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Cable does it again

2129 Views 17 Replies 17 Participants Last post by  Jhon69, 
A
Comcast to boost TV bills 6 percent starting in January
David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Comcast will raise its average television bill in the Bay Area nearly 6 percent next year, the latest in a string of annual increases from the region's dominant cable company as it adds services to its local network.

Comcast, with 1.7 million customers in the area, said Tuesday it will raise the rates on both digital and analog television services starting in January. The average Comcast video customer now will receive a monthly bill of $44.64 for the standard cable package, an increase of 5.86 percent.

Prices for the company's high-speed Internet and digital phone services won't change.
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To read the rest of the story: SFGate

Mod Edit: For Link and length
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W
No surprise there! The annual holiday season greeting from America's cable companies is coming.....whoa, wait, "its the programmers - the rates are going up. ," never mind that a bunch of the channels are owned (or partially owned) in related entities, or that cable companies are enjoying one of the highest profit margins of any company, or that there is so much cash that some of the operators are stealing the cash from the company and using it on personal excesses, or what else? Let's put cable before the public utility commissions in each jurisdiction, just like utilities....if rate increases are justified, so be it. If they are a sham, screw cable companies and their executives.....no budgeting here, just raise the rates, they've got the public cornered and no way around it....oh sure, we can get an antenna....maybe, but in today's world, cable TV is practically necessary....oh well, the payoffs of Congress have definately helped these crooked people.....
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captain_video
Rising cable prices are a fact of life. Now that cable has more competition from DTV, Dish, and Verizon FIOS, they have to invest in improvements to their infrastructure to stay competitive. This means price increases for their existing customers to finance the improvements.
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F
Yep, it happens every year with cable. Hopefully satellite will hold off for a couple years on price increases.
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Earl Bonovich
I've moved this to general discussion, as it is not exclusive to DirecTV.

I have also requested the OP to post the link to the article.
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S
captain_video said:
Rising cable prices are a fact of life. ... This means price increases for their existing customers to finance the improvements.
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It's a fact of life in a monopoly, not in free market.
In a free market financing for investments comes from borrowing or from available resources not from rising prices because if the price rise you lose customers to your competitors that can keep the price lower. Cable can increase its fees at that rate because they well know that most of their customers will not leave because they do not have an alternative.
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DougRuss
Charlie will hit us with one in February !:eek2:
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invaliduser88
Thats Comcastic!
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M
DougRuss said:
Charlie will hit us with one in February !:eek2:
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Yes and that will be the 7th one in as many years. This year I've decided to cut back on my services. From now on I will continue to cut them back everytime the price goes up . At this rate I will not be a Dish customer in about 3 years. Because everytime you cut back Dish hits you with extra Fees to make up for the programming you cut out.

The hd enabeling fee PER RECEIVER for $6.00.
The Dvr fee PER RECEIVER for $5.98.
The no phone connection fee for $4.99.
The additional receiver fee for $5.00 sd /$6.00 hd receivers.
No basic programming pack for $6.00.

Oh and there is speculation that they will soon add another fee for external hard drive access. Just imagine if they ever add the internet access for video on demand fees. :mad:
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James Long
Earl Bonovich said:
I've moved this to general discussion, as it is not exclusive to DirecTV.

I have also requested the OP to post the link to the article.
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Duplicate thread from Dish Network forum merged ...
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midnight75
finniganps said:
Yep, it happens every year with cable. Hopefully satellite will hold off for a couple years on price increases.
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I, too, am hopeful that D* does not follow suit. It's bad enough that in my state, we're getting hit with yet ANOTHER rate hike next year with our electricity, I don't need one with the TV as well! :mad:
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Darkman
So will Cox..

Cox will raise the rates 6 % as well .. as i posted earlier in this thread:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=70054
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ehren
all tv rates are just SICK.
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Steve Mehs
This past year, in my area, digital cable went from $53.95 to $55.95, the Sports Tier went from $4.95 to $1.95 and the HD Tier went from $6.95 to $4.95 and Universal HD was added. Even though I’m under a promo, my bill would have gone down $3. Premiums stayed the same, box rental and DVR fees stayed the same. I read something a while back that 69% of all households in the TW Rochester coverage area subscribe to cable TV, which is up from previous years. I wondered about this a few months ago, so I asked, a neighbor of mine and long time family friend is on the town board and is involved with the cable franchise authority. My town has just over 2,000 households according to the 2000 census, he said about 1500 households in the town have some type of cable TV service. He said they really haven’t seen a spike or decline in the amount of subscribers while he has been involved in town politics.

As long as a few new channels are added, new innovations like On Demand and Star Over are happening and expanding, I have absolutely no problem with a price increase. $230 cable bill after the promo is up.
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army1
Steve Mehs said:
This past year, in my area, digital cable went from $53.95 to $55.95, the Sports Tier went from $4.95 to $1.95 and the HD Tier went from $6.95 to $4.95 and Universal HD was added. Even though I'm under a promo, my bill would have gone down $3. Premiums stayed the same, box rental and DVR fees stayed the same. I read something a while back that 69% of all households in the TW Rochester coverage area subscribe to cable TV, which is up from previous years. I wondered about this a few months ago, so I asked, a neighbor of mine and long time family friend is on the town board and is involved with the cable franchise authority. My town has just over 2,000 households according to the 2000 census, he said about 1500 households in the town have some type of cable TV service. He said they really haven't seen a spike or decline in the amount of subscribers while he has been involved in town politics.

As long as a few new channels are added, new innovations like On Demand and Star Over are happening and expanding, I have absolutely no problem with a price increase. $230 cable bill after the promo is up.
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must be nice to be rich, i think i get a 2% increase in my disablity check starting
in jan.
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Steve Mehs
No I'm not rich, I wish I was. That price is for phone, premium internet, and digital cable with 2 DVRs. I live with mommy, she pays the $45 or whatever basic cable is and I pay the rest of the bill.
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P
i pay my mom $50 a month for my end of the Bill
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J
Everybody wants HD.New satellites are built and launched.The costs are passed to the customer.You really didn't think they would do it for Free did you?.:D
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