I about had a melt down today trying to deal with Comcast. Too many details, but the gist of it is that our bill has gone up $35 since last August, after having spoken to someone in November who told me she could get me back down to our August price - and it never happened. So I called twice today and the second time spoke to someone in ‘retention’. They won’t budge on the cable bill and kept reminding me of how lucky we are to be getting the price we are getting, so I plan to cancel as soon as I can line up AT&T U-Verse people to come out. Problem is… I have to keep Comcast internet because all of our neighbors around us who have switched to AT&T for internet from Comcast say it is noticeably slower. We currently have a bundle with Comcast for land line (which I won’t give up), internet and cable. The plan is to switch both land line and cable to AT&T.
For those who have made the switch, can you share what your pros and cons of switching have been? What does U-Verse offer instead of Xfinity on Demand so that you can watch shows previously aired? Are there any services (or channels for that matter) that we won’t get with AT&T that we have with Comcast?
I don’t want to do this online or over the phone, so my plan is in the next couple of days, to stop by an AT&T store and make arrangements for the switch. But I want to be knowledgeable about what I’m talking about with them. If it matters, we do have our cell phone service with AT&T.
While I don’t know anything about Uverse, I have heard horror stories about comcast - one of the most disliked companies in the U.S. Your experience alone may be worth dropping it.
BTW, I’ve had DIsh for 15 years without any significant issues.
I was talking with someone this afternoon who has U-Verse. He says one of the things that he hates the most about it is how long it takes to either change channels, or respond to an action (rewind, FF, exit, search). He said the wheel just spins and spins and spins.
He also said a lot of people are giving up cable and going to live streaming from their cell phones.
I have never heard of U-Verse but my mom has Comcast and no choice as it’s what her Condo has. It is horrible!!! I could not believe it when she told me they charge to come to the house if there is a problem. If the Time Warner/Comcast deal goes through I am switching to Verizon Fios.
I speak to “retention” every year - threaten to leave and TW always reduces my cost. I have been doing this for years now. I would keep asking for a supervisor if the first person in retention told me they couldn’t do anything and keep going up the chain of command until I got someone who would reduce the price.
Yep, retention wouldn’t do a thing for me this year.
We actually have a feature with our subscription (I think I pay $4.95/month), that we never pay for service charges if Comcast has to actually come out. So I’ve never had to pay for that.
There is no such charge at all with TW. I have even had them rewire the whole house for no charge. It’s one of the reasons I won’t switch yet- their customer service is great. Fios keeps trying to get new customers and even offers $300 or $400 pre-paid Visa cards for signing up, plus they got rid of having to sign a two year contract. But as long as TW keeps wanting to retain me I’m staying put.
I stopped by the AT&T store today and learned quite a bit. Next week we are switching everything to AT&T, including internet, despite what I wrote here earlier. The guy was able to do a check to see what our AT&T speed would be, and it’s actually faster than Comcast. I said that I had neighbors who had very slow internet, and he was able to check specific addresses and share with me what other addresses around us are getting. It was no where near what we will get. It’s all very individual per house. What I like about the U-Verse is, they have wireless receivers now - all you have to do is plug it into your TV and a power outlet. So we will go down from 3 DVRs upstairs to two receivers, and have the ability to move them from room to room as we want to watch stuff - we almost never watch stuff on two of the TVs upstairs, but have them for when Ds come home for visit. This way, depending on which daughter is home, they can take the receiver into the room they wish, and watch TV.
So the plan is, we will get U-Verse and land line, as well as internet, and I have two weeks to decide whether the internet is up to my standards or not. I won’t cancel Comcast in the meantime. If AT&T is too slow, I can call within that two weeks and cancel; if it’s up to my standards, I will call Comcast and cancel internet. Either way, we are switching to U-Verse. They also offer a home security system and are able to use the existing equipment we have, and offer us a lower monthly monitoring rate than we have with ADT. So I have to research our ADT contract and see if we can get out of it at this point.
I wonder how the internet speed would vary from house to house??? U-verse around here is 6 Mbps max, while my Comcast is 30 Mbps(I could have 50 or 105 if I wanted to pay more). U-verse also had the limitation of only 1 HD channel at a time, with three others in standard definition. You couldn’t watch one show in HD and record another in HD. I hope that guy was telling you the truth about speeds. Let us know how it works out!
Funny I was called by Comcast today, I was only having their internet service, I use antenna for my TV program. For internet only I pay $39.99 for 25 mbps, the rep told me they have a 50 mbps AND cable service with a DVR for only $55 for a year.
Its good to switch in and out for different services, ATT here can give you 18 mbps.
@Parent1337 - he explained why… has something to do with some wiring that is dedicated to each house; I suspect it also might have to do with where your house is on the grid in relation to a main line. It’s possible, because we are on a cul-de-sac (and at the end of it), we don’t have as many houses as our neighbors who live on the next street over who are vying for service. I’m not explaining it well, but it’s a song and dance we’ve all heard - it’s about where your house is in relation to the main offshoot.
We switched to UVerse after Cablevision raised our rates to a ridiculous level. They started sending us promotional offers about a month later. When they offered us a 2-year deal for half what they had been charging, we took it, as it was quite a bit less than Uverse after all the add-on fees. The best part: they paid our UVerse early termination fee. And when the 2 years are up, we’ll go right back to UVerse and do it again.
What? We’ve always been able to watch more than one HD channel at a time, since we’ve gotten the HD channels. I think our limit is four, but we don’t test that often. We can also record and watch more than one HD channel at a time. Is that based on the plan we have or something?
It will depend on the “pipe” coming into your neighborhood/home. Our area is very old copper lines, no fiber. It puts limits on what this neighborhood can receive.