Best Cable Providers?

[rugmankc]

I currently, at wife's insistence, have two providers. Direct TV and Time Warner Cable. She wants the TWC as backup when DTV loses signal in bad weather. TWC is only SD and DTV is all HD with HD DVR. Would like to go to one provider, but have heard bad reviews on ATT UVerse service and picture quality compared to DTV. And I can't bundle ATT U with internet as they limit DL to 250gb. I have ATT phone service and Wireless with them and no issues. I am in Fairborn Ohio and don't think TWC has the 6 Tuner 1TB receiver here. We need 1TB. I do currently have the 50Mbps/6Mbps internet with TWC.

I would consider TWC as main provider if they had a 1TB receiver. Wife got by with a 500gb one before, but now as 80% of 1TB used. It's been 45 years, so can't get rid the of wife

Any thought on the ATT/DTV comparison and if anyone in my area knows if TWC has or will have the 6 Channel receiver with 1TB. Been working some long days and haven't made all the calls to the providers yet. Or, got to any provider forums.

Thanks for any thoughts--

 

[MacNut]

You don't have a choice of best providers. You are stuck with the ones you have where you live. TBH they all suck.

Also AT&T owns DirecTV.

 

[maflynn]

I have DirectTV and I'm happy with them. I'd go with them over TWC by a long shot. They have a similar reputation as Comcast.

I've been with DirectTV for 3 years, before that with Comcast for a couple, and before that DirectTV for like 5 years. I originally left DirectTV because Comcast offered a better deal, but in the end, they were just lying to my face.

Back on topic, I rarely had any issues with losing a single from DirectTV, the technology has improved drastically over the years. Now your part of the country will play into this, but even during some rough thunder storms and blizzards I didn't lose signal. Just to be safe, have some movies DVR'd and you'll be good.

 

[rdowns]

You don't have a choice of best providers. You are stuck with the ones you have where you live. TBH they all suck.

Also AT&T owns DirecTV.

After years on living in NYC and hearing how bad Cablevision was/is, I moved to Long Island 8 years ago and had no choice but Cablevision. For a cable company, they are excellent. Have never had a service interruption other than Hurricane Sandy, Internet is FAST and I have wifi virtually all over NYC and Long Island.

 

[rugmankc]

mmm, for some reason i don't get email alerts on posts to my thread. all blocks are checked in Preferences.

anyway thanks for the replies. dtv is great for me and picture awesome. but, as i do get outages when cloud cover is heavy, i was hoping to find a good cable company with equal picture quality. i would say we lose it a couple times a month and if heavy storms, it could be out a couple hours. if i go to one provider and it is dtv will not here the end of any missed shows by the wife.

i am limited on internet and would have to stay with twc. forgot my one son has hd on his tv in br with twc. i can look at the quality on his new sony. i think we had to have at least one tv on digital with them.

gonna recheck on their hd dvr capacity. wife may have to get by without 46 recordings of Dr Oz---

 

[zhenya]

I have been with Time Warner for over 10 years and have been generally happy with them. The quality of their phone customer service seems to vary over time, but the techs are quite competent, and the service has been extremely reliable. We have just a single cable dvr box, not sure of the capacity, and I don't care anymore because the new software gives me a lot more control to let it free space as needed. My wife can deal with it if some ancient show gets deleted.

We use the Time Warner app on Roku media players as free cable boxes in the bedroom. No DVR capability, but the quality is excellent and you have access to all channels and on-demand content.

 

[rugmankc]

Well, I found out the 1TB Enhanced DVR is available. Out of Beta. Comparing channel lineups. Don't like my son's remote. Very directional, so IR I guess. Maybe they have RF like my DTV one. And need to find out where the main DVR needs placed. I would any tv would be ok.

I am thinking about this bc I may fully retire due to health and general aging. Plus working since age 10, I am getting tired. lol

May keep both till that happens. Or, I, instead of wife, misses a very important game/show due to weather. And, in a fit of rage cx DTV.

Thanks the inputs guys.

 

[Huntn]

Thread Revival 2019
Suddenlink merged or was bought by Altice. Since that time, I have noticed downgrades in their service in Houston, Texas. This morning as part of upgrading my cable modem (I purchased) to an Arris Surfboard DOCSIS 3.0 24 channel, enabling 400 megabit per second internet speed, I talked to someone in their technical support office who knew nothing about the process. It was literally painful holding this person’s hand as they repeatedly put me on hold to ask someone what they needed to do. Now is this typical?

Maybe not, I ended up hanging up so I could swap out the modems and when I called back, at least the new person had a clue, although it took a total of 4 phone calls to get it done, and the Suddenlink automated activate hardware page failed to get my modem activated. So why do they have that?

Annother issue, is that I have my monitored home security system with them and this week I discovered I could no longer call the local office, because it was no longer there, and the new office in South Carolina, I can’t call directly. I now have to call Suddenlink, and they will have someone from home security call me back. This is not ideal.

The thing is Suddenlink is the only local provider I know of who offers this king of internet speed so I am kind of stuck with them.

 

[0388631]

Thread Revival 2019
Suddenlink merged or was bought by Altice. Since that time, I have noticed downgrades in their service in Houston, Texas. This morning as part of upgrading my cable modem (I purchased) to an Arris Surfboard DOCSIS 3.0 24 channel, enabling 400 gigabit per second internet speed, I talked to someone in their technical support office who knew nothing about the process. It was literally painful holding this person’s hand as they repeatedly put me on hold to ask someone what they needed to do. Now is this typical?

Maybe not, I ended up hanging up so I could swap out the modems and when I called back, at least the new person had a clue, although it took a total of 4 phone calls to get it done, and the Suddenlink automated activate hardware page failed to get my modem activated. So why do they have that?

Another issue, is that I have my monitored home security system with them and this week I discovered I could no longer call the local office, because it was no longer there, and the new office in South Carolina, I can’t call directly. I now have to call Suddenlink, and they will have someone from home security call me back. This is not ideal.

The thing is Suddenlink is the only local provider I know of who offers this king of internet speed so I am kind of stuck with them.

400 Megabit, you mean. No one makes a 400 gigabit modem. Changing a model isn't hard if the automated page fails. I registered two modems to our account last year by calling it with the account info and the MAC addresses on the modems. They did a remote reset and I was back online in less than 30 minutes, including holding time.

I have no complaints about our ISP these days. Especially because they over-provision everything.

 

[Huntn]

400 Megabit, you mean. No one makes a 400 gigabit modem. Changing a model isn't hard if the automated page fails. I registered two modems to our account last year by calling it with the account info and the MAC addresses on the modems. They did a remote reset and I was back online in less than 30 minutes, including holding time.

I have no complaints about our ISP these days. Especially because they over-provision everything.

fixed.
[doublepost=1558096439][/doublepost]

Thread Revival 2019
Suddenlink merged or was bought by Altice. Since that time, I have noticed downgrades in their service in Houston, Texas. This morning as part of upgrading my cable modem (I purchased) to an Arris Surfboard DOCSIS 3.0 24 channel, enabling 400 megabit per second internet speed, I talked to someone in their technical support office who knew nothing about the process. It was literally painful holding this person’s hand as they repeatedly put me on hold to ask someone what they needed to do. Now is this typical?

Maybe not, I ended up hanging up so I could swap out the modems and when I called back, at least the new person had a clue, although it took a total of 4 phone calls to get it done, and the Suddenlink automated activate hardware page failed to get my modem activated. So why do they have that?

Annother issue, is that I have my monitored home security system with them and this week I discovered I could no longer call the local office, because it was no longer there, and the new office in South Carolina, I can’t call directly. I now have to call Suddenlink, and they will have someone from home security call me back. This is not ideal.

The thing is Suddenlink is the only local provider I know of who offers this king of internet speed so I am kind of stuck with them.

In addition they now actually expect their customers to sit around all day and wait for a repair person to arrive. Yes, your appointment is 8-5 because you have nothing better to do and it is all about our convenience. I waited yesterday and no one showed up! I am so pissed right now.