Who has the smallest cable lineup in their city? (...or the biggest case for a dish)

[NGeorge]

Hey All;

I was with a group of friends today, and the topic of TV came up--one of them said their parents were from Mineral, WA (a beautiful small town in the hills, btw) and that they literally only get a handful of very snowy channels from Comcast for $65 per month... I figured I'd take a look online tonight, and sure enough that town is literally the land that Comcast forgot--this is directly from their web site, zip code 98355. No internet, no phone, no digital cable, no HD--but all the premium channels are there, and I bet each one is $12+ per month!

2 HBO Movies
4 KOMO (ABC) Local
5 KING (NBC) Local
6 SHOWTIME Movies
7 KIRO (CBS) Local
9 KCTS (PBS) Local
10 STARZ Movies
11 KSTW (CW) Children & Family
12 FOX NEWS CHANNEL News & Info
13 KCPQ (FOX) Local
14 ENCORE Movies
15 AMC Movies
16 FSN NORTHWEST Sports
17 CNN News & Info
18 USA NETWORK Children & Family
19 TNT Lifestyle
20 DISCOVERY CHANNEL News & Info
21 ESPN Sports
22 ABC FAMILY Children & Family
98 ANIMAL PLANET Children & Family
99 SPIKE TV Lifestyle

I had thought that Comcast had upgraded the majority of their systems by now--that one isn't even 35 channels! There used to be a number of smaller local/quasi local companies that had smaller systems for small towns, but they all went belly up around 2000 and got conversion deals with D* or E*--I'm assuming that Mineral must have been former TCI that AT&T never did anything with and now Comcast has it still limping along.

SO, let's start a thread: Since cable seems to be rivaling the dish more and more, who out there still has a cable system that is truly this bad, that even the worst dish package blows it away? I'm just curious how many 20 channel systems there are left out there--and even better, how expensive they still are. To be honest if D* offered a small basic package like this, but with HD and the multiplexes of all the premiums for $65, I'd probably go for it.

--Nat

 

[Mr Tony]

damn thats pretty high price. But I can beat that......easily

Got a buddy who has a cabin in Northern MN in a place called Remer. He's outside of the "cable" area but he did check with the Telco (who does everything) and was floored at it
12.00 a month and they bill you for 3 months at a time. Here is the channel list

2 TNT
3 CNN
4 WGN
5 TBS
6 KARE (NBC)
7 ABC FAMILY
8 ESPN
9 KAWE (PBS)
10 DISCOVERY
11 FS NORTH
12 KCCW (CBS)
13 WDIO (ABC)
15 USA

14 USE to be FoxNet (yes the same Foxnet in areas where there was no Fox near there). I dont know if they have a Fox station or not. I'll have him check
looked at an OTA list (tvfool) and there is a translator station that has Fox about 30 miles away. Maybe they have that now
zap2it doesnt show anything. By the way here is the site
JTC Companies - Johnson Telephone Company

I use to call it a "G5" cable system...on the old C-Band system almost all those channels (sans the locals) were on one satellite (G5). FS North was the only one that wasnt

 

[xtgold]

Comcast in ct had a "senior plan" that is channel 3-22 and just covers the locals and spanish channels.
$17 which works out to almost $1 per channel.

 

[Mr Tony]

alot of areas do that. Here in Minneapolis its "lifeline" which is 2-23 and 96-99 which is pretty much the locals/public access for $15 a month

The OP is saying thats ALL they can get on cable...I posted that too. Thats all you can get with cable

actually the cable here for lifeline is cool because you get TBS, WGN & CNN in that.

 

[xtgold]

The 1st cable company in town used inferior 600mhz? cable and it was set up where you used the tuner on your tv.
Later on another company upgraded the cable,when they went down our street I was heading out on a 2 week vacation.
I got back and no cable tv.They failed to connect my line properly and theoretically I had no tv for 2 weeks.
I still got billed for those 2 weeks and they said the bill would only be adjusted from the time I called to the time I got
cable back.That was the beginning of my battles with cable companies.

 

[Gib4500]

My area is pretty sad as far as cable tv as well. Crystal broadband networks owns this area. Although they do offer internet and somewhat low end sd lineup, they have yet to have any hd channels. they charge 55 a month for basic extended. I think it's pretty sad when at this point a cable company offers zero hd channels at all!!!

 

[NGeorge]

What I think is amazing about example I first posted is that it is a *Comcast* system for an entire town--I thought Comcast had a company-wide initiative to upgrade all their systems to fiber by like 2007?

I remember up until 2000 a number of towns had 35 channel systems that were pre-Comcast--AT&T had added a few digital cable options & internet where they could (it was pretty pathetic)--but then when Comcast bought AT&T they went on a massive fiber installation binge and did MAJOR upgrades.

Before we convinced him to go to D*, my uncle had a small company called Computel Cable (I believe they were an offshoot of Broadstripe/Millenium) that had a large number of very small towns/areas in Washington -- 30 channels for $34 + $12 for (each) Movie Channel & Showtime (no other premiums).... but that company closed down around 2002 and struck a deal with E* to convert everyone over.

--Nat

 

[Mr Tony]

What I think is amazing about example I first posted is that it is a *Comcast* system for an entire town--I thought Comcast had a company-wide initiative to upgrade all their systems to fiber by like 2007?

not necessarily. If they recently purchased the cable franchise, it may be a while.

 

[Bodo Fenrirsson]

When I was in the army & stationed in California at Ft. Irwin(north of Barstow) in 1983/84,the only way we could get TV at all was through Cable. The cable was hooked up to the TV without a set top box & we only got the LA stations you could get OTA plus ESPN,USA Network,& the (then) CBN Channel. The only premium channel they offered was HBO. Today,Ft. Irwin offers DIRECTV through MDU Communications.

 

[Cooper Witter]

13 channels