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People Still Don't Like Their Cable Companies, ConsumerReports' Telecom Survey Finds (consumerreports.org)
Larger cable providers once again take a beating for perceived value -- even when it comes to bundled plans. ConsumerReports: Unhappy with your pay-TV company? You're not alone. Dissatisfaction with the perceived value of pay-TV service was once again high among the 176,000 members who participated in Consumer Reports' latest telecommunications survey. When we asked for feedback on their experiences with pay TV, home internet, home telephone service, and bundled plans, they shared their displeasure. In fact, most of the larger cable companies -- Optimum (Cablevision), Comcast, and Spectrum (Charter, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks) -- earned low scores in multiple categories, settling into the bottom half of the 25 providers in CR's new telecom service ratings.
Only 38 percent of pay-TV subscribers were highly satisfied with their service, meaning they were "very" or "completely" happy with the offerings. Armstrong, a smaller cable company that operates in Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, earned the second-place slot behind Google Fiber, in part due to favorable scores for technical support, reliability, and customer service. Verizon and the two satellite-TV companies -- AT&T's DirecTV and Dish Network -- also rated better than Cox Communications, Comcast, Spectrum, and Optimum.
Top-rated EPB, a municipal broadband service run as a public utility in Chattanooga, Tenn., was one of the few bright spots for internet service. It was the only company to receive a top mark for value. It also got top marks for speed and reliability. Google Fiber was a close second in the ratings, the only other company to get a favorable mark for value.
Nearly three-quarters of the survey respondents who have a bundled plan -- TV, internet, and phone -- said they got a special promotional price when they signed up. And 45 percent were still enjoying that rate when they answered our survey.
Only 38 percent of pay-TV subscribers were highly satisfied with their service, meaning they were "very" or "completely" happy with the offerings. Armstrong, a smaller cable company that operates in Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, earned the second-place slot behind Google Fiber, in part due to favorable scores for technical support, reliability, and customer service. Verizon and the two satellite-TV companies -- AT&T's DirecTV and Dish Network -- also rated better than Cox Communications, Comcast, Spectrum, and Optimum.
Top-rated EPB, a municipal broadband service run as a public utility in Chattanooga, Tenn., was one of the few bright spots for internet service. It was the only company to receive a top mark for value. It also got top marks for speed and reliability. Google Fiber was a close second in the ratings, the only other company to get a favorable mark for value.
Nearly three-quarters of the survey respondents who have a bundled plan -- TV, internet, and phone -- said they got a special promotional price when they signed up. And 45 percent were still enjoying that rate when they answered our survey.
Water Is Wet!
Check your premises.
The cable companies are under this false impression that it was a good idea to provide as many channels as possible. My biggest issue with TV now when I go somewhere that has cable, is it takes me a while to even find one of the channels I might want to watch. Maybe their idea what to increase the odds that a show you like is currently airing on one of the 800 channels, but in an age of on demand programming, this strategy is insufficient. The only saving grace for them now is to offer Netflix-style on demand programming for all their content.
hidden fees and some times forced hardware rent.
Comcast may force people to rent there gateway when they move to IPTV.
AT&T has been busy converting all the old DirecTv accounts to their RC1 system and causing major pains!
I have a THR22-100 (High Def Tivo with dual directv tuners) and last Thursday (8-2-2018) when they converted the account over to their RC1 system they disabled the DVR portion. So no pause, play, fastforward, or rewind. Worse, all prior recorded shows are not available. I have been on the phone with them numerous times and keep getting pushed to tech support which then want to change for a tech to come out and do what? I know the equipment is good; I found a bug in the tivo software that you can pause and play live tv, but only if the channel menu is up. So this tells me that the drive and tuners are fine, they just disabled the dvr capability (which the settings info page shows as inactive).
Looking at AT&T's forums the problem is that when converting the accounts they miss quite a few things and end up having to re-do the accounts manually. The main cause is they change the account from a residential account to a business account (business accounts can't record any shows). They also never appeared to test this with existing equipment so people have been randomly having their service messed up and nobody can seem to fix it.
Think of all the industries with shitty customer service ratings:
1) Cable
2) Cellphones
3) Utilities
4) Airlines
5) Car dealers
What do they all have in common? They lack any real competition. In every case the customer has little or no choice of their service provider. With airlines the choice is fly or take the train or drive. In most cases the alternatives are impractical. With car dealers, unless you are buying a Tesla, you have to work through a dealer network. In most cases that is actually protected by law. The only viable alternative is to buy a used car or don't drive.
It's not much better with cellphones. Service generally sucks, service sucks, coverage sucks and it's expensive. At one time I remember rumors of Apple entering the cell service market. It turned out not to be true but I wish they had.
It's a little different with cable companies. With traditional cable you have the traditional oligopoly. But there is a viable alternative - cut the cord. Get an antenna, NetFlix and maybe Hulu or Amazon and you don't need the cable companies anymore. The cable companies know this and respond in typical fashion - by trying to punish their customers for leaving. Good luck with that strategy boys. Meanwhile their customer service ratings continue to stink and people are cutting the cord at an ever increasing rate.
oh, wait, you mean you actually pay for the 100+ free over the air 1080p HDTV channels?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Top-rated EPB, a municipal broadband service run as a public utility in Chattanooga, Tenn., was one of the few bright spots for internet service. It was the only company to receive a top mark for value. It also got top marks for speed and reliability.
But we've been told there is no way a government service could give better performance at a lower price than a private company! Fake news!
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Spectrum is always down in my area too! When you live in an area with precisely 1 fast broadband provider (which is common across the US); and you cut cable TV only to find a few years later you're now paying the same for internet that you once paid for cable- because they use internet consumers to subsidise their cable TV customers... yeah, I hate my cable company ISP. I hate monopolies in general because they can do precisely this... abuse the consumer.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Comcast has competition in your area- you mention webpass and Google Fiber. Comcast has to provide a better service in your area because you have competition.
When google fiber moves into town, the other providers in that area drop their costs and improve their service.
When there is no competition in town they jack the prices up and don't maintain their network very well because- they know they've got you by the balls. Your positive experience with Comcast (and other people's negative experience) is proof that monopolies don't work.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I'm in Silicon Valley - ie, engineers and stuff who know how this stuff works and who have been on the internet before it was called the Internet. And options here suck and are spotty. When I moved into my condo (around 2002) the cable was still analog with an A/B switch. If you wanted digital cable, you had a special box that combined the A+B into a digitial out. But I didn't want digital cable because after buying the place I couldn't afford the ridiculous $100/month cost. DirecTV at the time had digital TV for less than half the cost so that's what I used. Internet was DSL, because if you didn't have cable then the only alternatives were dialup and DSL.
Today, 16 years later or so, there are now finally two broadband internet/television companies, AT&T and Comcast and both suck (DirecTV went away and was swallowed and corroded by AT&T) For internet. When I ask people why they use Comcast, they never say anything good instead they say "It's bundled with tv, internet, and telephone so even though it sucks it is not as expensive as it could be". When I ask why people use AT&T they say "it sucks but at least it's not Comcast!". And AT&T internet is basically just a higher tier of DSL. You really never run across anyone who says "wow I really love my cable company!"
We can't get Google Fiber in the same county as Google. We can't get internet without the company spamming your mail and email about how you should bundle in their crappy television service. It's like we're in a black hole of sucky technology in Silicon Valley.