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Re: ESPN3

Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2012 3:57 pm
by zbarr
screw the channel bundling by media conglomerates!
watching rosebowl live on justin.tv right now....no ESPN needed.

GO DUCKS!

Re: ESPN3

Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 2:14 pm
by bmcdonnell
harryjjj wrote:Just got hooked up to sonic.net. Great phone and Internet service. I have no cable tv. Therefore I REALLY appreciate ESPN3, being a sports fan, which I will not have now that I've given up AT&T.
San Francisco
Exactly the same boat. I just upgraded to Sonic at home and work and if I realized ahead of time I would lose ESPN I would have held off in one location.

I don't know what the subscription issues are, and it makes sense that others shouldn't have to pay for services that only a few use. But this is a real bummer. I was promoting Sonic.net to a few friends but quite a few of them are big ESPN users as well (mostly for soccer games). I'll tell them to hold off for now

Re: ESPN3

Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 2:30 pm
by virtualmike
bmcdonnell wrote:Exactly the same boat. I just upgraded to Sonic at home and work and if I realized ahead of time I would lose ESPN I would have held off in one location.
Are you dropping your TV services from your old carrier?

Re: ESPN3

Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 10:02 pm
by dane
bmcdonnell wrote:
harryjjj wrote:Just got hooked up to sonic.net. Great phone and Internet service. I have no cable tv. Therefore I REALLY appreciate ESPN3, being a sports fan, which I will not have now that I've given up AT&T.
San Francisco
Exactly the same boat. I just upgraded to Sonic at home and work and if I realized ahead of time I would lose ESPN I would have held off in one location.

I don't know what the subscription issues are, and it makes sense that others shouldn't have to pay for services that only a few use. But this is a real bummer. I was promoting Sonic.net to a few friends but quite a few of them are big ESPN users as well (mostly for soccer games). I'll tell them to hold off for now
How much extra would you be willing to pay in order to have access to ESPN3?

Re: ESPN3

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 10:56 am
by pmsaunders
A previous poster proposed $5/month. I second that.

Re: ESPN3

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 8:11 pm
by dane
pmsaunders wrote:A previous poster proposed $5/month. I second that.
Good to know how you perceive the value.

The challenge is that is not a la carte. All customers pay.

Re: ESPN3

Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2012 9:45 pm
by rcoaster
dane wrote:I'm generally against the idea of charging all customers for access to an over-the-top Internet service such as ESPN3
Dane-

Thank you for taking this position, and for your informative "Full Circle" article http://corp.sonic.net/ceo/2010/06/16/full-circle/ . I had no idea such a service even existed, but it is an awful, AWFUL idea. Heaven help us all if stuff like this gets a foothold on Internet service providers. I use the Internet as an ANTIDOTE to television programming, not as yet another way to receive it, and if Sonic service cost increased by even one cent per month to pay for video, I would feel ripped off. If AT&T is already offering this "service", then I am orders-of-magnitude even happier that I am leaving that company. (Hmm, I wonder if that is why U-verse data just went up by another $3/month recently?)

Re: ESPN3

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:54 am
by thulsa_doom
dane wrote:
pmsaunders wrote:A previous poster proposed $5/month. I second that.
Good to know how you perceive the value.

The challenge is that is not a la carte. All customers pay.
Maybe we could implement it via a kickstarter-like mechanism. When enough people have put up enough to cover the full cost (so that people who don't want it don't have to pay for it), we take up ESPN3?

Re: ESPN3

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:33 pm
by rcoaster
John-

Is there even a way Sonic could implement such a contribution-based payment and cost-recovery plan? Would it not perhaps violate the terms of service from ESPN? I just see a horribly slippery slope here. What really needs to happen is for those who want the programming to heavily petition or otherwise push ESPN itself to offer it directly to the public. If Sonic goes along with the business plan of ESPN3, even by an indirect/more-fair-seeming method if possible, then ultimately we (Sonic and its customers) are just going ahead and accepting this early, poisonous intrusion of the "pay TV model" into the Internet access business. PLEASE do not do this!

Re: ESPN3

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:33 pm
by rcoaster
Also, everyone please do not interpret my comments on this issue as an opinion on ESPN3's content itself (which is, I think, international sports events). The choice of content is irrelevant. The business plan is execrable.