Comcast is quietly moving HBO over to digital cable, irritating people who are stuck in the ’90s with totally un-hip non-digital cable. The move to digital adds as much as $4.95 (per cable box) to customer’s bills, without adding any channels. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
“I guess the thing that bothers me is, the service is bad and rates keep increasing,” said Alan Letofsky, one of many customers who recently received a notice from Comcast saying they would need a digital-cable box to keep HBO, which telecasts The Sopranos. “We just don’t want to give any more money to Comcast.”
Letofsky, of Haverford, has a digital box on one of his sets, but analog service on the other two. To keep HBO on all three sets, he said, he would have to pay an extra $9.90 – $4.95 each for two boxes – per month. He already pays $83.05 for Comcast cable.
He said he would switch to another cable company if he could.
Face it, Comcast. You’re pissing off the old people and they’re all going to switch to Verizon FIOS. It’s their way of shaking their fiber-optic cane at you. Comcast’s HBO shift comes right as The Sopranos final season begins. —MEGHANN MARCO
HBO move riles some Comcast customers [Philadelphia Inquirer]
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I live in Delaware and have been seeing the same message on HBO lately, which basically threatens that I need to ‘upgrade or else’. I think it’s a rather pathetic business tactic to get more customers to switch to digital cable so that they can continue to raise the rates for their sub-par service. I, for one, will not be switching to digital cable since Comcast can’t even get the On Demand system to work without freezing and crashing, and their prices are the worst in town. I’d rather download stuff off of the internet and be a day behind on my shows than pay more money to Comcast.
Its interesting – what I hear more and more from all the commentators is that they are annoyed by crappy service, and have mostly switched to another provider. You really do have an option to turn off your TV. Kill your cable, its not that hard. Other people have said this, but most people pay upwards of $100 a month, when, lets face it, you are probably at work 8 – 10 hours a day. Sure you can TIVO things, but where does that get you? Further behind in your watching? Comcast in my town (the only choice I might add) wants to charge me over $10 to bring TV into my house; that’s TV that is free OTA (over the air). The cable is already laid in the ground, advertisers are paying to be on that TV, yet Comcast wants $10 for me to see it. Ridiculous. Keep going – ‘Standard Cable’ is $50 a month. Its crazy. You don’t need it. Do I miss baseball, sure but its on the radio for free, and I can be where-ever I want to be and still listen to it (catch the highlights later). Believe me, if there was a big enough push, and towns of people cancelled their cable, 1) You’d be suprised at how quickly you could get used to things without cable TV, and 2) It will hurt Comcast in a way that all the bitching and moaning wont, it will effect their profits and their stock price. Neither 1 nor 2 would be a bad thing.
This too happened in Denver, CO last summer. I don’t watch any of the programs “live” on tv anymore and gladly pay for the priveledge of watching “on demand” or from my $9.95 DVR. Channel line up doesn’t effect me at all.
Knowing that I can watch when ever I want pleases me and I gladly pay for the DVR service.
Also keep in mind that this is more than likely a pre-emptive strike as everyone will have to “go digital” by January 1, 2008. This has been on the books since 2005, this is not Comcast trying to take advantage I don’t believe. By having a digital conversion box you will not have to upgrade your television set (so really Comcast is saving you money right? Ok that is pushing the envelope a bit), the Comcast Cable box provides that service for you until you are willing and able to buy a new television.
And to answer the question about remote rental for a buck? Comcast in Denver doesn’t charge, in fact they will replace it for free when you wear it out (ie: the fast forward button stops working because you skip all the commercials).
Ugh! pendor’s right!
I just received a flyer in the mail from Time Warner: HBO is being held hostage in the Albany area unless we roll over and rent their digital box by April 16th.
More opportunities for Time Warner to continue overcharging us.
The only alternative is Satellite but that costs just as much.
If you have basic cable service you should be able to get a pkg. called enhanced basic/ or digital lite service. It’s basic service on a digital box ($1 more). This should give you hbo @ the same rate you’re paying now. You get 12 stations of hbo instead of 2 and you have access to video on demand(available 24hrs after service is installed.) They also offer a pkg. between limited and basic service called the “family tier”(normally no ads for this) which offers some of the more popular channels. You can keep your movie channels with this and the cost is about $30 + the cost of movie channel. Look online to see which channels this pkg. offers in your area. additional boxes with the same service are charged at the analog box rate. -Now call sales and be nice.
@leshrak,
That thing about FIOS is only partly true. A digital cable system has fiber running up to the taps at the pole by the house, than it switches to normal wiring.
FIOS is fiber up to the side of the house, which then switches over to normal wiring. FIOS basically has a relativily small (Under 200 feet) amount of fiber of a digital cable system.
Actually these people can blame the federal goverment for this. All broadcasting must be digital by 2009. By July of this year, all equipment must be digital, i.e. no analog boxes. Comcast is merely moving on with the times and these people need to do the same.
I’m a Comcast customer, and so far I haven’t had a problem with them. The reason I’m sticking with the basic extended cable is that (a) along with the Internet bundle it makes sense financially, and (b) that was the only choice for getting CNBC, which is pretty much the only channel I watch on TV.
Now, about a month ago Comcast moved two channels – CMT and Hallmark – to digital. I guess it makes sense in my market (Atlanta), and I guess lots of people switched to digital. Obviously, I didn’t, and I’m not planing on doing it anytime soon. I have other choices for watching TV. For example, software like the The Democracy Player lets you watch streaming TV on-line, legally. It’s where I get most of my news from, as well as the little entertainment that I watch. I expect this kind of software to grow (already, there are off-shots of the player that let you watch cable channels – illegally), and soon to see American TV stations to embrace the concept to go around cable companies. Once that happens, I’d be more than happy to pay $1-3 per channel for those I want to watch instead of the Comcast lineup, as I’d save lots of money.
And one more thing, about torrents of HBO episodes. HBO is known for heavily disrupting torrent sharing via fake torrent trackers. It works so great that I’m surprised other media companies don’t use the same tactics.
Actually the reason HBO is moving all digital is so they can prevent theft of the premium channels. Most places that have a cable tap in the back yard can easily get free HBO/Cinemax/Showtime just by unscrewing a filter and connecting directly to the feed. I’m still surprised anyone has analog HBO these days. In my neck of the woods (central Indiana) they did away with analog premium channels years ago.
ok, this is the deal. comcast can not switch a signal from analog to digital. legally they can only broadcast what hbo sends them. hbo made the signal digital so comcast could not broadast it in analog anymore. hbo did it because the feds are requiring that by 2009 all broadcasting stations broadcast in a didital signal only ( they want the analog airways for govermental use and airplane use only). comcast has no choice, believe me , they do not want to buy all those boxes and deal With all the customers mad at them. BY 2009 EVERYTHING (DIRCT TV, DISH, AND ALL CABLE COMPANIES) ARE ONLY ALOUD TO BROADCAST IN DIGITAL PEr THE FCC. If you go to another cable company the samething is going to happen there