At what point do I give up on them?

I am a very rare human being in this world. My husband and I are one of the last people who have a local cable company for our TV. Now, they have the best service in the whole wide world, I can make my payment over the phone for free, and they are willing to come out and fix any problem with out complaint. BUT, I want digital PBS. (Stop laughing. I'm a dork.)

When do I give up on them and sell out to a larger company?

not to be an ol nag about it..

But if you have perfect service,, that a big plus.. I have a dish,, love the quality and stuff, but the service sucks!! $9.95 to make a payment unless I do it online.. Service charged for someone to come out,, though I've never had that issue...

I do love the quality though..

Originally Posted by lookingglass

I am a very rare human being in this world. My husband and I are one of the last people who have a local cable company for our TV. Now, they have the best service in the whole wide world, I can make my payment over the phone for free, and they are willing to come out and fix any problem with out complaint. BUT, I want digital PBS. (Stop laughing. I'm a dork.)

When do I give up on them and sell out to a larger company?

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When your "NEED" for digital PBS is greater than your happiness with your current cable company.

never never never underestimate good service! as far as cell phones go, my old company was very good on reception but horrendous with customer service, my current company could be better with reception, but their CS is out of this world, and it is so wonderful

I have my cable through my local telephone company. In fact I have my internet, cable and telephone through them. I've seen some companies that seem to have better rates, but I stay with what I have because of convenience and reliability. Plus lots of those companies have hidden fees such as contracts and a penalty for cancelling.

If you're happy with what you have, stick with it.

Stay with the local. Trust me. Even when you're need for PBS appears to be outweighing your love of your local cable company... you're not going to realize how much you love them until you don't have them anymore. The large "dealers" are HORRID. They are horrible, horrible horrible spawns of Satan and believe me, you may not think it can be that bad, but it really is. Having digital PBS will probably *never* outweigh what you'll have to put up with from them to have your service.

Originally Posted by KuntryKitty

I agree with the above replies, especially CatsAreBetter's.

Maybe I'm a dork, but..... What's digital PBS?

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PBS in HiDef.

Ohhh my, I assumed this thread had something to do with you being driven to the absolute limit by your little grey terror. Glad I misunderstood... carry on!

Well we rely one the ole tv airwaves for our view pleasure.
But on of my BIL who bought an HDTV earlier this year who also only has an attic attena like us picks up three PBS stations!! I know new TV's do not come with antenna's any more but you might want to consider trying this??

GailC is right, try an off air antenna. You can get a decent one at Radio Shack pretty cheap, and you would be surprised what they pick up. I work for Directv, and a lot of people tell me they still use their antennas to get their locals.

Well I can't offer you any help, but I do feel your pain. DH wants the Monsters HD channel which shows like cheezy horror movies n stuff... but our cable company doesnt carry it... we'd have to switch to satellite... and call me crazy, but I just can't see the logic of attaching a dish to my roof when I live in hurricaine alley

So yeah, it's not exactly the same situation... but I figure I'm sort of in the same boat. I'll switch when DH annoys me to the point when I care more about shutting him up than I do about my dish turning into a projectile

I'm no help here- we don't have cable/dish or anything like that. We just have the 5 basic channels our tv picks up

Originally Posted by CatsAreBetter

Stay with the local. Trust me. Even when you're need for PBS appears to be outweighing your love of your local cable company... you're not going to realize how much you love them until you don't have them anymore. The large "dealers" are HORRID. They are horrible, horrible horrible spawns of Satan and believe me, you may not think it can be that bad, but it really is. Having digital PBS will probably *never* outweigh what you'll have to put up with from them to have your service.

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I wish we had the choice of a local company. Here, the national satan spawn have a monopoly. They trade territory between themselves and it's your choice of rock or hard place depending on where you live.

Their service is truly, truly terrible. Charge you $15 to pay your bill over the phone, endless bombard you with come-ons to sign up for their digital phone. The difference between the basic cable price (25 channels mostly local broadcast stuff and QVC) and the next package up (standard which has all the stuff like food network, E!, TNT for heaven's sakes!!) is $40! We'd have to pay well over $100 a month for digital (on top of the $50 we pay for broadband internet).

They charged us an installation fee for flipping a switch to move us from the 1st floor apartment to the 3rd floor --no one came to the house, no wiring required...literally a switch flip...$50.

Can you tell I hate them??

Originally Posted by JellyBella

I wish we had the choice of a local company. Here, the national satan spawn have a monopoly. They trade territory between themselves and it's your choice of rock or hard place depending on where you live.

Their service is truly, truly terrible. Charge you $15 to pay your bill over the phone, endless bombard you with come-ons to sign up for their digital phone. The difference between the basic cable price (25 channels mostly local broadcast stuff and QVC) and the next package up (standard which has all the stuff like food network, E!, TNT for heaven's sakes!!) is $40! We'd have to pay well over $100 a month for digital (on top of the $50 we pay for broadband internet).

They charged us an installation fee for flipping a switch to move us from the 1st floor apartment to the 3rd floor --no one came to the house, no wiring required...literally a switch flip...$50.

Can you tell I hate them??

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Oh my... I'm staying with them. They didn't charge me an installment fee when I moved apartments. They install guy was nice enough to let me keep the cable on in the old one a day longer because of a screw up with the apartment complex, and he was also nice enough to lend us his Neo-Geo (a classic game system).

Nope, I really don't need digital PBS that badly.

Originally Posted by lookingglass

Oh my... I'm staying with them. They didn't charge me an installment fee when I moved apartments. They install guy was nice enough to let me keep the cable on in the old one a day longer because of a screw up with the apartment complex, and he was also nice enough to lend us his Neo-Geo (a classic game system).

Nope, I really don't need digital PBS that badly.

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Seriously, I have a fairly well-known and perhaps not solely local compnay right now ... Cox, (they're awesome!!!)... but their customer service *far* surpasses any other cable company I've had to date.

Comcast is awful. They can't keep their billing straight. They don't manage their records well. I had the guy come out and pick up my equipment (this after an ongoing series of Comcast being wrong in any number of things).. and he said "make sure you keep this. You'll probably need it to prove that you returned the equipment". So I chuckled and I kept it. Don't you know I had to spend three months arguing with them about whether or not the equipment they wanted to charge me close to $1000 for (and they kept stacking on fines)..was ever returned to them. I had to show them the receipts, and they still wouldn't remove the charges even once they saw it. I ultimately had to file a complaint with the BBB, and threaten to take them to court.

They're not the only ones, though. It's been other companies as well, and it's really just all about the money. They're just horrible.

If you're "other" local company is Cox, I'd say it would be okay to switch to them. They've got great customer service and usually if you have a problem they can have someone out within a reasonable amount of time to fix it. If you need a new cable box *they'll come out to change it out for you* free of charge.

Anyway, I was really happy to find them when we moved. They're great!

I'm not afraid to say our devil spawn cable company is Time Warner I've heard awful things about Comcast too, but I have no experience with Cox.

I've never had anything but positive experiences with Cox, with the exception of *one* time in almost five years now. And that was just a mistake on the part of the company and they fixed it right away. It was human error. Unlike other companies, though, they actually did fix it right away.

We currently have Mediacom, we've also had Adelphia and a couple others in various states we've lived in. They are all awful. Keep your local one and get an HD antenna. You can get them for as little as $20 at Best Buy or similar stores.

Hey - you can't get PBS HiDef through a regular antenae? When I bought my plasma TV last year, I plugged it in, hooked it up to the antenae that's in my attic and hit the auto program set up. I got 5 local channels of PBS, including 2 Hi Def ones, and 2 more PBS stations from neighboring cities. And more often than not, every last one of the 7 PBS stations is broadcasting something different.

Are you any where remotely close to a city that broadcasts it, and have you tried an antenae lately?

(I know its terribly old fashioned to use an antenae! )