessible at cost for those who wish to provide services to the towns residents and on reasonable conditions to provide fair competition in the market. They should be treated like the roads we all drive on.
If you want more personal liberty and a free market you should join us in New Hampshire. The Free State Project and the Shire Society (may be more appetising for anarchists) among other organizations, individuals, radio shows, and groups are organizing in a decentralized way a migration for liberty. Thousands of people are fleeing tyrannical governments across the United States and around the world to help us eliminate the state to whatever extent we can manage.
We aren't against charity, we aren't conservatives, we aren't republicans, we aren't democrats, we aren't socialists. We don't believe the government has any authority over what we can put in our bodies or who we can marry (or even how many people we can marry). We don't want to build a wall. We want the freedom to travel without hindrance of government permission slips. We want the freedom to conduct business without intrusions on our livelihoods. We don't believe in copy"right" and intellectual property. We don't buy into the hype that we need a state police or even any policing at all. We believe we can develop solutions to security issues outside of a theft-by-state paid monopoly. From free apps for smart phones like Cell 411 which enable people to reach out to friends, family, and neighbours to volunteers for help in emergencies to commercial security services (including neighbourhood patrols). Detroit's gone bankrupt and can no longer maintain decent response times. It's resulted in private security service companies being setup to replace government policing. We believe by ending these socialist programs we can increase individuals personal assets across the board. If we eliminated all taxes peoples incomes would roughly double. The vast majority of us would be able to take care of our own health, retiremen
s/Fucking Comcast/ .Comcast/g
Remember that these fee increases are driven by the spiraling costs the content providers are demanding, especially the sports networks.
Right of Way Use Fee - $1.05
FCC Regulatory Fee - $0.08 (not a government imposed tax)
HD Technology Fee $9.95
On top of that. I have six televisions. It would be an extra $50 a month just for set top box rentals.
If you use their router it's an extra $10 a month.
And if you want unlimited internet it would be an additional $50 a month.
Luckily, I have AT&T as an option (I never thought I would be saying that). $70 a month for unlimited gigabit internet - no additional fees or taxes. I have 4 Roku boxes and three 3rd gen AppleTVs connected to my TVs and my house is wired for Gig-E.
I subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, and Sling and I have an Amazon Prime account (Amazon Video). My total TV cost is Round $50 a month plus whatever you want to allocate toward the cost of an Amazon Prime subscription to Amazon video.
I'm in the boonies outside a big city, and I've had a Winegard HD8200U in my attic for ages. With that thing pointed downtown, I get 36 channels, the 4 big networks (ABC/NBC/CBS/PBS) in real 1080p (the rest in std def), that's all that I need. Over the years I have saved an ever lovin' fortune. For a DVR I set up a SiliconDust HDHomeRun and Windows Media Center on a spare PC. Anything I want, I just record and watch later.
I cannot imagine spending what many people spend on TV. I think it's nuts.
I tried giving up television and going out to meet people in real life, and it wasn't worth it because people are complete shit. I tried the coffee shop scene. I tried the bar scene. And I found nothing. Absolutely nothing. I gave up and went back to watching television. People fucking suck.
"how exactly is your named spelled for the subpoena?"
Well I for one thank you. I've been looking for a low-cost 4K netflix box for a while now and that Amazon fire looks like a good solution.
You are the person blaming the wrong guy.
When Comcast signed a 1-year pricing contract with their suppliers and signed a 2-year pricing contract with me that means Comcast took on the risk of *their* suppliers raising rates in contract year 2 by more than they assumed when deciding how to price the contract for supplying me.
During the first year of the ACA when health insurance companies realized their actuaries fucked up, were they allowed to jack up co-payment fees or invent BS paperwork fees and claim "but we're not raising rates!" ? Hell no.
In some ways cable companies get the same rap as insurance companies for costs largely beyond their control. This of course is not to excuse Comcast for playing games with HOW that cost is recorded and associated indefensible marketing schemes which essentially lie about actual prices and fuck over those on contract.
Used to be broadcasters were thrilled to get as many eyeballs as they could to tune in as bigger audience translated into more advertising revenue..at some point long ago cable stopped being dominated by access fees and is now dominated by carriage fees. Now even local broadcasters who broadcast the same signal over the air for free to anyone able to receive it are in the business of extracting carriage costs from cable and satellite providers just because they feel they can get away with it to make more money.
The FCC never said cable companies were REQUIRED to carry local stations for a price other than FREE. Consumers should have the right to opt out of the local crap and should not be forced to pay if they don't want it. I can throw up an antenna in the Attic for $30 and an hour of my time if I want local channels.
Price insanity is particularly egregious given cable/sat industry is on the brink of becoming the next home telephone/portable cd player.
I can access open xfinitywifi easily from where I live. Let the idiots who pay for Comcast pay for my internet.
How much can they be paying broadcasters who...broadcast their content for free? The cable co is giving them more eyeballs to sell to their advertisers, the broadcasters need their access as much as the cable cos need their content. I doubt they're jacking up their fees...would be interesting to see some real data.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
The sooner the cable TV oligopoly dies, the better for all of us.
Cord Cutters Unite!
I am baffled. Why don't more people go out and play sports, instead of sitting on a couch and watching somebody else have fun? And yes, I do have several TVs and I sometime watch some content. But there are no monthly fees involved.
Just ask them to remove local channels and local sports from your cable package. Buy an eternal VHF/UHF antenna to pick up those channels. Yes your TV will look retro like something from the 1970s. Who cares, you look at the screen, not the antenna.
If Comcast lets you remove those channels, then you won't have to pay the fees and you'll make back the cost of the antenna in a few months. You can pocket the savings every month thereafter.
If Comcast says you can't remove those channels, then they've basically admitted that they are falsely advertising their prices. If there's no way to remove a fee from the price, the fee is a part of the price, not an optional add-on. And they will lose the lawsuits and be forced to include these fees in their advertised prices.
They are actually 'Fuck you" and "fuck your mother too"
You will pay. You will not complain. You have no rights against the all-powerful CORPORATION. Unless you incorporate yourself.
I'm not free to cut the cord?
...or switch to Satellite TV (which I've done for *years* now... )
If it takes years to switch to Satellite TV, who would wait that long?
I'm not free to cut the cord?
Sure, but you can't sign up with any other cable provider because the Government has given Comcast an exclusive right to run the cable in your neighborhood.
That's what makes this different from a "free market" situation.
All this is happening under Obama.
Whose Comcast account login are you using to validate your session? If your answer is "nobody's", I hate to break it to you but you're using someone's honeypot and all of your internet activities while connected to that router are compromised; a real xfinitywifi AP will only serve you the gateway login page until you sign in.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
There's truth to that, and of course it's going to come to a head as more people 'cut the cord,' but it has been a no-brainer for me the last two places I've lived. I moved to LA five years ago and signed up for TimeWarner cable when I first moved there (not much of a TV watcher, but figured I was moving somewhere new and didn't know anyone, so I could bask in the warm glowing warming glow of television for a while). After my cable+internet price crept up to $200/mo, I canceled cable TV and had 100Mbs internet-only for $50/mo. I moved to Boulder, CO and signed up for internet-only access from Comcast for roughly the same price. If I can get 50-100Mbs for $50/mo I'm pretty content with that.
... would not even be in business any more if even a large percentage of their customers felt they had any other choice.
This is how the free market works. Cancel your service and say "due to you charging these fees, which push my rates above the advertised prices, I am canceling my service". Do not accept any alternative service or retention deal. Tell them that if they refuse to cancel service, you will not pay the bill. You do not need boradcast TV. That will shut it down very very very fast. Otherwise, you're a whiner with no solution.
you should! I have a city run cable company so the pricing is as transparent as it can possibly be.
This sh*t should be a utility, not a f-ing unregulated business.
Sure, if by cut the cord you mean giving up watching TV entirely. If you were not aware, Trump appears to be anti net-neutrality, so expect your ISP to start dicking around with your online streaming services.
Comcast's billing systems are clearly designed to overcharge.
I recently returned a rented cable modem because I bought my own. I can log into Comcast's account page and look at "Devices" and the rented modem is no longer there.
Yet they still billed me for the rented modem. How can their systems know that I don't have the modem, yet continue to charge me for it?
I expect that, if challenged, they would claim that there are two separate systems that don't interact properly and their agent simply did not do his job when I returned the equipment, but why maintain two systems? Why not make them interact better? Probably because mistakes like this almost always work in Comcast's favor, so they have an incentive to not fix the problem.
Someone has taken a decision to not fix a problem that screws up frequently and almost always benefits Comcast. Design can be implemented through concious inaction as well as action. After all, fixing the problem would improve productivity.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Actually, NO, it is not free to cut the cord. I tried to cancel my service with verizon which I've had for at least 7 years and they want to charge me $70 to cancel, claiming I have a "contract", which they are in violation of for raising my rates from the $99 per month to $146 per month with no service upgrades whatsoever.
That's almost certainly not a complete and accurate account of the story. I suspect your agreement allows for rate increases. And I suspect it either auto-renews if you fail to notify them, or you made changes within the last 2 years that triggered a renew.
Anyway... 70 bucks is a small price to pay if you really want to cut the cord.
If you use XfinityWifi, you are either using it on a free temporary pass (some restaurants do that) or you are a Comcast customer using your own login.
But either way, Comcast uses your device MAC to determine what you are allowed to do. So even if you aren't logging in, they still know it is you and that your device is associated with your account, mainly so the bandwidth you use on an XfinityWifi hotspot is counted against your bandwidth cap.
None of this has anything do with Comcast TV.
If you want TV and sports, get Kodi and an IPTV package for ~$10-15 a month and you'll get hundreds of channels including all the pay channels, porn, sports, and more. It does use a lot of bandwidth so you need the 1GB Comcast cap level.
$10 too much? There are freeTV options via Kodi. Anyone into any sport can probably find a free feed there.
Sig for hire.
And this is why I have internet only.
Fuck off and die Cable TV companies. Fuck off and die.
M 100mbps for $40 month gets me everything I need.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well, I hope you never find out you can use Kodi and an IPTV package that blows away everything you are doing. Because you'd have to undo all you have done and probably be very sad about how much overspending and overthinking you did.
Sig for hire.
Whose Comcast account login are you using to validate your session? If your answer is "nobody's",
Nobody's, because Comcast doesn't block ICMP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICMP_tunnel
as cable TV. Meanwhile as my options to watch online content increase so does the cable Internet bill needed to support them. It's pushing $70 now. It was $40 when I started. And net neutrality just died with our last presidential election. That means you won't see you're cable bill going up because they'll be charging Netflix $10/mo per user for access.
You're only option is to stop consuming. That sounds good on paper, but TV brings people together. How much water cooler talk is about TV? How much Ice breaking? It's part of our shared culture, and if you're not in, you're out. Try talking to your Boss about the last great book you read and see his eyes glaze over and him look down his nose at your 'elitism'. We Americans at least don't like elites...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Consumerist stories about Comcast. One of the stories: Comcast: 2014 worst company in America. Comcast was selected as worse than Monsanto!
Comcast is disliked so much, now the company is calling itself Xfinity.
I will NEVER watch any sports so FUCK YOU if you think I'm going to pay for or subsidize that bullshit !
Stick you sports up your ass sideways and your bullshit fee for it.
I will NOT give one red cent for bullshit ass sports. Eat shit and die.
Welcome to the new Slashdot where EVERYTHING has to do with that evil mr trump!
seriously! fucking EVERY articular i go to the comments and there is some meat head pulling a "HERP A DERP TUMP" argument out his ass. it is getting sicking FFS this is a site about tech. and this has 100% nothing to do with trump as he is not even in fucking office GAHHHHHHHhhhhh STFU about trump pepole he was voted in.
buu buuuu the electoral college is to blame and Hillary won to popular vote... SO FUCKING WHAT... do you dumb asses know what the electoral college is there for ? there are SOOO meany more ppl in Florida then anywhere else in the usa so to make it fare they have representatives to elect and vote for the POTUS.. so that the more populated stats do not dominate the vote. what a wall street investor and a Idaho potato farmer want are two VERY different things (it is amazing as fuck that I as a Canadian know more about this shit then the average American)
the man is not even in office yet i see in the comments, links to how he is fucking everything up. well fun fact folks this BULLSHIT fee they are charging started when God his Grace Obama was in office.
and BTW this is such a bat shit insane fee. to pretend that the outrageous cost you are already charging dose not cover the cost of the tv shows on the cable... well then WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK am i paying for ?_?
in the basic plans you get all these tv channels for free !!!!!!*
*due to it being free there will be a small charge on your bill to pay for it.
If the terms and conditions change, it gives you the right to cancel your contract without being subject to early termination penalties
... was gained.
Welcome to the real world, most of us don't live in Theory. What you claim is only true if you have a lawyer on retainer. Otherwise, say goodbye to your credit rating and more.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
We need internet fees of $5.00/Mo for 50Mbps/10Mbps, but a few small extra fees:
-Data priority Fee [ streaming: 0.01Mb ]
-Data distance Fee [ 0.001Mb/mile ]
-Data Collection Inspection Fee [0.01/Mb ] NSA Fee
-Data Collection Inspection Fee Recovery Fee 0.001/Mb
-Advertisement Recovery Fee Due to Ad Blocking: 0.01/Ad
-Fee Payment Fee 1.00
-Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee: 0.50
-Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee Surcharge: 0.50
-Fee Payment Fee Recovery Fee Surcharge Levy: 0.50
-Data Storage Fee: 0.02/Mb/Mo
-Unlimited Data Fee: $10.00
-Early Payment Fee: $10.00
-Late Payment Fee: $10.00
-Unused Data Fee: $10.00/Mb
-Data Fee Electricity Fee: $0.001/Mb
Trump will MAGA, and also MTIGA [Make the Internet Great Again]
Where can you buy a legitimate IPTV package?
I have downloaded Kodi on my FireTV, but haven't found much to do with it yet....
A friend of mine had one set up on a Fire Stick...and all it seemed to be good for was a bunch of live TV feeds from Eastern Europe, lots of stuff out of Russia, etc.
I'm not sure what IPTV is, but will look into it.
I didn't spend all THAT much money...but I did want to balance out geeking out myself and my time and want for something not all cobbled together that doesn't work very well or have a nice clean interface. Sound and picture quality are important to me, so what I have so far seems to fit the bill and only cost a few hundred to put together for the whole house.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I salute you for having to balls to do it! As stupid as it sounds, I keep delaying doing something like this because "I can't justify spending that all now", even though I'll end up spending that and more on my Comcast service. My wife and I just have an issue dropping $X at once, even if we'll be spending $2X over time. It's stupid, but I'm glad there is a reasonable setup out there. I'm getting ready for a cable cutting though, by checking antenna placement around the house so we can maximize our TV channels. (I live in Oakland, CA, so it's pretty cool when I can get Bay Area Channels, as well as one or two from Sacramento) My biggest thing is finding someone with reasonable high speed internet and with a reasonable data cap (or none at all) Once I can get that, I may finally just go for it.
Nice writeup. Just wanted to mention that an alternative for those without PS hardware is a raw Sling TV subscription. It goes for $20/mo (+$5 for sports) and runs seamlessly on the FireTV as an app. The interface isn't too bad and definitely passes the wife test.
Btw, I also run Kodi sideloaded on the FireTV despite Amazon's attempts to bury it. Its gets used as a media center for displaying my ripped DVD movies from Netflix for watching later. But it's also a great interface to my mythtv box and HDHomerun tuners. So it's not really useful for viewing OTA within the interface (for that just switch to the native TV's tuner), but it serves as a DVR interface to the mythtv backend for broadcast recordings. The mythtv backend shares duty as a NAS so the hardware cost wasn't one-off for just that purpose.
2 cents.
F*ck Co mcast - F*ck Com cast = F*ck Comc ast + F*ck Comca st * F*ck Comcas t & F*ck C omcast ^ F*ck Co mcast % F*ck Com cast $ F*ck Comc ast # F*ck Comca st
It's a non-justified fee they're increasing, of which consumers can expect more of during Trumps' presidency. Remember that story not too long ago about Verizon and AT&T getting busted and fined because of these fraudulent fees? You can kiss proceedings like that goodbye under Trump. When did you audit where the money from these fees goes? Can you post your proof that these fees and the subsequent increase is justified?
Come to western Canada. One of the larger player (Shaw) asks for your login credentials only when signing on from a new device. Do so, hit accept, and the new MAC address is now tied to your account on any of their open hotspots.
Run any air capture program, get the MAC and you're set. Best is to fake a device like an iPhone or other thing you know will be replaced in a few years. They allow up to 5 (more?) devices per account.
I've snagged literally terabytes this way. Enough to fill my 8x 4TB RAID-Z2 NAS4Free system.
Fuck Shaw the drunk.
I pay $50/month for 50 Mbit unlimited xfer and ~$10 month for a seedbox and usenet. Installed Sonarr,CouchPotato, and SABnzb locally, rtorrent runs on the seedbox. A nice script I wrote rsyncs those in for unraring. SAB even has Pushover notifications, so I get a nice alert when something new is ready to watch.
We play all our home stuff with summaries, ratings, and whatnot with the excellent Infuse app for iOS and AppleTV.
We have an HD antenna on our old satellite mast on the roof. Truth be told, once the whole family was used to TV without commercials, they didn't stand for broadcast. Approximately 17 minutes from every hour stolen from your life. The OTA signal hasn't been used in months.
You forgot to mention that none of what you said absolves Comcast from being the greedy corprotist douchebags that they're being. You DID forget, right?
Because now that trump is president, being a dickbag is 100% approved. The era of political correctness and anti-white, anti-male rhetoric is over! It's now perfectly ok to call niiggers niiggers and tell that woman to get her bitch ass back in the kitchen and bake me a goddamned pie!
No, a free market solution is where cable companies choose not to compete with each other even in areas where the government allows for it. Capitalism at work
Read about the FCC, network neutrality, usage caps, and zero rating. Trump's America promises to dismantle any hint of consumer protection we fought and scraped for in the last several years. This emboldens mega-ISPs to charge fees and discourage competition in new and exciting ways.
I recently returned a rented cable modem because I bought my own. I can log into Comcast's account page and look at "Devices" and the rented modem is no longer there. Yet they still billed me for the rented modem. How can their systems know that I don't have the modem, yet continue to charge me for it?
I can top that. I am a Comcast customer and I own my own cable modem. I've never rented a modem from them at any time. But last month what do I see on my bill but a rental fee for a modem. I also got a notice from them telling me that my modem is obsolete and that I need a new one from them. My modem is a DOCSIS 3.0 modem and always has been and no service that would require DOCSIS 3.1 is in my area. Comcast knows what equipment I have (or they should since they set it up) and it hasn't changed in 5 years. But that didn't stop them from trying to slip in some charges for renting equipment I never rented from them. Douchebags...
I'd consider going to another vendor but Comcast is the only realistic option where I live. My only other "high speed" internet provider is Frontier Communications which offers substantially slower DSL connections.
The best way to opt out of these fees is not to pay Comcast ANY money and switch to just watching content from streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube!
Since Comcast is my internet provider and is the only realistic option for internet in my area, exactly how do you propose I cease paying Comcast any money? Streaming doesn't solve that problem. It allows me to pay them less but I spend more on my internet connection than on cable. You have to have internet service to stream and there are no other service providers in my area worth mentioning.
I actually tried SlingTV first....and found that it didn't have built in DVR, and the channel offerings weren't as good as VUE.
The new ATT DirectTV NOW streaming thing just released is interesting looking...but won't have DVR on it till after we're into 2017.
The nice thing about these is...no contract, if one looks better, change....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If you can't put on roof (and I think local laws now can NOT prohibit you from this after the move to digital OTA)...put antenna in attic...you can have it feed all your TVs natively, or to a central TIVO like dVr box like I described and have it stream throughout the house.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Huh, you might want to try that again. It may have worked in the past, but Comcast currently passes no traffic out of the xfinitywifi jail, which you must sign in to get out of.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Why don't more people go out and play sports, instead of sitting on a couch and watching somebody else have fun?
Because the options to play sports for people who aren't children or professionals are rather limited. In my sport of choice (wrestling) it's rather difficult to compete in any meaningful way after college if you aren't an elite athlete. Even if you have the time (which can be challenging if you have a career and/or family) there is basically nobody to practice with and few events to enter. Some sports are easier to participate in as an adult (running, cycling, etc) but most aren't. I coach my sport but I haven't wrestled a competitive match since the early 1990s when I was in college.
There also is the fact that actually playing sports is a lot of work. Sitting on the couch and watching requires zero effort and carries no chance of injury and still can be pretty fun. You don't have to block out hours of time which can be nigh impossible if you have any family responsibilities or a spouse that doesn't share your specific interest. You don't need anyone else to watch with you to be a spectator either which is not true for a lot of sports. Unless you are lucky enough to live in an area that happens to have adult rec leagues in your sport of choice then you are kind of out of luck. A lot of the fun of sports is the camaraderie with the people you do it with. Most sports are social activities at some level.
Maybe its your area but in my city there are pretty active rec leagues for all sports.
"All sports"? I very much doubt it is true for all sports. Maybe there are for the sports you care about but I very much doubt you have leagues for quite a few sports. The options for adults tend to be rather limited even in the best of circumstances. I don't even need to know where you live to know that there isn't an adult rec league in your area for my sport (wrestling) because such a league simply doesn't exist anywhere. The best I could do would be to do something like train at an MMA gym or judo dojo but it's not the same sport.
Even if you live near a major city with lots of rec league options not every sport has such options or is compatible with the life of a busy adult. Most places in the US do not have much in the way of rec leagues for adults available. That's certainly true near me unless I want to drive a considerable distance and play a sport I don't have any interest or skill in.
If you have a fancy new TV with HDR you may want to look elsewhere. The Fire TV doesn't do HDR. It's also limited to 30Hz at 4K, which doesn't currently matter for Netflix or Amazon Prime but does mean that you can't see a tiny amount of YouTube content in its full 60Hz UHD glory. A Roku Premiere+ or Roku Ultra would be better bets.
If you have a 2015 or earlier UHD TV or a new model without HDR, the Fire TV works very well.
Local laws can't prevent you from putting up an OTA antenna unless you are in a historic district. But if you live in an apartment or condo it's another matter. You can't be prevented from putting an antenna outside your own window but it may not be effective in that location, and the people who control the building are not required to give you access to a roof location where it might work. City dwellers often don't have a clear line of sight path to the broadcast stations in any case even from the roof, and reflections off other buildings create a multipath nightmare, so OTA reception may not work reliably.
Things should get better for urban populations if ATSC 3.0 is ever adopted. It is abandoning 8VSB modulation in favor of OFDM, which is much more resistant to multipath interference. We should have done that in 2000 when Sinclair Broadcasting petitioned the FCC for that change (the cost would have been small at the time because HDTV receivers were not yet widely available) but the FCC rejected it.
Comcast only startes telling people about the broadcast TV fee. The fact is cable companies have had to pay for broadcast TV since 1992/3. Don't blame Comcast or Trump for this....this went down during Bush 1.
If the terms and conditions change, it gives you the right to cancel your contract without being subject to early termination penalties
Lol, no it doesn't. Not unless you're prepared to go to court. Oh, by the way, those TOS you were forced to agree to in order to use the service? Those say you CAN'T take them to court, only mediation and I'll give you one guess who that will side with. I take it you've never actually dealt with these companies before. They are pure evil and you basically can't get out early without costing you money or fucking up your credit. I've received collection notices for dead relatives before. It's insane.
Not so, I've gotten out of numerous contracts without lawyers to help me when the terms have changed with price increased disguised as "fees". Verizon and ATT both come to mind.
I'm not sure what is meant by "comopetition" when it comes to the larger ISPs in the US, because they go out of their way to make sure they will have as little of it as possible.If anythng the fees are probably an attempt to adjust for all the cord-cutting.
Actually, you are free to choose from a variety of alternate programming, including none. Nobody is holding a gun to your head making you pay for TV at all.
Or does making wildly false claims make you feel morally and mentally superior ?
Where I live, you can get Internet via the Other Provider (slower than my old 9600 baud modem except -sometimes- during the middle of the night) - and almost unusable from 5-11pm) or you can go with Comcast (which is actually quite reliable and reasonably fast by average US standards - though not of course as fast as many developed countries have).
The really sad thing is that I almost never do anything that requires high bandwidth - I mostly care about text - but even text was unusable with the other provider.
You can't avoid the cable package - the Comcast Internet comes with basic cable - which means the price of cable is a big long term concern even though I never turn on my TV. You will be very limited in your ability to pursue lifetime education if you don't have internet - which in term helps propagate a class system where the poor stay perpetually poor. That's not how things are supposed to work in the United States.
Aside from that, nobody likes to see big companies violating their legal rights and getting away with it - and US law is riddled with legal ethics problems which both help create this kind of problem in the first place, and make it very hard to get rid of them.
Basically, the approach the US legal profession chose to take to implement copyright law creates this problem. There were many ways they could have implemented something to protect authors - but they didn't choose a simple and ethical approach, they chose a very complicated approach that creates long term business for the legal profession - and an approach with an absurdly long duration. Legal ethics problems in contract law make things even worse.
Also, despite all this complexity - or perhaps because of it - most of the individual content creators are still only getting a tiny proportion of the money that their work returns over it's lifetime. Content creation in general is a lot like the music business - the people doing the creative work get a very small portion of the take (economists estimate the average return to be 2%). It's almost as if the laws exist to benefit people other than the ones doing the actual work.
The net effect is the consumer gets screwed - people have to pay for services that they don't want, don't use, and don't need: in short, they're not getting value for money, which is another way to say "fraud". In short, we have "legalized" fraud.
It's not actually legal, of course - the right to ethical practice of law arises under the 9th Amendment, which means US copyright law and US contract law collectively violate the US Bill of Rights.
Every judge that has upheld the existing laws - I specifically include the Supreme Court - is guilty of violating their oaths to uphold the Bill of Rights, and unethical practice of law. The lessons of Nuremberg are lost on these people. For that matter, even the lessons of US history are lost on them - they're basically doing the same kind of unethical stuff that caused so many problems in the past.
And thus ordinary people get screwed - here as in so many other situations - because the legal profession can't get it's ethical act together.
What the hell does this have to do with Trump, they have been pulling this shit for years. And they're perplexed as to why so many people are cutting the cord...