I think I found my new home!

[Red October1984]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

It's all good. Unless the cable guy is named Larry or Jim Carrey or Larry Carrey.

Weeeeellllll looks like ya'll need a proper cable guy. Look no further than Larry.

[frau kaleun]

So the cable guy - who was very nice - looked everywhere and couldn't find whatever box outside he needed to get into to get me hooked up. Maybe no one who lived here ever had cable, I dunno. He even called the property management company and they said no one there knew where it was either.

So he called Time Warner and someone's going to call me tomorrow morning and come out later in the day to do whatever they have to do to tap me into the cable lines out here.

Oh well, at least I'm on vacation and will be home.

[Jimbuna]

I hope your cable doesn't cost as much as mine does!!

[Wolferz]

Too bad you don't live around here. This is the birthplace of cable television because of the mountains and valleys making tv reception almost non-existent. So, it was invented hyere in the Pocono mountains of NE PA.
Our cable guys are always prepared to get on the ladder or up a pole to run a drop into the house. My cable connection not only provides television, it also carries our phone service and our high speed internet.
Does your condo have buried utilities or something?

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

I hope your cable doesn't cost as much as mine does!!

It is amazing what we spend on internet to see Frau assemble a desk.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

It is amazing what we spend on internet to see Frau assemble a desk.

Well as Woferz has stated, mine is identical because the package contains tv, phone and internet.

my monthly fee is close to £90 per calendar month....the downside being if the cable develops a fault, you lose the lot

[Wolferz]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

It is amazing what we spend on internet to see Frau assemble a desk.

Real life is far more entertaining than anything on television.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Our cable guys are always prepared to get on the ladder or up a pole to run a drop into the house. My cable connection not only provides television, it also carries our phone service and our high speed internet.
Does your condo have buried utilities or something?

I don't know, he was looking all over for a tap box and couldn't find one. So maybe they are underground. The management company couldn't tell him where it was, and he called his people at Time Warner to see if anyone had done any work out here and knew what the deal was with hooking people up. No luck.

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Well as Woferz has stated, mine is identical because the package contains tv, phone and internet.

my monthly fee is close to £90 per calendar month....the downside being if the cable develops a fault, you lose the lot

I don't know what the conversion is, but mine will probably cost me upwards of $120-130 a month. It was over a hundred bucks a month before with just two boxes. I'll be adding a third (provided they can actually run a line to the bedroom for me without doing anything that requires HOA permission) and "whole house DVR" so I can record things on one box and watch them anywhere.

It probably would be cheaper to bundle my internet with cable but, as you've said, the issue there is that if your cable goes out and they are providing all your entertainment and communication services, you're basically screwed. They used to try to sell me the bundle at the apt but even though my cable rarely went out it still went out more frequently than anything else. If there was a power outage in the neighborhood just up the road from us, my cable would go out because one of their boxes up there would lose power. So even though we had power, we had no cable. If I'd had my phone and internet through them I would've lost all of that too and had a houseful of fancy gadgets all plugged in and juiced up but still useless. No thanks. At least with separate providers if my cable goes out I've got internet, if my internet goes out I've got still got TV.

Of course if the electricity goes out, it's all gone, but that's Duke Energy's fault.

I did manage to get my media player hooked up and reconnected to my wireless network, so I do have access to content from Netflix and Amazon Prime and whatever else is available that way.

And BTW Amazon Prime has added Das Boot to their collection of movies, so if you're a member you can watch it for free. I've got it streaming in the other room right now. Of course I *do* already have... uh... three, maybe four copies of it on DVD/BluRay, but I don't know where any of them are.

[Wolferz]

If your utility lines are buried, there won't be any utility poles on the streets with wires and such strung between them. Your electrical service will run through some surface mounted green boxes that are usually set on a corner. If there are utility poles along the streets, the cable guy should have run another drop from their lines and installed a connector box on the outside of your condo. What was his problem? Lazy? or just not prepared for an unwired home? The fun part will be running the cabling indoors to your three converter boxes. That part shouldn't be too bad if your condo has a basement or attic. Fishing wires into walls is a total pain in the posterior.
If it were me, I'd be calling those folks and asking why they sent a greenhorn tech to connect you.
Extremely unprofessional on their part.

[Cybermat47]

Cable TV? Never needed it, on account of living on a hill

[Red October1984]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

Cable TV? Never needed it, on account of living on a hill

Satellite? Or just plain analog? Nobody uses analog anymore.

[AVGWarhawk]

I have the bundle deal. They just think it is so wonderful bundling you. I almost feel like a baby. Until the bundle starts developing diaper rash in the form of premium HD channels. All the movie channels. Rental of boxes. DVR is additional. Soon your introductory offer of $99.99/month is now $199.00/month. Then add all the taxes. Anyway, the Verizon Fios has worked well over the years. I really can't complain but it is a drain on the wallet. I really don't know how else to witness a desk assembly, refrigerator alcove construction, hole saw drill bit debacle and clever movement of a dresser over a wood floor using left behind carpets. It's epic and at my finger tips. What's not to like about cable?

[Red October1984]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

What's not to like about cable?

When you buy cable, you have problems.

When you have problems, you call the cable guy.

While waiting for the cable guy to arrive, you get bored.

When you get bored, you see things you aren't supposed to see.

When you see things you aren't supposed to see, you fake your own death.

When you fake your own death, you attend you're own funeral as a guy named Phil Schiffly.

Don't attend your own funeral as a guy named Phil Schiffly. Buy DirecTV.

[vienna]

There is a TV commercial airing for an antenna to facilitate analog reception. One of the selling points is how the price of cable/dish and other services has become so expensive, the price often exceeds the cost of a monthly car payment. Is it just my failing memory or weren't we all going to have a large price benefit do to deregulation of the pay television industry due to "increased competition"?...

<O>

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

Buy DirecTV.

Interesting advice from someone who doesn't pay for any of it.

I got cable internet. $29.99 for six months of 20 mbps. I moved, so they re-upped the offer for another six months. Then it went to $69.99 per month. I downgraded past 12 mbps to 6, which was "only" $39.99. After taxes, licences and fees I pay around $47.

Just two days ago I had a guy from DirectTV tell me he could get me Internet and TV for "only" $55. I told him I didn't have a television and I didn't need or want one. He told me they didn't carry Internet alone and he couldn't match that.

Come back when you know what you're talking about.