HELP with Switching Cable Providers

[Cindy's Mom]

Each month when the cable/internet bills comes I get more and more upset and the high prices, poor customer service and HORRIBLE internet connections that Comcast gives.

ATT is in our neighborhood now and offers digital TV (no dish), land phone (which I have already) and high speed internet. If I go with them, we save about $80 a month.

The problem is is that ATT has to come out and re-wire my house and I don't know if I want that mess.

My question is has anyone switched cable providers and lived to tell about it?

 

[rgf207]

Why do they have to rewire your house?

What do they have to do?

 

[Cindy's Mom]

The ATT customer service lady told me that they have to remove the Comcast cable and replace it with theirs. Seems like a lot of work, we have 6 TV's and I'm happy with the placement of my cords

 

[rgf207]

No. They should just have to replace the cable coming from the outside to your house. They should not have to replace any cables inside of your house since the cables are exactly the same (coax)

 

[debknight]

I don't know the details, but our neighbors switched to AT&T and the installers were at their house all day, 8:30am to 3:30pm!

 

[Mickey527]

I switched to AT&T a few months ago from Cablevision. they came at 8:30am and left around 8 pm that night. they rewired the entire house but I had no mess anywhere. they did a beautiful job.
Unfortunately AT&T is new in the area and although the tv was excellent, it froze at the worst times. I was watching the superbowl and during that fantastic catch the tv froze. i had to watch it in playback. It would happen during all my shows. the bad guy would do something to get Gary Sinese angry and "freeze" I missed it and didn't know what happened.
I had to switch back to Cable. I do plan on going back to AT&T as soon as they perfect it. I had much better reception, the tv was much clearer, but I couldn't take the freeze during my favorite shows.
I did save over $50 each month however.

 

[Cindy's Mom]

I understand about the freeze....Comcast freezes ALL THE TIME, most of the time we can't get the regular channels and we have to switch to the digital channels, which we don't like to do if the show isn't in HD.

I just hate Comcast so much and am so unhappy with the price and the reception, I'm about 99% sure that I switching soon.

When I told Comcast that I wanted to switch, their rep told me that "I would get the same reception problems with ATT" and I said, "but I'd be saving $80 a month, so it'd be easier to take". She didnt' have a stock comeback for the one.

 

[cabanafrau]

DH keeps checking every week to find out when the AT&T service will be connected in our area -- it will be such an upgrade & savings. We'll be bundling in our internet connection also have DSL now. The speed will go up tremendously -- even beating cable hook-ups because the AT&T isn't shared amongst your area, the full connection speed will be yours & yours alone.

Please come soon!

 

[mzspaz]

Comcast = Crapcast! That is what I call them.

We just recently switched from Crapcast to Verizon Fios and WE LOVE IT!

I've hated Crapcast for a while, but it came to a head about 8 months ago. I had a baby and quit work, so I was looking to trim a few areas. I called Crapcast to see if they could work something out. Nope....nothing. I said I would cancel HBO and Starz then. They told me if I did that, my bill would go up 30 bucks because of the bundle I was in.

About that time, we found out that Verizon Fios was going to be approved for our community. So I waited until the approval.

During that time, my bundle "expired" and my rate went up 30+ bucks. I called Crapcast and was told, there was nothing I could do, that was the lowest bundle that they had. When I threatened to go to Verizon, they told me to go ahead, that they would have to re-wire everything and that the quality was much worse.

Again, I had to wait for Verizon approval. They finally got it and as soon as I could, I signed up for it.

I called Crapcast to cancel and all of a sudden, they were ready to deal. Offering me my old price. I turned them down. I was told to call again when Verizon was in.

Verizon came out and did a fantastic job! They did not remove the Crapcast line, just worked around it and added their own stuff. The tech was here for a little over 4 hours and was very thorough in everything. When he turned the TV on, I could not believe the quality of the picture! It was so much better than Crapcast!

And the kicker is, when I called that day to cancel Crapcast, they told me I would have to wait until the work order was complete on porting my telephone number. My tech told me it would be done that night. So I called the next day to cancel. I was told no problem and that they could have a tech out in 10 days to disconnect. I asked if I would still be charged and they told me that I would because he had to disconnect from the pole. Well that is when I lost it with Crapcast. Told them I was tired of playing their games, that I was calling the BBB as well as telling everyone in my neighborhood and that I knew how much better Verizon was. I was put on hold for 10 minutes and the girl got back on and told me that it had been taken care of. I'm still waiting to make sure of that.

I haven't called the BBB, but I am making good on my promise to tell everyone. If you can get rid of Crapcast, it is WELL worth it!

 

[Fitswimmer]

I live in a condo, and our community put a $500 deposit on satellite dishes this year-and in protest I cancelled Directv and went to Cablevision. I lasted 3 months with Cablevision IO tv service. It was TOTAL CRAP. The HD channels were a JOKE. No Sci Fi, No USA, No FX-I got Monsters HD, Anime HD, and GalaHD. What the heck are those??? The HD channels I did watch, TNT and the local networks, froze all the time.

So, after 3 months of putting up with that garbage, I sucked it up, took the $ out of savings and paid the deposit. What a relief!!! Decent HD channels that you can actually watch without them freezing.

I still have the Cablevision phone and internet, they work fine-but the TV was a joke.

edited to add: the best part? I'm paying $20 less a month for more channels!!!

 

[shelly3girls]

We just switched to Verizon. The tech was there ALL DAY but there was no mess at all. It really was no big deal and did not impact us other than our cable and internet were down for a little while.

 

[Cindy's Mom]

For the past 28 minutes I was one the phone w/ ATT.....they want a credit card number as security for the boxes He said it wouldn't be charged, but in case I didn't return the boxes, they would charge the card.

That didn't feel right, is this common? I told him I'd have to call him back.

 

[Golf4food]

We wanted to leave Comcrap after our 1 year special price ($128 after tax for digital phone, 6MB internet, and digital cable - no movie packages) because it was going to jump to around $154 per month and our service has not been that good. But AT&T doesn't offer DSL in our neighborhood (in the middle of a large city, guess most of the area is too poor to make it worth their while?) and even though DirectTV would give us a special and free DVR, the price would be higher after a year and they require a 2 year contract - Comcast has no contract. So guess what? Comcast has a special where we can keep all of our current services that would be $154, but if we add HBO and Stars the price will DROP to $129. So we'd get those extra channels for $1 more than now, and save $25 over the future cost. Crazy.

 

[tinatark]

I switched from Charter cable, internet and phone to ATT for phone and internet, and Directv for tv (ATT had an agreement with DTV) - it's okay, saved me a little $, but trying to communicate with the 2 companies is a pain!

 

[SpecialK]

For the past 28 minutes I was one the phone w/ ATT.....they want a credit card number as security for the boxes He said it wouldn't be charged, but in case I didn't return the boxes, they would charge the card.

That didn't feel right, is this common? I told him I'd have to call him back.

I live in the Chicago burbs and got this intro offer, too. What's the rate after the initial 12 months?

We have DirectTV (more stations, less money but no CLTV and occasional outages during storms) but we had cable for my dad. I don't remember giving a CC number for the boxes.