Well, I am a former Direct TV customer and current cable customer. I do work for my local cable company. We just got their new fiber to the home (FTTH) system installed to my house last spring. My company is actually a local telephone/ISP company that has gotten into the cable business when we started our FTTH project two years ago. Telephone, Internet, and TV signals are transmitted via fiber optic cable to each home. The quality is outstanding. Currently we have added about 1200 customers (1st customer was hooked up in December, 2004) and with about 5000 more customers awaiting service once we get the FTTH network build to their homes. We can serve up to 32 customers at one time with all our TV channels, up to 6 MB/sec internet service, and phone service on one fiber line.
I had Direct TV for four years and had excellent service. Picture quality was much better than my old coax cable company. I only had a few times the signal went out because of bad weather. I did not have any HD programming or local channels at the time.
*One note about Direct TV and Dish Network and their “all digital channel” lineup; notice in their commercials they say cable still has analog and not all digital but their system is all “digital quality”. They say “digital quality” because not all their channels are necessarily digital. As of right now most local TV stations not in large areas are most likely still broadcasting an analog signal. Direct TV and Dish convert the analog signals to digital for transmission through their satellites, dishes, and equipment. We do the same thing with our FTTH network. If the signal is calibrated properly one cannot tell the difference between an analog signal and a digital signal.
My cable company offers 71 analog channels on our basic package for $37.95 a month. No cable box is needed.
Our digital package requires a cable box and adds 50 more channels for $54.95 a month. One cable box is included, extras cost $6.95 a month each.
With the cable box we also offer premium channels. 6 HBOs, 8 Cinemax, 12 Showtime, and 13 Starz! channels are available for $11.95 a month per package. We also offer 22 in-demand PPV movie channels.
We have SD DVRs and HD ready cable boxes. I have the first HD DVR box in our system at my home doing testing. Once our management completes the contracts we will have a 12-15 channel tier of HD programming for around $12 a month.
Our main competition in our area is Direct TV and Dish. We have taken many customers from local coax cable companies like Charter. Many satellite customers have said once their contract runs out they will switch over to us. They already have our phone and internet service and eventually want their TV on the same bill.
I do wish the management would reduce or drop our DVR service charge of $7.95 a month. We have only about 20-30 DVR customers. Most customers that take the DVRs have traded them in saying the service charge was not worth it. But for now the management is looking at trying to get some revenue back after spending over $15 million in the last three years for the FTTH program. It is also difficult to negotiate with the TV networks to get a low distribution cost when we don’t have many customers yet. Most of our contracts rest on potential customers instead of current customer levels. Direct TV, Dish, Charter, Comcast, Cox, and other large TV providers already have the high customer count that the networks want.
Currently I work in the telephone engineering office, but I do answer customer tech questions regarding our TV service. Some of the questions I have been asked by customers would get laughed at on this forum. Just last week I had a customer with a new 55” HD RPTV and surround sound system that could not get sound out of the right speakers. He was blaming us for the problem. The problem turned out was an incorrect installation from the store he bought the TV and surround system from. Then I had to calm him down after his anger turned towards the store. “I had to pay them $200 to set all of this up, and they did it wrong?” he said. I feel sorry for him.
I am trying to work myself in the TV head end engineering dept.
