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Comcast Raises Cable TV Bills Again -- Even If You're Under Contract (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comcast is raising its controversial "Broadcast TV" and "Regional Sports Network" fees again on January 1, with the typical total price going from $14.50 to $18.25 a month. The newly raised broadcast TV fee will be $10 a month, and the sports fee will be $8.25 a month, Cord Cutters News reported last week. The new fee sizes are confirmed in a Comcast price list for the Atlanta market. The new price hikes will take effect in most of Comcast's regional markets across the U.S. on January 1, but some cities will get the increase later in 2019, a Comcast spokesperson told Ars. The fee sizes can vary by city based on which stations are available, so in some cases they could be less than $10 and $8.25, Comcast said.
The fees, which have become common in the industry, are controversial because they are not included in Comcast's advertised prices and because Comcast imposes fee increases even on customers who are under contract. The broadcast and sports fee increases will also be applied to customers who pay Comcast's promotional rates, which typically last one year, Comcast told Ars. Equipment rental fees are rising, too. Comcast last year raised its modem rental fee from $10 to $11 a month. The new price list for January 1 lists an "Internet/Voice Equipment Rental" fee as $13. Comcast confirmed to Ars that the modem rental fee is rising $2 a month. Customers can avoid that fee by purchasing their own modem.
The fees, which have become common in the industry, are controversial because they are not included in Comcast's advertised prices and because Comcast imposes fee increases even on customers who are under contract. The broadcast and sports fee increases will also be applied to customers who pay Comcast's promotional rates, which typically last one year, Comcast told Ars. Equipment rental fees are rising, too. Comcast last year raised its modem rental fee from $10 to $11 a month. The new price list for January 1 lists an "Internet/Voice Equipment Rental" fee as $13. Comcast confirmed to Ars that the modem rental fee is rising $2 a month. Customers can avoid that fee by purchasing their own modem.
I see an ad for TV+Internet for $35 and when all of the fees and taxes are added in it comes out to more like $80. Very deceptive advertising practices. In some cases, its hard to get out of them what the actual fees and taxes will be. Then, probably the make it so the first bill comes only after the 30 day gaurantee is up. There is nothing worth watching on TV anyway (and really even on NetFlix). Much is designed for the lowest common denominator, you can feel your IQ dropping just being exposed to it. Much of the news, especially CNN, is complete disinformation propoganda and lies to turn people into America hating nutjobs. I don't watch TV, and its great.
This is great for shareholder value. Cable TV fees were always too low.
People sometimes invite non-subscribers to watch tv, they should be charged a nominal monthly fee for this.
People sometimes mute commercials, they should be charged for this.
People sometimes use unauthorized/illegal DVRs, there should be be a fee for this.
People sometimes don't watch tv at all, they should be charged for this.
Poeple sometimes flip channels very quickly, missing commercials, they should be charged for this.
And Tell them to take there Cable and stick it where the Light Don't Shine.
They seem to think they can do whatever they PLEASE, If it was me I would NOT pay anymore to them if I was Under Contract.
They Lie Cheat and Steal from ALL its Users.
Anyway if you have a Contract then I would just Pay that till they Cut me Off them CORD CUTTING comes there way and they wonder why they have been PAYING the Cable Industry all this time.
People will say there is no competition, but there is. They are competing for your time and your eyes.
Once you understand that, you will know there is a lot of it. Start doing that thing you never had time for.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
comcast business static ip you are forced to rent the modem
It's as simple as that. As long as people keep paying, they will increase their prices.
for some they are the only internet choice.
Other then maybe slow DSL or capped LTE
At what point will people stop taking these insanely one sided "contracts" ?
It's the same with tech EULA, make it stop already.
I've moved off of a cable provider now for about 9 months. The wife has coined the term 'attic tv' for the dual antenna I built and have installed in the attic, as our HOA does not allow terrestrial antennas mounted in view . Make it's difficult to say the least. :| .. be sure to have a Redbox near by.. or up your sub services..such as Hulu.. or whatever your online provider
Its however like stepping back about 20 to 25 years. The programming on the air wave channels are re-runs of 1990's and early 2000 movies.
Ed Sullivan shows, BuzzR tv is game shows. that's fun...
All local news channels are the most current, but you are left with the feeling that you are not entertained
Now remind you, all is for very little cost... that of the cost for the materials to build a simple antenna.. aluminum foil, cardboard and $2 ballun from Walmart, and some coax cable...
So the cable companies can raise the rates all they want.. I've moved on.. Save's me about 1200 a year.. depending on programing choices of course...
But none the less.. no contract.. and I still have gigabit internet to the house..
So go ahead Comcast.. raise your rates.. have at it.. at some point.. those of us that are only having your service as a convenience will give up on TV altogether..
Talk about nickle and diming.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Are you forced to rent the modem? I think you can buy one.
Comcast also stated they will be raising fees on their buggy whip rentals, and mandating you buy one.
Just get Rabbit Ears - you do miss out on a lot of local pro sports but its no longer worth the price considering you also have to watch so many ads during the games.
Problem solved.
I recently got Hulu for $12 a year. It's okay, but I would not pay much more than that. Curiousitystream for $20 a year is a better value for me.
Lots to choose from.
I think you can buy your own cable modem as well.
I'm not a Comcast fan, but this practice makes total sense and is the norm for the industry.
On behalf of all PIRATE MASTER RACE, thanks for being a PAYCUCK.
I can download anything I want for free. It's the à la carte dream for $0.00 per month.
I just noticed yesterday that the local internet supplier is adding fiber to my location. $70/mo for 1Gig/symmetrical. Might finally make the jump...guess I'll hold off moving to Xfinity Mobile.
Usually not in this case. I looked into getting a static IP and all the providers required their equipment on the customer premises for their standard offerings. I'm sure you can customize the contract to avoid that, but that takes time and probably smart to involve a lawyer.
When the airline says "your flight is $500" that is all in, airport fees, tsa fees and such are all included and by law have to be. Why not do the same thing for cable? if you advertise $50 per month and deliver a $75 bill then you should be sued for false advertising...and LOSE...
And the stupid set top box that they installed several years ago is being charged 10 to 20 $ a month!
Just last week I had an hour long chat with Xfinity rep. Started with the low ball, 80$ a month triple play. Ended up at 130$ a month with two year contract. Compared to Gigabit internet from FiOS currently at 150$. Even that contract price has hidden fees it looks like..
Resigned to paying the highway robbery prices for now... But a day will come there will be enough bandwidth to skip all these fibers and coax cables. There will be true competition. I will have no sympathy for these companies then.
But... all those Criminal This Officer and Criminal ThatOfficer would have cashed in their chips and be sharpening their shears for the next round of fleecing in a new industry. The share holders of these companies are the ones who will end up seeing their investments dwindle in value. The middle management and workers will have their livelihoods devastated.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Keep bending over for the cable companies people. DITCH THAT TV service. I'll save over $1,200 this year due to ditching mine last December.
While there may not be anything people can do about keeping their original contract prices, that failure to disclose substantially weakens their ability to hold people to remaining on that contract, and it wouldn't surprise me if they aren't able to actually enforce any early termination fees they might have decided should otherwise apply, particularly since the customer would have had no practical way to anticipate in advance that these changes were about to occur.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Your local TV stations, or more specifically their greedy parent companies, are to blame for the hike in Retransmission Fees. The ACA expects fees to keep going up. These fees vary from region to region.
The station owners have been using money from fees to buy more stations so they can leverage cable companies to raise fees.
Getting rid of the fees would require fixing the retransmission consent provision of the 1992 United States Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act. That forces cable operators and other rebroadcasters to obtain permission from broadcasters before carrying their programming.
It also wouldn't hurt to break up the cable companies and to break up the companies that own scads of local stations.
I think Comcast figured out that cord cutting isn't cheap. So they have less to fear from competition. If they raise the ala carte prices too then then they also have more room to cut you a deal on that "internet phone cable " bundle.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This is true.
I have a Comcast biz account with 5 static IPs, a /29. Their modem/router is set to bridge mode, but they manage the BGP routing on the device since the highest IP is my subnets "gateway" IP. I can control a few things in their router settings, but it really isn't worth touching.
So we see their router as external and connect our wifi APs into it. Wifi is too dangerous to be allowed direct access to our LAN, so those devices aren't trusted without a full VPN. This also simplifies guest access security.
We have our own pfSense router where we control everything on our network.
I know 2 people with a single static IP on Comcast Biz being able to use their own equipment, provided it was approved models. These are very stubborn people and said they had to call multiple times before getting a CSR who would transfer the connection to new equipment.
the higher the bill gets, the less people will stick around. the prices are already too high. remember when cable was supposed to not have commercials? you pay to watch, and still have to watch commercials. that makes no sense. they should make a free service, and have it paid for by running commercials during the broadcast. but nope, they want $ from everyone involved, from the lowly subscribing customers to the advertisers paying for the commercials. they really wonder why people keep ditching cable, the companies are too greedy. they will jsut keep raising prices to make up for the lost customers, and that in itself will lead to more customers leaving. it's a feedback loop, and the only people suffering are the ones too stupid to give up their cable tv.
FIOS terminates ethernet at my house and offers static IP. No equipment rental required, I use my own routers. The only time my bill ever went up was when I switched to higher bandwidth plans, other than that same bill every month. Have been with them for over a decade now.
If you spend any appreciable amount of time surfing Cable TV channels, you need to rethink your life.
Netflix, $9 a month
Hulu, something like $9 a month
Amazon Prime, right in there too.
Throw in some specialty channels on specialty networks and you are at maybe $50 at most (plus internet connection). You can get local channels over the air if you want. And if you are too far away, you probably don't care.
Bottom line..cancel Cable/Sat TV. Get the channels you WANT to watch, and then....go outside.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The demarc point for Verizon is the ONT not the router. Usually Verizon provides a router that has MOCA (so they only need to run coax into the premises) but they are more than willing to provide Ethernet over twisted pair.
And, yes, Verizon FIOS is much better than Comcast
And residential static IP service does not have a SLA. They don't guarantee any level of service.
I just went through this with Comcast, and I feel like I was lied to every step of the way. Long story short it turns out you CANNOT purchase a cable modem compatible with Comcast's gigabit offering, because they ALSO require that the modem supports their Internet Voice service, and ONLY Comcast Modems support that. Grimey fuckers.
The long story is: I called into Tech Support because I wanted to upgrade to their Super Triple Play, because getting virtually EVERY channel and upgraded gigabit internet turned out to cost $10 LESS than I was paying for my stripped-down service offering. Though, this was only the case if I purchased my own modem and eliminated the modem fee - which is great, because renting equipment is insane. So the comcast tech told me I should be good to go, but I needed to upgrade to a DOCSIS 3.1 compatible modem (my current modem was only DOCSIS 3.0 compatible). Their recommendation was that I go ahead and use their modem for a month to make installation easier, and buy a modem later to save time.
I went on ahead and scheduled the upgrade, and quickly ordered a DOCSIS 3.1 compatible modem (newest Arris Surfboard they make) - Amazon Prime got it to me in 2 days, boo-yah. I called Comcast Tech Support again to make sure my modem was good, and that I could use my modem during the setup instead of theirs, and they said it was fine. Again they said their recommendation was to use their modem during setup and replace theirs with mine later, but that the plan was still solid.
Tech guy shows up, calls in my MAC address, everything initially seemed to go as scheduled. However, I wasn't getting gigabit speeds, but he said that should work itself out in about 30 minutes, once the account is "closed" and everything finalizes (I also couldn't see HBO, which also meant the account hadn't finalized). He closes the account, calls in to make sure everything is good, and leaves.
8 hours later, still cannot access HBO and still don't have gigabit speeds. I call back, and the tech tells me that my account hasn't been closed yet. The service tech still needs to close it out, and I should have the tech come back tomorrow to close it out. I argue that I won't be home, I have a goddamn job and all, and I demand to know what hasn't been closed out about the account that requires a service tech. They told me my voice service hasn't been set up, and it's required in order to close the account. They highly recommend that I have the tech come back, use their modem to set up the voice service since the modem I bought doesn't support voice, and then replace the modem with a different compatible modem later.
So I got into an argument about my modem, that I was told my modem was compatible with gigabit internet, and he kept telling me I needed to refer to the online info about supported third-party modems. He kept recommending I have the support tech come back, install their modem, and find a third-party replacement later. After about 10 minutes on the call, the tech starts acting like he can't hear me any more. Bullshit. Then he says if I can hear him to call back later. And then he hangs up.
So I call back, and explain my situation and the jackwad I had just talked to, and the new tech dude repeated the "I recommend you use our modem to set up the service, and replace with a new compatible modem." So at that point I said there isn't a modem compatible with their Voice service, and it was not within my budget to rent a modem from them. The dude didn't say a word more to me, but forwarded my call to someone else.
The new person answered, and I asked if I needed to repeat my situation. She said nope, she knew what the problem was. She verified that gigabit internet from Comcast only works with THEIR modem, if I wanted to use any other modem I had to back down to the fastest non-gigabit offering. And then she recommended several ways I could even further reduce my bill by asking me specific questions about how I use my DVR and other services, and even recommended a Ro
"with the typical total price gouge from $14.50 to $18.25 a month."
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
What happens if those customers under contract want to cancel? Will they get slapped with an early termination fee? I'm betting that's the norm.
My Christmas wish: I want the FTC and the FCC to slap around the TV and internet providers until they start acting right.
I'll even negotiate around political and economic ideals. I don't care if the government cancels existing benefits/protections or enacts new requirements, as long as these companies get the message.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
shut up and pay... kardashians are on soon
I don't even watch the "Sports" channels - at all. Being fleeced for things you don't even use. And of course, they can tell if you use them.
Youre soooooo free Amerikujs!
69.99 per month PLUS 14.95 local broadcast fee PLUS 29.96 install fee PLUS 40.00 modem fee x 4 rooms PLUS 10.95 Federal tax PLUS 9.95 State tax PLUS 4.95 Local tax Total 2 to 3 times the advertised price It's the "user fees" and crap where they make their real money.
It's not even the price increases that get to me- but the way in which they go about it. I canceled my cable TV subscription when they tried to force a cable box on me way back in the day. They gave us three "free" cable boxes, but refused to acknowledge an increase in price as I had a lot more TVs than that. I never did end up subscribing to cable Internet services either. I tried out cable Internet once, but canceled before my free month was up. It was not what was advertised speed wise and while they do a better job at hiding the fact that they aren't giving you anywhere near what they advertise during prime time hours it's still not right in my mind. If I can get decent ADSL service in an area (ie basically anywhere in a town or not too far outside of one) I'll go with that over cable. Everywhere that I have lived I've actually had much better experiences with ADSL service over everything else. Even fiber service in the two areas I have been able to get it over the years has been lackluster in comparison. It's not to say I wouldn't stick with fiber, but the outages have seemed more frequent on fiber than ADSL. It might in part be a partner with a high degree of anxiety than reality though.
to another city where the incumbent high-speed high-volume home Internet provider happens to be a company other than Comcast
Moving? Really?
Yes really, according to these users. But not everyone feels moving for better Internet is practical, such as these users.
Are you forced to rent the modem? I think you can buy one.
You can buy a modem and use your own if you have residential service, or business service with dynamic IP. Citing "security of their network" (yes, really), they do not allow business users with static IP services to bring their own modem.
Also, if you are a business subscriber with a plan over 60Mbits/sec and voice service, they will not let you use only one modem, since their voice modems don't support more than that. Even if you explicitly state you are fine being limited to 60Mbits/sec, they will refuse to only provision a single modem.
Also, they won't give you "just a modem", you get one of those crappy modem/router combos...which do have a bridge mode available, but they're not always careful about keeping that setting when they roll out firmware updates.
Also, you'll probably find yourself with yet another modem and access point for their CableWiFi service - not the worst thing, but still makes the install take longer and competes with your own WiFi network.
So... what are you waiting for? Cut the cable cord, use comcast for internet only. Avoid the broadcast fee, buy your modem (avoid the rental fee), and avoid the sports fee.
It's like the "Fuck you, I'm out." scene from Half-Baked.
But without anyone/anything cool.
I need a cigarette... and I don't even smoke.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
Get internet. Get Netflix, Hulu, or whatever. Pirate everything you cannot get on-demand.
If you see comcast cunts in your hood, throw ice water on them, steal their tools, shank their tires.