What has Time Warner Cable done for you lately?
December 30th, 2008, 5:04 pm · 9 Comments · posted by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
A higher cable TV bill is always a bummer, especially when you feel like you’re getting inferior service in the first place.
But I continue to believe that the local branch of Time Warner Cable is trying to make amends for the appalling transition it forced subscribers to go through when it merged three O.C. cable systems together last year. Darryl Ryan, the company’s new regional director of media relations, always returns my phone calls and e-mails, even if it’s not the response people want to hear. And did you see this? Fred Stefany, the president of the regional office, responded to reader comments this morning.
Time Warner is watching and, hopefully, listening, to what you all have to say.
As some readers — OK, maybe 2 — mentioned, Time Warner still provides an OK service. So, let me count it up, without being too sarcastic: What has Time Warner done for its customers this year?
1. New HD channels: About a dozen new HD channels just showed up on my TV in the past week, including CNBC HD, Travel HD and the Science Channel HD. This is in addition to about a dozen that popped up over the summer (FoodTV HD, CNNHD, Disney HD, Discovery HD …) I don’t get 50, as the company said Orange County subscribers would by the end of the year. But I’m close: I get 49! But this is only in Huntington Beach. Other cities may not be so lucky.
On the other hand, Tustin and Costa Mesa customers should be at 85 HD channels by the end of the year (that’s tomorrow!). Time Warner started rolling out these HD channels in Costa Mesa and Tustin on Dec. 17: Planet Green HD 453, The Weather Channel HD 454, Bio HD 457, Toon Disney HD 461, Cartoon Network HD 462, ESPNU HD 467, Speed HD 468, The Tennis Channel HD 473, Lifetime Movie Network HD 475, Hallmark Movie Channel HD 476, HBO East HD 481, Cinemax East HD 482, Showtime East HD 483, The Movie Channel West HD 484, Starz East HD 485, INDemand Sports HD 1 732, and INDemand Sports HD 2 733. (Compton, Athens, Inglewood, South Los Angeles and Carson Harbor areas are also getting these channels.)
Keep in mind, other TV companies offer many more HD channels: DirecTV offers 130 HD channels, Verizon’s FiOS TV has at least 104 HD channels, Cox Cable’s O.C. customers have 51 HD channels, DishNetwork has 60 HD channels, and AT&T’s U-verse has around 75.
2. Coming in January: Customers with a Scientific Atlanta digital box will get new software to make the service more interactive, such as integrated caller ID. Telephone customers will see the caller’s phone number pop up on screen. Eventually, you will be able to do things like order pizza from your TV. Time Warner started rolling this feature out earlier this year. I didn’t even realize O.C. doesn’t get this since this service has been available in other parts of the country for years.
Time Warner is also updating the look of the program guide. Not a big deal, but here are some images (click image for larger view):
3. New On-demand channels: Sopresa On Demand, FEARnet On Demand, ESPN Deportes On Demand, History On Demand, Futbol Mania On Demand, Shalom On Demand, HD Showcase On Demand and “more.”
4. Faster Internet: ‘Turbo’ Internet customers started getting 15 Mbps download speeds earlier this month, with “PowerBoost” bursts of up to 20 Mbps when you need that extra oomph (downloading large files). While appreciated, I should also point out that this still puts Time Warner in 4th place when it comes to fastest Internet service in Orange County. Verizon’s FiOS Internet is 50 Mbps, Cox Cable’s Premier package is 20 Mbps and AT&T’s U-verse service is 18 Mbps. However, not all services are available in all of Orange County.
Apparently, users also got more mailboxes and online storage this year:
- Road Runner Lite and Basic: 5 mailboxes, 100 MB storage
- Road Runner Standard: 10 mailboxes, 2 GB storage
- Road Runner Turbo: 25 mailboxes, 5 GB storage
So … according to my earlier report, Time Warner still plans to add three other interesting features sometime next year: “Switched Digital,” “Start Over” and “Look Back.” The first one will take the least popular channels, like some foreign-language channels, and turn those into on-demand viewing. That releases space on the TV pipe so Time Warner can offer more channels. The other two are DVR-related features, allowing people to watch a show they forgot to record. Read more about those at “Time Warner Cable’s new features finally coming to O.C.”
Slowly, surely.
More Time Warner stories:
- Time Warner Cable raising prices in 2009 (Dec. 29, 2008)
- Time Warner Cable ‘adopts’ O.C. families (Dec. 24, 2008)
- Time Warner’s O.C. phone outage felt in Hawaii (Dec. 23, 2008)
- The weekly Time Warner Cable status report (Dec. 22, 2008)
- Is Time Warner Cable’s Internet outage really fixed? (Dec. 16, 2008)
- Time Warner Cable Internet outage fixed (Dec. 11, 2008)
- Feds to look closely at cable TV firms pricing, channel changes
- Time Warner’s new HD channels and why Costa Mesa, Tustin get them first
- Time Warner Cable’s new features finally coming to O.C.
- Time Warner still cleaning up cable merger mess in O.C.
- How to get cheaper cable TV from Time Warner Cable
- How to get cheaper cable TV in O.C., part 2
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Well, if they don’t reach an agreement with Viacom and we lose 19 channels, I’m not going to be a very happy Time Warner customer. I left Dish Network to return to Time Warner earlier this year when Dish didn’t expand Noggin to the 24 hours a day that everyone else did. I know it’s a bit silly, but when you have a sick kid up in the middle of the night, watching a “kid show” at 3:00 in the morning seems to help them get back to sleep…unlike having BIlly Mays yell at you about buying something you don’t need. I’m hoping they reach an agreement before 9pm (local time) on Wednesday.
It’s time for everyone to face it: The way we watch TV is all wrong. It’s geared toward making profits for the signal providers, whether they be cable, satellite or fiber based.
Why can’t I sign on online and pick and choose what I want to watch when I want to watch it? I would be much happier paying $2-$3 per channel per month for the 5 or so channels I actually watch than $60 or more to a cable company for sports and other channels I don’t need.
Viacom has it right. I watch Colbert and South Park online anytime I want at my convenience. It’s much better than waiting for it to roll around on TV. I hope Time Warner dies a quick death between their fee hikes and failed negotiations with content providers. This past week has just proven how much of a dinosaur cable is today.
Good riddence. Good bye MTV, VH1 two lame channels! There really needs to be a la carte. People should be able to buy the channels they want to watch without having to subscribe to bigger packages. The few channels that I do watch are spread between Basic and the most high up packages.
Of course Time Warner can do what they want. In many parts of OC there is no alternative. I have checked for Verison Fios NOT available, ATT Uverse NOT available. So I have no choice in Anaheim but to stay with TW or go back to broadcast only.
This is the problem when 1 company is allowed to monopolize any market.
If Time-Warner doesn’t provide more ala carte channel selections, I will go to satellite.
I cant believe I would have to subscribe to both premium tiers just to get the 4 shows I want.
On the bright side, I am satisfied with their customer service.
Why deal with cable at all, especially Time-Warner? Verizon FIOS blows them away. The BEST thing I ever did was to get rid of Time-Warner Cable. If you have the chance to get Verizon FIOS, do it!!!
TW should get with the program, esp. in this economy and people will cut back. I myself dont watch much cable much anymore (57 channels and nothing much on anymore) I rely mostly on internet to watch re runs and online rental services like Net flix.
Ala carte should be the standard. Who watches those religious shows, foreign language etc etc and Im paying nearly 100 month along with the high speed internet? MAJOR RIP OFF.
Im moving out of state anyway–Im sure tw is not offered there. Cox seems to be the major provider where I am going.
To everyone who thinks a-la-carte is the answer … It’s not a realisitic possibility for ANY cable or satellite company to offer. You won’t find a single company that does. Dish, DirecTV, uVerse, FiOS … none of them offer it. The only current option would be to pay per program (like on itunes, AppleTV, or free like on hulu).
This is because of network providers insisting on bundled contracts (i.e. in order for Time Warner to provide MTV, it must also buy MTV2, VH1, Nickelodeon, etc).
Additionally, the more channels that are available to more subscribers, the more ad revenue can be charged. If a-la-carte was available, you decide you don’t want certain channels from Viacom (for example you only want MTV & VH1 but not Nickelodeon and the other 15 Viacom channels), then Viacom will just charge more for MTV and VH1 to make up for lost ad revenue (and the provider will charge more for their increased expense to Viacom and their lost ad revenue).
Finally, it will create massive backoffice redtape for the provider to manage individual channel availability to the subscriber rather than a select number of pre-determined packages. Of course the provider will pass the cost of this along (increased IT infrastructure, customer service reps to handle calls from people who call daily to add/remove the channels they don’t want to watch this week because repeats are on, etc).
And of course even if that were possible, the individual channel availabilty would only be on the digital channels since there is no realistic way to manage it in the analog (currently they use a filter to determine from the most basic analog and the full analog package …. feasbile with 2 package options, but not feasible when there are 80 channels with virtually unlimited combinations).
When I get my new tv this year,I think I going to drop TW. Hook up the computer to the TV and use itunes or Hulu.Rent from Netflix.Pay for what I want to watch.