Stephanie and I have been talking about kicking Comcast to the curb for months. Its been this on again, off again thing. We agree in principal that TV is a waste of time. And that Comcast is expensive. And that we don’t really use most of what we pay for.
We agree in principal that we don’t want G watching TV now, or ever really. Well, we want to put it off for as long as possible.
We agree on all these things, but then another season of Mad Men, or America’s next Top Model starts up and all that principal and fiscal responsibility pretty much goes out the window.
Also, my Mother in law, who watches G one night a week likes to watch TV. To not have channels for her to watch would be, as she put it, ‘unwelcoming’.
So there was much hemming and hawing, much procrastinating on this decision to dump Comcast…until today.
CR, a coworker pointed out to me a website called Antennaweb. On this web site, you put in your zip code, and it gives you a list of all stations, including digital stations that are broadcast over the air in your area.
So, if you live in a market like Philadelphia, one with actual broadcast affiliates of the major networks, you can still get very strong signals from all these stations. You just need an antenna.
But here is the thing: If you have a television with a built in digital tuner(which we do), and you attach a standard 20 dollar antenna from radio shack to your TV, you can also pick up digital stations broadcasted by these same affiliates. HD quality TV for free.
Its actually pretty fantastic. No signal noise. No nothing.
So I’m gonna still be able to watch The Office and Lost. And the broadcast will be snowless.
One other thing that came as a shock: NBC broadcasts 3 digital channels here. 1 is NBC HD. 2 is NBC weather. 3 is Universal Sports. They have crap tons of cycling on this channel. They covered Univest, Tour of Missouri, Worlds. I think they show Track, Mountain and Cross races too.
Its not Versus and TDF, but I’ll take it!
3 Comments
I am sorry to learn about the intermittent service.
I work for Comcast and I would like to help. Please feel free to send me the phone number on the account so I can help.
I appreciate the opportunity to assist!
Mark C.
Comcast Corp.
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com
Ha. I love it. Comcast hard at work—just heard coverage on their online damage control efforts on NPR too.
We only have network TV and it’s been fine for us. There are four or five shows we follow during primetime and that’s plenty.
We are dumping Comcast as soon as we find cheaper DSL. $60 for internet is too much.
I’ll have to respond to them at some point.
Its kind of a bummer that they didn’t actually read the post before responding. I mean: I didn’t even get into the part where the CSR I spoke with when I shut down the account told me that I would not be able to get HD signal after 2/09. (This is false. Either she was misinformed or spreading FUD.)
Or my general complaint about them increasing my monthly fee for broadband for $15 dollars when I stop using TV.
I’m looking hard at Speakeasy and CavTel as their replacements for internet. We’ll see.
I’ll respond to them a bit later and post the results.
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