Survey: Cable costs more, offers less

Yahoo! News / USA Today ^ | 8/20/03 | Michael McCarthy

[UB355]

For the first time, cable TV subscribers are spending more on services each month than satellite TV subscribers, but they still aren't as happy as their satellite counterparts, according to a study released Tuesday

Consumers now pay an average of $48.93 a month for satellite services from DirecTV and the Dish Network vs. $49.62 for services from cable operations, according to J.D. Power and Associates' 2003 Residential Cable/Satellite TV Customer Satisfaction Study. The study surveyed 133,000 consumers nationwide.

Subscribers gave both satellite services higher marks for overall satisfaction than cable subscribers on six factors: reliability, cost, billing, promotions, image and customer service.

The average monthly tab for cable TV is up 41% since 1998 vs. 8% for satellite TV. Much of that has been driven by larger rate increases as cable operators spent money to upgrade networks. But the study also indicates some consumers have been willing to pay cable operators more for services available from the upgrades such as digital TV, video on demand, high-definition TV and broadband.

When it comes to customer satisfaction, however, consumers ranked DirecTV and Dish Network as the top two companies in the survey. Cable firms Cablevision and Adelphia ranked last out of 13 satellite and cable providers listed in the survey.

[Publius6961]

D'OH!

All other things being equal, cable=Millions of $ in infrastructure and "fees" (protection money, cash cow variety) to local government.

Satellite = $0 capitalized cost at the customer end. It should be half the price.

[CollegeRepublican]

The customer service at Comcast sucks, but I do like the HDTV, cable, internet, and Comcastsportsnet that I get with them. I had DIRECTV in college and that sucked, one year it was raining during the Superbowl and I thought that 50 fraternity brothers were going to kill me.

As long as Comcast keeps adding HDTV channels, I will stick with it.

[tm22721]

In the past three years satellite quality has declined dramatically due to the cramming of 1000 channels into the bandwidth they used before for only 200 channels.

'Digital' quality is false advertisement since it allows them to compress the video signal into a barely watchable mess on any TV larger than 35".

BUMP

[xsrdx]

Once it is digital you can't tell what medium it arrived over

That depends - most "digital" cable is only partly fiber - it may stil travel over considerable coax, and analog switches, to get to your box, degrading the signal.

I would still argue Satellite has better sound and picture quality than the majority of even upgraded digital cable systems.

[xsrdx]

'Digital' quality is false advertisement since it allows them to compress the video signal into a barely watchable mess on any TV larger than 35".

I'll give you that - DVD is noticeably better than even satellite pay per view, on all three of our TV's from 20" to 35".

Still better than any cable I've seen, but you are absolutely right on that providers have chosen to use bandwidth to add more programming, rather than improving signal quality.

[G L Tirebiter]

I gues nuttin's perfect. My little old 27" TV's are okay, though.

No technology is perfect. I spoke to an engineer recently about cable issues. His assertion was that cable has problems when they try to optimize internet vs. telephone vs. television signals over the same wire. There is no free lunch - especially when each technology has its own set of technicians making adjustments across the network to resolve their own particular issues.

BTW, I am a very happy dish customer. Two receivers in my home and another in my house in the mountains. Complete service to the mountains for $5/month. Sweet.

[UB355]

I just got satellite in July. It far exceeds the picture quality of my cable even using a digital cable converter. It may just be in my area but I had shadows or vertical bars on my 32 inch TV when watching local TV channels. Time Warner cable could not correct the problem. To get around the possibility of losing all pictures during storms I receive my local channels with an old Radio Shack antenna mounted in my attic. The only channel I don't get clearly is the local CBS outlet which is on UHF here in the MIlwaukee area. I don't watch anything on CBS anyway.

[G L Tirebiter]

I guess nuttin's perfect. My little old 27" TV's are okay, though.

No technology is perfect. I spoke to an engineer recently about cable issues. His assertion was that cable has problems when they try to optimize internet vs. telephone vs. television signals over the same wire. There is no free lunch - especially when each technology has its own set of technicians making adjustments across the network to resolve their own particular issues.

BTW, I am a very happy dish customer. Two receivers in my home and another in my house in the mountains. Complete service to the mountains for $5/month. Sweet.

[Publius6961]

BUMP

[oyez]

Time-Warner is a bungling, lying incompetant, bunch of slobs. I must have had them out on service calls six times this summer and they couln't fix the proplem. One call to DirectTV finished all that.

[Bilbo Baggins]

bump

[LiberationIT]

Don't forget though with cable (Comcast) you also get poor service and a could not care less attitude. Thank you government for creating this monopoly.

[HamiltonJay]

Actually you should save yourself some money, if you got a cable modem, you have basic cable free. THey can't turn basic cable off and have cable modem work...

[tear_down_this_wall]

I tried satellite, but my association made me take it down. I discovered, however, that my garage pointed in exactly the right direction to receive a signal. So - for an entire year - I had to watch TV with my garage open. Talk about funny. I'm the only guy in NJ that slept with a remote and a garage door opener.

[TexRef]

You shouldn't be having those types of problems. You definitely should get someone to check the alignment of the dish to make sure that it is adjusted for the maximum signal.

If you have trees in the way or experience a lot of signal loss, you might also look into getting a bigger dish

[TexRef]

I tried satellite, but my association made me take it down.

Your homeowners association cannot stop you from putting up any satellite dish that is 1 meter in diameter or smaller (regular DirecTV/DISH Network dishes are 18 inches). An FCC ruling says that homeowner associations (including apartment complexes) cannot restrict people from putting up dishes.

[azcap]

DIRECWAY 2 way high speed satellite internet

Anyone using this - How do you like it? My folks live in the boonies, no cable, internet via bad phone lines at about 20k. They are desperate for high speed connection. Satellite is their only option. The hardware is $500 and the service is $60/month. Is it any good?

[general_re]

Now, I could have sworn that DirecTV was serving me with Comcast SportsNet, so I went to their website to make sure, and it turns out we're both right. For whatever reason, DirecTV is carrying Comcast SportsNet Mid Atlantic for the Baltimore/DC area, but not the Philly version of Comcast SportsNet for subscribers there. Strange. If you're really tired of cable, it might be worth contacting Comcast and DirecTV to see if they have plans to add the Philly SportsNet to their lineup....

[Hank Rearden]

I have 7 television sets in various places around my property. All can tune, individually, up to 60 channels on my basic cable service. No cable boxes anywhere to screw things up.

I also have 1.6mb/sec cablemodem service, which downloads websites and email at close to 250 kbytes/second. This is 80 times faster than my previous dialup service here in the boonies.

Total cost for both? $60/month. I dropped a phone line when I got cablemodem, so that saved me $25/month.

I'm happy. All I'm lacking is C-SPAN2, Comedy Central and the Weather Channel. I'll survive somehow.

Show me a satellite system that can independently support 7 televisions, with no "cable box", and simultaneously provide ultra-high broadband service.

[bobsatwork]

Cable is going digital also. Once it is digital you can't tell what medium it arrived over. I disagree. I replaced Comcast digital cable with DirectTV. Satellite picture is notably better. But I didn't switch for price or quality reasons. I COULD NOT STAND TO DEAL WITH COMCAST ONE DAY LONGER. It is NOT POSSIBLE for customer service to be worse. EACH and EVERY experience I have had with a service call follows this template: technician fails to show when agreed, then later, technician lies to my face about not showing up, then technician fails to do what was requested (need to leave for parts, etc.), then technician disappears forever. When I call for follow-up, I am told that the order is closed, or it never existed in the first place. EACH and EVERY time.