Items tagged with cable
We learned last week that Verizon would be updating its FiOS TV service to give customers a lot more freedom with regards to their channel selection, and we followed-up over the weekend about ESPN's immediate objection to the move. Despite ESPN's objections, FiOS Custom TV is now open to Verizon customers. Isn't...
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If you have an opinion that many would deem illogical, what do you do? You go find other people who think just as illogically, of course. Power in numbers, as they say. That can go for a sibling battling with another sibling over who took the last of the cupcakes just as well as it can for mega corporations like...
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Charter Communications this week said it's planning to acquire Bright House Networks, the sixth largest cable company in the U.S., for $10.4 billion. However, there are several contingencies, one of the biggest of which is government approval for rival Comcast to acquire Time Warner Cable, as Charter has a vested...
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In a perfect world, none of us would have to call customer service, but alas, the world is far from perfect. And so too is the customer service we're talking about. No one likes having to deal with the hassle of ringing up customer service for help or a request, but that dislike gets amplified when the company behind...
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Comcast is not exactly a well-liked company in the United States, and that’s putting it nicely. In fact, Consumerist readers ranked Comcast as the Worst Company In America for 2014 (making it two-time winner… err loser). As Comcast ratchets up its lobbying efforts to win approval for its acquisition of Time Warner...
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President Barack Obama's first order of business this week was to post an open letter urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reclassify Internet service as a utility and implement strong rules in favor of net neutrality, such as disallowing the rental of premium fast lanes and banning the practice of...
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Samsung just came up with a solution for those times when you need a quick charge but there's no power outlet in sight. Using the company's new Power Sharing cable, you can transfer power directly from your Galaxy device to any micro USB-compatible gadget, like a smartwatch or a tablet, to name just two examples. "The...
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For the first time in the history of everything, cable TV providers now have more high speed Internet subscribers than pay TV customers, according to data gathered by Leichtman Research Group. The gap is narrow -- there were 49,915,000 broadband subscribers at the end of the second quarter in 2014 versus around...
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Try to imagine the amount of power four giant-sized nuclear reactors would put out if running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Quite a bit, right? Well, it just so happens that set-top boxes for cable and satellite TV put out the same amount. Not yours alone, mind you -- but collectively, the 224 million cable and satellite set-top boxes around...
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As Computex marches on over in Taiwan, the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) has announced the proper release of the DockPort standard. VESA, as you're likely aware, is the team behind those mounting plates that enable you to hoist monitors and HDTVs up on your wall using uniform standards, but it's also...
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No need to brace yourself for this one, but in case you were wondering, Americans are typically dissatisfied with their cable and Internet service providers (ISPs). That won't be shocking to most, but lest there was any doubt, numbers from the American Consumer Satisfaction Index show that cable companies and ISPs are...
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Who would have thought that a cable box might provide the biggest competition yet to dedicated consoles like Microsoft's Xbox One, Sony's PlayStation 4, and Nintendo's Wii U systems? As unlikely as that might sound, Comcast is reportedly close to striking a deal with Electronic Arts that would allow customers to...
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The future of television is upon us. With pay-TV transforming, slowly but surely, service providers have little choice but to come to grips with the realities surrounding their business. More and more individuals are growing up on a steady entertainment diet of Netflix and YouTube, and once they grab jobs and own...
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If you think most Americans are too uneducated about technology to know a scam when they see it, think again. As the world of data caps have crushed the spirits of many home Internet users, Time Warner Cable had been experimenting with a pricing scheme that would lower bills of its broadband customers in exchange for...
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The Olympic games officially begin tonight in Sochi, but if you're one of several million US citizens who don't pay for cable access, you're not going to be watching much of that content online. While NBC is officially streaming the entire games, those streams are reserved for paying cable customers. In 2011, NBC cut a deal with the International...
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It only makes sense, really. Netflix has taken over the content world in many ways, even going so far as to fund original programming of its own and buck the usual trend by making entire seasons available at once. That journey has led it to an enviable position, but to date, getting to Netflix still requires something that many American households...
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For many Time Warner Cable subscribers, we're going into yet another weekend where CBS is unavailable. Due to stalled negotiations over subscription rates, TWC and CBS have yet to come to terms on what it'll take to get the network back on-air. So, in order to prevent TWC customers from fleeing elsewhere (particularly...
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Intel is no stranger to crafting high-speed interconnects, and in case you've grown bored with USB 3.0, FireWire, and Thunderbolt, the company seems to already be planning on whatever is next. The codename right now is MXC, and according to Intel, it can " carry up to 1.6 terabits per second and is smaller than the...
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Goodnight, sweet prince. That's the message that was sent to millions of Time Warner Cable customers last night, as the operator and CBS could not come to terms on a re-transmission agreement. Essentially, CBS wanted more money per TWC subscriber, while TWC feels that CBS should cave; after all, CBS broadcasts are...
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Is the age of the next wave of television upon us? It's a question that's fairly tough to answer at this stage, but there's no doubt that it's on the minds of many. Time Warner Cable and Samsung are clearly on that list, as the two have teamed up in order to bring content directly to Samsung's Smart TV range without a...
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Don't be fooled by the lukewarm reception to Comcast's share price following the company's first quarter 2013 financial results. The cable outfit killed it in Q1, posting a profit of $1.44 billion, or 54 cents a share, on combined revenues totaling $15.3 billion, up 2.9 percent compared to the same quarter a year. The...
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And just like that, it's a wrap. Motorola's parts weren't all suitable to Google's future needs, but it was clearly an all-or-nothing ordeal back when the purchase went down. Now, Arris is taking Motorola Home's cable and internet businesses away from Google, and it's likely a win-win. The company this week announced...
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