Reader “phillipe23″ wants cable service, but because of his rural location it will cost him $9,060. He already has satellite, but his reception is very spotty. It seems that when the bad weather rolls in his service goes out. Clinging to the the hope that cable could be the answer to his problems, he contacted Time Warner for some relief. So what did the ever-sympathetic cable giant have to say? phillipe23′s letter, and our advice, inside…
“philippe23″ writes:
I want to get off Directv. Time Warner is the local cable company, so I called them and asked if we could get service.They said that our address wasn’t in their system (the house is only about 3 or 4 years old and has always been serviced by Directv) and they’d have to do a survey and get back to us in a few days. After a few days, they called to say that our house was not serviceable.
That was about a year and a half ago. About every six months I’d call up after getting sick of my Directv signal going out when it would snow or rain and ask again if I could get service from Time Warner — the answer always being “no.
Until last week. Last week they called back and left me a message saying I could get service as long as I paid for the build-out. The build-out would cost $10,860 of which Time Warner would cover $1,800, leaving my portion of the costs at $9,060.
Now, if I lived back on a private road and was asking them to lay cable back for a few miles, I could understand this, but I live on a State Route and my house is all of 70 feet from the road. Furthermore, I’ve seen TW trucks parked just down the street, less than a 1/4 mile.
Unfortunately, if you live in an unincorporated area, such as “phillipe23,” your leverage with the cable companies can be limited. Cable companies typically only have agreements with densely populated locales, thus excluding many would be customers. However, there are a few things worth trying. Start by gathering information from your local government. Not all small towns are the same, but most have a town clerk. He or she can put you in contact with those who have information about Time Warner’s agreement which allows them to use your town’s rights-of-way for cable. With any luck, there is something within this agreement to help your cause. You can also attend town meetings which would grant you easy access to the town council and other local movers and shakers. Additionally, you could band together with your neighbors in order to divide any build-out cost, and to communicate to Time Warner that they have a bevy of potential customers. Perhaps the sound of your collective opening wallets is the sweet music Time Warner needs to get in the mood.
(Photo: Getty)
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@upokyin: what lie? misinformation, they had the wrong number (just by a bit) and It has been changed.
outrage indeed.
This guy is screwed, no advice for him. I understand where the company is coming from and I don’t think they’re trying to rip him off, right now. as long as they would pay him back as they get more customers on that line, no problem.
@Lo-Pan: not saying I would pay it though.
@scoosdad: I had some friends with sat. internet and it was pretty good so, forget the $10K
@barfoo: Blogs, snarky? Never!
I’d suggest fixing your DirecTV setup. Considering I live in tropical Florida with severe thunderstorms daily in the summertime and suffer NO dropouts, the technology does work. Go get yourself one of the larger “Alaska” dishes. It’ll make all of that go away. Also make sure the post is level & secure (as in you can’t make it move even if you tackle it like a linebacker) and that the dish is securely attached so that it also is impossible to move.
Problem solved, no need to deal with the evil cable cos and their crappy signals.
Sounds like you should download shows from the internet and buy a media center PC….10K is way too much for cable.
–Michael
A tech can also install a signal amplifier that should take care of weak signals.
My guess the dish needs to be recalibrated and re aligned.
Gotta side with the cable company, here. Until broadband internet access is considered as necessary a utility as telephone service, there’s nothing to do, here. It does cost to do a roll-out, and they don’t have the necessary infrastructure for those old promised goodies like fiber to everyone’s home. No one is around to cover major parts of the cost and support.
If he’s a victim of anything, here, it would be his local government(s). If Time Warner has a monopoly in the area (I haven’t checked), the local gov should make them work to keep it, by doing things like providing everyone service. That’s still a big if.
I’d swear he lives in Brooklyn!
@Lo-Pan: “I had some friends with sat. internet and it was pretty good so, forget the $10K”
Satellite internet is ok for non-time sensitive things like browsing the web or reading and commenting on Consumerist, but lousy for voice over IP phones or internet gaming because of the huge lag or latency inherent in the transmission up and down to the satellite. Plus most of the satellite internet providers have monthly data caps that once you hit it, you crawl along at less than dialup speeds for the rest of the billing cycle. So it’s not good for downloading huge files regularly. I’d term it a ‘last resort’ kind of thing. Plus it’s pretty expensive from the figures I’ve seen.
I had a similar issue when I lived in the country. I could pay $4 a foot for them to run the cable out to my house. It was only 2 miles from the nearest point. That’s 10,560 feet, times $4.
I chose “air” instead.
@Pylon83: Funny in my county, I live in a rural area, but have cable, it’s the Telecommunications commissioner that handles this. And yes the cable company has to have a franchise with the county.
My boss decided to call TW to see if we could get cable internet service here at work, instead of shitty DSL. Time Warner said “Sure! for $28,000″.
So, the folks across the street have TW, yet it’ll cost us twenty eight grand?
@unklegwar:
People who live in the middle of nowhere either have wells or truck in their water.
2 words…Dish Cover
I have DirecTv and when it rained moderately-hard, I would lose signal. I bought a dish cover and put it on. It covers from the dish to the LNB. Now, it has to be raining cats and dogs for me to lose signal.
If phillipe23 is living in the CONUS, there’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to get a strong satellite signal.
Most people just stick with the tiny dishes the providers offer. There’s no reason why they can’t be switched with larger dishes.
A sat dish a little under a meter in diameter has over four times the surface area of a standard 18″ dish. That’s four times the signal strength.
I read an article a few years back about a guy who was in the same boat as the OP, but with internet service. He found someone who was in the service area with an unobstructed line of sight from their house to his, leased a small spot on their roof from them, and built a laser communicator. Makes me wonder if you could rig up something similar for cable TV.
One thing he may be able to do if he has neighbors that also want cable – suppose he’s able to get another 10-20 people to go in on the project. If you spread the cost over that many people, the cost per subscriber would be drastically reduced.
@No_Pants: correct. A satellite signal is only spotty for two reasons:
-obstruction
-poor aim
I just want to add, whenever you sign a contract with TWC make sure you get a confirmation number, or have it sent to you in writing, because my renewal that I did is no longer in their system anywhere after I did all the third party verification etc.. Now they are trying to get me to increase my monthly another $20 instead of $2. So I am going to go into the cable store because they are so incompotent. I thought I had taken care of the next 15 months until I get a call today asking me to renew my contract again so my rates dont go back up.
The best solution I can think of is try and get your neighbors to sign some sort of petition….if you get enough and present it to Time Warner they may cover the costs since you have proved their would be enough interest in service from them.
My parents are rural, and my sister. They have cable now (after 6 years in the home w/o it), she doesn’t. It would cost her (gasp) $10K to get it run to her home.
I am now rural. No cable for me, either. I didn’t bother asking. But it’s not the cable killing us…it’s the lack of adequate internet. Anyone have suggestions for my internet gamer husband??