Why don't competing cable companies in Florida operate in the same areas? I can't imagine any company being worse than Cox, but I am stuck with Cox just because I'm in Gainesville. In Ohio, Mom could choose among several cable companies. I can't understand why that is not possible in the Sunshine State.
Local governments award contracts for cable companies, almost all of them are non-compete contracts under the excuse you can't have multiple companies managing the phone lines.
it's an obsolete practice and technically creates illegal monopolies, eventually it will die out with cable companies all together.
Quote:Local governments award contracts for cable companies, almost all of them are non-compete contracts under the excuse you can't have multiple companies managing the phone lines.
it's an obsolete practice and technically creates illegal monopolies, eventually it will die out with cable companies alogether.
If it is illegal, why does Alachua County allow it?
Quote:If it is illegal, why does Alachua County allow it?
All of Florida does. They allow it because there's no one to complain too.
We've got both Komcast and ATT competing in Jax.
I believe infrastructure (what the existing infrastructure can/cannot support, and how much of it they are/are not willing to invest in for a particular area) plays a huge part, too.
Quote:We've got both Komcast and ATT competing in Jax.
I believe infrastructure (what the existing infrastructure can/cannot support, and how much of it they are/are not willing to invest in for a particular area) plays a huge part, too.
One is cable and one is dish though, right?
Quote:We've got both Komcast and ATT competing in Jax.
I believe infrastructure (what the existing infrastructure can/cannot support, and how much of it they are/are not willing to invest in for a particular area) plays a huge part, too.
fiber optic cable is different, Comcast has the contract for Jacksonville and surrounding areas. If you could pick between Brighthouse and Comcast that would be an example of the two cable companies competing.
The fiber optic cable runs on a separate line from the phone companies.
I tap into my neighbor's line. I really need to talk to him about upgrading his subscription.
I have not had cable in two years and do not miss it.
Quote:I have not had cable in two years and do not miss it.
If you're in IT though you really need cable for internet connection speeds. I've had trouble with everything else I've tried, which really irritates me because I have a real issue with Comcast.
Quote:If you're in IT though you really need cable for internet connection speeds. I've had trouble with everything else I've tried, which really irritates me because I have a real issue with Comcast.
Charter is the cable provider here, and they are pretty bad. I was telecommuting as a customer service rep and kept losing my connection, turns out that the service to my local hub is not fiber, so everyone on that hub hits a bottle neck when they all get home and start streaming videos right in the middle of my peak call time. Comcast refused to admit it was anything other than bad lines to my house. So here I am, stuck with 10 mbps downloads via DSL.
Chattanooga has access to a fiber optic provider that boasts one package of premium HD TV content and 1000 mbps DL speeds for about $150 per month. I pay nearly that much for DirecTV alone.
Quote:If it is illegal, why does Alachua County allow it?
I said it's "technically" the forming of a monopoly which are supposed to be illegal. They get around it by doing open bids allowing several companies to bid on servicing city or county phone lines. Never mind only one company wins that bid and thus the consumer only has one option in most cases, it's a gray area much of law falls into.
Good news is as technology advances problems like this become less, you now have traditional cable companies competing with fiber optic cable, satellites, net streaming services, and so on.
Good ol ATT and Comcast here in Jacksonville, both are horrible in their own ways, but Comcast seems to be the lesser of two evils for now. ATT is THE worst company I've ever dealt with, they wont get another dime out of me.
Quote:Good ol ATT and Comcast here in Jacksonville, both are horrible in their own ways, but Comcast seems to be the lesser of two evils for now. ATT is THE worst company I've ever dealt with, they wont get another dime out of me.
When stuff breaks they have no clue how to fix it. They just stall the customer until it magically works again (maybe).
Quote:When stuff breaks they have no clue how to fix it. They just stall the customer until it magically works again (maybe).
My dsl would stop working, the second I call threatening to cancel it, it would literally be back up within the minute (even if it was down for a few hours). Not even the best part because they would tack $5 on the bill for the call. The best part is when they claim they sent a service tech over, even when you never asked for one, and with little to no proof anyone actually came than the mysterious $85 charge on the bill
Well whats the recourse of course you call them up to have them remove it, which they credited it 3 months later, only to find they tacked on a $6 equipment rental fee...lol wut, first time I ever had a rental fee in a year in a half, hell I didn't even think they leased dsl modems.
Thats not even the best part, the 100 gb data caps (at that time) were a joy, never mind that they don't have any sort of live monitor, and your bandwidth monitor didn't match what they said you went over by, which sure is possible, but it's not even half as much as what they said it was. ATT is a complete joke, if they didn't use government to shut out their competition, they wouldn't survive a year with that garbage.
Quote:Good old AT&T and Comcast here in Jacksonville, both are horrible in their own ways, but Comcast seems to be the lesser of two evils for now. AT&T is the worst company I've ever dealt with, they wont get another dime out of me.
Before I moved to Florida, I read Comcast is America's most hated company. But after this nightmare with Cox, I can't imagine how Comcast can be worse.
I always hated Cox from the beginning, but I hate them now more than ever because of the TV problems I had the last two weeks and horrible customer service.
I asked Mom if we are allowed to have a satellite because nobody in our condo association has one. She shook her head. That means DirecTV is not an option.
Quote:When stuff breaks they have no clue how to fix it. They just stall the customer until it magically works again (maybe).
Mom's Friday call to Cox:
She spent five minutes explaining the problem. The lady at the other end told her to wait a minute. A different woman took the call and Mom had to explain the whole crap again. She was told it can be fixed during the call, but eventually the Cox lady could not help her and said somebody must come out to fix it. She said somebody can do it on Sunday between 1 and 3. Mom agreed to that time and wrote it on her calendar.
Sunday afternoon:
Nobody came during those two hours. Mom called Cox only to learn the office is closed on Sundays. Finally she went to the website and had a long online chat with a rep who said
the appointment was never scheduled. A new appointment was scheduled for Wednesday morning.
This is not even about something breaking. The problem was not getting ESPN or ESPN2 on the new TV despite having both channels on our old TV.
In other news, Directv customer service is awesome.
Quote:In other news, DirecTV customer service is awesome.
Why do you have to live in a house to get it?
For all other intents and purposes, condo living is just right for me. But I will miss DirecTV for the rest of my life.
Quote:Why do you have to live in a house to get it?
For all other intents and purposes, condo living is just right for me. But I will miss DirecTV for the rest of my life.
I was not aware that Directv wasn't available for condo residents.