Price for Cable & Satellite services

[mark1234]

this is interesting. in the UK we've had the freedom to choose energy suppliers for coming up to 20 years. although everyone has to pay the tv licence you can choose from having terrestrial, cable or satellite and most recently a few new suppliers doing IPTV. no regional restrictions as long as you can physically receive the stream. i can think of very few things where we don't have a choice of a provider, seems things are more "free" here

I think water supplier is the only thing where we have no choice at all.

There are regional restrictions on cable and satellite as well. I think only about a 1/3 of the population can access cable, and some areas can't get a satellite signal. Then you get restrictions due to flats or conservation areas and so on.

[LuckyDay]

Just like phone lines, electricity and plumbing, it's pretty unusual to have more than one cable line feeding any house, but unlike phone and electricity service, you can't choose your cable provider.

I don't think that's the norm for most households.

It is. You should consider yourself lucky, because you are definitely not in the same situation everyone else is in. This is why everyone is always complaining about the cable TV monopoly...in most places, there is only one cable provider.

Interesting. I've lived in a few cities and all of them have had at least 2-3 companies, but I have never lived in one of the 5-6 major metro areas like NY, LA, Chicago, Philly.

Maybe it's a smaller market or Midwest thing, there is a ton of competition here. Could be an Ohio thing. Cable/Satellite commercials are slightly less common than politcal ads here.

[richard1980]

I've heard of (and seen) cities with multiple cable companies, but the coverage areas never overlapped. In other words, to change cable providers, you have to to a different part of the city.

It would be nice if all cities could have several cable TV providers all with overlapping coverage so that an end user could select between competing companies.

[LuckyDay]

I've heard of (and seen) cities with multiple cable companies, but the coverage areas never overlapped. In other words, to change cable providers, you have to to a different part of the city.

It would be nice if all cities could have several cable TV providers all with overlapping coverage so that an end user could select between competing companies.

Yeah, they all overlap here. I lived in the same apartment complex as some friends and all three of us had different providers.

We get a lot of ads in a mail trying to convince to switch (or move to satellite), there is a ton of competition.

[slowbiscuit]

$80/month for Comcast double play here in the ATL, which includes all non-premium channels and 36/6 internet (soon to be 50/8).

Can't complain, but it is a promo rate that I've been on for over 2 years now - when it runs out I just escalate to whoever I can get to get it extended after mentioning U-Verse has a similar deal.

We have natural gas provider 'competition' here, but not electricity. And I'm happy with my electric rates.

[richard1980]

Yeah, they all overlap here. I lived in the same apartment complex as some friends and all three of us had different providers.

Can you ask those cable companies to do that where I live? Well, if they would do it everywhere, that would be best.

[volfan6415]

I'd be screwed if my Internet service had caps. I work from home. I'm connected to my company's VPN server for at least 8 hours a day. I don't even know how much data I'm moving back and forth.

Barnabas ... I know you use DD-WRT which has a usage tracking page to show how much bandwidth you have uploaded / downloaded on the wan port - provided you haven't disabled it.

[barnabas1969]

I'd be screwed if my Internet service had caps. I work from home. I'm connected to my company's VPN server for at least 8 hours a day. I don't even know how much data I'm moving back and forth.

Barnabas ... I know you use DD-WRT which has a usage tracking page to show how much bandwidth you have uploaded / downloaded on the wan port - provided you haven't disabled it.

I know. I just haven't looked at it since I started working from home. I've looked at it in the past (before working full-time from home) and there were some days when I downloaded more than 100GB of data. With all the Netflix streams going on in my house, plus P2P filesharing, it adds up quick! Now, add VPN to the mix... and it could be enormous. My employer does not allow any connections to my local network when I'm connected to the VPN, so everything (including Internet browsing) goes through the VPN tunnel. I sometimes move some fairly large files around too... and it all goes through the tunnel.

[barnabas1969]

Yeah, they all overlap here. I lived in the same apartment complex as some friends and all three of us had different providers.

Can you ask those cable companies to do that where I live? Well, if they would do it everywhere, that would be best.

You pay less than $40/month, and you want better than that?

[barnabas1969]

As far as most apartments go here,the lease doesn't allow
them to make modifications to the building,so they can't attach
a satellite dish unless they have room to stick it on a pole in the ground.
There are a couple of those here.
Too easy for someone to mess with them or the weather to knock them over.

Federal law allows you to install an antenna or dish anywhere that you have private access to. So, if you have a private balcony or courtyard, you can install your dish there. The apartment owner can't prevent you from doing so.

[barnabas1969]

You can choose your electricity provider? I can't.

You will eventually - anything that increases the opportunity for someone to make a profit will be legislated for, sooner or later! In my case, it involved requiring the incumbent public utility to cancel rebates/discounts for storage heaters "to create a level playing field", so "competition" led to a direct increase in my electricity bill.

That's messed up. Just like de-regulating the long distance phone companies (and busting up Ma Bell) in the US drove up prices for local phone service. Now, everyone pays a share of the long distance pie... even if they don't make a long distance call!

[barnabas1969]

this is interesting. in the UK we've had the freedom to choose energy suppliers for coming up to 20 years. although everyone has to pay the tv licence you can choose from having terrestrial, cable or satellite and most recently a few new suppliers doing IPTV. no regional restrictions as long as you can physically receive the stream. i can think of very few things where we don't have a choice of a provider, seems things are more "free" here

There are many things in the UK and Canada that make more sense than they do here in the US. I'm sure it works the other way too. It depends on your perspective I guess.

[barnabas1969]

Thanks, that answers my question. It makes more sense now.

Just out of curiosity, what's the average cable bill in Belgium? And what's the median household income there?

[foxwood]

Thanks, that answers my question. It makes more sense now.

Just out of curiosity, what's the average cable bill in Belgium? And what's the median household income there?

Don't know about the Cable bills, but according to the OECD the "average household net-adjusted disposable income" is 37,708 USD a year in the United States, and 26,734 USD in Belgium.

[richard1980]

Yeah, they all overlap here. I lived in the same apartment complex as some friends and all three of us had different providers.

Can you ask those cable companies to do that where I live? Well, if they would do it everywhere, that would be best.

You pay less than $40/month, and you want better than that?

Competition can only mean one thing: More channels for my $40.

[barnabas1969]

It's interesting to hear perspectives from around the world on topics such as income, taxes, and expenses for things like electricity, natural gas, gasoline, food, water, cable/satellite television, etc. Based on my conversations with people I know who live in Europe, we in the US are spoiled. We think we earn too little and pay too much in taxes. We think that the cost of food and gasoline are outrageous. But based on my conversations with people across the pond, we're very lucky.

For example, I have a friend who lives in Austria. His name is Thomas. He works for a tech firm. So do I. Thomas and I have very similar jobs. We speak occasionally via e-mail, and we meet in person once a year at a technical conference that lasts for four days each year. We usually spend at least 7-8 hours together in the evenings during the conference. We talk about subjects ranging from family, politics, technical stuff, taxes, finances, salaries... you name it.

Thomas is a smart man, and he is well respected at his company. He's been there for a long time, like I have been at my company for a long time. He's one of those people at his company who is considered to be a very valuable asset... like me. He makes about 65% as much as I do (gross, before taxes), and he tells me that almost 60% of his income goes to taxes.

Now, granted, he has universal health care, so he doesn't pay anything each month for health/dental/vision insurance. I do. He also says that there are lots of other public services that are paid by his taxes, and he enjoys the use of those services.

From my experience living in a high-tax US state vs. a low-tax US state, I can understand what he means. In the high-tax state where I once lived, there were plenty of free or very cheap public facilities for entertainment... and public education was far better than it is here in Florida. In Florida, which is a low-tax state, there is very little public entertainment (parks, etc), and they are not even close to the caliber of the places that were available where I used to live. The main public entertainment in Florida is the beach. And, living less than 5 miles (8km) from the beach, I do enjoy that.

But, overall, I think we in the USA are very lucky to live where we do. And we still complain about it. That's a shame.

[barnabas1969]

Thanks, that answers my question. It makes more sense now.

Just out of curiosity, what's the average cable bill in Belgium? And what's the median household income there?

Don't know about the Cable bills, but according to the OECD the "average household net-adjusted disposable income" is 37,708 USD a year in the United States, and 26,734 USD in Belgium.

That's interesting information. Not too far off from my guess of $3500/month. Of course, that's based on my situation... I live in a state that has no state income taxes. I only pay federal income taxes, real estate taxes, and sales tax.

[choliscott]

For $85 a month, I get 91 HD stations (all except a few are duplicates of the sd channels), 170 SD channels, 30 or so music channels, & another 20 FM channels (local FM stations). The price also includes 8 Encore movie channels.

Each cable box is charged $8.65 & for the past year I paid $1.10 for each cable card & received a $2.50 credit. However they changed it so now its $8.65 + $1.10 - $2.50 = $7.25 for each cable card.

I have dsl instead of cable, as I got on a promo that made the pricing cheaper then cable.

[Doctor Feelgood]

I didn't think cable could overlap... I know it doesn't happen in the NY/NJ area where I have lived my whole life. I have moved all over, and unless I want to go to FiOS or Satellite, I have had to stay with Optimum. Phone is wide open due to VoIP, but landline service - if you wanted it - is only through Verizon.

You can pick your electricity 'company', but that is a joke. It still comes from the same provider, just that a middle man gets in there to offer you dofferent rates - usually really nice the first year and then they follow the market and you can get hosed.

Other than those two utilities - I don't care any more. Moved to the 'boonies', so I am my own water and sewer provdier - and heat comes from propane deliveries.

[richard1980]

I didn't think cable could overlap...

Cable services could overlap if multiple cable lines were ran to each home, with each line belonging to a different provider. Additionally, it would be technically possible for all cable providers to share a single line, but that would require each provider to be bound to a specific block of frequencies, with none of the frequencies overlapping between providers, thus limiting the total amount of data that can be transmitted by any one provider. Due to this limitation, it is not feasible to have such a scenario.

Of course, there's always the possibility that a single company is operating under several different names, thus there is really only one cable company.