Oriolea moving to a more expensive cable package on Comcast

[yeoledugger]

Message to COMCAST if you are listening:

You must EAT this one and SWALLOW for your loyal subscribers. No more price increases. Enough is enough!

 

 

Edited March 9 by yeoledugger

[Malike]

4 hours ago, Jagwar said:

They don't always work. MLB works really hard to defeat VPN workarounds. The only VPN that has ever worked consistently for me is Norton 360's, and that limits the devices on which I can watch games. 

Really? I live in NY and NordVPN has never been defeated by anything like MLB.TV or Netflix, etc. They seem do a pretty nice job of spoofing those sites from showing as a VPN. I get MLB.TV for free from T-Mobile every year and have never had issues against NY teams with Nord. Never tried any other VPNs, though.

[86this]

1 hour ago, Malike said:

Really? I live in NY and NordVPN has never been defeated by anything like MLB.TV or Netflix, etc. They seem do a pretty nice job of spoofing those sites from showing as a VPN. I get MLB.TV for free from T-Mobile every year and have never had issues against NY teams with Nord. Never tried any other VPNs, though.

I do the same thing but when I use Nord during those blackout games, MLB.tv still won't let me get around it.  Can I ask which site you're connecting to?  I just can't listen to the goobers on YES network, SNY is tolerable but I'd rather listen to the MASN team.

[harp6]

I live in central PA and have the Comcast Standard+ TV package with 125+ channels.  I have the regional sport package which is $18.10 a month.  When they dropped the pittsburgh network from the regional sport package they promised a reduced rate in the regional sports package.  It amounted to less than a $2 reduction.  With MASN gone, what will that regional sports package include.  There is not much left.  When I just went on to look at what it would cost me for the Ultimate TV package with 185+ channels, I would have to pay $50 dollars a month more.  That is $600 dollars a year for me to get MASN.  BYE BYE COMCAST.  My bill for internet and cable was about $100 dollars a month 5 years ago and is currently a little over $200 a month.  Now they want to increase it another $50 for me to get MASN.   I have had enough.  I will be looking into the directTV streaming package.

Edited March 9 by harp6

[millsy25]

8 hours ago, rm5678 said:

My latest Comcast bill shows I have "Limited Basic, Expanded Basic, & Digital Preferred Tier." I don't even see any plan on their web site called "Ultimate TV." So I have no idea if I will have to upgrade or not. I guess I'll have to wait to see if Comcast contacts me before March 12th or whether or not I can still access MASN after that date.

That's what my bill said too and I had no idea what that meant.  I chatted with an agent and he said that is the Ultimate plan for the Northeast, so you should he good.

[Chuck Toedan]

Ad yet Comcast can't put an app on their little FLEX boxes and give people that stream through it a chance to legitimately pay for MASN. The geniuses that run the network in 2024....

[Jagwar]

9 hours ago, Malike said:

Really? I live in NY and NordVPN has never been defeated by anything like MLB.TV or Netflix, etc. They seem do a pretty nice job of spoofing those sites from showing as a VPN. I get MLB.TV for free from T-Mobile every year and have never had issues against NY teams with Nord. Never tried any other VPNs, though.

I must have tried 5-6 different VPNs. Might have been an issue with my Roku or Firestick and the VPN apps available on them?

[drjohnnyfever1]

So just a little word of advice...  I've been wanting to cut the cord for about a year now but there are some big problems if you have lots of people watching and you want networks like MASN.

I found only a couple streaming services that had MASN; DirectTV, Xfinity, Verizon, maybe YouTube and I think HuluLiveStream.  There are two problems, they only allow two simultaneous logons, so if the kids or wife is on watching something, your logon throws them off.   To get more than two simultaneous logons you pay about double the rate, so now you're getting into cable prices. 

During Covid, I had to switch to the highest internet and I wound up getting the highest TV package with it.  But with it they threw in Peacock, Netfix, and HBO.  I still get those for free despite the package price expiring about 4 months ago.  So for about $275 its still really close when you think about cutting the cord

The problem is if you want local channels and MASN on any of the alternatives.  The price for having local channels live in a streaming package like Hulu, boosts the price considerably and you have the two simultaneous logons again.  I found I could get 2/3 of what I needed from cutting the cord, but that one of the left out items was either local channels or MASN, so I have stayed with xfinity.  I could go to Verizon and get a similar TV package w/o the additional Peacock, Netflix, andHBO for substantially less, but in 2 years I'd have to bounce back to xfinity to realize savings again.  Too much work.

So the natives are happy with what they have and I can watch Oriole games, but I pay a premium for that to remain true.

 

EDIT - - I have no real advice for out of Baltimore area fans.  I can only imagine that it's a wrestling match getting stuff to work properly as VPN's aren't perfect.  But they do work if you can deal with dropouts and reloading some of the torrent type streamers online.  I try not to go that route, but if hands are tied, that is an escape route...

Edited March 9 by drjohnnyfever1

[rm5678]

9 hours ago, millsy25 said:

That's what my bill said too and I had no idea what that meant.  I chatted with an agent and he said that is the Ultimate plan for the Northeast, so you should he good.

Thanks for that info and for checking with Comcast.

[Malike]

12 hours ago, 86this said:

I do the same thing but when I use Nord during those blackout games, MLB.tv still won't let me get around it.  Can I ask which site you're connecting to?  I just can't listen to the goobers on YES network, SNY is tolerable but I'd rather listen to the MASN team.

When the O's are playing a NY team, I scroll down to the country list and click the three dot menu next to United States and normally select St. Louis as my server. I use it on the PC, though, not my TV. If you have the browser window open before you connect I've noticed I need to close all browser windows then connect then reopen them. I'm not sure how the app works on a Roku or Fire stick, etc.

[86this]

4 hours ago, Malike said:

When the O's are playing a NY team, I scroll down to the country list and click the three dot menu next to United States and normally select St. Louis as my server. I use it on the PC, though, not my TV. If you have the browser window open before you connect I've noticed I need to close all browser windows then connect then reopen them. I'm not sure how the app works on a Roku or Fire stick, etc.

I'll give it a shot when the regular season starts.  Thanks! At the beginning of spring training, I was able to view the games on MLB.tv.  I haven't been able to see the games now because it appears the T-Mobile subscription has expired until they allow renewals later this month.

[Malike]

38 minutes ago, 86this said:

I'll give it a shot when the regular season starts.  Thanks! At the beginning of spring training, I was able to view the games on MLB.tv.  I haven't been able to see the games now because it appears the T-Mobile subscription has expired until they allow renewals later this month.

Yeah it goes live again on 3/26.

[WillyM]

In this area, Comcast took the PIttsburgh sports channel off the basic package on Jan. 16.  One day it was there, next day it wasn't.

They took their time letting customers know what they had done.  They finally sent out a notice on Feb. 1, stating that the channel had been moved to a higher tier.

You might think that if they made this move in the hope of encouraging customers to sign up for the higher tier, they would have included an explanation as to exactly which other channels would be included in the higher tier, how much the higher tier would cost, and what we would need to do to sign up for it.

Nope.  The notice did not include any of that information. 

Now it's March, and I still don't know how it would be possible to sign up for the Pittsburgh sports channel.  Of course, the way the Penguins are playing, I don't have that much desire to watch them, anyway.

But with the Orioles coming off a 100-win season, I'd really like to think that I'll be able to watch Oriole games this spring and summer.  Who knows if Comcast will ever explain how to do it?

[billhatf]

21 hours ago, harp6 said:

I live in central PA and have the Comcast Standard+ TV package with 125+ channels.  I have the regional sport package which is $18.10 a month.  When they dropped the pittsburgh network from the regional sport package they promised a reduced rate in the regional sports package.  It amounted to less than a $2 reduction.  With MASN gone, what will that regional sports package include.  There is not much left.  When I just went on to look at what it would cost me for the Ultimate TV package with 185+ channels, I would have to pay $50 dollars a month more.  That is $600 dollars a year for me to get MASN.  BYE BYE COMCAST.  My bill for internet and cable was about $100 dollars a month 5 years ago and is currently a little over $200 a month.  Now they want to increase it another $50 for me to get MASN.   I have had enough.  I will be looking into the directTV streaming package.

I just switched to directv stream.  Love it.  Only Samsung smart tvs have it natively, but fire sticks are cheap and work well.

I also got glofiber internet at the same time. The tv picture is much more dynamic without all the compressing from comcast.

[gretzkyscores]

I dumped cable 2 months ago after 33 years of overpaying Comcrap. Love it - saving $110 per month