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glatt · 02-12-2016, 07:44 AM

Hope it works out.

We have phone and internet, and I considered adding TV recently, but they wanted to rent me a box for the TV. They put that in the fine print when they advertise the monthly costs. "Oh, and $15/month for the box." Seems like a rip off if you're going to have the service indefinitely. If it was for two years and then they drop the rental fee once the box is paid off, I might be OK with it, but that's kinda BS.

And it's been pretty much ignored in the mainstream press. (I have seen a couple small articles in the business section.) Over the air broadcast TV, which is what I rely on, may be shut down significantly in the next year. The FCC is holding a bandwidth auction in a couple months and TV stations are being encouraged to give up their bandwidth so it can be auctioned off to other services like cell carriers. So small stations without a lot of viewership will find that the bandwidth they own is worth more than the adverting revenue they get from their programming, and they are likely to just shut down. I'm a little surprised TW hasn't been here to lecture us all on it.

All this is to say that I may be stuck signing up for Verizon's TV package in the future when they take away my broadcast TV.

02-12-2016, 07:44 AM	#683
glatt ™ Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Arlington, VA Posts: 27,717	Hope it works out. We have phone and internet, and I considered adding TV recently, but they wanted to rent me a box for the TV. They put that in the fine print when they advertise the monthly costs. "Oh, and $15/month for the box." Seems like a rip off if you're going to have the service indefinitely. If it was for two years and then they drop the rental fee once the box is paid off, I might be OK with it, but that's kinda BS. And it's been pretty much ignored in the mainstream press. (I have seen a couple small articles in the business section.) Over the air broadcast TV, which is what I rely on, may be shut down significantly in the next year. The FCC is holding a bandwidth auction in a couple months and TV stations are being encouraged to give up their bandwidth so it can be auctioned off to other services like cell carriers. So small stations without a lot of viewership will find that the bandwidth they own is worth more than the adverting revenue they get from their programming, and they are likely to just shut down. I'm a little surprised TW hasn't been here to lecture us all on it. All this is to say that I may be stuck signing up for Verizon's TV package in the future when they take away my broadcast TV.