I always love the story that previous and current quasi-monopolies use. "We're doing something bad because... we're trying to do something good!"
"We're fighting [legislation allowing competitors] so that we can serve you better!" Isn't this line becoming the tiniest bit transparent by now?

I wonder how customers in markets like Houston, TX feel after having Comcast take over Time Warner's market and immediately getting their rates hiked.

Sounds like something that local franchise commissions needs to look into.

Oh fabulous - now I get to pay MORE money for worse service. Ahh, the American Way!

My local Adelphia got bought out by Comcast months back. I was hoping to be rewarded with more options, packages, customer service, channels or something. Instead, we immediately got a rate hike of about $5 a month. A week ago I got another notice from them. Guess what? Another rate hike of about $4 (depending on your packages, you might have seen a $10 hike). They stated it was to offer more to me, like they are upgrading their backbone, etc. Strangely enough, the number of channels I got remained the same, and my cable internet speed remained the same. I am waiting on the mysterious "more" to materialize. $105 a month for basic cable and 6mb internet....(although in reality more like 2mb).

I guess comcast is hoping with all the press DirectTv is getting over its new HD content that people will think its all thanks to them.

I love the passive-aggressive "raising rates to improve service" line. "We're only raising rates because we need to increase tech support because you're a bunch of retards who can't get their routers to work!"

Don't like it? Have fun with dial-up, bitches!

For Comcast, it's Hammer Time.

[www.washingtonpost.com]

Hiring hundreds of call-center and technical support employees

I'm going to put that theory to the test. I'm going to call their support line and see just how long the average hold time is.

Well its not like they have any room for a call center in their enormous, half billion dollar, fancy urinal filled, corporate headquarters... and its not like anyone in philly needs a job or anything

I'm so glad I dropped them like a hot potato when I moved.

Ah yes, the old lie.
They aren't raising rates to hire more people.
They are raising rates to make more money.
Which is fine, but why can't they just be honest about it?
I smell a class action brewing....
Rates will go up, service will continue to stink, and someone is going to use their statement against them, forcing them to prove that they hired more aggressively.
Not buying it. Comcast is about as interested in customer satisfaction as I am in thermonuclear physics.
Here's a question - instead of airing dozens of silly commercials advertising their brand, why not divert some of that money towards better training and more people?
This reminds me of the ATM debacle. It was originally sold to the public as a way for the banks to save money while providing more convenience. All of a sudden, my bank started charging me if I went to a teller more than twice a month. Then, if I use another banks ATM, they charge me $2-$3. Why? Because it cost them too much to push money around. Riiiight......

Ok, about to take a very unpopular stance here...

I'm certainly no fan of Comcast (in fact, I hate them) but when they came in to Houston they said that rates are "going to stay pretty much the same". My bill has gone up about $4 and I pay around $120 for Internet, HD digital cable, blah blah.

That's a 3.3% increase. Pretty much the same as year over year inflation. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see the reason for a whole lot of outrage here.

Oh man, I'm so lucky. I got grandfathered in before all the "packages" started. I have basic cable and basic digital and that's all I need. $25 bucks for cable and $45 for Internet.

Still, they're raising the basics as well, so I'll be paying more for the same thing. Which isn't really that great. Comcast sucks, and Direct TV isn't any better.

In addition to poor service, in the Chicago area at least, I have notice poor quality of product! About once every 10-15 minutes of watching TV, no matter what channel, my image freezes and gets all pixelated. Its the same symptom as someone with a dish would get on a cloudy day. Yesterday, in fact, while watching Colbert and Mythbusters, the image froze for literally 10 minutes, as if someone hit pause. So, now I guess its more money for crappy service and a crappy product!

My bill went up 4 dollars for internet use only. Kind of unpleasant but everything everywhere is going up. Except my salary of course. I cancelled sat. tv though to try to defray some of the price increases in gas, tv, food, etc. I don't miss it either.

@mookiemookie: The outrage is that this isn't an industry-wide rate hike. Comcast only!

Perhaps people will watch less t.v. That's not such a bad deal then

Wow. Comcast said:

"The cable company says the higher prices reflect the cost of hiring hundreds of call-center and technical support employees. "

Let me translate for those who are PR-impaired:

"It's your fault that we are being forced to actually provide customer service."

Or put more succinctly --
"We're working against you, so that we can serve you better."

Holy CRAP. I pay $14.99/mo for DSL and get over-the-air HD signal, which is *much* higher resolution than what cable offers. So my total is only a bit more than the increase that many Comcast customers are being forced into paying. Adding Netflix or Apple TV would still keep me WAY under the $110/mo that many pay.

Sucks to be a cable customer, I guess.

Guys, think about alternatives where available. Because you're getting REAMED.

Oops. My bad. $13.99. :D

Thank God I have Dish Network!!

This is exactly why I snicker to myself everytime I flip on my DirectTV reciever.

Die Comcast die!

@trai_dep: As soon as the Food Network and A&E become available as over-the-air stations, I'll disconnect my cable.

This sucks, our Comcast cable + internet right now is already close to 130 dollars a month, and we don't even have an advanced cable package. D: And they can charge whatever they want here too, since there is no other cable company for like 100 miles...FFS. I wish we weren't renting, or we would switch to satellite - I despise Comcast and their service has always been awful!

Anyhow, we have Cox and right now we're paying about $90 for 7Mbit internet and expanded cable. We used to have digital cable (basically a bunch of extra channels that we never watched, plus ~15-20 HD channels), but we saved $40 a month by cancelling that. It was something like $15 a month for the HD DVR, $5 a month for the DVR service, and $20 a month for the digital channels themselves.

So, now we've got standard analog extended cable with no DVR, and I haven't missed it. Rather than paying $15+ a month for a DVR, if I miss an episode of something I can just download it. NBC even offers recent episodes of some programs on their site for free, so people who claim that this is immoral can bite me.

Darren666... I'm in the Houston market, and I'm very pissed that we are now stuck with Comcast. I had no problems at all with RoadRunner. They delivered what I paid for and had pretty good customer service which I maybe called twice in 5 years. On the other hand Comcast aren't even meeting the speeds I'm paying for and their customer support sucks! Even the transition was a nightmare. It took almost 6 weeks to get my account straightened out.

I have digital cable on 2 TV's in my house, but the others are just standard cable-ready sets. They dumped Court TV and moved it to digital-only status. Not to mention they moved 2 Philadelphia broadcast channels to digital only status also. Granted we live in a fringe area and get NYC & Phila. channels, but I thought must-carry laws maintained the broadcast channels on basic cable?

for all the complainers, why don't you cancel and go to a competitor like satellite?

Yeah, I got my price increase while I was waiting for yet another cable box replacement. I canceled and moved to Dish. Life is good.