Metro Jacksonville

Realizing that many have cut the cord, I wonder who is perceived as providing the best overall package(?).  I recently switched over to Dish in lieu of Comcast (which was horrible all around).

It was an original a goal of mine to become a bit more savvy with my internet delivered programming, but I haven't had the time or patience to seek out a dependable and/or credible alternative (I got burned a few years back with Sezmi).

Quote from: blizz01 on February 05, 2014, 08:29:50 PM
Comcast (which was horrible all around).

I agree. Unfortunately I'm stuck with it. :(

Direct TV... mainly for the Sunday Ticket...  8)

DirectTV, I haveit  just for sunday ticket.  Don't live in jax anymore so its the only way I can see the jags games.  Yes I have season tickets still and paid extra to watch last years games, it was painful.

I have Comcast, really very good service and use here in Avondale. Used to have Directv for 10 years, and they would not allow me to install my own antenna (even though I had done so for a number of years with the upgrades). So even though t I was an excellent customer, I said goodbye.

I went with Dish after a failed attempt with DirecTV last year.  They (DirecTV) offered free basic installation, but the contract guys that showed up were like con artists & indicated that they'd need to place the dish on a tripod & had extensive fish & attic work @ another ~$300.  I said thank you, offered them a soda, & sent them on their way. 

I decided to give Dish a try last month:  They offered free installation, a free iPad, & 12k+ Rapid Rewards points, so the pot was sweet.  No additional fees & it was installed in less than an hour.  The guy on the roof even asked if he could lend a hand in removing my Christmas lights from the eaves.

My only reality check was that it stormed that afternoon & service went dark for a while - not something that I was used to with Comcast.  That said, The Hopper absolutely rocks.

Had comcast and my only complaint was the sorry customer service.  The content was great.  Now using direct tv and I am very satisfied with it ( Sunday Ticket!).  I still hate packaged content from all of them though.  I want to pick the individual channels that I use.

I want Uverse but it is not available in my area. Does anyone have this?

I know this is about subscriptions, but put your address in:
http://www.antennaweb.org/Address.aspx
and see how many channels you'll get. Sure, you won't get the real housewives, ghost hunters or that show about fish tanks, but you'll get all the big prime time stuff (FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS, CW).

When you add it all up, cable TV costs as much as a mortgage payment every year. Between a good antenna and a Roku, you can't go wrong. Rant over :)

I've been a u-Verse customers for 3-4 years now and my family enjoys it thoroughly.  The TV content is everything I would want it to be.   I've never noticed that I'm missing anything, anyways, with the exception of some NCAA football games that are not widely televised.  The video hardware has an intuitive interface with fast controls.  I can usually record 3-4 shows at a time in HD without losing internet bandwidth.   My only complaint is that my house is too big for the standard AT&T router's wi-fi to reach all the rooms.  I tried a couple of different powered antennas without success.  I've never had good luck with wireless extenders so I enhanced the network with a powerline adaptor (Netgear Powerline 500) so now I have an upstairs network and a downstairs network and that works great but it wasn't the easiest setup in the world.

I believe that with all the discounts and incentives uVerse is as good (or bad) a deal as Comcast or DTV.  I have used both of those services over the years and Comcast is just a horrible company to do business with.  Satellite was good for a long time but eventually I got really tired of losing signal every time a little rain cloud passed by.   I was a loyal DirecTV subscriber for years and they really tried to get me a more reliable signal but nothing their technicians did worked.    I'm glad, though, because if it did I would have never discovered uVerse.

Comcast really sucks.  Far too expensive, and not all of the channels I would like.  The search feature does not exist, and I can't filter out the channels I don't get.  If the cable goes out, so does the phone.

I'm still under contract with directv, but my second choice would be uverse, in fact it will be when my contract is up. Their pricing is better than the others for the same or better content, and they changed their policy of forcing you to convert to IP phone service, so now you can keep your regular phone line and still get uverse, and it still counts towards the bundle. That was why I went with directv originally, maybe I'm just sensitive or something, but I want to finish a phone call without it cutting off and I never was happy with IP phones. Especially when they cost the same as a real phone line, or in comcast's case they actually charge more, those jackals get $44 for IP voice...I pay $15/mo less than that to AT&T for a regular phone line and it always works right.

On DISH, I have friends with them and about every year they're renegotiating one contract or another and you lose a third of your channels for weeks at a time. They do discount the bill, but still, that would be annoying. Comcast customer service is so horrendous I almost don't care how good the content is it's still not worth dealing with them. I have their internet service and in addition to being hard to deal with, they've raised the price so much over the years I'm now paying like $78/mo for internet. I'm about to switch, it's ridiculous. It's also not particularly reliable.

I have Directv and I'm quite happy...

I have Comcast. I'm not impressed. Whenever I move on from them, I probably won't subscribe to anyone else.  I primarily watch tv for sports and I can live stream all the games over the net for free.

Quote from: thelakelander on February 07, 2014, 07:54:33 PM
I have Comcast. I'm not impressed. Whenever I move on from them, I probably won't subscribe to anyone else.  I primarily watch tv for sports and I can live stream all the games over the net for free.

Before everyone says sports aren't all available without Sunday ticket: I recommend finding a good neighborhood bar that has Sunday ticket. The money you'll save will be more than the price of beer and wings.

I'm still in search of a decent sports bar locally. Until then, live streaming over the web works great for me. I'm sitting down at the computer now to watch the Heat/Jazz game.

Had Comcast before and now have U-verse.  Comcast customer service was no fun to deal with for sure but for watching sports I feel the quality of their picture was far superior to what I get with U-verse. I will most likely switch back because of the picture quality. While the search features are fun things it really comes down to picture quality for me.

^^^That sounds accurate on what I hear about about U-verse. Like you said Comcast's horrid customer service is legendary. Another gripe I have with Comcast are their sporadic service outages, although that problem has been less frequent as of late.   

Hopefully one day in the near future all cable companies and satellite tv providers will be able to offer you your choice of channels you want instead of having to chose different packages.

Had directv, but just netflix and comcast internet at the moment (and it appears comcast is throttling netflix access because it's almost unwatchable sometimes). Directv was okay but the interface on their box seemed realllllly slow. The X1 service with comcast seems interesting but I don't want their telephone service. Uverse looks godawful, the internet is slow and metered if I'm not mistaken. I've never really had any issues with comcast- other than the price.

Comcast is gonna acquire Time Warner. The 800 pound gorilla gets larger.

www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/13/us-comcast-timewarnercable-idUSBREA1C05A20140213

Quote from: I-10east on February 13, 2014, 08:50:23 AM
Comcast is gonna acquire Time Warner. The 800 pound gorilla gets larger.

www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/13/us-comcast-timewarnercable-idUSBREA1C05A20140213

In what universe is this not in violation of the Sherman and Communication acts?

We're talking about one mega-conglomerate controlling roughly 75% of the country.

Even more reason to cut the cable.

I have zero faith in federal regulators or the FCC to do the right thing for the consumer in this case, but I'll hope for a miracle nonetheless.

Both are bad enough on their own.

Quote from: KenFSU on February 13, 2014, 09:40:48 AM
In what universe is this not in violation of the Sherman and Communication acts?

We're talking about one mega-conglomerate controlling roughly 75% of the country.

The same universe where the president of the National Cable Television Association becomes the FCC chairman.  http://www.fcc.gov/leadership/tom-wheeler