Time Warner Cable Costs going UP !!!

[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.

[dpg]

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.

Where do you get all three in Mass for that cost? I also have all three in Ma and pay more than that. Are you on some kind of "promotion" That sounds way-cheap. I have Comcast. If your paying that because of some kind of "switch over" promotion I am not willing to do that.

[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.

[TomC]

Originally Posted by dpg

Where do you get all three in Mass for that cost? I also have all three in Ma and pay more than that. Are you on some kind of "promotion" That sounds way-cheap. I have Comcast. If your paying that because of some kind of "switch over" promotion I am not willing to do that.

for $99 for two years - and they sent me a $150 debit card 90 days after signing up. i did have to switch. i had comcast before. Comcast left their interface box in the house, so if verizon tries to gouge me in 2 years, then one phone call activates the comcast equipment.

I don't use the ISP emails except when i want to avoid spam, so i don't really care about switching back and forth. Comcast had my bill approaching $150/month before I fired them. I did offer them the opportunity to match the FiOS deal and they refused... a week later they were offering me essentially the same $99/mo deal for "new customers". Stupid.

In Moult. I have TW as well - so not looking forward to that increase...

[Lakesrider]

We have DirecTV and TW internet. Fairpoint phone. We do that because my wife gets the phone and internet paid by her company due to her working from home a lot. I'd get either Dish or DirecTV over cable any day. But even on DirecTV we don't get Boston Channels.
We get Portland channels in HD. WMUR has every excuse you can think of to not go HD. Pretty bad when Portland can have 2 HD Channels and all of NH can't muster one!

[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.

[Tomt]

Tummyman, I don't think I want to see NHEC take over Cable / internet

Member service charge 21.41
Delivery Charge 9.84
Stranded cost Charge 4.92
System Benefit Charge 1.08
NH Consumption & Bet Taxes 0.27
Regional access charge 4.90
Co-op Power 28.74

Total 71.16 for 28.74 worth of power

[robmac]

I have gotten in the habit when the special ends rather than changing remind them I can and will,also the fact I pay on time each and every month. The company complies and service continues at the reduced rate. PS I have all 3 from Comcast @ $ 99 per mo.

[neckdweller]

Originally Posted by Tomt

Tummyman, I don't think I want to see NHEC take over Cable / internet

Member service charge 21.41
Delivery Charge 9.84
Stranded cost Charge 4.92
System Benefit Charge 1.08
NH Consumption & Bet Taxes 0.27
Regional access charge 4.90
Co-op Power 28.74

Total 71.16 for 28.74 worth of power

Beat me to the punch. I don't think anyone would be seeing a price reduction if NHEC was allowed to set rates.

[Seeker]

I have TW and it's going from 140.90 to 160.53. No premiums, just 2 dvr boxes and internet.
I had Dish previously and liked it quite a bit but had trees grow up in wetlands and couldn't get a signal anymore. They said if I moved dish to my back garage it would work but I had to dig the trench, etc. Kicked them out but later looked at their contract which said they were responsible for the trench.

[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.