Time Warner Cable Costs going UP !!!

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by tummyman

Just got my bill from Time Warner in Moultonborough... along with notice of new rates effective 1/1/2010. I am just plain MAD. Costs going up 14.3% for LOUSY service on my package of TV and Internet only. They recently cut off all Boston channels for news and have a poor mix of other channels. In this economy, it is pure outright business rape of all residents with a percent increase like this. And the Moultonborough Board of Selectmen have no control. It is time for Moultonborough to send a message to Time Warner that there will be outright competition as soon as the current disgraceful contract expires. To show you what competition does, in MA I get all three services..phone/TV/Cable for less than $100/month....with NH Time Warner it is $147. Figures out to be 50% more........ Time for NHEC to strongly consider getting into the business of Cable/Internet....it is something that publicly owned electric utilities provide elsewhere in the US and they own the poles.

First off, if your service or reception is lousy, you should be calling their customer service department and reporting the issue. The cable companies are required to ensure that the signal reaching your house meets certain signal strength and picture quality parameters. They are not required to compensate for old/crappy cable, amps, splitters, etc that you may have inside the house affecting the signal.

If you are experiencing service interruptions, you should be filing for outage credits, and requesting that they repair the cable/equipment feeding your house.

In many situations, the cable companies are basically "middlemen". For a portion of the channels they provide THEY pay a fee to the provider. It is possible that the premium content providers (ESPN, etc.) are responsible for at least a portion of the rate increases.

How do you expect the town to send them a message that there will be competition? You most likely barely have enough subscribers to support 1 cable operator. I doubt a second operator is going to come along and invest millions in overbuilding the network so that they can get 1/2 of an unprofitable market.

[VitaBene]

Originally Posted by brk-lnt

First off, if your service or reception is lousy, you should be calling their customer service department and reporting the issue. The cable companies are required to ensure that the signal reaching your house meets certain signal strength and picture quality parameters. They are not required to compensate for old/crappy cable, amps, splitters, etc that you may have inside the house affecting the signal.

If you are experiencing service interruptions, you should be filing for outage credits, and requesting that they repair the cable/equipment feeding your house.

In many situations, the cable companies are basically "middlemen". For a portion of the channels they provide THEY pay a fee to the provider. It is possible that the premium content providers (ESPN, etc.) are responsible for at least a portion of the rate increases.

How do you expect the town to send them a message that there will be competition? You most likely barely have enough subscribers to support 1 cable operator. I doubt a second operator is going to come along and invest millions in overbuilding the network so that they can get 1/2 of an unprofitable market.

BRK,

Didn't some telecom act or another allow others to use the transmission lines of the existing provider as those lines had been paid by the subscribers? I remeber something along those lines, I will have to do some digging on line.

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by VitaBene

BRK,

Didn't some telecom act or another allow others to use the transmission lines of the existing provider as those lines had been paid by the subscribers? I remeber something along those lines, I will have to do some digging on line.

You're thinking of the copper lines installed by the old Ma Bell and DSL. That was the whole CLEC/ILEC stuff that started in the 90's with DSL and the growth of Internet.

Cable plants are different. They use a common backbone, and the channel frequency allocations are defined by the FCC. So, you can't have 2 MSO's (cable companies) sharing the same cable plant because (briefly) you can't put 2 "Channel 19's" on the same cable backbone.

Telco wiring is all point to point, and on top of that the DSL signal is a separate signal from the voice part. So, you can have AT&T for your voice signal and SpeakEasy for your DSL on the same copper pair leading to your house.