It has been a little over a month (almost 2) since I last had a fit about comcast. Well new month, new bill, new bitch. I had previously gotten rid of the Comcast HD/DVR box as it well plain sucked and I was paying for something that did not work, and didn’t do any thing that they advertise on any of their commercials or web pages. So I replaced it with a TiVo, which caused my monthly bill to drop significantly. Well on the last bill I received, they attached 4 pages of price increases. So what all did they change ?
Cable cards are 210% of the cost they are now, new cost is $6.30 a month, where they were $3 a month.
Digital Standard Def Cable Boxes are now 132% of the cost they are now. New cost is $9.25 a month, where they were $6.99 a month. What is weird is they are now the same price as an HD converter box.
Digital Starter package, only rose in price by $0.42… Not “too” bad.
Total Premium (rest of the digital channels and all premiums, [HBO/Showtime/Cinemax/Starz]) rose by $2. Not to bad either.
Internet (just the basic one) rose by $3.
What is getting me though is the hardware cost. I have had 2 standard def Cable boxes for over 10 years. They still function exactly the same as the day I got them, in fact the remotes still say “Adelphia” on them. You can’t tell me that it costs more to maintain a piece of equipment that I have had in my possession for 10+ years. If I calculate the price at current rates, 10 years at $6.99 a month for 12 months equates to $1,677.60 I have paid for 2 standard def boxes.. Surely those have more than paid for themselves in the 10 years I have had them. So why should I have to keep paying for a box that is “effectively end of life?”
What really pissed me off is the raise in the cable card rate.. The ONLY thing they do is an authorization piece, why are they now twice as expensive as they were before? They can’t do anything new?
So end the end, all the money I saved by getting rid of their box, is now being paid back again because the total of the price increase equals what I was saving.
Here is a hint comcast. Make the equipment free, or put all the channels back in ClearQAM. Nothing like a bait and switch with your “world of more” campaign.