Charter Cable's takeover of Time Warner approved

[Dan Druff]

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...415-story.html

There are still some steps to go before this actually occurs, but... it's happening.

TWC sucks. I don't know much about Charter's service. I have to imagine Time Warner won't get worse, because they already suck pretty bad, and they really only have one way to go at this point.

There is some talk that this might affect the ongoing standoff between Time Warner and the various southern CA cable/satellite/fios companies, regarding carrying the Dodgers.

Right now, the Dodgers channel is not being carried in 70% of southern CA homes, due to this dispute, which is now in its 3rd year. I have to fake my location through the MLB app (or the mlb.tv site) in order to watch games.

Conditions of the deal include Charter having to make low cost internet available to low income homes, improve spotty internet service in places where it's otherwise not profitable to do so, and promise not to change to a "usage based" internet model.

[hongkonger]

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...415-story.html

There are still some steps to go before this actually occurs, but... it's happening.

TWC sucks. I don't know much about Charter's service. I have to imagine Time Warner won't get worse, because they already suck pretty bad, and they really only have one way to go at this point.

There is some talk that this might affect the ongoing standoff between Time Warner and the various southern CA cable/satellite/fios companies, regarding carrying the Dodgers.

Right now, the Dodgers channel is not being carried in 70% of southern CA homes, due to this dispute, which is now in its 3rd year. I have to fake my location through the MLB app (or the mlb.tv site) in order to watch games.

Conditions of the deal include Charter having to make low cost internet available to low income homes, improve spotty internet service in places where it's otherwise not profitable to do so, and promise not to change to a "usage based" internet model.

LOL@ the conditions of megamergers like this. They are never fulfilled, and by the time everyone realized they won't be, it's too late.

I've never had TWC so I can't compare, but I had Charter and they have the absolute worst customer service I have ever experienced. This should be good for Druff/Finkelstein lulz.

[gauchojake]

TWC is less horrible than they used to be. I recently switched back to them and bundled my services. Their CS has been ok to deal with so far. I just received a letter to switch my services to them at a lower rate(they didn't realize I had already done so) so I will put them to the test.

Unfortunately in my area of LA there are no viable high speed internet options, so you have to use them for that. There's no real way to mix and match TV and internet providers at a cost effective rate.

[BeerAndPoker]

I can confirm Charter is a piece of shit.

I've had them for a few decades since they are the only cable service available in my area and they are painful to deal with. When stuff is working all is well but when issues occur they are a pain to call and might have to make several trips out to look at the lines outside where the problem 99% of the time is going to be even though they will put you through some silly diagnostic tests.

[MumblesBadly]

[gut]

[Dan Druff]

As bad as cable companies are, the situation would be WORSE if there were no FIOS or satellite alternatives.

They used to have a full monopoly.

Now they still have a cable monopoly, but you have alternate options through FIOS and/or satellite (though admittedly satellite internet is awful), and that allows some degree of negotiating power for the customer.

Whenever I would call the cable company to negotiate better rates, I would start off with, "DirecTV just sent me this great offer" or "Verizon just sent me this great offer", and I do the same shit to Verizon where I claim the cable company gave me a great offer.

I was impressed with the service end of Verizon FIOS for years (though I HATED the billing/customer service department), but that somewhat changed this year, when I dealt with a nightmarish situation where my internet wasn't working, and they were refusing to come fix it, no-showing on appointments, threatening to charge me $100 if it's determined to be "my fault", hanging up on me during long tech support calls "accidentally", etc. I kept telling them that I knew the problem was on their end, but they spent hours insisting I was wrong and that it was something in my house fucking it up. Of course, I turned out to be correct. They also failed to fix the problem after several visits, and I was left with barely-working internet for the entire month of January 2016. Finally in February they got it fixed on like the 4th try, but I had spent many hours on the phone with them by that point, and wasted several afternoons of mine waiting for appointments. I got like $200 out of the whole thing in service credits, but honestly it wasn't worth it.

[Crowe Diddly]

I just switched from cable tv to directv. I had RCN for cable/tv/internet, and I like them a lot (all call centers in the US, always picked up fast and solved whatever problem came up quickly, never once no-showed like them fucks at comcast, etc), but the price was getting out of hand. Now, I still have rcn for phone/net but upgraded from 25 mbit to 50, got Directv with more channels and two rooms with the genie dvr deal, for about 65 bucks a month less. Even after the 2 year contract is up, it'll still be substantially less. Also, 150 bucks in rebates and a free sunday ticket for the 2016 season.