Recent news confirms that the cable TV industry continued the overall decline in their subscriber base during 2010. The industry lost around 2 million video subscribers during the year.

Some of those loses are likely attributable to the economy and the terrible housing market. Beyond that, I think customer satisfaction is primary cause.

As a subscriber who just recently became a non-subscriber, I’m am not the least bit surprised. Since I’ve been a DISH Network subscriber since 1998, my subscription with my local cable TV company, Comcast, was for high-speed internet only.

Until quite recently, Comcast had a monopoly on the high-speed internet market in my area. The only other competition for internet service was a local wireless service which had very restrictive bandwidth limits and high prices. Satellite internet, which had bandwidth limits that were better than the local wireless provider, but were still a bit too restrictive for us.

Living in a rural area, our cellular service is quite spotty, so any solution that is dependent on that, such as wireless cards and the like, were not an option for us.

As much as I despised being overcharged for high-speed internet service, I really had no choice but to pay Comcast in excess of $60 per month if I wanted high-speed internet. Something that really is a necessity considering what I do for a living.

Recently, our local telephone company sent out postcards advertising that their high-speed DSL service was finally available in our area. I was a little dubious about it since I had heard bad things about DSL from one of my relatives, but I decided to give it a try.

I’ve been on DSL now for almost two months and I am extremely happy with it. It’s nearly half the price of Comcast’s service and I find the connection more reliable and just generally more stable. Sure, Comcast had the download speed advantage, but I find the DSL download speeds quite acceptable. I can wait a little longer for a download in exchange for escaping Comcast’s overpriced monopoly.

During the entire time I was subscribed to Comcast high-speed internet, I felt like I was being gouged. Since I wasn’t interested in their cable TV service, they charged me a higher rate than they would have if I had been a TV subscriber. Sure, it’s their right to price their services the way they want, but the end result for me was negative feelings which compelled me to dump their service just as fast as I could once a good alternative was finally available.

Maybe that’s part of the reason they lost subscribers last year. Big corporations that are accustomed to monopoly status may not do so well when competition finally moves in. I may be off base, but at least that’s the way it looks from my perspective as a former cable subscriber.

They’re at it again. Comcast, now calling themselves Xfinity, has been running a new series of television commercials claiming that satellite TV is not reliable in inclement weather. The commercials show what appears to be a typical rainfall happening outside a satellite viewer’s home when the service is suddenly disrupted.

The actors in the commercial insinuate that the failure of the satellite signal is typical when it rains and conclude that cancelling their satellite service and signing up for Xfinity will solve their reception problems.

I hope their prepared to pay higher monthly fees for their Xfinity service, but there is no mention of that during the commercial.

The notion that satellite TV is not reliable during inclement weather has been one of the cable industries most-used weapons against the satellite industry for a while now. The problem with that is that that particular weapon only shoots blanks. Their claims regarding satellite reliability are simply not true.

If a satellite subscriber is having frequent problems with reception during bad weather, they have a problem with their installation and should contact their satellite provider and have their system checked. If a dish antenna is slightly out of alignment, it can result in a much weaker signal than you should be receiving, which makes the signal far more vulnerable to interruption.

I’ve written plenty on this topic, but when I recently came across an item on another website where a number of consumers talk about their experience with satellite TV and bad weather, I felt like it was a good time to bring this topic up again.

In what appears to be a sarcastic jab a DISH Network, “The Consumerist” posted a brief article titled “Dish Gives Prospective Customers Preview Of Its Stellar Service.”

In what may have been a rather unexpected turn of events, it seems that most of the consumers who responded to the article were satellite customers who were satisfied with their service.

A lot of the comments echo my own experience with DISH Network, which is disrupted by weather only on rare occasions. At least one commenter even said that their experience with cable television led them to the conclusion that their cable was out of service more than their satellite service.

Check out the discussion at: The Consumerist

I’ve been waiting for the day for more than four years. The day I was able to pick up the phone, call Comcast, and tell them that their services were no longer wanted. I suppose I should think of that act as  more of a Valentine’s gift for my wallet than for Comcast.

A few weeks ago I received a post card from the local telephone company advertising the fact that their high-speed DSL service was finally available in my area. That was the day that Comcast’s monopoly on high-speed internet in my neighborhood ended.

I wasted no time getting on the phone with FairPoint (the local phone company) and getting the details regarding their DSL service. The representative was not able to tell me with certainty that DSL was available for my home and had to consult with their technical support people to be sure. She offered to call me back in a few days when she had the answer.

I heard back from her within the week and was told that DSL was indeed available for my home. I asked her about the various service levels and although my memory fails me at the moment, I believe there were three options, starting with a very slow connection that was also very inexpensive.

Coming from Comcast, which I will admit has provided good internet service here, I was interested only in the top-tier option which was said to offer a download speed of 7 Mbps. Obviously a bit slower than Comcast when you consider raw download speed, but for uses like web surfing, e-mail and VOIP, I figured there would be no significant difference. We’re not huge downloaders here, so losing a little download speed is not a big deal for us.

A week or two later FairPoint sent a tech to my home. They do a lot of self-installs these days, but due to the location of our home, they decided it was best to come out and verify that the lines were in good enough shape to handle DSL here.

When the technician was satisfied that the lines were in good shape, he installed the modem and we were up and running. We’ve been on DSL for nearly a month now and I am very satisfied with it so far. As expected, raw download speed is not quite as good as Comcast, but the speeds we are seeing equal what we got with Comcast most of the time. There were times when we would note that a Comcast download would really scream, but overall, I don’t see a whole lot of difference between Comcast and FairPoint DSL where speed is concerned.

To be fair to Comcast, we did not have their “Power Boost” (or whatever they call it) feature enabled on our connection since I downgraded the service level some time ago in order to reduce our monthly bill. I believe our Comcast connection was rated at 7 or 8 Mbps, but we did often see the speed exceed that level – something we don’t see with DSL, but frankly, we don’t care.

What I have noticed about FairPoint DSL is an improvement in stability. I spend at least 6 or so hours a day listening to radio programs via the internet here in my home office and was not uncommon to experience weird distortions and even disconnects when listening via Comcast. So far, DSL has been much more stable. I hear virtually no distortion and experience almost no disconnects now.

Although the download speeds don’t match Comcast’s overall, downloading files also seems more consistent with DSL when compared with Comcast. I would often note that the speed of a download with Comcast could fluctuate quite wildly while the downloads via DSL seem to reach a certain speed and remain stable until the download completes.

The above differences may be due to the “shared” nature of cable modem connections. I’m no expert, but my understanding is that a cable modem connection is sharing the available bandwidth with your neighbors while DSL offers a more direct connection to the phone company servers before the bandwidth is shared with other internet users. I’m sure that’s not the best description that’s ever been offered, and may not even be totally accurate, but that’s the way it has been explained to me.

Although Comcast did offer pretty good service while we had it, my big problem with them was the cost. I was paying about $64 per month just for broadband internet, and I never considered it a fair price. Since I have DISH Network and was not interested in TV from Comcast, I felt as though I was being penalized with higher prices.

I was a little surprised on Valentine’s Day when I called Comcast to cancel my internet service that they didn’t offer me any special deals to stay on as a customer, but maybe it’s because I did not tell them I was switching to FairPoint DSL. When asked the inevitable “why?” question, I simply told the Comcast rep that I simply no longer needed it. Perhaps the NBC deal has them feeling more comfortable about their financial future than they have in recent years.

I am paying about $33 per month for FairPoint DSL for 12 months. After that the price will increase to about $40 per month which is still about $15 less than Comcast. For us, it’s a worthwhile savings and the warm feeling inside I got from telling Comcast to take a hike was the icing on the cake.

I love the smell of burning monopolies in the morning. Good riddance Comcast!

Cable TV giant Comcast may be pushing some customers away due to high prices. The company reports that it lost 275,000 basic cable subscribers during the third quarter. The loss was more than double the number of subscribers lost during the same period last year. That sounds like a lot of customers, but the company still managed to post strong earnings and has not given up on the idea of acquiring NBC.

Although Comcast explains that the 3rd quarter losses were likely due to the bad economic conditions and increased competition, there is some speculation about whether increasing prices have driven some subscribers to seek alternatives. When one considers that the average Comcast customer bill is $129.75 per month (up from $107.20 in 2008), it’s likely that some customers have dropped Comcast due to rising prices.

It’s hard to disagree with Comcast that the economy plays a role in the loss of subscribers since many consumers are tightening their belts and non-essentials like cable TV are probably high on the list when cost cuts are on the table.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think cable is too expensive and has been for a long time. I think Comcast may lose more customers in the future as new alternatives to their offerings become available. Where I live, Comcast has a monopoly on high-speed internet service. If someone wants high-speed internet around here, it’s Comcast or nothing.

Currently I am paying about $64 a month for Comcast high-speed internet. That’s a bit less than I was paying a while ago since I switched to a lower-priced (and slower) option, but it still gets the job done. Overall, Comcast’s broadband service has been pretty good and I really don’t have any complaints with the service itself. Paying $64 a month just for internet access still seems a bit too expensive for me however.

I could dump my DISH Network and probably get some kind of “bundle” from Comcast that would lower the cost for my broadband internet and include digital cable, but my experience with cable TV in the past convinced me that I want to continue getting my TV from DISH Network. I doubt there would be a significant savings for me, and I’m certainly not interested in any “bundle” that includes their telephone service after the nightmare a friend of mine experienced with that.

Once an alternative broadband option does become available in my area, it is likely I will drop Comcast. If the alternative is less expensive and offers decent service, there will be no question about it and Comcast will lose another customer.

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.