Fios vs. Cable. Which is Better?

Both are going to give you comparable service today. The difference will come in ten years. The amount of information a co-ax cable can deliver is very limited compared to fiber. Co-ax is approaching it's limit today and I occasionally lose some part of my HD signal where I live. Fiber has HUGE capacity and can carry your 100 HD channels, phone service, high speed Internet and any future on demand services without breaking a sweat. The limit becomes the electronics and we are no where close to pushing that limit in the home market. If FIOS is cheaper, go for it. I'm envious.

I like the fios commercials much better - but isn't available to us yet. I'd go with them just for the commercials.

we have fiber optic cable. However we have the standarc cable packages which are "Bundled" . There are a number of channels that we cannot get on our cable company network(like C-Span II, which shows Book TV on weekends). Ive called the CAble company and we get the same BS about how they dont feel that these "minor" channels are worth it to me.
ID like to decide for myself. FIOS offers an "alacarte" series of cable stations. HOwever, FIOS is still not available in our area and it may be several years away.
Ive considered the satellite but dont like the limitations of one dish=one station on all the tvs in the house. ALso Satelliye cant get local stations and it gets really crappy reception in bad weather. Three reasons NOT to get satellite.

When fios is available, I suppose Ill use its alacarte menu to present to my cable company to convince them to carry stations other than their fare.

It's too bad that your cable company is still using a cable model when you have fiber access. That's like driving your sports car down the dirt road when you could be on the highway right beside it.

Id be so pleased if you could communicate this to our cable company when everyone else I know is making "alacarte" available to their patrons. My cable company, ARMSTRONG CABLE SERVICES, is pretty much an Evangelical Cable company with a heavy subscription by religious entirties and Home SHopping. Id drop thos if I could , but according to ARmstrong, those stations pay for many of the ones I DO watch.

I want C-Span II and CHILLER.

I'm pretty sure that cable companies are legally required to offer ala carte channels, yet none of them comply with it. Let me see if I can hunt that up.

... nope, not legally required yet, that bill didn't pass a few years ago. Dang.

Cycloptichorn

I have DirecTV satellite in my home...I can watch/record up to 8 different channels throughout my house at the same time.

Not sure why you have this perception.

I also get all local stations; and only have service problems when ice builds up on the dish (which has happened 1 time in three years).

That being said, I will be moving to AT&T Uverse once I move to the city (Chicago). I think that's a FIOS setup.

But if not for that, I'd take DirecTV over any cable provider anyday.

I did not know that the sat dishes had changed. The last time I checked, Direct TV req'd you to have separate dishes and boxes for separate tvs and NOBODY (directTV or Sat Network) DID NOT provide for local channels. In fact, they still dont. I just talked to one opf my colleagues who has a sat (Direct) and he has 2 dishes for 2 sets . He says that the BAltimore Stations are on his sat net but not the Philly or LAncaster stations. For those he uses a High gain DIgital antenna.

You must have a type of satellite service that we dont have available around here . I am in a very rural area

I have a 3 or 4 LNB dish. But it's only one small dish on my roof. It also has an antenna that picks up all the local channels and merges them in seemlessy into the DirecTV box that connects to my TV. This way when I press 'Guide', I see all the cable channels and all the local channels on the same TV guide like setup. All the show/channel data is brought in as well. It's all digital as well, so the quality is very good.

We run 4 different TVs in the house. Each one needs their own set-top box, but all the video comes through the 1 sat dish.

Being a satellite, I wouldn't think location would make much difference, but what do I know?


edit: I just checked their website and it says that DirecTV brings local channels to 94% of US households. You could very well be in that 6%.

Im not up to speed on the very latest tech in the satelliyte dishes. APparently theyve changed their ability to provide local services. IS the hookup on your house much bulkier than the little 12" dish? Does the antenna stick up in the air? (Another thing is my farm sits atop the highest hill in my township and we get whacked by lightning one or more times a summer. Weve got an incredible investment in lightning arrestors and all our incoming lines (power, cable, phone etc) are all buried with arrestors at the service poles across the roads.

Im certainly not going back to having anything to compete with our lightning rods.

Hows the picture clarity on the DIrect TV? is it clear? Once or twice a year, our cable service goes phlooey and we have half a day of pixillated pictures and jerky sound.

The antenna is integrated into the dish, so the only thing I see on my roof is the dish itself. The dish is oval shaped now, probably 15in at the tallest and maybe 22in at the widest.

I have no idea if the dish would compete with your lightning rods. Maybe something to ask the installer. LOL

Yeah, I probably have the same issue with clarity (once or twice a year), always during the winter it seems.