Consumer Confidential: Cutting the Cable Cord and Embracing a Digital Media World
I have seen the future, and it doesn’t have cable TV. Our house is undergoing some repairs, so we’ve been staying elsewhere for the past week. I’ve been using my tablet computer for online access to HBO, Showtime and the other premium networks that make up most of my TV viewing. And you know what? It hasn’t been the eye-straining, no-fun experience I’d been expecting. Watching movies and shows while kicked back on the couch, my tablet...
Comcast to Offer New, Low-Cost Streaming TV Service
Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, is giving its customers the option to cut the cord. The company said Monday that it is beta-testing a video streaming service for its Xfinity Internet customers that will offer a pared-down package of TV channels, including HBO, for $15 a month. The pilot program, called Stream, is expected to launch later this summer in Boston, where Comcast customers enjoy some of the fastest Internet...
Ralph Roberts, Comcast Founder, Dies
New York — Ralph Roberts, a cable pioneer who built Comcast from a small cable TV system in Mississippi into an entertainment and communications behemoth, has died. He was 95. Comcast said in a statement that Roberts died Thursday night in Philadelphia of natural causes. He was in his 40s when he began his career in the fledgling cable industry, with a $500,000 purchase of American Cable Systems, a company with 1,200 subscribers in...
Time Warner Deal Expected Today
Charter Communications is close to a $55 billion deal to acquire Time Warner Cable, a merger that would create a powerful cable and broadband Internet contender in an industry long lacking competition. The companies are expected to announce their proposed merger early this morning, with Charter agreeing to pay about $195 a share for Time Warner Cable — $100 in cash and the rest in stock, according to people directly familiar with the...
FairPoint Customers In N.H. Must Now Ask for Phone Book
Nashua — The long decline of the telephone book, once a staple of homes and businesses but increasingly irrelevant in the online era, is continuing with the announcement by FairPoint that it will no longer automatically send the books to all of its landline customers. As of May 1, residential white pages will only be available on request, the company said in fliers inside its most recent bills, but both residential and business...
