A few months ago, I began to notice my landline bill creeping up. Other than dropping my unused long distance (which is a flat fee for enabling the service, I still have to pay for each minute used, which I don't use), it did not seem as though there was much to shave from my plan.
Why do I still have a landline? For the DSL, my only reliable broadband choice.
Then my competitive ISP raised their rates five bucks (plus taxes and fees), and I began to wonder. "Is it time to bite it, and get a cable connection?"
Follow me below the orange tangle of interweb tubes for more....
I visited the Comcast site in order to view the internet packages available for my area. I entered my street address, the handy query tool found and completed my street, city and zip, but when I pressed enter, the page came back with a 'your address could not be found, please choose another address'. Of course, my address was not in the list of choices. Googling gave me many examples of other folks with the same dilemma.
Not to be deterred in my quest to become one of many being mistreated by Comcast, the next Monday morning found me on the phone with a pleasant and helpful sales associate. She let me know that since my address had never before been serviced by a cable provider, it was not listed as a serviceable address. She gave me a ticket number, informed me that a technician would perform a site survey during the week. Once that was done, I would receive a call with the results.
Sure enough, the next day, I received a call from a technician, who was standing at the gate to our property, asking which building would be connected, where there any dogs loose, were there any children or adults with guns about. I gave the fellow the answers and gave him permission to open the gate to drive in.
A week passed and I had heard nothing, so girding for battle, I took my trusty ticket number and called sales. I connected with another pleasant sales associate, who found my ticket and relayed the results. I had expected a charge for running a new cable, but was not prepared for the value Comcast placed on that action.
Fifteen hundred dollars for eight hundred feet of aerial cable! The poles are in place, power and phone are there. The local power company invested in the infrastructure, AT&T did not charge for stringing their line, but Comcast, wow! Hanging that cable is going to take an hour, tops. Hey, but when you are granted monopoly status by the state government, I guess you can do as you please.
So, I guess I will be changing to AT&T if I want to cut my data bill in half, since they will not require me to keep an active telephone account in order to have DSL. Funny that a CLEC cannot service me without that active account, but an ILEC can. Once again, I see the meddling hand of regulators keeping the big guys fat and sassy, while keeping a boot on the neck of competition and innovation.
It's going to be a pain to switch, but saving fifty a month is something I need to consider. I just hate giving the Evil Empire any more money that I have already given them over the years. Especially since they can only supply a 1.5 mbps pipe. I'm sure the million dollar homes just over the ridge have faster service. Plus, the highway bordering my property is being widened, which means the lines are being moved and upgraded at taxpayer expense, though oh so slowly. The DOT contractors almost buried the buried the phone cable building up the roadbed, before the lines were finally moved.
Oh well, life in America, where open, fast, modern communications is but a dream, threatened by corporate reality.
1:29 PM PT: Wow, community spotlight and rec list for my first diary. I am truly humbled. I was sitting here nursing a fever rather than working to get the farm ready for winter, thought I'd relate a recent experience. Thank you, Rescue Rangers and the kos community.