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Originally Posted by RON WA9RHU
yes,they want you to pay thru the nose and somewhere else, where is the FCC for the consumers?we already watch 5 minutes of commercials every 3 minutes of program material. the FCC is busy selling off spectrum to phone companies and everybody and their mothers to finance the government staying in the pink, meanwhile I cannot get ATT to repair their idiot cable system that keeps rebooting every day, I have to play repairman and spend 20 minutes sometimes 2 or 3 times a day to watch an overpriced WIRELESS cable system.Streaming is next your really going to pay once OTA is gone.
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Ron, I have Spectrum (Time Warner) cable service and have had few problems; part of this may be due to the fact that I have the company's lowest tier of service, which does not require a cable box (I use a Roku device and receive all my TV over the Internet). I am not familiar with and cannot speak for AT&T, but it seems to me they may be having problems with their system which are beyond your (or anyone else's) control.
AT&T could be using very old, outdated equipment that should have been replaced years or even decades (!) ago; however, this is just speculation on my part. Also, cable systems sometimes run into problems when too many people are watching a given channel, causing that channel to temporarily freeze or disappear altogether (this often happens on popular cable channels such as ESPN, when the network is showing popular content such as playoff games, etc). Cable operators do have an obligation to keep up with the state of the art (for example, the mandatory switch to DTV from analog in June 2009), but many do not perform updates not directly affecting the cable (such as guide updates) because they may feel if they do, they will have no choice but to pass on the cost to subscribers; this means, of course, higher bills.
As for commercials, well, I'm afraid we are stuck with them on every network except PBS. I agree, however, that there are far too many commercials on TV, but what can we do? The commercials keep our favorite programs on the air. Personally, I just ignore the commercials and wait for the program I am watching to resume. I've been doing that for quite a while now, and it's a good thing since, as you mentioned, there are already at least five minutes worth of these things on every program.
I don't see OTA TV disappearing any time soon. There are many people in this country who cannot afford even basic cable, and rely on OTA television. If the FCC does away with OTA, people who use antennas will have no choice but to go without TV or to watch DVDs, VHS video tapes, or streaming services. The streaming services such as Youtube TV, Hulu, et al. do charge a monthly fee and an initial sign-on fee, but these are far lower than cable; further, you do not need a cable box ahead of your TV to use these services, so anyone who watches TV through YTTV or Hulu can eliminate that monthly charge for good, unless of course they want movie channels the likes of HBO, Cinemax, et al.