You know, for years I have used Comcast for both my internet and television. The speeds for internet are pretty good and I don’t get much downtime. But for the television part of things, it seems that Comcast hasn’t taken much effort to progress both in price and features. Here are some examples.

High Definition Channel Availability

The availability of HD channels with Comcast is absolutely pathetic!  To get to your HD channel listings, you have to go to a completely separate area of the guide to find them.  And the options are puny; right now I see 28 not counting premium channels and half of these are things like ESPN and Home & Garden.

I recently was visiting my grandparents and noticed on their Dish Network, almost every single channel has it’s HD counterpart, right next to it in the guide.  What’s the deal?

Cost of High Definition

Why do I have to pay Comcast an extra $10/month just to get HD when the FCC forced the OTA broadcast channels to use HD?  In my opinion everything should be broadcasted in HD and we shouldn’t have to pay extra.

DVR

If you have ever used Comcast’s DVR, you know it is horrible.  The snappiness is really slow, it’s very clunky and had just general usability problems.  Like for example when I go into certain menu items and back, it can never remember my previous menu.  Take a hint from Tivo, please.  On top of that, the options available in the DVR for regarding are very basic.  If I tell it to record only new shows and no repeats it ends up recording the exact same episode 5 times and it’s not even new it’s a repeat.

Price

Right now I am paying almost $70/month for the starter HD package without any premium channels.  Seems like a lot for only watching maybe 6 channels maximum.

Alternatives

One alternative I have been waiting for is U-verse from AT&T.  This is a pretty slick option and the price isn’t bad for what you get.  Also their DVR features are much richer.  The only bad thing for me is U-verse isn’t available at my apartment still even though most of Fresno already has it available.

Also, I could probably call Comcast to try to negotiate a lower special pricing rate, but this is only a temporary solution.

I have tried DSL in the past but it seems I just have too many problems with DSL.  I think fiber options like U-verse will be a better option for all of us.

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