Thanks for the datapoints. I wonder whether Austin is atypical: i.e. has the availability of Google Fiber has forced the incumbents to offer more rational pricing?
I would hope that the future is Google Fiber + Dish TVoIP, and this is just the first step. I'm personally not unhappy with comcast, but more competition would be great.
When Google Fiber came in, all the providers started offering higher-speed Internet access at no additional charge (I'm on 100/10 right now with Time Warner after their latest free upgrade, for $57/month.) I haven't seen cable packages really change, though, and there isn't much incentive given that Google is charging $50/month for TV, as well.
AT&T Gigapower is currently available in my neighborhood, but I am holding on to Time Warner until Google Fiber becomes available (I may rethink this if it doesn't happen this year.)
In the deep south, AT&T wants $40 to add TV to my phone+internet plan ($90). And that doesn't even include local broadcast TV in HD, which is ridiculous as I already pull them in over antenna anyway.
And I'm sure without the HD package it's the same distorted crap they push (presumably in order to entice the HD package upsell--at least based on what I see at my in laws and at the wall of screens at the gym). I was an early adopter of OTA HD in one of the early HD markets and have never, ever had a problem sorting aspect ratios. From my perspective cable seems hell bent on destroying the OTA signal rebroadcast in order to upsell their HD packages (probably because once they moved to digital they couldn't figure out how to differentiate HD from standard def). I will not pay them to burden me with having to manually toggle aspect ratios on my display. I cannot fathom why people tolerate this bullshit.
I would hope that the future is Google Fiber + Dish TVoIP, and this is just the first step. I'm personally not unhappy with comcast, but more competition would be great.