Why is the Essential Channel lineup better than the Economy Channel lineup, and how do I sign up for it?

The Essential Pak is available in all areas, it has many more channels and cost much more than the Economy TV Pak.

This page that lists the number of channels in each Pak has the channel number reversed
http://www.cox.com/residential/tv/channel-lineup.cox

Economy should be  50+ channels
Essential should be  155+ channels

In order to actually receive all the channels in the Essential Pak you must upgrade to Advanced TV, as most of them require a full service digital box.

Hi Ieatllamas,

We created the TV Economy package at the request of customers looking for a smaller lineup that included the most popular cable channels. Many of our broadcast contracts with TV Networks are package deals, so there are limits to the channels and services we are able to offer within TV Economy. In order to keep the cost as low as possible, we had to sacrifice services such as access to the full On Demand library and sports channels like ESPN. ESPN is one of the most expensive channels in our lineup. TV Economy costs less than TV Essential and includes fewer channels. Both packages are available in all Cox service areas. Our full selection of Video services can be found at www.cox.com/residential/tv/prices.cox. Please let us know if we can answer any further questions.

ieatllamas: "Is the essential package available in all areas? It includes ESPN and several other channels, while the economy pack doesn't."

That's why it's called the "Economy" tier. It excludes the high cost channels like ESPN.