I live in an apartment building which, like so many apartment and condo buildings, has limited choices. The apartment faces north, so no satellite. No Fios. So it's cable or over the air. OTA DTV is pretty good here in the DC area. Something like 26 available channels, though I wonder if there's much call for Russian language broadcasts here.

I use cable in the living roon, and have an EyeTV Hybrid hooked up to the Mac for DTV on that device, which also replaces the kitchen TV.

I have a multitude of choices, including FIOS. I use Comcast for internet and TV, and with 2 HD DVRs and the HBO package, I'm paying almost $170 a month, which doesn't include phone. I have no interest in Comcast's VOIP phone service. I've calculated that by switching to FIOS, I can save $40 per month. So why haven't I jumped on it? Because I've had my Comcast email address forever, and I haven't yet come to terms with the hassle of switching it. I keep thinking about it though.

When, if ever, will Ala Carte cable come? We do not need 15 home shopping channels, etc. We use Comcast extreme basic, just the over the air chanels. The only reason we see to switch to Fios is it offers BBC in its basic packagage not extended more $$$ like comcast

Rob,

The list is available here: Aprilhttp://www22.verizon.com/about/community/va/files/VAFTTPApr07.pdf

Comcast makes you pay a monthly fee for their digital recorder. They also have an extra fee for the HD channels.

They also display their prices online (www.comcast.com), but you have to enter your address.

Rob, I think you're mistaken about #5. I've had DirecTV for 2 years now (and loving it). Last year we bought an HD flat panel, and thus had to upgrade from the standard DVR (which we bought and own) to an HD DVR. We initially shelled out $500 for one - meaning it was ours, we own it - but then a week later we got an offer in the mail for a free HD DVR if we once again subscribed to Sunday Ticket. I was going to do that anyway so I called up DirecTV and they graciously refunded our $500 and gave us the free DVR instead - which we don't own. My rationale is that I would rather not own a piece of equipment that will be obsolete in a few years, and "lease" one for free that they will fix/replace if it breaks.

I think you're wrong though about having to pay for one you don't own unless you just mean there's normally a small monthly fee for a lease outside of the deal I got. You still have the option though of going to Best Buy and buying your own DirecTV DVR which is yours to keep if that's what you want.

I live in a condo, too, so FIO's is probably out and Dish is definitely out. I have Comcast Digital for TV service and Verizon for phone and Internet. Comcast is ridiculously expensive and gives me way more channels than I would ever want or watch, but I love HBO and all the HDTV-explotation channels and the dual-tuner DVR. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the arrangement.

I have had Directv for almost 8 years now but I am dropping them for FIOS which is cheaper and I get more channels. Directv customer service has become worse than the old Media general but what really pissed me off was when they called to offer me $10 off my bill a month for 6 months for being a good customer. The CSr failed to inform that this deal would require keeping Directv for a year. After I found out I spent 11hrs 17 minutes over four days trying to drop it. I was cursed at by Directv CSRs and hung up on. Finally I got the deal rescinded at the cost of $10 a month. I had to fax the fools a copy of my small claims suit. FIOS is coming tomorrow to install the TV and upgrade my DSl to FIOS internet. Shame Directv used to have the best customer service. The quality of the picture and sound has gone down the toilet. More outages as a result of rain and snow storms and pix and sound quality has declined. I save $10 a month with FIOS TV and get Showtime thrown in. Directv doesnt offer MASN 2 BTW. So no NATS games

Count me in as one of the people who cancelled their Comcast cable subscription when they started jacking up their prices in our area from $45 to $60 for the basic cable package in 2004. I signed up for Netflix, and have never been happier.

My criteria are pretty much the same as yours, Rob, although I'd add a desire not to receive garbagy channels like Nickelodeon which will pollute my kids' minds.

At present we have only $15 bare-bones Verizon DSL plus (free) OTA HDTV. FIOS is available to us, but the thought of paying $80/month for good bandwidth plus lots of channels isn't too appealing.

Now that my small house addition is complete, I might have a clear view to the southwest and would consider reinstalling DISH ... the last time I made the mistake of letting them install in December, and our reception was overcome with foliage by June.

What I really want is just slightly better network bandwidth (say, 1.5Mbps) so that I can download Netflix movies, and a la carte MASN and HBO. And I'd be glad to pay (say) $50/month for these two things. But I don't think that I'll have the opportunity to do so anytime soon.

BTW, one nice thing about DISH is that you can buy some services a la carte. We had HBO a la carte for a while, for a total of $20/month. A good deal when the satellite dish could "see" the satellite.

I wonder when MASN and HBO will market directly to viewers over the internet rather than through cable+satellite providers.

Some great comments here. My thoughts:

* I'd love to see HBO sell its shows on iTunes or some other online store--but I suspect their subscriptions would plummet as a result.

* Thanks for the Fios-deployment link. They're getting closer to my street, but they're still not here yet. (That doesn't mean I won't see a Verizon truck roll down my block the day after I sign up for a year of service with a competing provider.)

* You can pay money for a DirecTV DVR at Best Buy, but that doesn't mean you own anything afterwards. As the fine print on Best Buy's site explains: "RECEIVERS ARE AT ALL TIMES PROPERTY OF DIRECTV."

- RP

FYI - DirecTV does offer MASN2 on channel 671.

I have DirecTV with Tivo DVR that I got for free when I signed up. I'm hesitant to switch to any other TV that doesn't offer dual tuning recording with a GUI as slick as Tivo. If money wasn't an object I get Comcast paired with an HD Tivo and 2 cable cards.

That said I'll most likely switch to FiOS once it comes down my street.

Ah, sorry for the misinformation and thanks for correcting me Rob...

That aside, I will say I've had the exact opposite experience of 2:49 PM. I've found DirecTV's customer service to be extremely responsive and helpful when I've had questions, and the one time I had a problem - the installer got a flat and had to reschedule our HD upgrade - they gave us a 6-month $20 credit and free HD package for 4 months. In the two years we've had it, we've lost our signal exactly 1 time, for about 2 hours, when we had a very heavy wet snow in Feb. 2006. As far as signal quality, I have a 42" 1080 TV and I don't notice any difference of quality between the dish HD channels and the over-air HD channels which are strong around my area (Arlington VA).

Then again, I was used to dealing with Comcast for 6 years prior where our signal would go out more like once every month or two, there would be errors in our billing, and I could count on blood boiling conversations with their customer service more like 3 or 4 times/year, so I guess just about anything would be better than that.

I'd add another criteria - NO SET TOP BOXES! They just add clutter and complicate integration with whatever consumer electronics I may already have.

Also, 20 minutes of searching turned up no info whatsoever on FIOS in DC. No franchise?

So far, thanks to lots of foliage, I have yet to find a better solution than COMCAST's analog cable and my now somewhat ancient TiVO series one with lifetime subscription, but all that will have to change when I take the HDTV plunge (fortunately, over the air reception in DC is GREAT!).

I was a long time DirecTV customer, over 10 years and when my old HD Tivo died and I called to get a new one the customer service and lies they told completely turned me off. They wanted the dead Tivo, which I bought, mailed returned in order to get the new HD DVR, then when it did show up it was a re-furbished one and didn't work, when I called to get a replacement one that was new, not re-furbished they said it would cost $500. When I cancelled, I still had 8 months left on my agreement, or so I thought. Because I took delivery of the HD DVR they signed me up for a new 2 year contract but never told me about it and tried to charge me $250 to cancel. When you call their billing they take down your info and say they respond in writing, what a joke and they never did. My wife ended up contacting the President of DirecTV to get this resolved. I now have Fios, pay less money, get more channels, love the VOD especially for the Dora episodes that my daughter loves and best of all have incredible picture quality. On both SD and HD stations, it blows away DirecTV. The DVR isn't as feature rich as my old HD DirecTV TIVO but it's good enough and I heard he new software upgrade that is coming this month will be a great improvement. I am very please with FIOS TV and internet.

And in other news, my prediction for the Nats game is looking all too accurate. Sigh...

- RP

I had DirecTV for over 10 years and their customer service has gotten so bad I dropped them for FIOS and am extremely happy. I get more channels that I like for less money and the picture quality blows DirecTV away both SD and HD picture quality is far and away better. My only complaint is that the HD DVR doesn't have the same features I was used to with my HD DirecTV Tivo but I've heard the new software that is rolling out this month will improve things. I would highly recommned FIOS is it's available or will be in your area.

Best of luck to those that got FIOS (really, I'm not being snide) - as I said I haven't had any bad experiences you describe with DirecTV yet, and hope I don't. Given that Verizon's track record around here is about on par with Comcast in customer satisfaction though, I'll be waiting in the wings for awhile to see what the verdict is.

Rob - a refresh on what progress Verizon is making with FIOS TV regulatory approval in each area would be very interesting. I've seen nothing yet on FIOS in DC at all :(

Just don't depend on your FIOS-fed phone next power outage.
Your phone will for good a few hours, tops, before the battery fails.

That alone is enough to make me pause.

(They could leave your phone on copper so it didn't need local power
but they won't...)

In the two years since I replaced Comcast with DirecTV, I could not be happier. Every channel I really want, I get, for about half what I was paying Comcast. Cavalier Telephone DSL is a superb substitute for the Comcast Internet "service" (which for some reason spontaneously shut itself down at least once a month, requiring a complicated Rube Goldberg-like rebooting sequence). Plus I got a landline out of the deal, and I am STILL paying less, in total, to DirecTV and Cavtel than I was paying Comcast.

Any ideas on what channels are available via a QAM tuner for Comcast or Cox? You should be able to get unencrypted HD channels from what I know.

To the QAM question, most of the HD channels offered by Comcast are available without a set-top box, despite the customer service reps telling me that you MUST have digital service and a set-top box.

Does anyone know whether FIOS has, or has plans to broadcast Comcast Sporsnet HD? They have the low-def channel already, but to my knowledge, not the HD channel.

I feel like I'm the pickiest/cheapest television/phone/internet customer ever which is probably why I am unhappy.

So to get everything I want I have:
-Cell phone service
-Internet with Comcast which I hate but have on special until the fall. With no phone line DSL is more expensive.
-14.99/month limited Comcast service. Internet is less expensive with cable.
-Downloads of my favorite cable TV shows from iTunes

The City of Alexandria will offer wireless internet to its residents for about $22/month. At that point, with a digital TV picking up signals OTA, I can cut the Comcast cord completely.

My main frustration with Comcast is the channels I liked (Style channel!)disappeared from the basic cable lineup while the price continued to rise. Verizon FIOS appears to have many of those channels I like in its basic lineup so I'd be willing to pay for their service-- if it ever comes to Old Town! Satellite providers also have good channel lineups, but my apartment faces NE.

You are so right! I got Comcast to watch a single program on the Sci Fi channel. Comcast raised their rates at least twice in the 15 months I subscribed. I don't need Spanish or children's or sports programming. I noticed after about a year that there was a lot of repetition on the non-OTA channels. If you look at the TV listings in the daily WP, new shows are in bold text- there are VERY few hours of original programming on cable channels. Some of those channels have nothing new at all. The show I subscribed to see is available as a download, so for $40 per season I can get exactly what I want without paying Comcast's exorbitant rates. With the $55 per month I paid for cable, I can buy sets of DVDs of all the shows I could possibly want, with money left over. I don't see a future for cable or satellite. It's like going to the supermarket for milk and being told you have to buy each of all the other items in the store.

As a counter-argument to obsessing over which cable/satellite/fiber provider to pick: Ask yourself why you watch so much TV that this question even matters.
You are a slave to whatever scripted, predictable content that advertisers choose to support. An HD version of garbage is still garbage.

I spend most of my free time with broadband internet or Xbox Live. The internet comes in commercial/spyware-free with an ad-blocker in Firefox and a HOSTS file as a gatekeeper on your PC. It sure beats having to Tivo every single TV commercial.

Playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live with a quarter-million other worldwide gamers is much more fun than vegetating on the couch.

Thus paying for cable was a waste of money. I canceled cable and went back to antenna.

I am envious about the choices you have in the Washington area. I have retired and now live over 300 miles from Washington. I live in WV, which is like living in a third world country where technogoly is concerned. Good luck with your future choices and be thankful that rabbit ears will pick up channels in the Washington area as far away as Baltimore. I fantsize about Web TV maybe being a future saviour for sattilite and cable TV. Thank you and good night.

Don't hold your breath waiting for FIOS TV. I have the FIOS Internet service, so I have the fiber running up to my house in Olney already, and despite it being well past "the end of December", I still cannot get FIOS TV.

"Verizon Receives Franchise Approval to Offer FiOS TV in Montgomery County, Maryland

County Council's Vote to Bring Residents Cable TV Choice, Innovation and Value; Company Plans to Offer FiOS TV to More Than 75,000 Households by End of Year

November 28, 2006

Media Contact:

Harry Mitchell, 304-344-7562
Christy Reap, 202-392-1021

ROCKVILLE, Md. - The long wait will soon be over for Montgomery County residents eager for cable TV competition, thanks to a Montgomery County Council vote today (Nov. 28) authorizing Verizon to offer its fiber-optic powered FiOS TV in the county.

Verizon plans to begin offering FiOS TV by the end of December to more than 75,000 households in parts of the county where it has upgraded to an all-fiber network. The company will announce pricing and packages soon."

I get it, they didn't say what YEAR!