It may not be terribly surprising for some of us that relied on cable TV for our television programming for years, but the most recent Michigan American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) survey, which was conducted in May, found that customer satisfaction among cable customers was lower than satellite and fiber broadcasters.

Among cable companies, Cox Communications led the pack with a score of 67 Comcast and Time-Warner tied at 61 and Charter came in last with a score of 60.

Among Satellite providers, DISH Network edged out DirecTV with a score of 71 compared with DirecTV’s 68. DISH has reportedly been working on improving customer service recently and it appears to be paying off.

Topping the list were the fiber-optic TV provider. Verizon’s FiOS scored 73 and was followed by AT&T’s U-verse that was just one point behind with a score of 72.

It sounds more like something one might hear from Cuba or North Korea, but it’s right here in the U.S.A. A company that operates apartment complexes in Tennessee is planning to charge residents $40 a month for Comcast cable TV whether they want it or not.

Not surprisingly, some residents are up-in-arms and are planning a legal challenge – one that will be victorious if common sense still carries any weight these days.

At least one resident had just signed up for DISH Network, and although it appears that residents will be allowed to have satellite service, they will still be charged $40 per month for Comcast.

The four complexes that are set to implement the new charges are in the Chattanooga area, but the company that operates them is headquartered in Memphis and is called Mid-America Apartment Communities.

Mid-America operates complexes in a total of 13 states, so other residents may be in store for the same treatment if their new policy stands up to a legal challenge that may be headed their way.

I wonder if Mid-America ever contemplated incorporating the hammer and sickle into their company logo, if they have one.

Check out the full story at the WDEF web site.

One of the long-standing arguments the cable industry has made to convince consumers is that their service is more reliable than satellite. Satellite TV is frequently affected by the weather.

In my experience, that’s simply not the case. Sure, we have lost out satellite service a few times in the dozen or so years we have had it, but it’s always been due to very severe or unusual weather conditions.

Satellite seems most susceptible to severe thunderstorms during the summer. This isn’t much of a problem for us since I always disconnect the satellite dish from our DVR and receivers when we get storms like that. I also unplug all electronic devices from the power outlets.

It’s a pain, but well worth the effort if lighting strikes your home or the power lines in your area. Lightning can wipe out just about every electronic device in your home if a strike happens close enough and your devices are still plugged in.

We had some severe weather here in New Hampshire last night and some Comcast customers got a taste of how cable TV service can be affected by the weather as well. Although the actual number of customers impacted is not included, Manchester, NH television station WMUR reports on their website that a number of Comcast customers lost their service during the finale of American Idol last night.

Since American Idol is a wildly popular show, and the finale is probably one of the most-watched (if not the most-watched) programs every year, there must be quite a few unhappy Comcast customers around the state today.

We happened to be watching that very program last night, and despite the bad weather in the area, we had no problems with our DISH Network reception whatsoever. In fact, I watched TV until around midnight last night and never had any reception problems at all.

WMUR reports that it was some kind of telephone pole fire that knocked out Comcast service for some customers. With thunderstorms in the area, it is likely that the fire was the result of a lightning strike.

Now what was that the cable industry was saying about how unreliable satellite TV is during bad weather?

Not terribly surprising for me to hear, but Comcast’s latest quarterly report reveals that the company has lost another 82,000 cable TV subscribers. That follows an even bigger loss of 199,000 during the 4th quarter of last year, which may be a sign that the rate of customer flight may be slowing.

Yeah, I’m always tough on Comcast, and for that matter, most cable TV companies. That’s because I cannot recall a single one of them I have ever been satisfied with. I’d estimate that I’ve been a subscriber to at least five different cable companies in my life, and it was always a lousy experience for me.

Today, I’m still a Comcast customer, but only for high-speed internet. Comcast is the only game in town if you want high-speed internet in my area. To be perfectly honest, the high-speed internet service is pretty good. The problem I have with it is the price. Paying $62 a month for an internet connection (and that’s not even the highest-speed option) seems a little over-the-top to me.

Sure, I could get high-speed internet from Comcast cheaper if I signed up for one of their cable TV packages, but when I consider the signal quality, the low number of HD channels and the fact that I have been quite happy with my DISH Network service for the last dozen years or so, the idea of switching to Comcast for my television programming is not an option.

Despite the loss of cable TV customers, the company reports that their revenue per customer has risen about 6%. That’s probably due to increased fees – something I remember very well from my days as a cable TV customer; regardless of what cable company it was.

Even though it’s painfully obvious that Comcast lags behind the satellite providers when it comes to HD channels, I suspect they will continue with their sneaky TV commercials which claim they offer more HD “content” than satellite. There’s a difference between HD “content” and HD channels, so they must be including all their on-demand programming in their calculation of “content” and hoping that consumers will think “channels” when Comcast says “content.”

I guess most companies play games when it comes to making their offerings look good, but my years of experience as an unhappy cable TV customer might make me a little more cynical with regard to cable TV advertising claims.

Or perhaps I should say Xfinity? The cable giant seems to be moving towards changing their name from Comcast to Xfinity, so I guess we can expect to see more of that cool “X” name soon.

Anyway, the latest round of Comcast commercials almost had me rolling on the floor laughing. The ad shows two piles of televisions stacked up; one pile on the right and one pile on the left. The pile on the right is dramatically bigger than the pile on the left.

The ad then goes on to say that the pile on the right represents the number of HD “choices” offered by Comcast, while the pile on the left represents the number offered by satellite TV providers.

Although the ad does not come right out and say “channels,” that is the word that Comcast is probably hoping pops into the minds of those watching that particular commercial.

By “choices,” Comcast has to be including their library of on-demand programming into the equation. Yes, cable has always had more on-demand programming than satellite due to the nature of the way each service is distributed, and I don’t think anyone disputes that. However, I’m far more accustomed to hearing the various pay-TV services comparing their number of HD channels to the competition, which is something Comcast is reluctant to do since that reveals too much of the truth.

Does each on-demand program available in HD format equal an HD channel? I don’t think so, but that would certainly explain the dramatic difference between what Comcast says the satellite companies are offering and what they claims to be offering. How about pouring a little truth into the mix?

I’ve just finished checking the HD channels that Comcast offers in my area. I did not count HBO, Showtime or any of the other premium movie channels. The number if HD channels available from Comcast in my area is a whopping 36.

After that, I checked my DISH Network programming guide to see how many HD channels I could find. Again, not counting any premium movie channels, I counted a total of 64 HD channels on DISH Network. I excluded a number of HD sports channels that I presume are also premium channels, so if anything, the number I came up with for HD channels on DISH is conservative.

To take things to an even more ridiculous level, the new ads claim that Comcast’s HD picture quality is superior to satellite. My experience suggests otherwise. I have relatives that had Comcast cable (before they switched to Verizon FiOS recently) and comparing my DISH Network HD picture quality to theirs left no doubt that Comcast’s picture quality was inferior. My relatives even have a much newer and more expensive HD television set than I do!

Sorry, Comcast, or Xfinity, or whatever you are calling yourself, “choices” does not equal “channels,” and at least where I live, both satellite providers beat you hands down when one takes the time to actually count the number of HD channels from each provider. And from what I can see, as far as picture quality goes, that has not changed in the dozen or so years since I was a cable TV subscriber myself. Satellite delivered a better quality picture then, and still does today.

OK, the first time something a little weird happens, most of us probably simply dismiss it as a coincidence. When the exact same thing happens again, I think we begin to wonder if we are dealing with more than a simple coincidence. This was exactly what I began to wonder after a recent experience with Comcast.

Although I have been a DISH Network customer for a dozen or so years and remain so today, I still must rely on my local cable TV company to get high-speed internet service. Comcast is currently the only option available for those that want high-speed internet in our area. Unfortunately, satellite internet is not an option for us since they have very restrictive bandwidth usage policies that are not practical for our circumstances.

Some time back, probably a year or so ago, I noticed that my cable modem was rebooting itself pretty regularly for no apparent reason. Figuring that Comcast might be doing some network upgrades or repair work, I decided to give it a little time to see if it would settle down on its own. It didn’t.

I finally called up Comcast and got their technical support folks on the line. They spent some time asking me various questions and apparently looking at my modem logs. They could find nothing wrong, and left me with the impression that there was nothing I could do except checking for problems with my router. Pretty typical Comcast response.

Right away the rebooting problems stopped, and everything returned to normal. At the time I wondered if the tech support person I talked to found some problem with the configuration settings of my modem but did not want to admit it. It was really strange the way the problem cleared up as soon as I talked to Comcast and being told that nothing was wrong.

Well, here we are, a year or so later, and the same scenario starts to play itself out. My cable modem was rebooting itself a number of times every day. Definitely not normal behavior. I gave it the usual “grace period” to correct itself in cast Comcast was working on something, but the problem continued for at least a week.

I get Comcast technical support on the line and go through the same procedure I did last time with the exact same result. I am told they cannot find a problem and that I should make sure my router is not the problem (what a surprise!). I think I am going to start answering “no” when they ask me if I have a router connected to the modem since they love to blame routers for everything.

Well, guess what? That was the end of the problem with the modem. Once again, a simple call to Comcast to inform them of the problem seems to have cleared it up, even though they claim they did nothing to fix it.

By the way, I know enough to power down my modem and router and reset them before even making the call to Comcast, so doing those things at their direction while on the phone with them was not the action that corrected the problem.

It smells a little fishy to me, and I suspect something occasionally goes wrong with the modem configuration files or something on the Comcast end that they do not want to talk about. What other conclusion can I reach?

If this happens a third time there will be no doubt in my mind that their not being honest with their customers. Not that it would come as a big surprise to me.

That’s the route that my favorite cable company seems to be taking. News has emerged that Comcast is planning to rebrand itself as Xfinity. Not sure where that name came from, but unless the exorbitant amount of money they charge me monthly just for broadband internet service comes down, I’m not going to like them any better with the “Xfinity” logo at the top of the bill than I do now with the “Comcast” logo at the top.

Although Comcast claims the name change is being done to “promote the company’s digital technology prowess,” not everyone is convinced.

Some reports are suggesting that the company is changing its name in order to distance itself from its reputation for lousy customer service. Checking out “Comcast” on YouTube does not do much for the company’s image. The number one result is the infamous video of the sleeping Comcast technician who was supposed to be working on a problem in a customer’s home and would up falling asleep on the couch as he waited for a call from the company’s office.

As someone who is locked in as a Comcast customer due to their monopoly on broadband service in my area, I understand why they might want to ditch the old name and go for a massive mulligan. I genuinely hope that this change brings about better customer service, and more importantly, more realistic prices.

As it stands now, I pay about $8 a month more for my DISH Network service (with all the channels I want) than I do for my broadband connection. Naturally, I would pay less for the internet if I was a Comcast cable TV customer, but to me, that’s like saying that they value me less as a customer because I only want broadband.

Perhaps they don’t realize it, but that leaves a bad taste in a customer’s mouth, and in my case, as soon as another broadband option becomes available in my area, I’ll be saying “so long” to Comcast, or Xfinity or whatever other name they may be using at the time.

In the unlikely event that they actually improve customer service and bring prices more in line with reality, I may consider staying on as a customer as long as the service is reliable and the cost is competitive with whatever other options might come my way.

I won’t be holding my breath.

Black and yellow are the traditional colors of the Boston Bruins NHL hockey team, but some fans may be seeing red if they are accustomed to watching their beloved B’s on DirecTV.

Some Bruins games are set to be broadcast on the Versus channel instead of NESN, where fans are used to seeing their team play. Versus, owned by cable television giant Comcast, is embroiled in a dispute with DirecTV over the satellite broadcaster’s right to carry the channel as part of their programming line-up.

DirecTV is well-known as a favorite among satellite customers who are sports fans. Their “Sunday Ticket” football offering is very popular with the Sunday afternoon football crowd. DISH Network recently inked a deal to begin carrying the NFL RedZone channel which has upped the ante a bit in DISH’s bid to rival DirecTV’s sports programming. Many football fans who subscribe to DISH Network seem to be very happy about the new addition.

The disagreement between DirecTV and Comcast is over money (what else?). DirecTV claims Comcast  is trying to dramatically increase the price they will have to pay for the privilege of carrying Versus, while Comcast says the price it is offering DirecTV is the same price currently being paid by DirecTV rival DISH Network as well as Cox cable.

This is beginning to sound a bit like some of the drawn-out feuds that DISH Network is well-known for.

Knowing cable companies as I do (I had cable TV for a decade or so before switching to DISH), it’s easy for me to pick sides on this one. In my experience cable companies are notorious for price increases, which leads me to doubt Comcast’s story and believe what DirecTV is saying about a big price increase. I’ve been on that side of the table when dealing with cable companies as well. Unfortunately, I did not have the clout that would afford me the opportunity to negotiate a better price.

The cry babies at the big cable companies must not be happy about the success of satellite broadcasters like DISH Network and DirecTV. They are currently pushing a measure in the California legislature to impose taxes on satellite customers.

Cable company customers in California (and many other states) are required to pay a tax as part of their service, which is due to the fact that delivering cable programming to customers involves stringing wires on telephone polls or underground, which involves the use of public property, including streets.

The satellite companies, who do not encroach on public property in order to deliver programming to their customers, say that taxing them does not make sense. They do not depend on access to public property. Seems like a pretty logical argument to me.

The big cable companies do not let logic stand in their way, however, and I’m sure the big donations they have made to various legislators has no connection to their efforts to tax their competitors. Campaign contributions of $340,000 were handed out by the “cable association” in California between January, 2008 and June 30. In addition, three of the big cable companies, Comcast, Time-Warner and Cox made nearly $1 million in campaign contributions during that time.

Kind of looks like the cable industry was trying very hard to make friends in the right places.

The cable companies claim the new tax on satellite service would help to “level the playing field.” Well, that’s a pretty bogus argument when you consider the fact that the cable companies can also offer high-speed internet and telephone service in addition to cable TV. The satellite companies cannot offer those services without partnering with other companies like AT&T, which once had a partnership with DISH Network.

It appears to me that the extra services that the cable TV companies are able to offer make for a significant advantage when compared to their satellite rivals. Still, new customers continue to sign up for satellite service.

To some of us, a tax on satellite service seems ludicrous. Still, some states have already approved these new taxes. Massachusetts, a state that never met a tax it didn’t like, has already done it. Other states are considering it as well. Hopefully, the people of California will be able to put a stop this money-grab.

See the original story on the L.A. Times for more information.

One of the main reasons I switched from cable TV to DISH Network satellite TV was the frequent price increases I was experiencing. It seemed like they were edging the price upwards every couple of months or so.

Well, for those who are reluctant to believe that, I urge you to check out the like I have included below. I think that says it all.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/may-2009/viewpoint/overview/cable-rates-ov.htm