Gonna take the plunge

After careful review of the services and benefits offered by both AT&T and Cox Communications, it looks like we will more than likely switch to AT&T for our communication and media services.

With Cox, we are paying through the nose for about 70 channels of TV plus the local High Def channels (well, the big three anyway, CBS, ABC and NBC). With AT&T we can pay through the nose for 200 channels of television, plus local High Def channels (including FOX - I can't wait to see Jack Bauer kick the crap out of some tangos in HD!), plus several other HD channels (a Kung Fu movie channel in HD - who knew there was a market for that?).

Also, the internet from AT&T is about $10/month less, and we will get a discount on our Cingular phone service.

Downside is....$50 setup fee for the Dish network, and $70 for a new DSL modem/wireless router combo. That's $120 smackers. But there are some pretty good limited time discounts which should make up for that part of if.

Oh, and we'll be getting HBO and Showtime - which we don't currently have, but have to get before Soprano's start up again.





Technorati Tags: ATT, Cox, Television, Broadband, Phone

Looking for a change

We currently have our cell phones with Cingular (family plan...natch). Our home phone, television and Internet is through COX communications. I'm getting kind of tired of COX.

They block ports on the Internet so I can't hook up with my SQL server from outside, and I can't run a web page from my home (well, I can, if I put it on a different port - but that just doesn't work for me).

In addition, they have bandwidth limits. One can only have so many bytes incoming and so many bytes outgoing per month. Yet they give do not give one a way to check their usage and make adjustments if necessary.

I'm seriously thinking of switching to ATT for all of our television and communication needs. According to their website, we can get DSL at 3Mbsfor less that what I'm paying COX for (supposedly) 3.5Mbs (but I rarely, according to DSLReports.com) get more than 2Mbs).

My only concern is local High-Def channels. I don't think we will get those with the satellite and might have to fork over some $$$ for a High-Def antennae - and maybe a receiver? I'm not 100% certain on how all of that would work. I spent a good hour over the last weekend poking around ATT website, but couldn't for the life of me find a phone number to call so I could get some answers.


Technorati Tags: Television, Internet, Cell Phone Service, COX Communications, ATT, Phone Service