San Francisco, CA - Comcast - Page 98

I am in the El Camino/Lawrence/Wolfe/Reed part of Sunnyvale and still no change as of this morning...

I wonder if the 3 nodes did get activated in Sunnyvale? Can anyone confirm?

-Steve

You shouldn't be charged the $7, but Comcast charged me that for 3 months for my S3 after my 1 year package was over, I couldn't get them to take off the charge over the phone, with 3 calls. I pointed to the Jan 07 rate sheet saying that the $7 is a HDTV equipment charge, and cable cards are not HD equipment, but they said that it also covers HD service. One CSR went as far as telling me that the wording "HDTV equipment" is changed in the latest June rate sheet, and promised to send me one, but never did. It wasn't until I visited their San Jose office (10th St), when a lady there was able to remove this charge. I also picked up the latest rate sheet, and it still says that the $7 is for HDTV equipment. So it turned out the CSR just flat out lied to me the first time over the phone. I should've gotten her name.

Barovelli confirmed several SV nodes where cutover as planned, so there are 1000-2000 happy household out their somewhere

Actually they have now changed the wording on the second HD box to "Additional HDTV Service". So now they are even more sure they should be charging it to us. I also went round and round with the CSR's when 2 of them appeared on my bill with the TiVo-HD........

Kevin

I was going to say the opposite. Companies are usually overly optimistic about their time estimates.


Where are you at roughly? Hopefully, you're nearby, but we'll probably be last here (Bennett Valley).

Actually, if you do that you're setting yourself up for a lot of flack. If you promise to have something done at a specific time and you don't deliver in that time frame you will never hear the end of it from your customers. If on the other hand you pad your time frame and deliver ahead of that time frame you will be loved by all plus it gives you leeway if something unexpected happens . This way everyone is happy and none the wiser.

Laters,
Mikef5

By 4th and Talbot. They've been stringing fiber down Talbot, 4th towards downtown, east on Montgomery, and Bobby saw them working around Sonoma and Brookwood.

Bennett Valley is all underground right? All the work I've seen is above ground utility pole work, although they were feeding underground right about Talbot and Montgomery.

The crew said my area was the first of 4 sections to be done. Once you see them out your way then you'll know. Since your area is already new, relatively speaking anyway, they may not need to do as much, hopefully.

Hello all, I found this site after searching for upgrades in Hayward. I'm excited about more channels in the area. I was getting pissed that other people have On Demand and I didn't, but then I received a letter about 2 weeks ago notifying Hayward residents that we would be upgraded. Does anyone know the Bandwith hayward will have now?

Thanks

It makes you wonder wehy more companies don't do it that way, doesn't it? Most of them release overly optimistic announcements and timetables. I think DirecTV is still promising 22,000 HD channels by Summer '07.

BTW today on FSNBA HD none of the games came in, it was just a black screen, not even the dumb a$$ logo. Did this happen to anyone else?

I checked around 11:30 am and there was one game there.

Yeah, we're underground. What do you mean that my area's relatively new?

Only that it's underground versus older areas like mine where everything is on utility poles. In terms relative to Comcast cable it's probably meaningless, but it might be easier to pull cable underground than doing it overhead.

Overhead they have to pull a yellow pull rope through every hanger, after installing the hanger on the existing cable, then they pull fiber through. These hangers look to be spaced about 20' apart so that's a lot of labor for a 10,000' pull.

I'm guessing underground probably uses a completely different system. Bobby might be able to provide some input on underground systems.

It's becoming increasingly annoying to see every single Discovery channel show start with [This program also available in HD]. It would be fantastic if they could swap out HD Theater with just normal Discovery, HD Theater is such dreck now. I can go outside to watch fence posts in the morning, which is what it's showing right now.

Anyone else lose channel 703 (DKNTV) Sunday around 4:30pm???
Comcast knows nothing about it.....

I've had Discovery and Science in HD from Dish for awhile now, and I really like those channels, lots of programming I've never seen before. I'd never watched Mythbusters before and I love that program, I figure I have about 80 or so more episodes to go before I'm current.

I don't remember what channels we were asked to vote on awhile back, but I don't think these were part of the list. Too bad, as if there were I would voted for them without a doubt.

Why doesn't Discovery just replace the HD Theater channel altogether with Discovery HD? I don't understand their logic.

The more channels they have on the air, the better the chance you'll see them, and see the ads that are on them. This is why everyone wants to be on the basic tier, if you have cable, you have at least basic, meaning more eyeballs.

I agree though, most of these channels could easily be consolidated, but that's not how the business works.

Think about when you go to Safeway and you're looking for a particular type of soda pop, you can't find it, and the reason is probably because Safeway has the shelf clogged with their generic brand soda, no room left for the more esoteric stuff. Sort of like Comcast does with the channels they own or have interest in, those channels will almost always have preferential tier placement.

Look at all the new hd stations being added in Houston by Comcast...

http://www.tvpredictions.com/comcasthouston092307.htm

If they are supposed to turn on channels as soon as the contracts are in place, does that mean we are getting all these soon? :-)

thx
mike

The analogy doesn't work in this case. Discovery HD Theater was started as the HD version of Discovery. But, now that Discovery apparently has enough HD content to warrant an HD simulcast of it's regular channel, DHDT becomes unnecessary and obsolete.

Your analogy is on the money as regard to Disc-Times, Disc-Health, etc.

I decided to check out Comcast's current offers for the Bay Area, thinking I maight change service, or just call them to bitch about the price and cut a deal. But, while I'm there I can't help but notice their myriad of package names and crazy pricing.

Digital Starter
Digital Preferred
Digital Preferred Plus
Digital Premier
Digital Classic
Basic
Latino
Some of the above bundled with various Premiums
plus, they still have about a dozen packages listed on the drop-down for checking the channel list.

The pricing is all over the place, with the regular prices on the standard packages not matching the regular pricing lised at the bottom of the promo packages. (It says the regular price, after the promo period, for Digital Preferred with HBO is $64.45. Sign me up! My regular price for Digital Silver w/HBO is 84.45. Plus, further down on the page, it says the regular price for Preferred w/o HBO is $64.45.)

The way the pricing is listed on the monthly bill is stupid, as well, with Standard cable and the Digital package being listed separately.

It's ridiculous. Why can't they just use the model that D*, E*, FIOS, U-Verse, and even some other cable companies use?

Offer 3 or 4 main packages for specific prices. (Basic, Digital, Plus, and Premier) Then, the premiums and other add-ons. Period. For people on previously named packages, you transfer them to the new ones.

Once again,

Jim,

Don't speak to soon, you just never know when you'll have to dodge flying pig sh*t .....

Laters,
Mikef5

HD is infectious and never leaves once it affects. Comcast can't afford be far behind. There is one week gap between channel adjustments and new HD channels in Houston classified. Bay area should the channels around Oct 10th.

Raghu,

While I applaud your optimism you have to realize that every Comcast market is different and there is no correlation between what is happening in Huston and what will happen in the Bay Area. I would see a better correlation if the article was about Southern California, then I could see a better chance of something like this happening here. The article said it was unclear when these channels would be added to other Comcast areas so we need to wait and see if this affects us in the Bay Area. I'm sure once there is official word on these additions that it will be posted here...... Count on it

Laters,
Mikef5

This regionality of Comcast's is ridiculous. I don't know if it's due to the myriad of municipalities with different franchise contracts. But, for the customers' sake, Comcast and/or the state/federal gov't needs to put cable companies on parity with Telco's and DBS providers, so that we may enjoy the same types of global pricing and services.

The programming contracts are done on a national basis. The systems decide how quickly they can add the programming, and the priority for what gets added first.

But since it was stated here that the contracts were the issue, I think the Houston Chron ad makes it clear that at least for the channels mentioned, the contracts aren't the issue.

So that means the SFBA regional management needs to decide to get aggressive on HD deployment. If they can contractually add the channels but don't, then it's a plant capacity issue or just a lack of desire. Given the amount of 860 plant around, we at least should be able to get all these new channels, but they may not want to add yet another tier (550 vs 750 vs 860), but that just means those of us in 860 plant get nothing for the extra capability.

Thanks,
mike

Maybe I'm in the minority (and even if I complained to Comcast, it would probably go ignored) but I'm quite pleased with the current lineup and would like to see the PQ improved on the current channels rather than more added.

NFL-HD is up and running on channel 725 in Rohnert Park this afternoon. This may be a test for now, but it looks like we might get the 24/7 treatment.

Do you have the Sports Tier?
No video here on 725 but the guide data is there on TiVo S3 and not on DCT-6200.