penguinsix

You really won't have a choice.

The US is a tad large as you may have noticed. While there are big conglomerates that offer TV and phone service, such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast, what is actually available in your corner of the USA is quite limited to two, maybe three providers. Most TV and phone service plans are based on local monopoly agreements with cities and counties.

You'll have a cable TV provider and a phone company. Both will likely offer Internet services through their pipes, and in some places the phone company will offer some TV (like FIOS fiber areas) and the cable company will offer phone (like the Comcast 'triple play'). You'll find dozens of other Internet providers, but by and large all they do is lease their lines from one of the main two providers and provide service atop of the other's line. When you have a problem you get these wonderful situations of "it's their fault, call them. No, it's their fault, call them back. No, them. No, them!, etc".

Now, what's the best? Hell, who knows. You have an install that goes great and great service--people just love Comcast. Your neighbor's installer is 3 hours late and the service isn't working because of some line problem in the house, Comcast is the fricking anti-Christ.

What many of us have done, since we watch primarily overseas TV and stuff we download, is to just dump 'tv' service entirely. Go fully IPTV. Get the Internet service, a VPN, and then watch the BBC iPlayer or stream in BBC1-4. Watch US tv services like Hulu and Netflix or any of a 100 live streams. Far cheaper than the 'tv' you get from cable.

This website goes through reports for different areas, but take the reviews with a grain of salt.

http://www.broadbandreports.com/

Ash UK/US

We use Direct TV too... Internet is provided through AT&T.

Sheepdip

We use Time Warner Cable (RoadRunner) for our 7mbps internet service - $45 a month. With that we get the standard digital channels free (NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, WE, PBS etc.) which we find enough. Anything else we can usually stream from the net. Then we use Skype for the phone, $60 a year for a 'landline' local number.

Vimto

In Northern Atlanta you will potentially have 3 cable providers, Comcast, AT&T and Charter Communication. The starter packages change by the week. TV phone and internet teaser offers are approx $99 for 12 months.
I have Comcast and for HD TV & DVR, 3 cable boxes, unlimited phone within the US and fairly fast internet (just ran a speed test, my download was 21mbps and upload was 4.5mbps.) is approx $170 per month.

AllysonCross

Hi, can i ask how long you have had that package, and have you had any problems with them? It does seem to be very much personal preference as to who we choose. Are the companies quite quick to get things installed and working?

njmackem

I beg to differ with you FB but you will find that the younger generation are much more open to bundling than the older generation. Having working for Verizon for a number of years I see the demographic figures for NJ, PA, NY and the 25-50 demographic accounts for a huge amount of triple-play subscriptions.

Looking at your options your best bet is likely through your cable provider (I think its Comcast in Georgia) for the best value package, when negotiating discounts with them keep mentioning what AT&T are offering in order to bring your price down.

On the F1 front, Speed Channel is not a bad way to watch F1, just a lot of commercials. Stick with what FatBrit said about a VPN option to watch it live on iPlayer so you can listen to Brundle and Coulthard drone on and on..

digbydog

My 2 cents...

Assuming you are not on a tight budget you are much better off with the 3 in 1 bundle with the fastest speed.

I have teenage boys with xbox, Ps3 x 2 , laptops x 4, netflix all going it seems 24/7. There is always something uploading or downloading etc....

We pay skype for unlimited international calls (which we use on computers and phones) and if you like to talk on the phone for long periods of time why run the risk of health problems using a cell phone - much better off with a landline. The 3 in 1 bundle will also give you unlimited calls in the USA.

IMO makes no sense just to save a few dollars not to have a landline.

martyfen

We have the comcast triple package - it gets really confusing and time consuming trying to individualise each service, but it is expensive. Our bill is approx $220 a month, thats for just one tv with DVR as well. My son needs the v. high speed internet as he is a gamer (he actually travels the country to events) so he has to be able to stream live etc. Haven't found a dsl that can compare yet. As for the cable tv - again we are with comcast - so bloody expensive and it just gets worse. Would love to drop them, but then the price goes up for the internet. It's a rip off. We have the speed channel - just watched the canadian F1 and the moto gp, but as i said expensive. We are giving up the land line - use our cell phones or use skype to talk to family and friends back home.

fatbrit

ego te absolvo...

Three Hail Marys and crawl round your yard in your undies, please.

lansbury

Two things to consider which TV channels you want to watch. When you have decided that see which provider supplies those channels in the cheapest package.

The other is picture quality. I''m no expert but everything I've read says DirecTV has the best quality because they compress the signal less. Bit like a jpeg file, the more it gets compressed the worse the quality of picture. Also if sport is important then DirecTV sells itself on its sports coverage.

I selected on who had the Speed channel in the cheapest package.

Vimto

Allyson,
we have been with Comcast for almost 5 years now.
We have had 2 extended interruptions to service, 1 because I dropped a full cup of coffee on the modem , they swapped it at their service center at no cost, the second was due to a failure of the incoming cable, we got a $25 per day rebate on our next bill given by the technician (we were out 2 days), so no real issues.
I should warn you if you are to live in a rented apartment the landlord may not allow you to have satellite due to cowboy installers drilling too many holes in through their walls.
Let me know if there is anything else you think of before moving

Brit In TN

Just to further confuse the issue -
Comcast in my area (East TN) works its 'triple play' offers as follows :

If you find a tv package that you like and an internet package that you like, you will, almost without fail, find that they offer a 'triple play' package containing your preferred tv and internet packages plus a land line for LESS than the combined cost of just the tv and internet packages.
No minimum length contracts or sneaky stuff etc etc. So it is actually cheaper to have the land line than not to. We have one but hardly ever use it. It just enables us to get a better deal on the other two services. Ridiculously our bill would go up if we had the land line removed.
All 'triple play' packages are for a 12 month period, after which they rise to a regular rate. At that point you just call up customer service and tell them you can't afford that and what special packages do they currently have on offer?
Been doing this for three years now and have kept my price at about $110 plus an extra $5 for the sports package.

I'd like to try and watch BBC etc via internet but I'm so internet unsavvy that I am completely lost at the mere mention of VPN. I did connect to the BBC iPlayer only to be informed that every programme I clicked on was 'unavailable in your area'.
If anyone would care to educate me I'd love to learn. Just bear in mind my knowledge limit is restarting the router sometimes.

Bob

There are a lot of threads on the subject....

http://expatshield.com/

Simplest and free solution....it's not brilliant but it'll get you going...web based only so for iPlayer, but you won't be able to use Spotify for instance.

If you want to use stuff like that, get a proper VPN service,loads of them for about $5-8 a month, they'll probably have a app you run, which punts your internet through it so that you appear to be in the UK and that's it, all your shit should work.

Gets a bit fiddly if you had something on your network that you want to have a UK IP, say you wanted to watch bbc iPlayer via your Wii, then you would need a VPN provider who will let you go through them at the router level...but that's a bit more of a faff.

Strong VPN as a recommendation as they've been around a while and are pretty solid, but I wouldn't pay to far in advance in case the companies aren't there in 6 months time.

hobbes79

For F1, if the type that worries, make sure you get Speed HD channel and not just Speed. With Verizon Fios, you have to pay for a slightly more expensive package to include this.