[ale] OT I had to relate this Comcast conversation with y'all

[Byron Jeff]

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 02:02:07AM -0400, Richard Bronosky wrote:
> 
>    You used to get basic service. Now everything is digital and encrypted. They
>    used to have a fair offering of analog cable and unencrypted QAM, but now
>    they do not. It it's pretty clear that they were holding out on their true
>    intentions stop that they could get an influx if customers when the broad
>    cast television went through they digital transition. Quite brilliant,
>    actually. In a completely evil kind of way.

This is why I kicked Comcast completely to the curb. Even worse, they tried
to market that hoohaa as an advantage to the customer. I actually got a
couple of their digital/analog decryption boxes. They were terrible.

They never figured out that the primary advantage of cable was that one
could plug in a cable directly from the wall into the TV, which no
additional box required, and let the TV tuner do the work. If Comcast had
stayed with Clear QAM in HD for broadcast (which can be pulled out of the
air anyway), and in SD for their basic cable content, they'd probably still
have me as a Triple-Play customer, as I content with their internet
service, and the phone wasn't an inconvenient part of that bundle.

But they screwed it all up and kept trying to explain to me how their
lockdown made my experience better. I explained to their script readers who
it made it worse, and eventually walked away. Satellite at the time had
better settop boxes. So if I had to pay for boxes, I may as well get boxes
I could work with.

BAJ

> 
>    On Jun 27, 2012 9:37 AM, "Rich Faulkner" <[1]rfaulkner at tux86.org> wrote:
> 
>    Our service with Comcast is DATA ONLY.  Got no arguments on the order when I
>    placed it.  Just data only at the promo rate of $39.99 a month for a year
>    (something like that).  I have a single cable segment running from the pole
>    to my cable modem.  (A special installation to my network closet).  My d/l
>    speeds have been over 30Mbps while u/l has been on the order of 4Mbps.  A
>    far cry better than the 512Kbps up we had under AT&T!  We do daily u/l of
>    data to XM Satellite Radio for program content so this was a big bonus in
>    the move!  We also stream a ton of content to flat panels.
>    We don't have cable TV nor satellite TV.  If it ain't on PBS or open air
>    digital; then we don't watch it.  Dumped Netflix when they got dumped by
>    Stars.  Comcast does send us junk mail on getting service (and I believe
>    that we do have basic cable service with the data) but I refuse to wire it
>    to the panels.  The kids don't need it and I don't want it.
>    On Tue, 2012-06-26 at 22:24 -0400, Gmail Maillists wrote:
> 
> You can convince them to unbundle with quite a few no's and perhaps a bit of ru
> deness (hmmm strong insistence, really!)... I've gotten the highest internet sp
> eed package, but only basic cable, and then added hbo, but without anything els
> e. I also helps to find a local number though.
> 
> Kaerka Phillips
> 
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> References
> 
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-- 
Byron A. Jeff
Department Chair: IT/CS/CNET
College of Information and Mathematical Sciences
Clayton State University
http://cims.clayton.edu/bjeff