So Comcast is pissing me off these days with thier hidden fees and crap they just bought out my local company whom I have been very happy with. My bill keeps going up each month and no one can tell me why. Anyway that's not what this is about, I'm thinking of switching to satelite and I'm unsure if it's right for me.

I live in PA, I see some snow in the winter, it does rain but I'm concerned about wind. I live behind a large cornfield at the top of a hill and I get some hellish wind. I have a windbreak of pine trees and it still is enough to shake my house at times. Does wind effect signal?

satellite has high latency in almost all cases, especially for gaming. and if its a huge overcast or something crazy that might be a problem at times, wind is probably not the best thing either if its not somehow secure so it wont move, maybe cemented in a big hole in the ground.

Ooops, this wouldn't be for internet service just your typical TV enjoyment stuff. Sorry forgot to mention that. :)

still works the same way.

I sell Cable so I am biased but I will tell you why I will always stick with cable unless my bill ever reaches 150 bucks a month.

No Contract. Sattelite if you dont like it, your gonna spend hundreds of bucks to get out of ur contract.

No interference by badweather, trees

On-Demand is a freaking amazing feature and that by itself saves me alot of money in a long run.

You may hate there prices but they do employ like three of my friends so I'll support them.

in that case it all really comes down the price/features you want, its just like cable except for some reason it takes some time to populate tv show listings longer, kind of annoys me when i see my parrents use it at their place, but i dont have a tv so i cant tell you the difference other then price/feature combos are different, cable is easier imo, just screw it in the wall and be done with it.

Heh well today I let the girlfriend call and she got things worked out. It turns out we were overcharged, quite a bit in fact so it's going to be taken care of. It's windy as hell here today, my deck furniture blew all over the place so umm no I don't think we'll go to satelite. It would have been like $30+ cheaper a month though and we could have had some extra premiums but meh I don't like change. So I'll stay the course :p

GJ man let your Girlfriend do your dirty work :P

I pay approx $134 per month for internet and tv cable via Comcast, which includes HBO. This allows me most all of the basic programming, plus I have my two putes set up to a router and have fairly uninterrupted access.

No, I do not like paying that much, and would like to see more competition in this area, but it is matter of convenience which I think is the bottom line for most people.

I have Dish and really love it. Cable around here is horrible. If your dish is professionally installed and secure the wind does not affect it at all. Out here on the eastern plains of Colorado the wind never stops. Ever. maybe 2 - 3 times a year will we loose signal during a SEVER storm and that's it. Picture is crystal clear.

Seriously, don't do it. Just look up Fair Access Policy (FAP) it'll change your mind for you.

More competition all around would be a good thing. Out here we're stuck with Cox Communications (may they rot in hell), or satellite, which I don't want because of gaming. No DSL in our area for some strange reason, although one block in any direction and it works. Cox has horrid service, but if I want an always on connection it's our only real option.

Recently we spoke with a Cox service guy about two of our 15 channels in basic cable that come in badly. In other words, we're paying for 15 channels, and only get 13 (came cheap with internet). He told me we're lucky to get 13, most people around us get 0, and Cox won't fix the local network because they want us all to upgrade to their larger packages - although they're fine charging everyone in our neighborhood full price for them. Since we don't want to pay a fortune for the little TV we watch each week, and there's no competition out here, there's not much we can do.

holy balls, 135 for for net/tv. i pay 65 with comcast, for basic tv + internet.

IM pretty sure he has digital cable with movie channels niacin

I pay $118 a month for Extended Cable(about 300 channels, 13 Stars/Encour, NFL network, 5 Fox Sports regionals, 50 music channels, etc)/Unlimited Local and Long Distance VoIP/4mb down, 1mb up internet. Included in that is our DVR. For 10 bucks more a month I will be able to add an HD DVR box to go with our new TV. Until we upgrade, we still get NBC, CBS, FOX, ABC, 2 PBS, the new WB(whatever it's called), and some Christian channel in HD off an antenna. I wish I had the box for ESPN and the NFL network though, so we'll upgrade to that shortly.

So... in my area, I can get Extended cable, with high def service and a dvr/unlimited VoIP service to the US and Canada/and my high speed internet for under $130 a month. That's great if you ask me.

I have cable, dish and phone dsl...... that way I can have one thing not working all the time.....

My bill will be $106, that's for two HD convertor boxes, digital cable, and cable internet.

I should mention that prior to yesterday they wanted to charge me $130 :) As I said, I was being over charged and didn't know it. We have 5 TVs, 3 PCs, and 2 MACs so I think that's pretty decent. Keep an eye out for the hidden and extra charges, they're sneaky.

That really isnt that bad Fildien, plus any tv you want to have at least expanded Basic cable will get it for nothing extra, Every tv has to have a box for satellite if I remember.

Yep you're right Mog however, the packageI was looking at would have included premiums, more channels, 4 TVs, a DVR box with HD, and my total bill would have been about $95. $55 for the satelite stuff, $40 for my cable internet.

look at the fine print though those 4 tv boxes are they free only for a certain amount of time before they all have to be paid for? because if so you would be under contract so unlike cable promotions and you cant just call up your provider and cancel after the promotion is done.

What is messed up is that the FCC doesn't mind a monopoly on cable in an area, but they have big problems with things like the ATT/bellsouth merger...

And what is even more confusing is that supposedly Satellite TV is the "competition" for cablevision but cell phones are NOT competition for land lines..... go figure....

i heard verizon migh be doing fiber to home sometime in the future around here in portland, ive also heard verizon sucks ass, but regardless ill be getting fiber if it comes. <drools> wire my house when i buy it with 1000mb and good to go for some major gaming.