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How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

latimes.com

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Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#41

Post by mikeash »

drblast wrote: post #5

I have the same reaction every time I read about any cable company, and that's, "WTF are you all still giving them your money for?!" They have a monopoly on a dying service you literally don't need at all, and most people hate having to deal with them. The pricing and contracts are antagonistic to customers. Is it just momentum at this point?

The allure of channel-surfing and just leaving something on in the background seems to be huge for some people. Getting stuff on demand is great, but it does require a bit of thought.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#42

Post by giarc »

Anyone still renting should look to used markets for equipment. With the number of people cord-cutting, the market for used equipment is quite saturated.

I own a DVR and 4 or 5 "satellite" type boxes, cut the cord and looked to see how much I could get from them. Basically wasn't worth my time with hundreds of people in the same boat as me in my city.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#43

Post by rb808 »

dgzl wrote: post #25
drblast wrote: post #5

I have the same reaction every time I read about any cable company, and that's, "WTF are you all still giving them your money for?!" They have a monopoly on a dying service you literally don't need at all, and most people hate having to deal with them. The pricing and contracts are antagonistic to customers. Is it just momentum at this point?

For the past year, I've been trying to convince my grandparents to ditch cable for internet TV, and the transition has been surprisingly difficult. After two attempts (I don't live near them), I am still not successful, however I did reduce the TV/phone/internet bundle from $250 to $200. Next time I see them, I'm coming prepared with the items that prevented me from succeeding before, and hopefully I'll be reducing t…

powerline networking is your friend.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#44

Post by chrisBob »

pasbesoin wrote: post #31
jasode wrote: post #21

I have a FiOS Motorola QIP7232 cable box with a builtin 320GB harddrive (circa 2013).[1] My last bill shows them charging me $21.99 per month for that box. (That's $263.88 a year not including taxes.) Last week, I called Frontier FiOS to cancel the cable TV but keep the internet. After the customer rep cancelled the tv, I asked if she was mailing out a shipping box so I could return the Motorola. She said she wasn't…

You might want to hold onto it for a bit. I read the occasional "horror" stories about people getting big bills for "unreturned equipment" that they were previously told not to return. Or that was returned but never logged; suggestions are, for example, that if you return your Comcast box to one of their storefronts/offices, you make sure to get a receipt, preferably one having the equipment ID's on it.

Comcast had a deal with UPS Stores when I canceled 2 years ago. I just brought the cable box to the closest UPS Store franchise and got a receipt from them and they handled packing and returning it. That was a wonderful experience.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#45

Post by shawnz »

rubatuga wrote: post #2

The ISP box in my home has a SFP cage, and fiber sfp adapter, with wireless ac and a nice OLED screen. Total cost is $130, but everybody gets a free rental.

Does it have video output though? We have a similar device as our modem (with Bell Canada) but still need set-top boxes at each TV in addition to the modem. The modem is given on a free rental, but the set-top boxes are not.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#46

Post by josefresco »

dublinben wrote: post #34
reaperducer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you literally don't need at all Unless you live in a place without broadcast television, or little broadcast television, and with little to no internet service. So pretty much 20% of the United States. The nation is much larger than the east and west coasts.

Satellite television has been an option for decades, and serves these markets better than cable anyway.

To be fair, Satellite television providers offer the same "boxes" at inflated prices, complete with multi-year contracts.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#47

Post by gamblor956 »

shapiro92 wrote: post #4

Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

EU citizens are discovering what GDPR exposure means for US companies that don't get significant revenue from EU customers: they simply start blocking the EU instead of complying.

Because there's no way any company can actually comply with the GPDR; many of the rules conflict with each other. GDPR is a regulatory trap intended to allow the authorities to initiate selective enforcement against non-EU companies.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#48

Post by scrooched_moose »

radicalbyte wrote: post #37
dgzl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the past year, I've been trying to convince my grandparents to ditch cable for internet TV, and the transition has been surprisingly difficult. After two attempts (I don't live near them), I am still not successful, however I did reduce the TV/phone/internet bundle from $250 to $200. Next time I see them, I'm coming prepared with the items that prevented me from succeeding before, and hopefully I'll be reducing t…

Is running an Ethernet cable not an option?

Unless both rooms are on the first floor above an unfinished basement it usually isn't.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#49

Post by josefresco »

whalesalad wrote: post #24

On a slightly related note, I am highly disappointed with the Spectrum boxes and really miss my Comcast X1 box. Spectrum and Comcast both rely on the same third-parties to supply their gear but Comcast works with partners like Arris to build their own custom boxes. They have their own custom OS running on the box. They're really fast and have a very modern UI. For instance it'll open sidebars to show current sports g…

I had X1, was very nice. We have one "mommy" box and a couple of the slimmer boxes (don't know what they call it) The mobile apps were very good as well. We have YouTubeTV now, but if I had, or wanted to spend the $ I'd go with X1 again.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#50

Post by raverbashing »

Do you really wanna know how much it costs? Look at similar streaming hardware (think FireStick, Roku, etc)

The hardware (heck, even the software) is the same or very similar for the most part.

Smartphones made the hw price (and form factors) go down a lot.

If your decoder is DTV or Cable there's an extra cost related to the receiver, but that has also getting cheaper as well.

Long gone are the times of the first receivers where you had several ICs with dedicated functions and had to shuffle the data around in not so straightforward ways (the first DTV receivers had dedicated MPEG2 decoder ICs, I suppose DVD players had a similar architecture, then became integrated with time). Now modern smartphones decode more complex video streams with much less energy expenditure)

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