Restructure levels for channels wanted

[PEHOPKS]

I have been using UVerse since 2006 and I love it. Unlike Time Warner, it has never gone out or have we had interrupted service. That's a lot for living in KS where the winds can whip around at 70-80 MPH.

My only complaint is that the packages that UVerse offers are filled with junk channels. I watch a handful of channels and because not all of them are "basic" I have to buy a U200 package to get these six channels.

A suggestion for UVerse would be to restructure their packages so that you can pick your channels and pay by the amount of channels you want to view. I.e. 10 channels for $xx.xx per month, 25 channels for $xx.xx per month, etc. Seems silly I have to pay for kids channels, sports channels, etc when I don't watch them.

Just wondering if other people feel this way. Thanks for the opportunity to speak.

[spd2demun ACE - Master]

Some people have mentioned it, and I think they should offer it as an option.  It may cost nearly as much as a regular package deal, but I think the point is people just want the channels they watch, period.

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PEHOPKS wrote:

I have been using UVerse since 2006 and I love it. Unlike Time Warner, it has never gone out or have we had interrupted service. That's a lot for living in KS where the winds can whip around at 70-80 MPH.

My only complaint is that the packages that UVerse offers are filled with junk channels. I watch a handful of channels and because not all of them are "basic" I have to buy a U200 package to get these six channels.

A suggestion for UVerse would be to restructure their packages so that you can pick your channels and pay by the amount of channels you want to view. I.e. 10 channels for $xx.xx per month, 25 channels for $xx.xx per month, etc. Seems silly I have to pay for kids channels, sports channels, etc when I don't watch them.

Just wondering if other people feel this way. Thanks for the opportunity to speak.

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[jrdburrow]

I fully support this.  Right now I'm actually considering leaving AT&T for this reason.

There are three non-local channels that I regularly watch: TNT, USA, TBS.

With AT&T, all three of these are only offered at U-200+.  Besides that, all the rest of my programming can be found in U-Basic.  So I am paying $72, $53 more than U-Basic.  $53 for three channels?  I think not.

Now, Comcast offers all three of these in their Digital Starter package, which is $29.99 a month for the first twelve months, then it goes up to $49.99, which is still less than U-200.  Add in $16.95/month for DVR, and it's still cheaper.

2 years U-200: $1,728

2 years Xfinity Digital Starter: $1,366.56

Total 2 year savings: $361.44

Yes.  I think I'm about to switch.

[tj_1]

I'm really annoyed that U100 disappeared. I had upgraded to U200 to see NHL playoff games, planning on moving back down to U100...now U100 is no longer offered.

[dhascall ACE - Professor]

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jrdburrow wrote:

I fully support this.  Right now I'm actually considering leaving AT&T for this reason.

There are three non-local channels that I regularly watch: TNT, USA, TBS.

With AT&T, all three of these are only offered at U-200+.  Besides that, all the rest of my programming can be found in U-Basic.  So I am paying $72, $53 more than U-Basic.  $53 for three channels?  I think not.

Now, Comcast offers all three of these in their Digital Starter package, which is $29.99 a month for the first twelve months, then it goes up to $49.99, which is still less than U-200.  Add in $16.95/month for DVR, and it's still cheaper.

2 years U-200: $1,728

2 years Xfinity Digital Starter: $1,366.56

Total 2 year savings: $361.44

Yes.  I think I'm about to switch.

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Since most (but not all) U-Verse subs are not under contract, feel free to switch.  Do you have HD?  There are extra fees there too, though I'm not sure what XFinity charges.  Comcast has been rasinh rates / changing fee schedules twice a year around here and not the 1x a year that UV does.  Long story short, when dealing with Comcast, expect the unexpected. 

I'm not trying to sawy you either way but each service had its pros and cons.  AT&T Pro;s: CS (for me), SD PQ, THDVR, Record 4 streams.,  Cons, no LOT8's, not as good as VOD selection.  Comcast has a better HD PQ (MO) but LOUSY CS.

[gamegurou]

U100 didn't disappear. Many ATT customers are still fathered in. The packages are carefully planned. For instance, if you want anything Fox + HBO/Starz, you may as well go U450 because its actually more expensive to go U300+bolt ons. It sucks but it prevents a lot of issues/outages of certain channels.

[oufanindallas]

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gamegurou wrote:
U100 didn't disappear. Many ATT customers are still fathered in. The packages are carefully planned. For instance, if you want anything Fox + HBO/Starz, you may as well go U450 because its actually more expensive to go U300+bolt ons. It sucks but it prevents a lot of issues/outages of certain channels.

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Since he upgraded to U200 he is no longer allowed to go to the U100 package, it has disappeared.  While customers are grandfathered into if they make a change, they can no longer revert back.  The same can be said for those with U400, it no longer exists either. 

[CTEL08]

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jrdburrow wrote:

I fully support this.  Right now I'm actually considering leaving AT&T for this reason.

There are three non-local channels that I regularly watch: TNT, USA, TBS.

With AT&T, all three of these are only offered at U-200+.  Besides that, all the rest of my programming can be found in U-Basic.  So I am paying $72, $53 more than U-Basic.  $53 for three channels?  I think not.

Now, Comcast offers all three of these in their Digital Starter package, which is $29.99 a month for the first twelve months, then it goes up to $49.99, which is still less than U-200.  Add in $16.95/month for DVR, and it's still cheaper.

2 years U-200: $1,728

2 years Xfinity Digital Starter: $1,366.56

Total 2 year savings: $361.44

Yes.  I think I'm about to switch.

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hi jrdburrow

i just basically  did that on monday, but i told them i want the dvr for free b/c its a hunk of junk and not worth $20/mo and they said no problem

i moved our tivo we were using for free OTA tv upstairs and now we're set. 

comcast customers also just got watchespn. and xbox 360 just announced that watchespn will be coming to xbox live, so ill have full espn viewability upstaris to go along with the tivo. 

all that for $44/mo after taxes, att uverse wanted to charge me $100 +/mo for less programming. 

[That Don Guy]

You are not the first person to request "a la carte" programming, and the requests are not limted to U-Verse by any means.

However, you have to understand that if cable/satellite companies were to suddenly make all of the channels available on an "on request" basis, the per-channel price would go up.

Here's an example: according to a recent report, it costs a cable company 62 cents per subscriber per month to carry USA Network.  That's not 62 cents per household that actually watches it; it's 62 cents per household that has a cable package that can receive it.  (The number of people who can receive a particular channel on a particular system seems to be one of those "kept under lock and key" things.)  If cable companies were to suddenly switch to by-channel pricing, and 80% of the people who currently get USA decide they don't want it, then NBC/Universal has to charge over $3/month in order to make the same amount of money.  (If it's 90%, make that $6/month.  If half of the people who get ESPN don't want it, the $5/month Disney asks for it might easily become $10.)

Even an X channels for Y dollars fee may not be as cheap as you think, especially as some channels would either have an additional surcharge or count as multiple channels (e.g. "20 channels for $20; ESPN counts as 6 channels, and TNT, Disney, and NFL Network as 2 each").

[That Don Guy]

Something else I forgot to mention: what stops a broadcast network from saying, "You don't want to make one of our cable channels part of your standard package?  Fine - you no longer have the right to carry our main broadcast network channel either."  (I am not sure if they can do that everywhere, or just in cities where the network owns the station, but even if it is the latter, imagine the havoc if, say, Fox were to pull its network's stations from New York and Los Angenes, especially during football season.)

Don't think it can happen?  It has - okay, it was something like 20 years ago, but a cable company just north of San Francisco was told by ABC's owners at the time (this is pre-Disney), "Either you carry ESPN 2 or you can't carry San Francisco's ABC station"; the company responded that it had no room to add another station and couldn't drop any of its existing ones, so for almost a year, about 40,000 people went without ABC (the city is too far away from the transmitter to get a decent antenna signal), except for two shows - the Oscars, and a Monday Night Football game in which the 49ers were playing.