Bell.ca

Wow, I used to think Bell's cell phone shop pages were bad, but their TV pages take the cake.

They advertise prices pretty clearly on the page I linked above, however, I can't find anything to back up the figures they display. All information indicates that you always pay more than what's listed, not including tax. You might end up actually paying a LOT more, because of the fine print.

All their top HD TV packages include content that expires after 2 months. So while they advertise you get "a premium movie pack" as part of your selection, that's only for 2 months. When you read the pricing details, you also find out that the base for the whole package is more than advertised on the initial page. HD Max for example is $95, not $90. Then there are 4 HD "packs" included only for the first year ($10 per month with a $10 credit). So now we're looking at $105, not $90.

Then there's a $1 time-shifting fee (that's so you can get East and West coast versions of a hand-full of channels. A $3 per months "Digital service fee." And to top it off, an undisclosed fee that can run up to an additional 1.5% of your total bill. Which they say is for the CRTC's local TV improvement fund. However, they're not giving that full fee to the CRTC. They're also currently getting *all* locals for free.

I've just set up OTA (ATSC) reception and will have three tuners running by next week. I was planning to cancel my analog cable and get HD service from Bell to fill in the specialty channels like HGTV, DIscovery, TLC, etc.. It turns out that there's hardly any HD other than what I can already get for free OTA. Yes, there are some of the specialties available in HD, such as A&E, Discovery and TLC, but Food and HGTV aren't available.

I think it's time to start looking at getting a subscription to a US service instead. I've already got a US mailing address, I just hope they don't also want a SSN or other proof of residency. Time to go see if DirecTV and Dish also practise in outright false advertising like Bell does.

Browser versus site rant:

To top it off, their bloody pages don't work properly in Safari. I mean, it "seems" like they do. But then all of a sudden the tab you were just reading disappears and you're back to the initial overview. Example, you're reading about installation or specs, and then poof, the tab selection in their page UI resets. It'll happen a few times and then it becomes impossible to click on the tabs at all. Bloody ridiculous that your site doesn't work on pretty much the most standards-compliant browser on the planet.

These guys are pikers compared to Comcast. Bell only requires you to select the "Offer and pricing details" tab in order the find the normal monthly pricing.

Even with that information I still don't know what the normal monthly pricing is. They don't list that mystery "local" fee amount.

I was much more impressed by DirecTV and Dish. They offer all kinds of deals and packages, but they make it a lot more clear how much you're actually paying and saving on any promotions. It's even easy to see that for HD you'll pay an additional $10 on most packages (unless they come with it already bundled).

I've heard (and read) a lot of horror stories about Comcast. It amazes me that the FTC doesn't get more involved when companies advertise things as "Free" when they clearly have a price. Over-all, sleaze aside, they're still cheaper than the Canadian cable companies...

Comcast's phone support isn't any better. Every time I called them I was quoted the teaser rates. Every time they quoted a rate I had to ask if that was the post teaser rate, invariably it was not.

Edit: what I meant to say was that, in spite of my express interest in knowing the full rate, they persistently quoted the teaser.