Time Warner

A few months ago, in order to get some of my monthly costs under control, I went to Time Warner and exchanged the second DVR I had for a regular cable box and cancelled HBO which together saved me $21 per month. I tried pairing my bill down further but the packages are basically $130 for the channels you actually want or otherwise $29 for channels 2,4, 7 and 11 plus dial-up speed internet. They make it so difficult to save money because all these channels come in packages with unrelated channels, so I may not want the Hallmark channel but it happens to be bundled in with ESPN, I may opt out of the Oprah channel but that also would mean I lose CNN.


So after tightening my belt my Time Warner bill went from $130 to $109, so a nice $21 savings. Getting rid of the 2nd DVR box wasn't difficult as it served a TV which we go weeks without turning on but losing HBO was slightly more difficult as I fondly remember the shows of my youth including Dream On and First and 10 as well as favorites like the Sopranos, Carnival and Real Sport but I had gone months without even turning to channels 201-208 and I figured that I could try going without it for a while.

A few months later, I can happily say that I don't miss either service and the $21 monthly savings is nothing to sneeze at...nothing till I got a notice in the mail that my normal monthly service had increased in price and that I would be looking at a bill of $130 instead of the $109 I have been paying, an increase of $21 per month in fees. I was suspicious but didn't say much but I was mostly annoyed because there literally is no other option for me when it comes to cable-service since TimeWarner has a 100% monopoly on cable-service in my neighborhood, FIOS is not available and our building doesn't allow for satellite dishes so they have me over a wheel-barrel and I have no recourse.

I was annoyed especially because my $21 savings had vanished into thin-air but didn’t think much about it until a coworker told me that he recently returned a cablebox for a TV he wasn't using and saved $6 a month on his bill. Well not a week later, Time Warner called him to offer a package of Starz and Skinemax for...you guessed it, $6 per month.

My guess is that TimeWarner is instructing its local operators that they cannot lose revenue and that they have to figure a way to account for every penny which means jacking up rates, offering other services or adding hidden fees.

Time for Andrew Cuomo to look into this Soprano type Monopoly.

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