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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

If TW is anything like Comcast, the bill is only lower until you start adding fees. I have six TVs. 5 additional cable boxes would be $50. Plus the "HD Technology Fee" - $10. Plus the sports access, network access, and various other fees, we would pay about $80 a month just in fees.

That's more than we pay for Netflix, Sling, CBS All Access and Hulu. We also have Amazon Prime.

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If someone is throwing the install kit for TV service into some box for later returning, I doubt they are telling TW "Yeah, I have 5 TVs, all of which are HD. Sure, I'd like to pay an extra $100/month for something I have no intention of watching."

Once you get one set top box that is capable of HD, they charge you the "HD Technology Fee".

Then say you have no hd tv. So, no hd fee. Am I missing something?

Then you don't get an HD capable settop box. So you watch everything in SD?

If you're not connecting the settop box, why do you care if it's SD?

I'm with you but technically it's not apples to apples. With 5 TV set top boxes you can watch on 5 tv's different content. Each of the streaming services you listed have login limitations so to get 5x streams you are paying double to triple service fees.

The Streaming services charge by Concurrent streams

Cable TV is fixed. I have 4 TV's in my home, only watch 1 at a time, rarely 2 may be one at any given time. So I would have to pay for a 2 concurrent stream account. With cable I would have to pay for 4 Boxes 24/7 just for the option of watching TV on them.

I remember the days where you paid for Service to the home, not service per device. then the FCC gave the cable companies a special exemption to allow them to start Encrypting the signal that is when they started to screw people over on the Box fees.

I cant wait for the day the Electric Company can charge be by the outlet, and then start charging me more based on the type of appliance I plug into said outlet

>> then the FCC gave the cable companies a special exemption to allow them to start Encrypting the signal that is when they started to screw people over on the Box fees

Admittedly, I don't mind this because it has drastically improved service availability and quality in my area by stopping people from stealing cable.

Would it matter anyway if it is all digital?

We only have three people in the house. So all three of us could watch live tv simultaneously with Sling. Hulu gives us errors once in a blue moon if we try to stream from multiple TVs, but for the most part, it hasn't been a problem. It's also not usually a problem with Netflix or Amazon Video.

But all this is a moot point if you don't have unlimited data. You might not end up saving.

Nope, it's lower all-in.

When it happened, about a year ago, the final bill was $10 cheaper. Today it's a bit less, I think $5; they shifted a couple values around.

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