Issues with Charter cable

[TheCrew07]

FSN on Dish Network is the Minnesota FSN, but the Twins games are blacked out. They have alternate sports channels 444-456ish, the televised games on FSN Wisconsin are broadcast on those. The only problem I have is that they don't normally show up until an hour or two before game time in my channel guide so it's tough to DVR them.

[hawing]

This is strange. Somehow (and in the context of this thread, surprisingly) I've managed to pretty much avoid the problems described here.

 

We have had Charter in Madison since they took over Bresnan or whatever the predecessor was. We have had expanded basic cable the whole time. The service is fine - we rarely see outages or get poor reception. We (I should say "I" because the account is in my name) don't get incessant offers to upgrade the cable, or add phone or DSL service - and you'd think they'd at least want me to switch to digital cable.

 

We haven't so far for two reasons: 1. we underutilize enough channels already, with just the 70-some in our current package; and 2. because we hear so many complaints about digital cable.

 

At some point I assume they'll make everyone switch to something digital, and then I expect to be adding to either this thread or something like it.

 

We do get lots of mail offers from TDS (who supplies our phone service) asking us to please please please add DSL, but we just recycle those (keep the recycle bin outside the house, and they don't even cross our threshold). When the day comes when I have to choose DSL, we'll probably go with TDS because my brother-in-law works there.

[Invader3K]

We moved into our house about a year ago and signed up for digital cable and high speed internet through Charter right away. We did this for a couple reasons: mainly, I can't tolerate dial up speeds anymore (college will spoil you on that these days), and I wanted to get HD channels, which you can basically only get easily through digital cable (our house doesn't have an aerial, so getting over-the-air HD would have been a pain). I admit, the installer who they sent had a bit of an attitude, but he did the job quickly (I think he was miffed that he was doing installs on Memorial Day weekend, but that wasn't my problem).

 

Yes, the mailers do get annoying, but I've actually taken advantage of a couple offers. We added HBO and several digital tiers for basically no additional cost (we dropped Showtime, which my wife and I never watched), and we recently added a phone line through Charter for only about ten bucks more a month. I wanted a phone line to set up a fax machine for my business, otherwise we would have stuck to cell phones.

 

I really can't complain about their service over all. Occasionally, something in the "OnDemand" service will be unavailable for a while, but this is pretty minor. We really haven't had any big issues as far as the internet going down or channels going black. I'm surprised to admit it, but we've been pretty happy with Charter thus far. Yes, you pay a lot, but we're getting a ton of channels, including HD and a DVR box (which is awesome), high speed internet, and a phone line. I really don't believe we'd save more by getting those services through separate providers, and the convenience of one bill is somewhat nice.

[gypcasino]

I can't tolerate dial up speeds anymore (college will spoil you on that these days)

 

The thought of possibly injuring my fist by smashing it through the monitor because a web page of text takes five minutes to load is enough to spoil me.