Comcast drops anvil on Time Warner in Minneapolis
In July it was announched that 205,000 TW subscribers in Minnesota (including 78,000 subscribers in Minneapolis, 120,000 more in the suburbs) will be gobbled up by cable giant Comcast as part of Adelphia’s bankruptcy deal, and the continual trend of media centralization across the country.
According to the Biz Journal: “The City of Minneapolis had a long-running dispute with Time Warner Cable, and had raised some objections to the Comcast swap, but gave its blessing to the change in service on July 20.” A
As a current TW subscriber I got a letter telling me about the takeover last week, and as a former Comcast customer, I’m not happy.
I know some have had problems with Time Warner, but personally I’ve had huge issues with Comcast and since moving from the St. Paul to the Minneapolis side of town, have greatly enjoyed our Time Warner cable and partner Roadrunner Internet.
Looks like the leadership in the metro has left us little room for complaint by encouraging the monopoly. In fact, the Pioneer Press says: “…so now Comcast, which serves 350,000 homes in St. Paul and two-thirds of the metro area, is poised to inherit every cable franchise around the Twin Cities, save for a handful, such as Apple Valley and Lakeville, served by Charter Communications, and a ring around Lake Minnetonka served by Mediacom.” (note: I had Mediacom in Des Moines before moving here, and they’re just as bad as Comcast).
My worries about the takeover? Price, channels, speed and customer service.
For the price I was paying for basic cable and internet in St. Paul with Comcast, I now have a DVR, tons of channels and internet with TW. I’m actually most concerned about losing Current TV, the user-generated video channel who often air footage from Minnesota filmmakers, or I’m worried I’ll have to subscribe to the Platinum package to get it. I called Time Warner Customer Service, but they said they don’t have any details to share at this time.
So for now, we just have the internet to research video of sleeping Comcast techs and Consumerists’ chronicle of Comcast customer service woes and inexplicable service outages to help us feel better about the switch. (hat tip: 19th Floor).
Wow. I just can’t wait to wait on hold for 45 minutes to find out what fun TV options await!
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I’ve heard nothing but bad things about Comcast.
My rental company has their own communications company, and they have some sort of deal with Time Warner for internet and Dish for satellite. So I’m getting a discounted rate on my internet right now. I wonder how this will impact it. I’d ask them about it, but I got my first 6 months free when I moved in, and they haven’t started charging me for internet after those 6 months ended, so I’ll just wait and see what they say.
Comcast’s customer service is atrocious. We’ve taken over the bills at my husband’s deceased grandpa’s house, and it took us *five months* to get them to understand that the guy had died, which included following their whole process of submitting a form and death certificate, etc. And it took us just as long to get them to switch his auto pay to regular bills, switch that to auto pay, and switch THAT to regular paper billing when they stopped sending us bills but didn’t automatically charge us.
I feel bad for y’all who are being forced into their system.
I am sure that for every Comcast horror story, there is a Time Warner horror story. They both seem to me me just like every other phone, internet or cable provider I have ever had to deal with. You get the hard sell at first, asking you to buy every service they have, and usually from someone who doesn’t even work directly for the company. Then, the second you have any kind of problem with your bill, it is on you to prove that the company screwed up, or that the salesperson told you one thing and ordered another.
I had Comcast when I lived in Maryland, and customer service was terrible. The waits for service — both on the phone and in person — were extremely long, well over 30 minutes every time. So when I heard I was going to be forced back to Comcast, I was worried. I am hoping that the service will be better in the midwest than it was on the east coast.
I will say I liked Comcast’s internet service better than Road Runner. MUCH more online storage (20 Mb/account, 5 accounts/household = 100 Mb) than RR (5 Mb/household, then you can buy more).
The only advantage — I’ll get my old e-mail address back.
Paul, man! You need a Gmail account. Using an ISP’s e-mail address is SO 1998. Gmail has 2 gigs of storage and you don’t have to change e-mail addresses when another media giant swallows your current company (or you move). As for my experience with Comcast cable internet, we had to reboot/power cycle the cable modem about once a week, and I haven’t had to power cycle the Roadrunner modem once in 6 months. Let me know if you want a Gmail invite (or use the cell phone text message feature to invite yourself). -G.
With Comcast taking over, at least we will now have the NFL Network in Minneapolis. Time Warner was not willing to pony up the money and/or make the NFL Network a part of the lower tier programming. They want to pay less for broadcast rights, yet charge users extra by making it a premium sports channel. The other four major cable networks have paid for the rights and added the channel to their lower tier packages. Plus, they are attempting to remove NFL Network from Adelphia and Comcast markets it will be taking over. At this point, a federal judge has blocked this move. Considering that there are now 18 games on the NFL Network this season with the new TV rights package, it is a shame that a town with one of the 32 franchises could potentially not be able to see games in their own market.