Cablevision sucks

[wraithfodder]

 Yes, this is a rant. Sensitive eyes or Cablevision employees should avert their eyes. Rant ahead.

Cablevision sucks. It blows, and all those other phrases.

In their infinite wisdom (and also a way to pad their bank account), they removed SciFi from the lineup unless you pay for their stupid "digital box." Yes, SciFi, along with several other channels, now require me to pay more than $15 a month (plus more taxes) if I want to get it on the upstairs TV. So, I'm going to downgrade their service, and check out dish. They charge an arm and a leg and then give me less? And they *said* they sent out a notice. Never got it. As Stan or whoever would say on SOUTH PARK, "Those bastards." Grrr....

Comments

[vecturist.livejournal.com]

That sucks. Here in Phoenix, it's pretty much all digital, meaning you can only get the local channels (and a few spanish channels) without a box and subscribing to their digital package. Add in a DVR (because the vcr and digital box won't talk to each other and record for more than 2 hours and it's an extra $60 a month. Yeah right. And they wonder why people download stuff off the internet...

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Run them through!

[pisces227.livejournal.com]

I gave up on Comcast Cable last year, went with Direct TV instead and have not regretted it. I get more for my buck and no reception problems.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Tell me more...

[pisces227.livejournal.com]

I got free installation and $50 off as my boss referred me (he got a $50 credit also). I got another $100 off as a promo. I have HBO and Showtime on both my TV's for less than what I was paying Comcast for one TV(they have a few packages to choose from). My cable was always going out in storms, when the wind blew or for no reason at all. Their On Demand only worked half the time. I also cancelled their internet service for the same reason and went with DSL. Their customer service dept was a nightmare to deal with. I can go on forever. Most of my neighbors have gone with Direct TV also. I haven't had one single problem with them. We'll see how they do during hurricane season.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Since we're in a prime area for hurricane damage, if they hit, I wonder how well Direct Tv stands up. Is it just a dish attached to the side of the house?

[pisces227.livejournal.com]

Usually. It depends on what you have. I have a townhouse and a homeowners association with rules on where you can put them, so mine is attached to the fascia board where a gutter would be, some people have them attached to poles along their fence or wall. When we had hurricane Wilma I know of only one person that lost their dish. My cable was out for over 2 weeks but the satellites were working as soon as the electric came back on.

[alipeeps.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain. We dumped cable provider NTL some time back because of their frakking awful service and went with Sky satellite TV instead - and thank god cos not all that long after there was uproar when, due to Sky and NTL bickering, Sky One was dropped from the NTL package - Sky One being the one channel I care most about on cable/satellite TV that is one of the core entertainment channels (and comes with the standard package so no extra fees required) and shows a lot of the US shows I like including Bones, Cold Case etc and oh yeah, a little show called Stargate Atlantis!! I wouldn't be willing to pay for TV service that didn't include the main damn channel I want so thank goodness we'd already changed provider.

TV companies suck. In fact most big business suck (see ranting on my LJ today) but TV/cable providers are some of the worst. >(

[leesa_perrie]

Hubby won't go to Sky because he doesn't want a satellite box on the house, and I won't go because they were the ones who doubled their prices to NTL (Virgin) for Sky channels and cut what they were willing to pay Virgin for their channels to appear on Sky! I hate it when a company stomps on another one just because it thinks it can!

Anyway, I watch SGA online as soon as it is available (July!!) and a friend sends me a copy of them when they are shown on Sky, which tides me over until the DVDs come out and I can buy them...naughty, I know, but Hubby won't have Sky and I can't get official downloads because Amazon and iTunes are US only... And I DO buy the DVDs as soon as they become available (4 eps at a time) and don't wait for the complete season release later in the year (which costs me more), so I don't feel so bad about it...

Anyway, sorry to jump in! I'm glad you have Sky - I've never had trouble with NTL or Virgin myself, but I know some people have had big problems. If I was having problems then I'd try and persuade Hubby to jump to Sky, but seeing as I'm not and I don't like bullies, I'm staying put!

[alipeeps.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was majorly PO'd with Sky's behaviour too but honestly, if we'd still been with NTL I probably would have changed to Sky anyway (which, of course, is precisely why they did what they did) because Sky One is pretty much the main cable/satelitte TV channel I watch.

As it happens we'd switched anyway - mostly, tbh, because of the crappy service from NTL on the broadband internet (when you pay for permanent high-speed broadband it's not acceptable to have it unavailable for hours at a time or losing connection every 5 minutes when it is available!), though we'd also had issues with the TV from time to time - the problem with NTL is, they are fine when everything is fine. But as soon as you have a problem.. jeez, just trying to even contact them is an exercise in frustration! I once spent over an hour on hold to their customer service line without ever getting to speak to anyone! And once you do get hold of them they are crap; every person you speak to gives a different excuse and different information and different advice. Engineers don't turn up when booked (after you've taken the whole day off work) or booking are lost or made for the wrong dates etc etc etc etc etc. And the problems still don't get fixed. It's a nightmare.

So we decided we were dropping the broadband and, as it was part of a whole broadband/TV/phone package, we decided to dump them completely and get Sky for the TV and went with BT for the phone and for broadband. And we've had no problems since. And don't even get me started on the hassles we had with shutting the NTL account down and the amount of times they booked for someone to come collect the box and then never turned up (hubby was thinking about charging them storage fees in the end! :lol:) and the continued monthly demands for payment even though the account was closed (it was especially entertaining when they sent us final notices threatening to cut off the service which had already been closed down! :lol:). I wouldn't touch em with a bargepole!

And I do the same as you - for the US shows I really like, I watch em on the US schedule and buy the DVDs as soon as available. I'd happily buy legal downloads if I could but iTunes etc won't let us so we don't have that option. I refuse to feel guilty cos my downloading isn't going to affect the US viewing figures (that decide on renewal etc) anyway and I pay my money and get the DVDs - if I like a show enough to download it then I'm into it enough to want the DVDs so I'm not costing them any money or ripping anyone off. I'm just impatient! :lol:

[leesa_perrie]

Yeah, I can see why you switched!!

We did have a net connection problem recently (I was referring to TV in the above comment when I said we'd had no problems) - and they were very good. Answered the phone quickly, didn't give us the run around, credited us with the phone call when it was determined the problem was on their end, and both times the engineer came round he came as promised. Got a new modem out of it, though it did turn out to be a wire in the wall box in the end! So it seems Virgin has learned from NTL's mistakes...at least to some extent. Either that, are we were lucky!

But yeah, if it was more than just SGA and Bones, I'd have tried harder to move. But both of them are available online and in DVD form, and it seems a lot for just two shows! Even if one of them is my beloved SGA!!

I'm glad we didn't have any problems when it was still NTL, 'cos it sounds like they sucked big time.

Anyway, got to go - need to pack for my holiday!!! (No internet for a whole week - *shock, horror, gasp*!!! *bg*

[rkbwrites.livejournal.com]

Wow.

I work for another cable company (not cablevision) and I'm surprised to here Sci-Fi went to Digi.

I know with the analog signal being dropped in Feb 2009 everything is going to Digi but a standard channel being raised to the Digital Tier is unfortunate.

Hopefully the cable provider in New England won't do the same...

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Well, if SciFi is digital, sure don't see it. It's got crappy reception.

[nebbyjen.livejournal.com]

I've tried all three... cable, directv, and dish network...over the past few years. Just a couple of months ago I dumped directv (after 2 years) for dish network and am loving it. The one thing that sealed the deal was that it was cheaper and I got more channels. I noticed someone else was telling you about directv and thought before you took the plunge you might just want to check out the other offers out there. Overall, I'd never go back to cable.

Oh, and both satellite companies put dishes on poles cemented in the ground by the house. (Never have it put on a roof. Learned that lesson the hard way.) Other than the occassional rain fade when there's heavy cloud coverage or storms, the picture is great.

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

We couldn't even get cable. We had to get satellite and we got rid of it because they were showing stuff that was on normal TV. the only thing I watched as the news channels and the racing channel. It was good when Dad's horses were racing because we could record them. (Didn't make the horse go faster :()

[timespirt.livejournal.com]

I got there notice in the mail, some crap about moving those channels to the box in order to give us better service (MY $%*) and make room for more stuff. Yeah, a way to hike there bottom line and a way to give us less service!

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

In their infinite wisdom (and also a way to pad their bank account), they removed SciFi from the lineup unless you pay for their stupid "digital box."

Comcast pulled that here about 4 years ago right before the new season of SG-1 started. Unfortunately, with the weather we get in this area, a satellite dish just isn't a viable alternative. Everyone I know around here that switched to a dish wound up switching back to cable again because the dish (and access to news and weather) would always go out in severe weather.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard horror stories about weather outages with dishes. I just wish that Verizon would run their fiber optic lines up our street!