If they are going to "throttle" my service, it seems only fair for me to "throttle" my payments.
"Oh, you've been billing 100% of the advertised rate for the last 4 months? I'm going to have to cut you down to 50% until your annual average is under 75%..."
Actually, that is similar to what many people do: Comcast is notorious for offering introductory rates, like $20/month, that last for 3-6 months. Afterwards, they go back to the "standard" rate of $60/month.
Many people have a regular routine of calling up Comcast after the introductory period to tell Comcast that they can't afford the new rate. Once the Comcast rep has to decide between losing the customer or keeping the rates low, they quite often go for the latter. Payment throttled!
I had an odd one happen with TWC once. I had the same introductory offer for 6 months for their Super-Mega-Ultra-Sparkly-Rainbows plan. After 6 months, I expected my bill to double. Instead, after 6 months, my bill remained the same, but my account was downgraded to the "Basic User" plan because no one bothered to tell me I'd have to call them up and say "hey guys, I want to keep my current plan".
Honestly, I think going about it in this manner is fantastic. You make the user pick and choose which parts of their fantastico plan that they want to keep (or get back), and they do so by actually examining price points. This way you don't screw a customer with a surprise bill that they forgot was coming for twice what they were expecting and because they are idiot 20 somethings who just graduated they are still living from paycheck to paycheck and suddenly they have no money for food.
The idea isn't bad, it just took me by surprise because no one told me. I didn't get a call saying "hey, your plan is about to drop", nothing on my bill, no mention of it from the person who signed me up. It just happened by surprise one month.
I didn't know what had happened until I started trying to diagnose why my connection was shit all of a sudden. Eventually, I called and got a support tech to look up my account status.
That's better than what Comcast pulled on my dad a few years ago. He signed up for some digital cable package where he basically got everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink-channel for like $80/month for two years. After the two years, they reconfigured his account so that he'd get the same channels, but not at the rates he'd get if he got them as a package. In other words, instead of giving him the "movie package" containing HBO, Showtime, etc., they put each movie channel on as an a-la-carte addition, meaning
A proposal was actually made to do this in the UK, but it seems to have been quickly squashed.
The idea is that you pay for the service you actually get. Most broadband is sold as "up to" whatever speed they claim, with the average advertised speed being about 10Mb and the average received speed being about 2Mb. The regulator did want people to pay for what they were actually getting, and presumably that would also include any throttling, but it seems to have been dropped.
Egotist: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
-- Ambrose Bierce
I have an idea... (Score:5, Funny)
"Oh, you've been billing 100% of the advertised rate for the last 4 months? I'm going to have to cut you down to 50% until your annual average is under 75%..."
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Best reply to the article.
Aikon-
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I had an odd one happen with TWC once. I had the same introductory offer for 6 months for their Super-Mega-Ultra-Sparkly-Rainbows plan. After 6 months, I expected my bill to double. Instead, after 6 months, my bill remained the same, but my account was downgraded to the "Basic User" plan because no one bothered to tell me I'd have to call them up and say "hey guys, I want to keep my current plan".
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Honestly, I think going about it in this manner is fantastic. You make the user pick and choose which parts of their fantastico plan that they want to keep (or get back), and they do so by actually examining price points. This way you don't screw a customer with a surprise bill that they forgot was coming for twice what they were expecting and because they are idiot 20 somethings who just graduated they are still living from paycheck to paycheck and suddenly they have no money for food.
Yes, this run on sent
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The idea isn't bad, it just took me by surprise because no one told me. I didn't get a call saying "hey, your plan is about to drop", nothing on my bill, no mention of it from the person who signed me up. It just happened by surprise one month.
I didn't know what had happened until I started trying to diagnose why my connection was shit all of a sudden. Eventually, I called and got a support tech to look up my account status.
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That's better than what Comcast pulled on my dad a few years ago. He signed up for some digital cable package where he basically got everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink-channel for like $80/month for two years. After the two years, they reconfigured his account so that he'd get the same channels, but not at the rates he'd get if he got them as a package. In other words, instead of giving him the "movie package" containing HBO, Showtime, etc., they put each movie channel on as an a-la-carte addition, meaning
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**Snicker**
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A proposal was actually made to do this in the UK, but it seems to have been quickly squashed.
The idea is that you pay for the service you actually get. Most broadband is sold as "up to" whatever speed they claim, with the average advertised speed being about 10Mb and the average received speed being about 2Mb. The regulator did want people to pay for what they were actually getting, and presumably that would also include any throttling, but it seems to have been dropped.