NFL Redzone

[king3pj]

I currently have Spectrum Silver bundled with 60 Mbps internet for $113 after CableCard rental and taxes. I'm happy with this bundle but I want NFL Redzone for football season.

I just called Charter support and it looks like my two options are to upgrade to a Spectrum Gold bundle and get all channels Charter offers for $133 after taxes and fees or add a sports pack that comes with Redzone and a few other channels I don't care about like Tennis and The Outdoor Channel for $125 after taxes and fees.

Seeing that the price difference is only $8 to add the premiums I'm missing (Starz, Epix, Encore, etc) it seems like going with Gold is a better value than adding the sports pack even if it is getting close to my old Dish AT 120+ and Charter internet price of about $145. I guess the consolation is that I am getting a lot more channels for that price now and I will only be paying the extra $20 for about 4 months.

I asked and there doesn't seem to be any promos like Dish's half off multi-sport for $6.50. Has anyone else found a better deal on a Spectrum Gold/internet bundle ($133) or a Spectrum Silver/internet bundle plus NFL Redzone ($125)?

 

[Jhon69]

This is interesting especially the comments:

http://www.techhive.com/article/2975842/streaming-media/how-to-watch-football-without-cable.html


P.S. I have the Gold package.

 

[king3pj]

I ended up just upgrading to the gold package too. It seemed like a better value than going with the sports upgrade.

I am a little disappointed that some of the premiums that come with it aren't in HD, at least in my area. That was one of the things I really liked about switching to Charter after having Dish. All the premiums that were offered in Spectrum Silver were HD while some of those same channels were SD only on Dish.

For example only Epix 1 is in HD. I believe Dish had 3 Epix channels in HD. Also, only some of the Encore channels (I think 4 of them) are HD. This is better than Dish only offering Encore East in HD but I would have liked to have all of them. It might not be a big deal for some but if a movie channel is SD only it may as well not exist in my opinion. I'm not going to record any movies I actually want to watch in SD with only stereo sound. At least all the HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, and Starz channels are HD.

 

[Jhon69]

Where I am at the benefits of cable compared to satellite are:

I get both cities HD locals with cable,I am right in between two cities.

I am getting both east and west feeds from the cable channels.

I am getting more channels in HD with cable compared to satellite.

Cable's Gold package which is their Everything package is only $99.99.

Charter cable internet is 10 times faster than the DSL I can get.

Charter Voice is priced way below the other Home Phone provider I can get which is AT&T.

Charter also lists 2 digital tier packages priced at $12. each for those who might not want alot of channels.

Charter's HDDVR provides a 1080p/60 picture on all channels

Charter cable channels are Dolby Digital 5.1.

 

[Jhon69]

Where I am at the benefits of cable compared to satellite are:

I get both cities HD locals with cable,I am right in between two cities.

I am getting both east and west feeds from the cable channels.

I am getting more channels in HD with cable compared to satellite.

Cable's Gold package which is their Everything package is only $99.99.

Charter cable internet is 10 times faster than the DSL I can get.

Charter Voice is priced way below the other Home Phone provider I can get which is AT&T.

Charter also lists 2 digital tier packages priced at $12. each for those who might not want alot of channels.

Charter's HDDVR provides a 1080p/60 picture on all channels

Charter cable channels are Dolby Digital 5.1.

I need to make a correction to the above post concerning Charter Voice,it has been over 2 months waiting and after talking with 2 Charter CSRs it is possible Charter Voice maybe not coming to my area.

So after researching I found that AT&T has a Wireless Home service for $20. and it is Unlimited and Nationwide access,so we signed up for 2 yrs for that service and got the base unit for free.

 

[king3pj]

I need to make a correction to the above post concerning Charter Voice,it has been over 2 months waiting and after talking with 2 Charter CSRs it is possible Charter Voice maybe not coming to my area.

So after researching I found that AT&T has a Wireless Home service for $20. and it is Unlimited and Nationwide access,so we signed up for 2 yrs for that service and got the base unit for free.

I know you didn't want to pay the up front fee but I really think Ooma is a better choice. My parents had been paying about $30 for Vonage for almost 10 years before I finally convinced them to switch to Ooma. I bought them an Ooma box from Amazon for $90 and paid the $40 fee to port their old number over. With Ooma you only pay the government phone fees so their bill is $4.23. By saving about $25 per month it only took them a little over 5 months for the box to pay for itself. Every month after that is a significant savings. Even with your cheaper AT&T wireless home phone it would take you 9 months for Ooma to be the better deal.

Vonage was very reliable. As long as they had internet their phone worked. They have had Ooma for over a year now though and it's just as reliable. The only real difference I can see between the two voice services is that Ooma is much cheaper. Vonage used to be a good savings for them with unlimited long distance vs traditional phone lines but their prices have crept up while the traditional lines also added unlimited long distance and lowered their prices.

I know this isn't available to you but I would not recommend Charter Voice either. We have several lines with Charter Voice at our office since leaving a terrible AT&T phone and internet bundle that cost more for slower speeds. While the call quality and features are the same or better than AT&T reliability has been a problem. In the 2 years or so since we switched to Charter we have lost phone service for almost an entire day 4 or 5 times. That may not seem like that much over 2 years but when you make and receive as many business calls as we do on a daily basis it really is. Especially because when the phone is down it doesn't even redirect our calls to voicemail.

I will probably never have a landline in my house because cellular is good enough for me. For anyone who does need/want one I don't think I would recommend anything besides Ooma at this point.

 

[Jhon69]

I know you didn't want to pay the up front fee but I really think Ooma is a better choice. My parents had been paying about $30 for Vonage for almost 10 years before I finally convinced them to switch to Ooma. I bought them an Ooma box from Amazon for $90 and paid the $40 fee to port their old number over. With Ooma you only pay the government phone fees so their bill is $4.23. By saving about $25 per month it only took them a little over 5 months for the box to pay for itself. Every month after that is a significant savings. Even with your cheaper AT&T wireless home phone it would take you 9 months for Ooma to be the better deal.

Vonage was very reliable. As long as they had internet their phone worked. They have had Ooma for over a year now though and it's just as reliable. The only real difference I can see between the two voice services is that Ooma is much cheaper. Vonage used to be a good savings for them with unlimited long distance vs traditional phone lines but their prices have crept up while the traditional lines also added unlimited long distance and lowered their prices.

I know this isn't available to you but I would not recommend Charter Voice either. We have several lines with Charter Voice at our office since leaving a terrible AT&T phone and internet bundle that cost more for slower speeds. While the call quality and features are the same or better than AT&T reliability has been a problem. In the 2 years or so since we switched to Charter we have lost phone service for almost an entire day 4 or 5 times. That may not seem like that much over 2 years but when you make and receive as many business calls as we do on a daily basis it really is. Especially because when the phone is down it doesn't even redirect our calls to voicemail.

I will probably never have a landline in my house because cellular is good enough for me. For anyone who does need/want one I don't think I would recommend anything besides Ooma at this point.

I agree that cellular is good enough for me also and that is what the AT&T wireless home phone is also,I just did not want to use my broadband for phone so that ruled out ooma or vonage,plus I like free things too!.

 

[Spike]

Charter Voice is priced way below the other Home Phone provider I can get which is AT&T.

Ooma is the only way to go, when considering price and features for a Home Phone Service. It is by far the best option out there. Charter's pricing and features don't stand a chance compared to Ooma. And its not even close! Now, if I were getting something for a business, it would be something like AT&T, since as was posted, you can't afford to have no phone service at all for an entire day. And Ooma is an internet dependent phone service.

 

[king3pj]

Ooma is the only way to go, when considering price and features for a Home Phone Service. It is by far the best option out there. Charter's pricing and features don't stand a chance compared to Ooma. And its not even close! Now, if I were getting something for a business, it would be something like AT&T, since as was posted, you can't afford to have no phone service at all for an entire day. And Ooma is an internet dependent phone service.

My problem with Charter voice at our office is that each time it went out for nearly an entire day Charter Internet was still working. In fact, I can't remember a single time when our internet has gone down. The cable and electric lines are underground where our office is. The downtime on the phones just doesn't make sense.

 

[Spike]

My problem with Charter voice at our office is that each time it went out for nearly an entire day Charter Internet was still working. In fact, I can't remember a single time when our internet has gone down. The cable and electric lines are underground where our office is. The downtime on the phones just doesn't make sense.

Charter is not nearly as reliable here as it is with you there.

 

[EarDemon]

The issue I have with these third party VoIP services is QOS.

At work, we opened up one regional satellite office, with two more set to come on line by the end of the year. Each office has/will have three employees. At the first office I have Comcast’s 16 x 3 business class internet and the powers that be decided to use Ring Central for voice. They like how easy it will be to integrate the three offices since they are geographically located thousands of miles apart. If I get a call from someone in the satellite office that is currently open, and have to remote into their computer to take care of an issue, and it requires a larger download, the phone turns to garbage. It’s nothing but garbled digital breakup due to packet loss when I max out the connection. All network devices go through a security appliance that was provided and maintained by our corporate HQ in Europe so the satellite office has a direct connection to be able to use web based applications hosted over there that aren’t on the public internet, and they refuse to give me the password for the GUI so I can attempt to configure QOS.

At our main location, we have our own PBX being fed by a PRI running over Time Warner Cable’s (now Charter) fiber service and have never had an issue. The quality, especially on international calls, is much better than we had Windstream’s PRI over copper, which was just them reselling Verizon’s services. At home, my TWC Digital phone is superb.

 

[IcEWoLF]

Charter Voice was the worst, had them for about 6 months and switched to vonage and never looked back. They accidentally cut the cord at my house back in the day, took them 48 hours to send someone to fix it, to me thats unacceptable especially since the phone service is a must incase of emergency.

 

[Jhon69]

I need to make a correction to the above post concerning Charter Voice,it has been over 2 months waiting and after talking with 2 Charter CSRs it is possible Charter Voice maybe not coming to my area.

So after researching I found that AT&T has a Wireless Home service for $20. and it is Unlimited and Nationwide access,so we signed up for 2 yrs for that service and got the base unit for free.

Maybe I am going to have to eat my words,on my Charter Spectrum Cable Arris Motorola HDDVR I noticed today that I can now view my account in my apps section,also have a channel package upgrade button and a caller ID button,

so it would seem that Charter Spectrum cable is indeed going to bring out Charter Voice in my area.I may have to subscribe just for the on screen caller ID feature.

 

[Juan]

Maybe I am going to have to eat my words,on my Charter Spectrum Cable Arris Motorola HDDVR I noticed today that I can now view my account in my apps section,also have a channel package upgrade button and a caller ID button,

so it would seem that Charter Spectrum cable is indeed going to bring out Charter Voice in my area.I may have to subscribe just for the on screen caller ID feature.

The caller ID thingy has been around forever on satellite

Sent from my SM-G920V using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[Jhon69]

The caller ID thingy has been around forever on satellite

Sent from my SM-G920V using the SatelliteGuys app!

Yes I had satellite since 2002,but no more.