Saturday, December 19, 2009

Goodbye Time Warner

When Yuna was born, we splurged and got not only cable TV, but also a DVR to boot. Combined with our existing high-speed access, the addition of these two services landed us with a monthly bill of well over a $100 to Time Warner. DVR was wonderful (and useful for keeping some 20+ episodes of Dora on hand).

When we moved to Albany, Time Warner made us close our New York account and open a new one in Albany. They also provided us with a new cable box. The interface of this new box was clumsy and frustrating to use. I couldn't understand why they simply didn't keep the same interface from the New York one, but they were still in the "testing" phase.

Today, I returned my cable box, remote and all accessories to the local Time Warner store and kept only my internet access (total bill including taxes and BS fees: $49.99), knocking my bill by more than half. I was inspired by this recent article in the Times about people getting their TV content directly from the Web.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/technology/personaltech/10basics.html?_r=1&em

I have also been actively bidding on Mac Mini's on ebay. I wonder if this article has increased the bidding activity on Mac Mini's, or conversely taken a toll on the business of Time Warner? I am beginning to think that charging customers an odd C-note monthly to provide a single purpose hard drive (DVR) is an outdated business model. The computer has a hard drive and an internet connection, so as long as the content is available online, there is no reason to have a dedicated, expensive and clumsy box sitting there costing me money every month.

I also set up my Airport Extreme and external hard disk tonight, something I've been procrastinating on for the past month. My MacBook is finally backing up via Time Machine (sorry about all the Mac-speak), and I have a wireless network name and password that is personal again (versus the machine generated network name and password that Time Warner's wireless router assigned). I feel a little more at home now.

No comments:

Post a Comment