Rachel shares an interesting transcript of a chat she had with Time Warner. She was complaining about how Time Warner automatically raises its rates every year, and, in the end, got the CSR to confirm that they felt their soul was “being sucked away” from having to explain this policy so many times. [More]
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Guy Tries To Give Up Cable, Wimps Out In Under A Month
By 12.29.10
A Cnet editor and his wife tried to “cut the cord” and ditch his pricey FiOs cable bundle, and either get their content free or through online downloads. Less than a month later, he’s back on the sauce. What a milksop! [More]
NBC Tells Staff To Submit Paperwork For Comcast Transition, Even Though Merger Isn't Approved
By 12.13.10
A tipster says that NBC is having employees submit new paperwork for a new personnel management software program that will take over after the Comcast merger, even though that merger hasn’t been approved by the FCC yet. Hmm. Here’s the note: [More]
Time Warner Cable Keeps Bugging Me, Brags It's Immune To Do Not Call Registry
By 12.8.10
Julius thought he was protected against telemarketers by signing up for the National Do Not Call Registry, but a gleefully irritating Time Warner Cable rep informed him that this isn’t so. Because he’s a subscriber, TWC is allowed to toss telephonic sales pitches his way. Businesses with an established relationship with customers can phone them up to 18 months after their last transaction. [More]
Comcast Suffers Major Midwest Outage
By 12.6.10
Another major outage hit Comcast customers, this time in the Midwest. Like the outage that occurred exactly a week ago on the East Coast, this one too started on a Sunday and involved their DNS servers being down. [More]
The Time Warner Cable Tech Will Show Up On Time… If You Pay $190/Month
By 11.24.10
Tired of waiting for the cable guy (or gal) to not show up during the vague four-hour block you’d been given when you made the appointment? Thankfully Time Warner Cable is about to start a premium service that will let the cable tech blow off a more specific appointment for just $189.95 a month. [More]
TWC Offers New Cheaper Cable Package
By 11.22.10
Time Warner is offering a new tier of cable package called “Essentials” with fewer channels and a lower price. [More]
TWC: Saying "Upgrade" Connects You To Live Person. "Downgrade" Disconnects Call.
By 11.18.10
A Raleigh, North Carolina woman is complaining that when you call Time Warner Cable the automated voice response tree is a little haywire. When you say “upgrade” it connects you to a live operator. But when you say “downgrade,” it disconnects your call. Funny how that works. [More]
Test If Your ISP Is Shaping Your Download Speed
By 11.17.10
Ever have one of those days where you’re browsing along, everything is cool, but then it seems like whenever you try to watch YouTube or download, your speed suddenly plummets? Your ISP could be “shaping” your traffic, intentionally throttling your rates for certain kind of media. To test it out, you can try running this Glasnost test. [More]
When AT&T Schedules An Install, It's More Like A Suggestion
By 11.17.10
David is trying to get AT&T DSL-only installed, but the techs keep missing the appointment or show up without the tools to complete the job. See, the problem comes down to a simple difference in definitions. What you think of as “scheduled appointment,” they think of as “suggestion,” a snippet of melody for them to jazz riff off if they please. And if they don’t feel like it, they’ll go eat a sandwich and come back another day. Or not. [More]
Comcast "Upgrades" Signal, Drives Loyal Customer To DirecTV
By 11.10.10
The cable television business model is, in essence, very simple. We consumers pay the cable company. They zap programming to our eyeballs, and we send them money. One longtime customer was happy to exchange about $60 every month for access to a little bit of TV. Then Comcast transitioned to a digital signal, and everything just went to hell. [More]
Cable's Losing Subscribers Faster Than The Cowboys Are Losing Games
By 11.8.10
In an exodus that would make Moses proud, cable customers are fleeing their costly monthly habit for greener pastures. [More]
AT&T U-Verse Axes Food Network, HGTV, Others In Latest Cable Cockfight
By 11.5.10
2.7 million AT&T U-Verse customers are now without their Alton Brown or Iron Chef after the cable company was unable to come to an agreement with Scripps Networks about fees and other issues regarding their channels like the Food Network, HGTV, DIY Network, Cooking Channel and Great American Country. [More]
Cablevision Customers File $450 Million Class-Action Suit Over Fox Blackout
By 10.28.10
This is what happens when you take Glee away from people — they file an almost half-billion dollar lawsuit against you. Or at least that’s what some Cablevision customers in New York have done as the standoff between the cable company and Fox nears the end of its second week. [More]
Fox Says No To Cablevision Offer
By 10.27.10
First it seemed there was no chance Cablevision and Fox would settle their differences today. And then Cablevision said it was okay to pay Fox a butt load of cash… but only for one year. And now, we learn Fox has rebuffed this last-minute attempt to end the stand-off in time for Game 1 of the World Series. [More]
No Resolution In Cablevision/Fox Fracas With Only Hours To Go To World Series Start
By 10.27.10
The World Series begins tonight on Fox, but it looks like 3 million Cablevision subscribers will have to resort to finding an antenna or watching elsewhere as the thumb-wrestling match between the cable provider and NewsCorp drags on without resolution. [More]
Time Warner Cable Rep Tells Me Company Doesn't Solve HDMI Problems (Updated)
By 10.25.10
Aaron couldn’t get the HDMI port of his Time Warner Cable DVR box to work. When he went to customer service with the problem, he says the rep told him TWC provides HDMI as an option to customers but does not support it. [More]
Will Fox's Cablevision Blackout Be Resolved Before The World Series?
By 10.22.10
We’re now in the middle of Day 7 of the Fox/Cablevision slap fight that has left millions of Cablevision subscribers from Connecticut to Pennsylvania without Fox stations. [More]
