HDTV/Internet/phone service

[Will Brown]

I received notice that Cox is discontinuing usenet service. I know this is common among ISPs, as few of their subscribers use the service, and it is available through specialist companies. What set me off is that Cox is eliminating a service that is valuable to me, without decreasing my premium, while retaining services that are of no use to me. When I objected, they were nonresponsive. They run their cable system the same way, charging for hundreds of channels, at least half of which I would bet no-one watches, and don't even provide a way to completely block any channel (if you use the kid filter, that channel still takes up a space with a screen showing that it is blocked. I don't want to know that girls and goats is running on a channel I don't subscribe to; just flipping past it exposes you to it, and my remote is wearing out, not to mention my finger.

I decided to investigate dumping Cox, but the only other company I found that offers a similar bundle of services was AT&T, whose web site is so convoluted that there is no way to figure out the cost of their bundle, short of putting yourself in the hands of a salesman. I did chat with one of their experts. I asked if they included usenet; he didn't know what that was, but checked with someone and admitted they don't offer it. I asked if they use a dish and he admitted they do; I'm not eager to have anyone nailing a dish on my roof, nor running a cable down the side of my house.

I looked into dumping the DVRs I pay Cox for, which are so primitive as to be almost useless, but apparently a decent DVR costs thousands. Now I'm reading about using my PC as a recorder. Vista seems to think it will work.

I'm not happy with the Cox service, and wonder how long the city of Lakewood will saddle us with this service. Certainly their franchise is not permanent.

What I am asking for here is for anyone who has local experience with another company that provides HDTV, high speed internet, and phone services. Please name that company, describe the quality of their service, and give me an idea what their service costs without the teaser rates they use in their ads. I am within range for ISDN service; the AT&T site made me figure that out about six times before I gave them the virtual digit.

[Jim DeVito]

The city of Lakewood should run it's own fiber to the home. To hell with the telcos, call it a utility.

[Bryan Schwegler]

I just switched to Uverse recently and am very happy with it. I'm not really sure though whether they have usenet, I know they used to but I can't find any information.

[Stan Austin]

Bryan--- I'm not knowledgeable about any alternatives to Cox or ATT but you did raise a point about DVRs.

I run Vista Ultimate and I have a TV tuner which attaches with USB cable. Into the tuner you plug a regular old telescoping antenna for free, digital over the air signals or you plug in the cable from your service.

I use Windows Media Center (as opposed to the software that came with the tuner) to do the set up of getting all the channels. Then, you can use the weekly media center guide to select and record programs.

I like it and, it has a Netflix tie in, too.

Stan

[Jim DeVito]

I do not have cable TV never have. But I do not need it. Most of the 300 channels are crap. The major carriers can not figure out how to make a ton of money on al carte pricing. So that is not a reality. Between Netflix, PBS, and “the internet” I have access to all the media I want to consume.

That said I have been looking for a replacement to Cox. It seems to me that they raise their prices three bucks every year. To be fair I have had Cox “high speed” internet for about 6 years now and have never had a complaint as to how they handle there service. I have heard their support leaves something to be desired, but in their defense I have never had to call them.

To bad AT$T , Cox and perhaps Time Warner are the only game in town. Three huge telcos who do not care about you. I have looked into a company call Speakeasy. They appear to offer service here but have not pursued it yet. At this point I am looking for something that will not block ports and perhaps offer a static IP. Speakeasy is DSL / Bonded DSL, along side their main business Metro E and optical offerings.

I was never a USENET user so that was never a concern to me but I feel you pain.

Just to drive the point home. Lakewood should provide the broadband service the big guys will not.

Good Luck.

[Jim DeVito]

Also will http://dslreports.com is an invaluable resource for all things broadband.

Here is the link to the USNET article

[Brian Pedaci]

Pardon my ignorance, but can you not access your usenet groups via groups.google.com?

[Bryan Schwegler]

You can also use Giganews or if you're a Mac user, Panic has an option:
https://www.panic.com/unison/access.html

[Will Brown]

Pardon my ignorance, but can you not access your usenet groups via groups.google.com?

When google groups started, I looked at it, but found it very hard to find what I get on usenet. I never was able to find the home repair group as a whole, but I could find a few individual posts from the group. And I was never able to find the group that provides communal tech support for my Seamonkey browser.

Since then, I have noticed a common attitude among usenet users that people who post through google groups are inept (not that usenet users are never inept), and some complaints of limited functionality of google groups posting.

Perhaps part of it is snobbery; usenet preceded the web, and is largely user run, and perhaps we resent having some company take control of how we post and organize.

In any event, usenet lives, and one can still access it through a paid portal, or a few free ones. My complaint is that Cox arbitrarily discontinued it and told me they had negotiated a special rate for me with a paid portal at about $15 a month, but didn't offer a reduction in my Cox cost; to me that's like a dairy giving you eight eggs, but still charging you for a dozen.

I agree that the vast majority of cable channels are schlock. But I'm a big fan of hockey and formula 1, and those are available only on cable, except for a very few games. And the history channels and the military channel are worthwhile, and my wife likes AMC.

[J Hrlec]

I was not aware Cox was cancelling its usenet services, I have used them in the past but not that much....that is unfortunate. I don't know of any other players in town other than the ones mentioned above either. I have Cox and I basically use it for internet services and some TV watching which it performs very very well with. Good luck in your search!