Cable questions from a lurker

mrsnala

Lurker here: tell me who your cable provider is? We are moving and currently have Fios (which we love) but they do not service the new house. anyone have anything else they would recommend?

egpitt22

we have comcast, I've been with them since college.  Aside from some ongoing technical issues in our old house a few years ago (which they did finally fix and comped some of our bills due to all of the hassle and time it took to fix) we haven't had too many problems.  Like all cable providers, it's not cheap and of course, the price seems to increase every year, but I feel stuck since there aren't a ton of options.  we have the triple play with internet/phone/cable and we add on one DVR, I believe our total bill (after taxes and all of the crazy fees) is around $145/month.

denalea

Armstrong is the only one that services our area (that I know of.)  We've been 85% happy with them.  DH is in the technology field and knows what to ask/report if there is a problem, so when there are issues we've usually been able to resolve them right away.  I have to say the last tech we had to our home was VERY knowledgeable, polite, efficient, and did great work.  And that is saying something because our home can be intimating from a technology standpoint.

I have no idea what the prices are.  I'm sure I would puke a little if I did...


EDIT - Fixed my improper use of the word their vs. there.  I'm usually good at catching that!

gwennythepooh

We also have Comcast. We have to call and re-negotiate our price every.single.year. but once that's straightened out it's usually okay.

scubagirl81

Same deal with Comcast here. A lot of people complain about them, but honestly, we've not had much trouble. We talked about switching to Verizon once, but after they came to our house for a week straight trying to sell us services (they were canvassing the neighborhood) at nap time after we kept telling them to stop (including hanging signs on the door), that sealed the deal on us staying with Comcast  ;-)

Jcubed2003

I recently switched from FiOS to Comcast for about two months. I did not like the new X1 platform from Comcast. It was way too much money for features that don't work here. I.e. watching on the iPad, etc. I hope that you have a better experience than I did if you end up with Comcast. I was so relieved when I heard about the new FiOS DVR that I cancelled Comcast even with the possibility of having to pay an Early Termination Fee.

psychgalbride

As someone who has had all three:  FIOS was the best.  It was almost a deal breaker for the new house to be stuck with Armstrong which we do not like at all. Comcast had its issues as well but if we had a choice, we would never go without FIOS again.  

4EvR&4AlWz

denalea said:

Armstrong is the only one that services our area (that I know of.)  We've been 85% happy with them.  DH is in the technology field and knows what to ask/report if their is a problem, so when there are issues we've usually been able to resolve them right away.  I have to say the last tech we had to our home was VERY knowledgeable, polite, efficient, and did great work.  And that is saying something because our home can be intimating from a technology standpoint.

I have no idea what the prices are.  I'm sure I would puke a little if I did...

Ditto Dena...we also have a ton of tech in our house (though less than Dena's)...despite having 7 TVs in the house, we only have 2 boxes because we have a digital distribution system so it's cheaper having more tvs in our new house than the old one because we don't need boxes.

psychgal...curious as to what you didn't like about Armstrong...we've had them for 5 years (we hated DirectTV with a passion).  Armstrong has been awesome with us and the guy loved our digital distribution system as he hadn't seen one before.  I love how I get to talk to a real person at Armstrong and I hated Comcast with a passion when we lived in Virginia as I felt like no one ever answered the phone.

psychgalbride

4ever&4alwz-  Our issues with Armstrong is the bandwidth cap,  with certain HD channels the compression is much more visable (this drives DH batty), smaller HD channel selection, and the speed tiers are slower.

I am sure you pay for the top tier of service though and may not have some of these same issues.  We have the middle tier of service.  Fios is simply the best IMO.  Let's all cross our fingers that some day our area will get it!  

4EvR&4AlWz

Since DH works from home, they reimburse his internet at a "nominal" rate so that gives him the greenlight to use that extra $$ to upgrade so I think we do have the highest that Armstrong puts out residentially.  We also have 4 wireless access ports in the house (???) so the distance to a wireless hotspot is minimal (we used to be slower in the basement because everything was in our upstairs).  Now, I can be 50 yards away in the woods and still watch YouTube.  I upload about 100 pix to shutterfly in 2 minutes (whereas in the old house with a slower speed, it took F-O-R-E-V-E-R).