| Name |
Views and Comments | Date |
| James Torrence |
If you're going to leave these type of comparison articles up you need to update them. Very little of the general information in this article is still accurate and most of the specifics are completely wrong.
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4/16/2008 |
| jon j |
Well, it all depends on your location and wethear. during rough winters seem that cable is much better |
12/24/2007 |
| Andy |
I must say I have to question some of the points in the article. I have had satellite and cable, and I will go with cable almost every time. I have never lost my reception due to weather and I think I have only had one cable outage that lasted for less than an hour in the two years I have had cable television. Satellite on the other hand I have lost my picture anytime a strong wind has blown. Also my installation costs were much higher when I had my satellite services installed because I had to pay for a pole to put the dish on, and the installer charged me to run the cables for the dish in my attic and through my walls. I already had those cables in place but was told how incredible the television was with satellite so I paid the price. That was the biggest mistake I think I have ever made because whenever I had to call customer service for a problem I was calling India. With my cable company I was calling somebody located in my same state at least. Also when a hurricane blew through and my dish was knocked out of alignment I had to pay somebody $50.00 to come and realign my dish. The technician couldn't come out for 3 weeks after the storm. I think that's completely unacceptable. The final straw for me was when I wanted to get a dvr and the satellite company wanted to charge me $299 for the box when I could get one from the cable company for a small monthly charge. What the satellite company failed to tell me was that after I paid the $299 for the dvr I would also have to pay $5.99 for the service. With my cable I pay a flat rate of $6.95 for the dvr and I didn't have to pay anything up front. I also didn't have to pay for my installation and my installation technician came during my appointment which was only a 2 hour window instead of a 4 hour window. Also with cable I get more premium channels and more options for video on demand. |
8/6/2007 |
| Ursula Russo |
Could you please discuss the comparison of having TV, internet and phone with cable vs. no phone line (DSL for internet) , and satellite TV? Pros and Cons |
6/19/2007 |
| 1person |
this is not true I work for a cable company, I will not disclose the name but they provide grate service and we do all free installations. Plus theres no contracts. no hidden fees or penalty fees for leaving the company like the satellite services over all its my personal opinion, that I would never in a billion years would ever go to the sat. service. NOT EVEN IF IT WAS FREE! |
4/11/2007 |
| sean |
I agree that for general quality Satellite has a slight advantage, but what about "On Demand"?....at least 25% of our TV viewing is "On Demand".
How can anyone make a comparison and overlook this feature? I would switch today if satellite had "On Demand"...but until then...No way. |
2/15/2007 |
| SimonMonty |
Personally, i prefer cable TV. The quality is better, and its more reliable. I don't have to worry about a bad signal or fuzzy channels. Like, i was watching Help Me Help You last Tuesday (9:30 PM EST on ABC) and it was raining pretty hard. I didn't have any problems, the show never went out or anything. |
10/29/2006 |
| Clint |
Thanks for this unbiased view comparing Cable to Satellite TV. I have done comparisons of my own as far as price, which I found to be an area that is not as complete as it could be in your article. The major providers use that as a selling point and I have found that they are pretty comparable for the same programming and number of TVs in the home. Some difference, but not as significant as they try to lead you to believe. Also, if you just want basic (non-digital) cable, most TVs these days can just be hooked up to the cable, where with satellite TV, their low-sounding price doesn't include the fact that you HAVE to have a receiver, for a montly fee, to get anything, AND that you can't record one channel while watching another as you can with standard cable... a reason to me to have a VCR in the first place...UNLESS you get a DVR and pay yet another monthly fee for the dual channel capability. That goes for any digital programming from what I understand, but they don't tell you all that up front. Instead, the satellite companies talk about the rising prices of cable (my satellite has increased a few dollars TWICE in the past year), and that sort of thing instead of just selling the merits of their products.
I have a question, though, about reliabilty. You gave numbers...Cable TV outages average 3 to 5% per year and satellite only 1%. I understand that cable outages can occur at the source, or if lines are down, where satellite outages don't happen because of external wiring problems, but does the 1% number for the satellite include average ouages due to weather? One outright LIE the DirecTV people told us before we subscribed was that weather "doesn't really" affect reception. EVERY TIME a storm of any significance comes through our area, we lose the signal. Sometimes, it is just a minor rain storm that does it, too. It's annoying enough that we have considered switching to cable just because of that alone, but are waiting until after we move, since we may end up in a rural area where we can't get cable... the REAL advantage to satellite TV! |
6/5/2006 |
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