All Apple All Day

It's been slow going at the AAAD residence, as we've tried out a half-dozen TV/internet/phone providers over the first seven months we've been in the new house. We finally seem to have hit on the right "unbundled" combination: DirecTV's HR34 "genius" box for TV/DVR AT&T standard, basic phone service (VOIP was unable to play nicely with our security system) ...and Comcast cable internet, at least during its six-month introductory rate.   or, at least I THOUGHT that's how it would work. I wasn't really expecting Comcast to utterly fail to install internet service to a single-family home in a Chicago suburb. And yet, that's precisely what happened. 

A few months ago, we moved to DirecTV, which has been fantastic. the HR34 DVR (now called the "Genie" in marketing material) is, two months in, still essentially perfect. We're finally finishing with WOW, switching our phone to AT&T - WOW never managed to make the VOIP work with our security system - and switching our net to Comcast for the time being. I recently purchased an Arris cable modem for $40 on eBay, which will pay for itself in about 5.5 months now that I'm not paying the $7 modem rental fees. WOW is currently charging us about $80 monthly for unlimited phone and 20 Mbps Internet. Under the new plan, we'll pay AT&T about $35 (plus, granted, 7 cents/min for long distance) and Comcast $30 (at first- they'll raise the price after 6 months or so). We'll get 30 Mbps instead of 20, and the combined price will be 65-70-ish, at least at the outset. But really, trying to save a little money is secondary. We just want a system that wo

As a satellite television provider, DirecTV is more or less unable to provide broadband to its customers directly. Sure, they occasionally advertise bundles with AT&T, but that would be for DSL - a workable solution, but still, an internet solution which  advertises speeds that are between 1/10 and 1/5 as fast as what we can get from the cable internet providers. (DirecTV's website has other internet-providing partners listed, but they aren't in the Chicago area.)  When I called DirecTV about the AT&T bundles I'd seen online, they had absolutely no idea what the bundle pricing would be and told me I'd have to work with AT&T directly. And, a quick look around the net indicates that this "bundle" isn't much more than 2 companies working in complete separation. I can build that kind of bundle myself! In yesterday's post, I weighed WOW's UltraTV offering against Comcast XFinity's Triple Play. Similar offerings, similar pri

9 days until our move, and we'd like to hit the ground running. I can't imagine the family will be too excited about going without TV or internet or phone for a few days while I sort things out, so I suppose it's time to make one of the most important decisions a new homeowner will face. Who will be our cable provider? We've been Comcast customers for years. Here in Chicago, they've had good service offerings, and have usually managed to keep us around by sweetening their deal just enough to make switching seem like a chore. But when you're moving, everything is a chore! May as well weigh our options. We need to cover three services here: TV, Internet, and Phone. I'm currently paying Comcast about $150 for a single TV, with HBO (I bring my own TiVo so I'm not currently paying for DVR service), 20 Mbps internet (which seems to top out around 14 Mbps in the city over wifi), and unlimited nationwide home phone. In the suburbs, we'd li