Yeah, ES go with www.expertsatellite.com or www.orbitsatellite.com

Well said. I am forced to use Comcast for my cable modem. It was AT&T when they finally offered it in my area (6 months without it.) A few months after sign-up I got the dreaded "we've sold ourselves to Comcast" letter. Things have been okay for the most part, but my strategy is never to call them about anything.

As far as this nonsense with Dish goes...if I wasn't already a DirecTV customer, I would be now.

Sleep on your back.

das

Yeah, comcast sucks. I pay $63 something a month for digital cable, which is essentially the same thing I could get from DirectTV for $40 something.

But, I'd have to put the sattellite on the roof of my apartment building, and my complex requires a $500,000 insurance policy to be purchased to do so, so it's too much of a hassle, and likely would end up being just as expensive.

I would definitely go the satellite route in your case. That's pretty cool that they allow to use the roof to put up a dish. Most apt buildings won't let you do this. A $500K policy for this is not that much. My current landlord required a $1M policy to do this for a balcony connection (if I could actually get satellite) - I asked my insurer how much that cost and it was only another $13/year.


Oh and to add, Comcast definitely sucks. Unfortunately, I have no choice but to deal with the devil. If everything goes right, when I move in 6 weeks, I will be free from Satan's shackles.

Poor Red Dog ... you must have really done something bad to piss off the TV Gods. First the Sunday Ticket extension and now this.

das

My bill for Americas Top 180 comes out to about $70 a month.

Take away 10 of the highest rated cable channels and give me $1 in return. Sounds like a great idea to me.

/Benjamin

So... Since all those "cable kicks satellite's ass" commercials say that there are "no long term contracts"...

Could someone with DISH pocket the $400, get Comcast installed, then use the $300 remaining (after paying for the comcast install and first month) to get a great DirecTV setup?

oh and das, and satilite subscribers, are those satilite hell stories about the wind nocking out the picture, and such that comcast puts in their ads (as well as a claim that just buying a digital cable reciver automatically means you can have hd, while with dtv, you need additional box) or is that pure bull shit?

It's BS. The only thing that will save cable in the long run is the geogprahic/directional limitation of satellite dishes.

Pure bullshit. I've never lost signal because of wind. Sure, if there's a nightmarish storm late in the evening, I may briefly lose signal, but I may also lose power. It's no different than the cable going out. It happens at times, but no more than any other natural loss of service to phone, power, cable, whatever.

DirecTV sells hybird HD/SD boxes just like everyone else. I have one myself. If I didn't watch as much television as I do, I could easily survive on it alone.

das

I figured most were pure bullshit when they had the dumb ass commercial with the bucket of concrete idea.

The guy's dish kept getting blown over as he wasn't allowed to mount it on a wall or balcony etc. He said he called the dish company and they told him to put it in a bucket of concrete. The guy then screamed "where am I supposed to mix concrete, I live in an apartment!!"

I just wanted to smack the dumb ass and say "mix it in the bucket you dumb f**k!"

I mean who do they have writing these commercials.

They also have an advantage in bandwidth and localization, which should allow them better flexibility in offering HD channels. We'll probably never see HD locals over sat, but they're pretty easy for cable to do. That said, my HD DirecTV receiver can pick up HD locals OTA, so it's not that big a deal.

das

But since the satellites can't deliver local HD, cable will take forever to offer it.

Heh. After a move once, I got lazy and had a dish on a cheap plastic tripod for almost a year before mounting it. There was a cable in the center of the tripod that you were supposed to tether to something for extra security. I never used it. It never blew over.

das

Actually, Comcast does offer it. They have for about a year in my area.

I second das' hatred for Comcast. I have never had anything, but trouble with that company, and their pricing is beyond a ripoff. My friend pays around 100 a month for his package, and gets less channels than I do. He doesn't even get Showtime. His channels all look terrible except for the HD ones, and the OnDemand service, while a feature I wish satellite had, works clumsily at best.

Is it still Comcast? I mean, it's been long enough for the paint to dry on the trucks. Time for a new owner.

Presently experiencing how bad Comcast is. I ordered the ESPN Full Court half-season package for $69. They charged me $98 instead. Took them about 15 minutes of explanation (I was doing the explaining of course) and hold time to figure out their mistake. Morons.

So true.

You got them on the phone? After you'd signed up? Who'd you sleep with for that kind of service?

das

Actually, getting through to customer 'service' has rarely been a problem. My Comcast problems generally have involved around equipment, picture quality, and service appointments. For instance, at my last place, I went through 4 digital cable boxes before they finally supplied one that actually worked for more than a few weeks.

when the channels were still on dish these commercials made sense. but I just saw one saying the channels are no longer on dish. so the only people seeing the commercials still get those channels which means we don't need to see the commercials

Not all Viacom channels were removed. Affected channels are -

Noggin
MTV
MTV2
VH1
VH1 Classic
Nickelodeon
Nick-W
Comedy Central
BET
and the local CBS affiliate in 15 markets

Viacom channels NOT affected -
SpikeTV
CMT
TVLand
Showtime
TMC
Flix

There are conflicting reports on UPN availability (like anybody watches UPN anyway )

The Viacom spots blaming Dish for this can still be seen on Dish via the unaffected Viacom channels, so everybody (cable, Directv) will be seeing those for a while. If they are still airing on channels that Dish customers can't even see, they really ought to knock it off on the blocked channels and quit annoying the rest of us.

Caught a radio commercial from Comcast capitalizing on the situation. Friggin’ Sodomites.

I'm currently saving up for an HD receiver to get my locals OTA. Screw all these money grubbing companies. If there is something I am dying to see on cable I will pick it up later on dvd.