Comcast Raises Controversial 'Broadcast TV' and 'Sports' Fees $48 Per Year (arstechnica.com) 166
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.
This is fair (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:This is fair (Score:5, Insightful)
No one is saying that it's not fair for Comcast et al to charge what they need to in order to make a profit. The issue is they advertise say $39.99 for some package but then it comes with the extra fees that should be included in the advertised price as they are just the cost of doing business. If the advertised price is $39.99, it shouldn't actually cost $39.99 for the content.
This isn't even considering all the extra taxes and fees that go beyond their cost and get passed on to various government bodies.
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The issue is they advertise say $39.99 for some package but then it comes with the extra fees that should be included in the advertised price as they are just the cost of doing business.
What's more, you can't even make them tell you what the actual price is. I've tried this several times:
"When you say this is $45/month, is that the amount I will be writing on the check?"
"No, there are additional regulatory fees and taxes."
"And how much are those?"
"It varies by region, and don't have your specific information."
Re:This is fair (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, bribing politicians ain't cheap.
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The Supreme Court says so and they ought to know.
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And what most of the population doesn't understand is THIS ACTIVITY by business (ie, "paying to get the laws you want") is actually what "big government" is. Granted there are inefficiencies and some unnecessary regulations, but, I believe, the bulk of the "big government" complaint has to do with all the laws the big corporations are getting passed without the general population being aware. The cable companies, big ag, pharmaceuticals, etc have all been doing this.
The "big government" complaint is actuall
Their systems are designed to overcharge. (Score:3)
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 hi
Billing for a modem rental (Score:2)
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
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Another method is having State Governments pass laws stopping cities and towns from operating their own networks in competition.
NC was one of those states and honestly in my opinion it is, if I am understanding it properly, a violation of article i sec. 34 of the state constitution [state.nc.us]. Unfortunately anybody who might have standing hasn't brought suit against the state; such as a resident of Wilson, NC perhaps or even the city itself. I also feel this section of the state constitution would apply to our ABC Liquor law which is a state run monopoly, but again nobody has challenged it.
So adding fees is ok because competing costs money (Score:2)
Re: This is fair (Score:1)
Verizon does this too (Score:2)
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.
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In fairness to the original complainer, it's much, much more unlikely to use your own gear with FIOS. Especially if your FIOS includes a non-Internet service.
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It's a little different with FIOS because the router handles various video related functions (e.g. PPV) and acts as a MoCA bridge (the ONT sends the data signal over MoCA rather than cat5 in the default configuration). It can be done, but it's kind of a pain. In my mind, the only knock on an otherwise great service.
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Mine broke (started getting lots of packet errors leading to corrupt downloads) a while back and they replaced it with a new one. Would be a shame if something happened to yours...
Re:Verizon does this too (Score:5, Informative)
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.
I got the same warning of the impending 2.80 fee to support old routers. I was on 15/15, which was a holdover from signing up years ago. Since it was nearing time to to 'renew' my contract, I checks the options. It wound up being 10.00 cheaper per month to upgrade to 50/50 - and since I was upgrading to 50 or higher they gave me a new quantum blah blah router free of charge.
So to avoid the 2.80 fee I wound of with faster service and a new router for 10.00 less. If you are on a 'contract agreement' with verizon, you can upgrade or renew that contract at any time.
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I had a very old DSL router. My ISP made some configuration change that caused it to stop working. Normally they'd charge a rental fee or tell me which router I can buy myself, but since they essentially broke the old one, they sent me a new modem for free. As a bonus, my DSL speeds tripled.
Needless to say, my ISP is not Verizon, Comcast, or AT&T. Sorry to be the weirdo with a story about an ISP acting decently.
Easy way to increase profits (Score:5, Insightful)
Best way to opt out? Streaming Services! (Score:2, Insightful)
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!
Re:Best way to opt out? Streaming Services! (Score:4, Insightful)
I would cut the cord but my only high speed option is the same shitty company that I get cable TV from. And they've priced their options such that cutting the cord doesn't save that much. Oh, and of course then data caps are coming into vogue to ensure that you don't get too excited about those streaming services or have "unlimited" data. Which means you are going to pay them yet again for overages, or more per month to get rid of the caps. And that price will keep going up.
Re:Best way to opt out? Streaming Services! (Score:4, Interesting)
Look into getting a 'business' connection. Most places don't really require you to show much official business documentation....but you can get truly unlimited internet, no caps AND you can run servers if you want.
I have one from Cox cable, have for a couple decades now...$69/mo...decent up/down speeds, works for my needs both with servers and my TV streaming.
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I added business internet as a separate billed service several years ago to a residence with residential cable television. Like you said, it's great, no caps and I get static IPs, too.
Of course, it's still just one cable to the house. I'd drop cable television service but my concern is that my internet will get lost in a bureaucratic clusterfuck if they do something "standard" like physically disconnect the cable that runs to the house. Left hand and right hand not in sync.
I did the closest thing, cut ba
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if they do something "standard" like physically disconnect the cable that runs to the house.
It is no longer standard to physically disconnect the cable. The service is all controlled by smart devices and encrypted (for Comcast, certainly). It costs way too much to have someone actually come around the house to make a change anymore. They want to avoid having to do that. The industry was consistently burned by "pencil-whip disconnects" (when the service agent would report the connection was cut when he was really just off drinking coffee), to the point that one cable company I was involved with had
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I looked into switching to a Comcast biz connection not long ago. For the connection itself, Comcast wanted a $300 installation fee, and a one-year contract. The fee went down as you committed to a longer term, down to $100 for a three-year commitment. If you wanted static IPs, you had to u
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Still need internet service (Score:2)
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.
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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.
Except the broadcasters aren't all that happy about viewers who fast forward through their commercials.
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Except the broadcasters aren't all that happy about viewers who fast forward through their commercials.
Which is what I already do with their OTA broadcasts.
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I can remember when cable systems were nothing more than community antennas. And the local broadcasters begged to get on them because otherwise in hilly areas not many people could receive them. Then they got greedy and had congress enact a law that required cable operators to pay them to carry their content. So now Comcast is being honest and recovering these costs from their customers. Next step: Make the local broadcast package optional and see how many people will just drop it.
Look up the definition of
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I can remember when cable systems were nothing more than community antennas. And the local broadcasters begged to get on them because otherwise in hilly areas not many people could receive them.
They didn't have to beg very hard. "Must carry" rules said they had to be carried for free.
Then they got greedy and had congress enact a law that required cable operators to pay them to carry their content.
Uhhh, what? Any broadcaster that wants to be paid for their content does not get to invoke "must carry", so the cable operator is not required to carry them. Broadcasters do not get to demand carriage and payment at the same time.
So now Comcast is being honest and recovering these costs from their customers.
The issue at hand is not that Comcast is justified in recovering these fees, it is that they are listing them as line items outside the normal service fee. The latter is what they advertise.
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They didn't have to beg very hard. "Must carry" rules said they had to be carried for free.
I'm talking about the way things were before that law was passed in 1992. When cable TV systems were largely community antenna systems, they had the option to carry or not carry local broadcast stations. In a few cases, the CATV operators would actually charge broadcasters for the privilege of being on their cable. Broadcasters didn't like this and got a law passed which says if they want a cable system to carry their programming, the cable system must do so. But for free. Broadcasters have the option to re
This is no surprise (Score:2)
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Hmmm...I ditched Comcast for Satan (FIOS) several years ago. Comcast never seems to have stopped offering their undying love for my return since. I'm not convinced they really love me.
Satan isn't great. However, their tech support in India seems to be okay. I've contacted them 3 times and was satisfied. There's a small glitch in their TV, some static. I haven't yet gotten together the balls to deal with their support since the fellows in India cannot fix it: "Could you reconnect your coax for us, again?" "Y
Always blaming the wrong guy (Score:2)
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 con
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Sorry, but as someone who dropped CATV/SATV in 2008 due to the cost increases and has never looked back, I don't pay double for content; I simply don't consume anything that's non-free outside of what I choose (Netflix).
I mean, when you cut the cord you expect there will be content losses. I don't know of anyone who opts out of TV subscriptions that expects to
Yeah, but broadcast TV? (Score:2)
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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.
Quite a bit. The theory being if U-Verse offered CBS, NBC, FOX and ABC, but Comcast offered CBS, NBC and ABC, most people would switch to U-Verse. So therefore, there's a value to the retransmission. Especially since some people can't receive it OTA easily, and most people don't want to deal with antenna, and most people don't want a two input solution.
It's the same thing that limits the number of potential customers to Vue, DirecTV NOW, Sling, etc. Lack of locals in many markets. Lack of interest in ant
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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.
Back when this was the working theory, there was something called "must carry" [fcc.gov]. A broadcast station would demand that the local cable company carry their signal instead of having to pay them to do so. The cable company could find another source for the content and ignore the local station if they wanted, otherwise.
Now that broadcast stations know they can get the cable companies to actually pay them, must-carry is a less-used option. If a station invokes "must carry", then they cannot demand money for the
Next they will impose a fee reporting fee (Score:2)
(For the sarcastically impaired, yes, I know federal laws and regulations require the itemization)
Easy solution: Cut. The. Cord. (Score:1)
Communications (Score:2)
The cost of communications keeps going up and up. Don't really know why. Fucking monopolies.
Cancel these services- it's that simple (Score:1)
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
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Back in the 1980s and 1990s when cable companies started rolling out services municipalities granted exclusive rights for lengthy periods of time.
Not all municipalities granted exclusive franchises. All of the ones I've dealt with have been non-exclusive from the beginning. Federal law has now prohibited exclusive franchises, and has for such a long time that any existing ones would have long ago been renewed as non-exclusive. The only reason there are defacto monopolies today are due to economic, not legislative reasons.
Before you rip on Comcast (Score:1)
Remember that these fee increases are driven by the spiraling costs the content providers are demanding, especially the sports networks.
And don't forget about the other fees.... (Score:2)
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
Broadcast TV opt-out options should be required (Score:3)
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.
Why do people put up with this? (Score:1)
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Lemme guess, you are under 40, yes? You still have friends that can play and not collapse from overheating, or whose wives and sproggs let them out of the asylum long enough to play?
Limited options to play (Score:2)
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
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Not available here (Score:2)
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
Seems pretty simple (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Mislableled fees (Score:4, Funny)
Comcast... (Score:1)
... would not even be in business any more if even a large percentage of their customers felt they had any other choice.
Fuck off Comcast. (Score:2)
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.
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Friend of mine get's that and ota tv, there's no shortage of content, unless you want mlb games
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F*ck Comcast (Score:2)
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
Broadcast TV fee is older (Score:2)
Re:Welcome to Trump's America Inc. (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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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
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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
Re:Welcome to Trump's America Inc. (Score:5, Informative)
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... )
Re:Welcome to Trump's America Inc. (Score:4, Funny)
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?
Where I am Satelite costs the same (Score:2)
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
Re:Welcome to Trump's America Inc. (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [antennasdirect.com] (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 [amazon.com]. This one worked great except for my local PBS and I like some shows on there.
I bought a Tivo Roamia OTA 1TB DVR [tivo.com] 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 [amazon.com].
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 [playstation.com]. 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 [amazon.com] 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 [amazon.com]....and a little TP-Link switch [amazon.com] 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
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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.
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Where can you buy a legitimate IPTV package?
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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, b
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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 HDHom
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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....
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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.
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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.
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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, an
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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.
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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.
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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 ?
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Except that who provides your internet? Ah, those same companies! And what can you do without internet? Not much.
Re:Welcome to Trump's America Inc. (Score:5, Insightful)
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?"
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Welcome to Trump's America Inc. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Welcome to Trump's America Inc. (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re: Welcome to Trump's America Inc. (Score:1)