When I lived in Tennessee I had Charter cable, and I very much hated it. They had a limited selection of HD programming, an unreliable pay for view movies service, shoddy customer service and various Internet issues that for some reason created some issues with Call of Duty that could never be resolved.
Upon moving to Texas I thought that my proximity to Houston would afford me a state of the art system and waited excitedly for the Consolidated truck to show up and install my service.
To say that I have been disappointed would be a massive understatement. The remote acted like it was drunk. The DVR seems to be determined to find an excuse to not record my favorite shows. There were no HD movies on demand or on pay for view. The customer service was closed at weekends, and ineffective the rest of the time. While they got Internet right (albeit very expensive for the speed they offer), they fucked up just about everything else.
The first cable box they gave me would freeze all the time requiring a reboot that could take up to twenty minutes (yes, that's 20 minutes). All in all they seemed like a phone company that was tinkering with the notion of becoming a cable company. But instead of getting paid to beta test their buggy and substandard product, I was paying them, and paying them far too much.
So this week, I called them up and gave them their marching orders. I retained their Internet service as it is about the only option around here. But I told them to remove cable TV from my bill and promised to return their unspeakably poor boxes to their headquarters.
The replacement I have chosen is Direct TV, in addition to my Netflix account (which I have to say was a wonderful investment - it's little surprise they single-handedly annihilated Blockbuster).
I'm getting the second most expensive package, HD, DVR, HBO, Showtime, movies on demand, insurance against anything getting messed up, and it's going to run about $60 a month. This in turn is going to save me a good $50 a month over what cable was costing me (including the Internet).
Only time will tell if this was a good move. But honestly I can't imagine they could be offering a worse service than Consolidated, and retain 50 million subscribers. Fingers crossed, the install is next weekend, and I'm excited to see the results.
2 comments:
Hey this is Nate. I was reading over your post and wondered if you tried DISH Network. DISH can provider you the best in HD programming and the most HD stations out off all cable and satellite providers. They also offer HD programming in the basic package. As a DISH employee I can tell you that DISH offers HD free for life for new and existing customers. If you would like more information about this go to the DISH Network website.
Hello Nate. When I first read your comment, I was tempted (and amused at how corporations now seem to troll social media and blogs now!) but DirecTV had given me some very logical 'facts' about how I probably couldn't get Dish in my home.
As you'll read in my new post (http://zct168.blogspot.com/2011/03/digging-dish.html), I decided to give Dish a try in my home anyway.
Sure enough they were able to do the install, and I'm now a happy customer. Long may it continue, and thank you for your advice; although I wish I'd had that advice when I moved in last July!
Keep up the good work at Dish.
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