ISP has changed its high speed cable plans?

[Zomby_Woof]

My current plan is: 35 Mbps download, 3 Mbps upload. $49 per month.

There not forcing me to switch but I can and save $5 a month to: 30 Mbps download, 5 Mbps upload.

The main usage in our house is: 2 desktop computers which are connected with cat6 (one is a gaming rig, the other a HTPC), an iPad that I surf or stream music with and a VOIP phone.

Is it worth it to save a few dollars or stay with my current plan.

 

[abailey]

If you don't have to sign any additional contracts that lock you in longer, I would probably switch. A little better upload may help your VIOP when you have many things using the internet and you can save a couple of bucks. For what your doing you probably will not notice any difference in download speed.

 

[Zomby_Woof]

Thanks, my number one concern was that it might effect my online gaming, I play multiplayer Red Orchestra 2: Rising Storm almost every night and everything works as it should right now.

 

[azazel1024]

Most online gaming relies heavily on latency and very little on bandwidth. 1Mbps upload/download is probably overkill for most online games.

A comparison of several online games I play shows very little bandwidth consumed. Star Craft 2, World of Tanks, + a few others I think the highest I've seen on any of them is the occasionally around 1-2Mbps download and around 500Kbps upload...but most of the baseline is in the 50-400kbps range.

Its very low generally.

I'd personally go with the new plan to save a few bucks and get 66% better upload speeds. A 15% hit on download speeds you'd likely never notice.

 

[stevech]

speed change won't be noticable.

BUT! They love to get you to change and take a new plan that is actually a 1 year promotional rate.

 

[Zomby_Woof]

Thanks for the reply, its not a contract so this looks like a good thing, normally they are always trying to raise the price.

 

[stevech]

My cableCo (evil Time Warner cable) - had me on a grandfathered plan that was simply the plan I took in 1998 from then-Roadrunner.com.
Last year, TWC silently moved me from that to a promotional 1 year plan.

One day, a bill shows up for 300% the normal amount. I call, enraged of course. The rep says, well, sorry, TWC just does that. After much debate, they forgave one month at that absurd rate increase. Then gave me same basket of features for "only" $20/mo more than I had paid for years. Then they honked up the order and we had many missing channels. That got fixed with more phone time and I got them to up my modem to DOCSIS 3 without charging more, to 30/5Mbps. In a year, they'll tell me to bend over again. But by then, COMCAST will own TWC and it'll be so much better, right?

 

[Zomby_Woof]

I've had pretty good luck with Start Communications here in Ontario Canada, they even have technical support people that speak English and have not buggered up my account so far.

 

[azazel1024]

My cableCo (evil Time Warner cable) - had me on a grandfathered plan that was simply the plan I took in 1998 from then-Roadrunner.com.
Last year, TWC silently moved me from that to a promotional 1 year plan.

One day, a bill shows up for 300% the normal amount. I call, enraged of course. The rep says, well, sorry, TWC just does that. After much debate, they forgave one month at that absurd rate increase. Then gave me same basket of features for "only" $20/mo more than I had paid for years. Then they honked up the order and we had many missing channels. That got fixed with more phone time and I got them to up my modem to DOCSIS 3 without charging more, to 30/5Mbps. In a year, they'll tell me to bend over again. But by then, COMCAST will own TWC and it'll be so much better, right?

Yup, sure thing. We promise twice the same level of customer service you are getting now at no additional cost to you*

*Conditions and exclusions may apply. No additional cost to you is only for the duration of any current contract you may be under, unless our lawyers find a way that we can weasel our way out of it sooner. In which case a 150% rate increase will go in to effect immediately instead of at the expiry of your current contract. Double the customer service applies only to the number of toll free numbers we provide to you to contact us. Actual customer service level may stay the same or go down, because frankly you didn't have a choice before and you don't have a choice now. We choose to pass all savings on to our shareholders and because we can, a nice little christmas bonus to our executives by increasing your rates and beating our service reps twice as frequently because a demoralized and poorly trained customer support staff is a cheap customer support staff. Good luck contacting your congressional representative. We bought and paid for them ages ago, they'll just forward your information to us so that we can make sure that it doesn't happen again.

 

[stevech]

Once, I tried to reach the person in City or County government that supposedly is responsible for granting/supervising the easement for all the cables. that's the basis of their monopoly.

None of the several gov't workers I spoke with knew anything at all about this matter, nor a process to file a complaint.

 

[RogerSC]

My cableCo (evil Time Warner cable) - had me on a grandfathered plan that was simply the plan I took in 1998 from then-Roadrunner.com.
Last year, TWC silently moved me from that to a promotional 1 year plan.

One day, a bill shows up for 300% the normal amount. I call, enraged of course. The rep says, well, sorry, TWC just does that. After much debate, they forgave one month at that absurd rate increase. Then gave me same basket of features for "only" $20/mo more than I had paid for years. Then they honked up the order and we had many missing channels. That got fixed with more phone time and I got them to up my modem to DOCSIS 3 without charging more, to 30/5Mbps. In a year, they'll tell me to bend over again. But by then, COMCAST will own TWC and it'll be so much better, right?

My sympathy if you have to move to Comcast. They charge through the nose for anything, and may or may not deliver...here they're an unregulated monopoly, and every 6 months or year, I have to read them the riot act to get my rates back down again. I just hate that, and would be willing to pay a little more not to have to do it. And they very rarely do any infrastructure improvements since they don't need to.

Anyways, good luck, hope you don't fall into Comcast's clutches.

 

[RMerlin]

My sympathy if you have to move to Comcast. They charge through the nose for anything, and may or may not deliver...here they're an unregulated monopoly, and every 6 months or year, I have to read them the riot act to get my rates back down again. I just hate that, and would be willing to pay a little more not to have to do it. And they very rarely do any infrastructure improvements since they don't need to.

Anyways, good luck, hope you don't fall into Comcast's clutches.

Things aren't better up North. Bell Canada always increases their rates twice a year, like clockwork. You have to call them and threaten to cancel to be transferred to their "customer loyalty" department, where they will make you an offer you "can't refuse" - for a limited time. Have to repeat the same process 6 months later.

When I left Bell a few years ago, that's because I had done the maths, and found that my DSL + phone bill had increased by 10% over the course of the last 12 months, with zero increase in service, speed or monthly quota. I moved my ADSL to cable through Teksavvy - a reseller (and I work for a wholesaler of that reseller, so I get additional discounts) where I got twice the speed and 5x the monthly quota at 5$ less (retail price - even deeper discount due to my employer). Then I moved off their 40$/month CAD phone to a VoIP.ms line. I use the phone about twice a month on average. Costs me around 4$ per month, including 911 and all the features I could even imagine.

Basically, my Internet + phone monthly bill went from 110$/month to 60$/month. And I get better services on both accounts.

Bell contacted me every 2-3 months after that in an attempt to win me back. Now, I just interrupt their rep, telling him I work for a wholesaler of their competitor - that ends the discussion on the spot

In a way, we are lucky here in Canada that the CRTC forces those incumbents to open their network to resellers. It gives us alternatives. But those incumbents themselves aren't any better than the Comcast of your country. Lots of "incredible deals", all with subtext that states "only for first 6 months. Price after that is <unreadable because too small>".

Telcos have a tradition of raping their customers in North America, by charging more and giving us less than in Europe or Asia.

 

[speedingcheetah]

I call both CenturyLink (my ISP) and Comcast(my CATV provider) every 6 months and get their loyalty department and demand/beg/inquire about lower rates. Works every-time.

 

[stevech]

There are credible stories here that TWC's Customer Retention reps are told to just drop the customer after a certain number of rate increase waivers.

 

[htismaqe]

Almost all of the cable and satellite companies, as well as some of the cellular companies have similar policies.

They thrive on churn or "bookings". Existing customers, at some point, become useless because the margins are so low, especially if they're writing down your bill every 6 months.

 

[stevech]

Existing customers, at some point, become useless because the margins are so low, especially if they're writing down your bill every 6 months.

I'm not accepting that they run on small margins, at face value.
They have no competition (effectively) - here there's only U-Verse and that is so bad that word of mouth has stunted their take rate.

I would like to participate in, support a citizens' drive to get City/County/FCC to "care" about the bullying that cable co's are doing. And their absurd prices. But we live in a era where the governments are getting away with charging more for less, and inventing new charges - like the new $150/yr I have to pay for fire protection - on top of what I pay in the property tax.

Well. This is the wrong forum I suppose.

 

[sfx2000]

Telcos have a tradition of raping their customers in North America, by charging more and giving us less than in Europe or Asia.

You guys up in Canada get burned more than most - the Rogers/Telus/Bell national coverage ratchets up rates for everyone on 3G/4G wireless...

At least in the US we have four tier 1 players in the 3G/4G wireless realm across most of the major markets - which makes them compete on services and pricing - but the big two have more coverage outside of the major markets, so we do pay a bit more, but nothing like the wireless charges I've seen first hand in Canada...

At least with Fixed-Line consumer broadband you have similar options to what we have here - the incumbent Wireline Telco, dark-copper reseller, and the CableCo's...

 

[speedingcheetah]

They are , almost, always very eager to to help me out. A few times, I have gotten some non caring person that would not do much. I called back a few days later and got some one else that was very helpful.

Course, they try to up-sell you. They deceive you into thinking that they can lower your bill by having you add on or upgrade services.(my grandparents got swindled by Comcast that way. Their bill tripled the next month after she called them...and guy randomly showed up to their door and wanted to tear holes in walls to install stuff. SURPRISE!)

CenturyLink keeps trying to add on cell phone or Direct TV to my account, and say it will lower my bill...HA! right. My folks pay for VZW family plan, and landlord wont allow any more Sat tv dishes installed....so...yea...

 

[Terry Kennedy]

My sympathy if you have to move to Comcast. They charge through the nose for anything, and may or may not deliver...here they're an unregulated monopoly, and every 6 months or year, I have to read them the riot act to get my rates back down again. I just hate that, and would be willing to pay a little more not to have to do it. And they very rarely do any infrastructure improvements since they don't need to.

As much as I hate to admit it, Comcast Business service here in Northern NJ has been very good for the most part. I have 50/10 service, no usage cap. They've been known to call and say "We think there may be an issue which will eventually affect your service, we'd like to come out and check things out". One time when there was an outage around 2 in the morning, I called and got a rep who said "There is planned maintenance - didn't you get the announcement?" and when I said I didn't, she asked me for my email address and added me to the outage list and sent me a copy of the current announcement. When I have a problem, they'll dispatch immediately (even on weekends), and the tech will usually give me his direct number in case the problem recurs.

The only things that have been problems is that they always seem to want to install a router w/ WiFi and POTS ports (presumably to upsell me on VoIP) and I tell them I need a simple modem in bridge mode. Most recently, I ended up with a SB6141 - before that, I had a Cisco DPC3000 which tended to lock up. The other issue is that while they were having their pissing match with Netflix, external connectivity would be essentially useless from 7 PM to midnight(ish). They re-did their routing to use alternate peering points for business traffic so it wasn't competing for overburdened points.

Recently, Comcast fiber has appeared, which ends at the pole serving my house. I don't know what their plans are for that (it has no splices yet). I know it's Comcast fiber because there is already Verizon fiber there (for my OC-3) and I have my own fiber there as well (I rent pole space on a few dozen poles to link my house and office).

 

[RogerSC]

Yeah, I was talking about Comcast here, where due to their not investing in infrastructure, we pay the same as you do for your 50Mbps and get 25Mbps for it. And don't expect to see any fibre this millennium.

Glad Comcast is doing the job for you guys.