Best cable network TV

[bluescreen73]

Originally Posted by Sandstorm214

I have Uverse now and am pretty happy with it. I had Time Warner before that and it was awful. Had DirecTV before that, but lost the signal every time the wind blew or more than five drops of rain fell. If you value your television during severe weather, as I do, satellite isn't even a viable option.

The problems with UVerse are their crap architecture, their DVR update procedure, and their channel lineup.

We've been on the receiving end of 2 major outages since we signed up in February. A single server failure in May knocked out 80% of their VOIP service nationwide, and a bad DVR software update took out a large chunk of the TV service for up to 8 hours in DFW, Austin, San Antonio, and somewhere in Cali (San Diego or San Fran) in June or July.

Plus the cable setup stinks. You CAN'T fast-forward, pause, and rewind live TV on all the boxes, just the DVR. Say you're laying in bed watching live TV and nature calls, but the DVR box is in the family room, unless you record the program you're screwed.

With our TiVo box we could essentially watch 2 channels at the same time. The TiVo box had 2 inputs on the back and each had a 30 minute record buffer at all times. This meant that we could pause input 1 and watch input 2 for up to 30 minutes without losing our place on input 1. UVerse DVR doesn't have this. It only buffers 1 stream at a time, meaning the instant you change the channel you lose all the data from the previous channel.

The channel lineup is also inferior to the comparable DirecTV plan we had.

Overall I never would have switched had I done a little more homework.

[Moorhen3]

Originally Posted by Jan70

Can someone recommend the best cable TV network service in Dallas? I'm so confused.
And what's this about getting your cable thru the internet?

When you say cable tv what comes to mind is Time Warner cable. I believe they pretty much have a monopoly in this area. Like already mentioned, they have bad reviews and I don't know if anyone would recommend them. So as far as pure cable tv company, then that would be Timer Warner.
The next closest thing would probably be Verizon FIOS. We use Verizon because it has a monopoly on internet service here in our area; thankfully we can use Vonage for our phone service. But because we have Verizon for internet usage, we get almost on a weekly basis their advertisement for getting their tv programming and I think you can also get cell phone service from them so they are trying to get us to sign up for everything and pay just one price.
I agree w/what was mentioned before that if there is a thunderstorm, our satellite reception can be lost but it doesn't always happen; maybe 20 to 30 percent of the time it might get lost.
I'm not technically knowledgeable but suffice it to say that somehow Verizon can use their lines to provide the tv programming and the internet.
I hope you are not so confused anymore.

[DFW/PHL]

i have uverse which is att's version of fios i think

i generally like it but my only problem is kind of a big one- service interruptions are too frequent

[kjackson227]

I've had TWC for years for cable, internet, and phone. They are absolutely awful. My cable in the bedroom goes in and out, and at least once a month my phone and internet will go dead for a day or two. I found this under the city of dallas website. HTH

Moving to Dallas, Texas | Home Phone Service Providers | Cable TV | Allconnect

[jcastill]

I moved to Plano last November and I looked at all my options before signing a contract with any company.

As I said before, I went with Verizon FiOS, one neighbor has Time Warner and his internet is usually VERY slow during peak hours, he has used mine and is impressed that it's always fast.

A friend that lives 3 minutes from my house has DirecTV and AT&T DSL, and he is going to get FiOS next month as well, he has a lot of problems playing online games and with speeds from time to time.

Also, the HD channels from FiOS look better than Time Warner and DirecTV, at the beginning we thought it was because my TV was new, but after some research, it turns out they don't compress the channels and that's why it looks so good.

If possible go with Verizon, I've heard both great and awful stories about AT&T Uverse (it's not available here so I can't say), while Time Warner and DSL/DirecTV/Dish alternatives would be my last choice.

[Squirl]

Another vote here in Irving for Verizon FIOS. Since we signed up over 2 years ago we have never lost service. But I think its kind of expensive....