Jury: Cox Violated Antitrust Laws

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Even though $6 million isn't a lot of money to a huge company like this, I have no doubt that Cox will appeal this jury verdict.

Should you be forced to be required to pay your cable company extra money for a set-top box in order to get cable TV service you’re already paying for? According to a federal jury in Oklahoma, which recently returned a $6.31 million verdict against Cox Communications, the answer is no.
 
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Ya, one box should be free for the lowest service that requires a box and a rental for any extras, higher cable tiers should get additional boxes for free.
 
Oh, and then they have the higher fee for the DVR boxes and then you have to pay a DVR fee on top of that, that one makes no sense.
 
The whole box rental thing needs to be abolished by every company. The service is already expensive enough as-is.
 
Just to add, switched to Roku (Netflix, Hulu and Amazon) over a year ago and couldn't be happier.

Looking forward to trying out the HBO and Showtime channels soon.
 
Zepher said:
Oh, and then they have the higher fee for the DVR boxes and then you have to pay a DVR fee on top of that, that one makes no sense.
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DVR's use two receivers, the second one lets you watch something else while it's recording another. If they didn't charge for it, you could possibly split that into two different rooms for the price of one; that's all they care about.
 
-PK- said:
DVR's use two receivers, the second one lets you watch something else while it's recording another. If they didn't charge for it, you could possibly split that into two different rooms for the price of one; that's all they care about.
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That's in no way a justification of charging extra.

I hope this ruling sticks, I've been complaining about paying a dvr fee + dvr rental for years. Their DVR's (the old scientific atlanta's) were so shitty that it took like 5 of them to get one that worked, and 10 months later that one took a shit. It got to the point I was ready to buy or build my own DVR box and just rent the cable card for $2 a month.
 
GoodBoy said:
That's in no way a justification of charging extra.

I hope this ruling sticks, I've been complaining about paying a dvr fee + dvr rental for years. Their DVR's (the old scientific atlanta's) were so shitty that it took like 5 of them to get one that worked, and 10 months later that one took a shit. It got to the point I was ready to buy or build my own DVR box and just rent the cable card for $2 a month.
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I did that several years ago. Never rented a cable box, and hopefully never will.

I had been using a couple replay TV DVR's, but they where only analog.
So rather than pay for the old horrible DVR's they had at the time, I built a HTPC with a dual tuner card.
That was ok, since we didn't subscribe to any encrypted premium channels, and most the local channels where in open QAM, so at least we could watch some shows in HD.

Couple years later I upgraded to a Ceton cable card tuner, so we could get all the channels in HD, plus record 4 channels at the same time. They originally changed $1/month for the cable card, although it's now $2. Cox keeps sending me notices that I need a mini cable box if I want to be able to watch TV, guess they don't remember what a cable card is for.

Nice thing about building your own DRV, is that upgrades are easy. I recently upgraded to a 4TB drive for the TV recordings. The family likes to collect old TV series for occasional binge watching :)

Now that they switch to all encrypted channels, the older TV's (tubes) don't receive anything. I guess they want me to rent cable boxed for them, but Instead I'm just going to get rid of the TV's since we rarely watch them anyways. Thinking about buying another flat screen and moving the Xbox 360 to it. The Xbox can be used as an extender for media center, so I could use it to watch recorded shows and even live TV through the HTPC.
 
-PK- said:
DVR's use two receivers, the second one lets you watch something else while it's recording another. If they didn't charge for it, you could possibly split that into two different rooms for the price of one; that's all they care about.
Click to expand...

That's what the secretary at my last job did with her sister and DirecTV, got "2 rooms" and her sister bought a dish herself, and wammo, pay $5 more and 2 houses get all the lovely channels.
 
Oh and you're probably paying for the DVR because they need to license the patents from TiVo.
 
If only it came here. I'm already paying for two cable boxes, two remotes, and 1 dvr with Cox, which comes out to ~$40/month, and that's before any channels are included. Also, the DVR "required" a specific package, which shot up my TV bill to ~$80/month. So altogether, just that "basic" package is running me ~$120 month so I can have 2 televisions with cable, and one with DVR.
 
shspvr said:
To bad TiVo suck vs Google Fiber
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But we're talking about COX here, not Google fiber.



but I will add I've gone through 8 Cisco tuning adapters and 3 cable cards in 3 years at my current house with COX. the adapters stop talking to the mother ship after a while. Have to replace them or I get errors on any SDV channel with the Tivo. local QAMs are still fine.
 
az_max said:
But we're talking about COX here, not Google fiber.

but I will add I've gone through 8 Cisco tuning adapters and 3 cable cards in 3 years at my current house with COX. the adapters stop talking to the mother ship after a while. Have to replace them or I get errors on any SDV channel with the Tivo. local QAMs are still fine.
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And what dose Cox have to with TiVo ???

I was comparing Google to TiVo Box here little list of thing I ask about

1: Maximum number of TV Show Favorites one can have.
TiVo Roamio: Unlimited
Dish Network Hopper: 200
DirecTV Genie: 100
Google Fiber: Unlimited

2: Do multi DVR work in tandem as sharing a master list of Favorites and Recording resource by pooling in to a central list for all device.
Another words a main master server with slave device kind like an attached network tuner device
TiVo Roamio: No
Dish Network Hopper: Yes with Super Joey
DirecTV Genie: No
Google Fiber: No

3: Mark TV show as all ready watch in the Guide ? and dose it show up a watch in the TV guide with some kind of icon.
TiVo Roamio: No
Dish Network Hopper: No
DirecTV Genie: No
Google Fiber: Yes

4: Is there an option to delete a TV show and mark it as wrong/bad recording where it can be automatic be rescheduled the show or moive.
TiVo Roamio: No
Dish Network Hopper: No
DirecTV Genie: No
Google Fiber: No

5: Dose the DVR save a data base of previous watch TV show which is very important in keeping track of Frist Runs and ReRuns
TiVo Roamio: No (Only last up to 30 days)
Dish Network Hopper: No (You end up with duplicate recordings even after one day what a joke)
DirecTV Genie: No (Only last up to 30 days)
Google Fiber: Yes

6: Can the DVR save the data base of my Favorites and Previous watch mark TV show that can be exported Online (Cloud) or by USB flash drive for backup
TiVo Roamio: No
Dish Network Hopper: Yes Favorites Only
DirecTV Genie: No
Google Fiber: Yes

7: Apps supported for DLNA/UPnP AV server softwre for Photo, Muisc and Video you know like Emby, Plex, PlayOn and so on.
TiVo Roamio: Yes Plex App
Dish Network Hopper: No App support but has build in Home Media Brower
DirecTV Genie: N/A
Google Fiber: N/A

8: Max Number of Tuner per device
TiVo Roamio: 6
Dish Network Hopper: 3
DirecTV Genie: 5
Google Fiber: 8
 
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