We tried to get the Weather Channel on one of our TV's last night, and instead got "No Signal Available". I thought maybe the Weather Channel was unavailable, so I called Time Warner to see what was going on. As it turned out, I found out that I was able to get the channel on the one set that has a cable box, but I could NOT get it on the other two that are just connected to the cable with no intervening box.
At this point, many people might have stepped back and said, "Wait a minute! Maybe the Weather Channel now needs a cable box to work!" Not my fearless "tech" -- he scheduled a service call to have someone come out to the house to see what the problem was.
I called TW again this morning hoping I might get someone who actually knew what was going on, and to my surprise I did! He told me that a letter went out last month telling the TW customers in my area that "certain channels" were going digital. Now that "certain channels" are digital, a box is required to access them, at $8.50 per month. So ... two more boxes ... $17 additional per month ... $204 additional per year ... just to get channels that I am already paying for and was able to get until December 8th.
Oh, yeah, one more thing -- they sent out another letter recently to let me know that because all the networks are raising their prices, poor Time Warner is forced to raise its prices as well. Interestingly, the price increase on just about everything listed, from channels to cable boxes, is $2.04.
I don't know what hat they pulled that number out of, but it would be VERY interesting to have a look at their books to understand the "justification" they presented for this price increase. Sans books, my guess is that they're raising prices so that I can subsidize their new customers who are getting reduced rates for a while and probably will not need the additional cable boxes to get the Weather Channel until their reduced rate runs out.
Anyway, I'm going to take a look at Dish Network and DirectTV today and start getting something set up with them. I don't think that they gouge as badly or as much as TW, and I'm pretty sure they don't have as many outages as I've experienced with TW cable recently.
I'll also be switching my phone service back to the local carrier. When TW cable goes out, it takes the phone with it.
Still undecided about Internet, so I'll probably just keep what I have now until I see something that I like more.
Hasta la vista, Time Warner!
