How I Cut My Time Warner Cable Bill By 33% 206
lpress writes "I was at a Time Warner Cable (TWC) store returning a router, when I asked what my new monthly bill would be. The answer — $110 — surprised me, so I asked a few questions and ended up with the same service for $76.37. Check out my conversation with their representative to see what was said, then do the same yourself."
I cut my cable bill by 100% (Score:4, Insightful)
...by getting rid of cable TV
Re:I cut my cable bill by 100% (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I cut my cable bill by 100% (Score:4, Informative)
Nope, you still get cable TV. At least the several places I've had TWC Internet in NY, I also got free(ish) basic cable. It's only ten or twelve channels, but it includes the major networks and the local news.
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Nope, you still get cable TV. At least the several places I've had TWC Internet in NY, I also got free(ish) basic cable. It's only ten or twelve channels, but it includes the major networks and the local news.
Right -- same in Los Angeles -- a bunch of local channels -- many foreign language. I even got a $5 gift card from TWC because they mistakenly (?) blocked the Super Bowl (which I watched anyhow using a rabbit ear antenna).
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However, FCC allowed them to make basic channels not free. QAM will be going away eventually. :(
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Or, if you're a masochist, you can ask for a CableCard.
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Read the post -- I'd dropped Cable TV long ago -- this was Internet and telephone only.
Why didn't this guy cut his telephone service too?
He could bought an ObiHai for $40 bucks and never paid for phone again.
The ObiHai connects to your router and you can plug your regular POTS phone into it.
No fees like Ooma $3.50/mo, or MagicJack $29.99/yr, or Vonage $12-$55/mo.
The only downside is no direct 911.
ObiHai info: http://www.obihai.com/how-to-g... [obihai.com]
Slightly out-of-date chart: http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/to... [tmcnet.com]
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Agreed. While the story submitter did get a lower cost, he still lost.
He is getting a phone connection for "$20 plus taxes and fees". They *love* those phone fees, as they can get away with $15 or more on untaxed profit. I'm sure he'll be pleasantly surprised by that.
Also, it is surprising that the DSL alternative is really 1.5Mbit. I'm guessing he hasn't verified that, as most modern DSL connections have a max of 24Mbit if the DSLAM box is relatively close in the neighborhood.
I will never do cable agai
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On the phone -- I could not drop it on the spot without talking to my wife ... plus lazy inertia. But, I do have telephone alternatives, which is more than I can say for Internet connectivity.
Verizon DSL is another weird story. I was their customer many years ago, getting around 5 Mbps down on a plan that promised up to 7. One day, they throttled it down to 1.5. When I complained, they told me that at my location with my geriatric wiring, I could only get 1.5. They were not willing to un-throttle it
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Verizon DSL is another weird story. I was their customer many years ago, getting around 5 Mbps down on a plan that promised up to 7. One day, they throttled it down to 1.5. ... 1.1-3.0 Mbps down and 384 Kbps up.
Weird. I guess it really depends on where you live. Based on the email address and the info on the blog, it puts you right in dense Los Angeles suburbia. I cannot fathom the area having such pathetically bad ISPs, although because of the location I can imagine price gouging by corporations. (On second thought, I can imagine the price gouging no matter where you live.)
If we move, I've already got it own as a condition with my wife that the new home have fiber to the home; it can be Google Fiber, or any of
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Based on the email address and the info on the blog, it puts you right in dense Los Angeles suburbia.
The email address is my school. I live in West Los Angeles, but in a house built in 1946 that is and pretty far from my C. O. That being said, they may be lying about the distance and old wires -- it may be that they have under-provisioned the C. O.or backhaul. I don't trust them any more than I trust TWC. It would be nice if there were some viable competition. Maybe Google Fiber some day -- LA is shopping around for a municipal network partner -- but even Google may become "Comcastic" at some point.
FttH
I [blogspot.com]
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I've already got it own as a condition with my wife
Good luck with that. . .
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I've already got it own as a condition with my wife
Good luck with that. . .
Insert joke about dropping a D as a typo. "down".
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Not even remotely surprising. DSL speeds vary by a tremendous amount, and often max out at 1.5Mbit. Where I live 1.5Mbit is the _only_ speed of DSL available, even though 24Mbit is available less than half a mile from here.
Re: I cut my cable bill by 100% (Score:2)
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Who provides you DSL that doesn't slow down at peak? In my area it slows down, and even becomes dead at 830 every night like clockwork (two different providers).
Hmm. Sucks to be you. :-(
Cable has lines that run through the neighborhood. Those copper wires are shared at multiple houses, then hook up with a box by the major roads that connect it with fiber. If you have lots of people on a shared line it gets saturated very quickly. Also, if too many people on all of the lines begin to saturate the fiber equipment, it can slow down there, too.
DSL also has a wire that runs from the home to the DSLAM by the major road that connects to fiber; however, the wire is not s
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Why didn't this guy cut his telephone service too?
I could not do that while in the store -- had to talk it over with my wife and may still do it. However, I wish I had tried it just to see if the rep could have found yet another promotion!
Re: ObiHai has a charge above the $40 (Score:2)
"Obihai would like to share what’s been going on since our last article about the impending end, in May, of XMPP-based calling using the Google Voice service"
"Here is what we expect to provide OBi customers in cooperation with our ITSP partner. OBi device owners will be able to sign-up for a voice service plan provided by the ITSP, for as little as $39.99 a YEAR. That’s only $3.33 per month! Included in the plan will be; a new phone number, a set-number of outbound calling minutes, unlimited
Re: ObiHai has a charge above the $40 - more (Score:2)
"Google Sets the Date for the End of XMPP with Google Voice
Recently Google announced the end of support for XMPP based calling with Google Voice. This will happen on May 15, 2014 – that’s over 6 months from today. Since your OBi device uses XMPP to communicate with Google servers, the end of support will directly impact how your OBi device can be used with your Gmail account and its associated Google Voice phone number. Unfortunately, you will no longer be able to use the Google Voice communicat
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Even if Google starts charging its going to be cheaper than Vonage.
Google's international rates are pretty low as well.
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obi boxes let you you use your house's POTS wiring with google voice. It's quite a nice product, at least until Google voice becomes more expensive than free -- though faxing over it can be kind of hit or miss.
Yeah - I'm using GVoice to feed the Obi, but I think the Obi will also work with other phone-over-IP services. (in case GVoice ever goes to a paid model.)
Things I like:
- I was able to move my old phone # to GVoice, so I didn't have to get new business cards, or notify everyone.
- Free - endlessly free..!
- You can route calls through the Obi for long distance cheaper rates if you're away from home.
- I can use my cool vintage telco phones; ringers, dialtone, all work normal. You can even program it to ring 'Br
Re:I cut my cable bill by 100% (Score:5, Interesting)
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obi boxes let you you use your house's POTS wiring with google voice. It's quite a nice product, at least until Google voice becomes more expensive than free -- though faxing over it can be kind of hit or miss.
Google will end of support for XMPP based calling on May 15, 2014 . On that day 3d party systems such as Obi will no longer be able to use Google voice to make or receive phone calls. Fortunately the OBi device may be used with other service providers but non of them are free http://blog.obihai.com/2013/10... [obihai.com].
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And surprisingly on that same page they offer a $40 per year service. Hmmmmm.
Its true that Google announced then end of XMPP interoperability, but XMPP was not what Google Voice used for calling.
The OBI simulates the Gmail Google Voice interface and the Google Talk (windows app).
This announcement from OBI may be a self serving red herring.
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What is "faxing", grandpa?
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faxing is like email, except you can only send blurry black and white pictures of text. and it costs you money when you get spammed. (it's illegal to fax spam, but it still happened to me)
Signed documents (Score:2)
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To cut it 100%, you'd have to drop internet and phone too...did you do that?
I did. I needed to move a little over a year ago and decided I'd like to ditch cable entirely. I found a niche fiber provider in my area and limited my search of apartments to ones they served. 100mbps symmetric, under $40/mo and I don't miss a thing about cable.
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All you have to do is call up your provider, hit Cancel service, give them a big sob story on how you LOVE the service but due to unforseen circumstances you can no longer afford it so unfortunately you have to cancel. They will work extremely hard to give you discounts to something that you can "af
the phone is pure profit (Score:3)
what is it? like 50kbps or so of bandwidth for $30 or more per month. take that with upselling faster internet which is a scam considering that all the good content is on a CDN inside their network and will stream with the 20mbps service and that the inter-network links will never support the full speed of all the customers. same with comcast, look at the financial statements and upselling the faster internet and phone is pure profit. the TV business makes almost no profit
i have time warner for TV and internet only. i use my AT&T cell phone with unlimited minutes for the phone. every time i call time warner they push their phone service.
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every cell carrier in the USA has unlimited minutes and texts for cell phones
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Every carries in the USA has a plan with unlimited texts, yes
Every carries in the USA has unlimited texts on every plan, no. Text message charges are pure profit.
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Was that $30/month for unlimited text on one line? If it was you were getting ripped off, even for an AT&T customer.
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The only thing I can think of that is more pure profitable than telephone service is telephone company text messages.
Profitable is an understatement - telcos are making up to 90 000% profit [theage.com.au] on text messages,
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90 000% profit
A few years ago, I did a similar back-of-the envelope calculation and concluded that if Apple charged as much per bit to download songs as telcos charged for text messages, a song would cost more than $5,000 [blogspot.com].
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Why in the world would anybody need POTS in the first place? And why would anybody pay $40 per month for it?
Also, the title is misleading -- TFA says he didn't have cable, only phone and internet. No cable, no cable bill, he had a phone/internet bill.
I don't have cable, an antenna is good enough since TV went digital. I'm paying $40 for unlimited everything on my Android, $46 for DSL (unfortunately that's the cheapest internet available here, cable internet is almost twice DSL and since I live alone, DSL su
"Is This News"? (Score:2)
Well, no, it's not really news that when you tell TWC or Comcast you're bailing, they will dig out "promotions" to keep you.
I would be very suspect of the claim from the Customer Service rep that the bill will only go up 5 or 10$ per year, though, that's not my experience.
I do think that the $70 or so the OP is paying for Internet and phone is still too high, unless the Internet is wickedly quick. And seriously, the IP based phone that he is still paying $30 or so for is WAY too much.
Power goes out, Interne
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I held onto my copper POTS line for years because of that. But it kept going out and I kept calling in for service. One time my wife called me and said the Verizon guy wanted to get into the basement. I was like "NO. THEY ONLY NEED TO FIX IT AT THE BOX OUTSIDE." She said he insisted he had to get in, so I had h
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everyone has had E911 for years now with the IP home phones
you call 911 and they know exactly where to go to
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The box we got from the cable company that includes the cable modem and phone hookup has an internal battery backup so the phone will work in a power outage. Not sure if I'd trust that (got a UPS on it anyway) but at least someone thought about it.
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E911 exceeds pots capabilities in every way.
Cell towers have battery and generator backup, and you cell can be charged in your car.
Or 20 bucks gets you auxiliary battery to charge your phone multiple times.
Re:"Is This News"? (Score:4, Insightful)
When we had the earthquake here in VA, virtually nobody's cell phones worked. I was standing in the parking lot with about a hundred people, and nobody could get through. Landlines worked through the entire event. I'd bet dollars to donuts that it's the same in nearly every crisis situation where the cell system basically gets overwhelmed.
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The problem is not technological and entirely social. You may not remember a disaster before everyone had a cellphone but the fact is that the landlines went down too. It's all about provisioning bandwidth. Same happens on radio systems. Last disaster I witnessed on 2-way trunked system saw call queuing times in the order of 15 seconds on a system which has never once provisioned all repeaters at the same time before.
So don't share your little secret of the landline, or you may find we'll have to go back to
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E911 does not negate the key advantage of POTS, which is that it will work when electrical service it out.
Oddly, my asterisk server and TNI are on a battery backup along with the PoE injector for my IP phone. And my cellphone and tablet (running linphone on android) also have their own battery backups.
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All day, approximately. The asterisk server is a pogoplug.
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I live in Argentina. I call my ISP every 6 months to "refresh" my promo. The trick is not to ask for a discount, but outright call and ask for cancellation. That sets all the alarms and they will do anything to keep you. Drag your feet a little (don't accept the first promo).
I also do that with my bank. Account and CC renewal fees are ridiculous.
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Everyone always says that, but it never seems to be true when I call. I've never had more pleasant or helpful Comcast CSRs than when I've called to cancel my account.
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Was there competition in your area?
There are two ISPs in my city. Arnet, who's bee here since 2001 (well, since long before, cause they're the phone company, but in 2001 they started selling ADSL), and Fibertel, since 2007.
Whenever I had a problem with Arnet, it was almost "oh yea? what are you going to do? cancel your service? LOL".
Once fibertel arrived, the game changed. I ordered Fibertel and had it running, so I called Arnet. They were more like "PLEASE SIR WE WILL GIVE YOU 6 MONTHS FREE!".
The funny thi
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I have a friend working at a call center and he tells me this is how it's done. Low level tech just follow a script, but the "cancellation" representative is different. It also works for when you don't want to follow a script. If you know your problem is your modem (and you want a new one, or a tech to come and change it), and the drone wants you to unplug it, plug it back, connect your computer directly to it,etc, you just tell them you want to cancel service. The cancelation rep also can schedule a tech'
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Well, there's a damn good reason. Cause retention can generate almost as much "one-time costs" as new accounts. Maybe more
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I meant to say: without justification. A low level tech can't schedule a tech's visit without a good justification. Their performance is measured in how quickly they can "dispatch" the clients, and how little house calls they schedule. Their performance isn't measured in how accurately they can solve a client's problem.
That's why sometimes if your problem is taking too long to solve, they put you on hold and hang up.
This applies to outsourced call centers. They bill by the hour of calling, so it's not in th
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Did you know that you could also use your cell phone when your internet goes out?
Re: "Is This News"? (Score:2)
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Cell towers are required to have generator backup for a week.
Of course if the storm knocks out the back haul you get nothing, but that can also happen to your pots, but chances are any random tree blow down will kill your pots long before that.
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It's possible this is true in your state, but it's certainly not true elsewhere.
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Really, it's an actual requirement, for a week? Is that a requirement in your county, state or country, because I haven't seen any requirements for that. If it's true, then it would explain why US mobile contracts are so expensive [therichest.com] - the operators would have to have a battery plus generator for every tower.
The cell tower outside our office (in the middle of nowhere in the UK), which gives us HSDPA has a battery that will last for about 3 hours, though I don't doubt that towers in more densly populated areas
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I've kept my landline purely for emergency backup. In the 32 years I've lived in this area, it's never once gone down. I've had multiple power outages, for up to a week, and the POTS system was rock solid. I'm sure that's not the case in many rural areas.
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Phone goes out 8 hours later based on the battery specs they give you. Two hours later based actual capacity of the battery (which I assume is wrecked by a shitty charging profile because, "who cares, that's why," which works for laptops - you have to unplug the laptop manually because they can't be arsed to install a relay to automatically cutoff charging current when the battery is full?)
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Not for me. Comcast was trying to bone me with some rate increases (I was not supposed to be on an introductory rate, but whatever). Called, threatened to cancel. The only thing they offered me was 5 Mb instead of 50 Mb, for $10 less/month.
I now have DSL.
why do people use landlines again? (Score:2)
every cell carrier in the USA has been offering unlimited minutes and texts for years now as the baseline features on all their plans
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I have a $12 a month plan with only 250 mins and texts. Low limits, but cheap as hell. Only 5c a min if I go over, which I've only done once in a year.
www.pagepluscellular.com [pagepluscellular.com]
Re:why do people use landlines again? (Score:5, Insightful)
why do people use landlines again?
Because cell coverage is neither universal nor 100% reliable?
Cell signal disappears about 2 miles from my house. 0%. Nada. Zip.
"So move" I'm sure you'll say. Well that's just utter BS. I don't live my life chasing cell towers. The residential infrastructure predates cell tower placement. "Just move" is the naive, uneducated cry from spoiled people who've always lived in urban areas and have no concept of the rural majority of the USA's landmass. The cell companies are responsible to make their product accessible to where people live, not just throw down some towers and expect everyone else to uproot their residence and lives just for some luxury service. I have water, electricity, high-speed internet, satellite TV... and a reliable telephone connection that never goes down. Ever. I have a cell phone, but that's a secondary luxury, and due to its intrusiveness when it rings it's also not the default number the average person gets when I give out my #.
Landlines are reliable, uniquitous, and can carry internet service that is based on speed and not on a capped # of GB/month. That's why we still use landlines, you cocky hipster ass.
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Is that unlimited Internet service? No caps and fast like cable (e.g., 15/1)? I care not about voice.
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Is that unlimited Internet service? No caps and fast like cable (e.g., 15/1)? I care not about voice.
If you want a big plan, T-Mobile's prepaid internet is cheap. Some of their older better plans are gone, but they still list $30/month for 100 minutes talk (10 cents per minute over), unlimited text, and data with 5 gigabytes of 4G, then unlimited 2G. There are no bonus fees added to the bill.
If you prefer a dumb-phone, prepaid through T-Mobile is ten cents per minute, ten cents per text, with no other fees. As long as you use put more money in every year the minutes don't expire. That's what we use for my
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Only 5GB? Bah.
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5GB @4G works for me. The many geeks I work with and have talked about this with have also said it works for them, too.
During the day it automatically switches to wifi while I'm around the office. Same at home, the phone is on wifi. The system automatically uses wifi-based calling, so it doesn't use either my phone's voice minutes or data.
If for some reason you consume more phone bandwidth than that you'll need to go to a different plan. That was the lowest-cost phone+data plan, there are many more to cho
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Ah, I was looking for something to replace TWC's Internet. I pay over 60 bucks for 15/1 standard package.
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Name one.
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TracFone has a few subsidiarity like net10, StraightTalk, and SimpleMobile, they are mostly the same.
All these runs on AT&T, Sprint and T-mobile networks. I had problems getting a signal with an expensive T-mobile subscription in my apartment, and AT&T which seems to have connection was way to expensive, so I just switched to net10, works fine.
I'm new in the US (H-1B) relocated from Denmark, a small country b
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How is this news? (Score:2)
I thought this was common knowledge. It is always prudent to renegotiate cable bills. Cable is a luxury for most of America. That is why the reps have so many options and various packages to choose from. The companies are all about customer retention. They cannot retain customers with their sub par service, so the only tool in their arsenal is to discount their offerings.
This is common. (Score:5, Informative)
It just goes to show what a monopoly they have because they could easily cut their prices in half, still be profitable and would have more customers as people would be more willing to keep cable tv as well as have phone and internet.
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No, GP was right, they have a monopoly, which is why they're able to do this kind of market segmentation within a single geographic area. If they were not a monopoly, they would be competing with, hopefully, enough companies that they wouldn't be able to significantly cut the price because the price would already be pretty close to the actual costs.
This is a problem where infrastructure is the main cost and competition requires a duplication of infrastructure, and in other industries this kind of thing is
It's all rigged. (Score:5, Informative)
I worked for a Pay TV provider for 2 years as a retention agent. They're all the same. It costs more money to get new customers than to retain old ones, and with the sunk cost of the infrastructure (satellite, cable, or fiber) it costs them almost nothing for an existing customer under contract. You can get the largest package, all the premium channels, and free ppv events if you know how to work the system.
The trick is to threaten to cancel. Threaten to drop everything and go to a competitor. Make them work to keep you.
The first line agents will offer you peanuts. Most people accept this offer and feel good about lowering the bill. Don't accept the first, second, or third offers. Make sure they document the offer being provided - insist on an email of the offers so you can consider them. If the agent can't do that, their manager or supervisor can - and will - if you ask reasonably.
Once you have their 3rd offer documented, it will likely be in the range of $30 to $40 off per month of the listed price. Let it sit 3-4 days, then call in and get back to a second or third tier retention agent. Let them know that you have family or friends in the industry - (a niece or nephew or cousin or good friend) that is offering another $20 lower for their best package without having to fight.
Let the agent know that you would stay with their company if they could match the savings for at least 6 months. Also ask if they have any perks or extra to throw in, like free ppv movies or events, or free streaming. Insist on free premium packages as if you were a new customer.
Your bill will drop from the $120 for the premium package with all the movie channels to $40 a month for 3 months, and then around $70 until the discounts run out.
Rinse and repeat. Every premium core package costs them roughly $3 per customer. The movie channels cost around $5 per customer on average. They need to be at $10/month, regardless of your channels, to make a profit. The rest of it is negotiable.
It should go without saying, but to get the most out of the system, make sure you make your payments on time.
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Only works if you have viable alternatives (Score:5, Interesting)
Big Data is real and they use it to screw us.
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But you can dump its TV services for satellite, OTA, etc. I bet TWC would drop this offer since they would be /.'ed from this article. Heh.
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The Scam (Score:2)
It's basically a round about way to force you into the higher tier packages. If you call ask for lesser service they offer you 300 kbps for $45/mo.
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Why does DSL in the US seemingly mean crappy speed?
I know that distance to the DSLAM makes a huge difference, so perhaps the commenters just don't happen to be pretty close to one. (I also find it a but funny in some American software and games, where DSL ranges from maybe 256kbps to 8Mbps, and above 8Mbps is called Cable. I've been using a 10/1 Mbps ADSL connection for several years, and not only is the speed exactly as good as advertised, I also don't remember more than one outage, so it's quite reliable
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Long runs from the CO, lots of pairs bundled together, and lots of people in an area using DSL.
AT&T's (SBC) U-Verse can give pretty good DSL speeds ("download speeds up to 45Mbps"), but only if you're in a neighborhood where they've already installed their refrigerator-sized boxes, so the distance the copper runs to the D-SLAM is very short.
Verizon is the other huge player, and they've opted to deploy FIOS, and not putting much effort into upgrading the
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I already listed the regular prices... You'd know that if you took 30 seconds to check, instead of complaining about baseless nonsense here.
There's always promotions, but I only quote the non-promotional prices. Some providers hide it a bit, but it's not very hard to find the small print. Nothing you've said means anything.
Ha ... I saved WAY more (Score:4, Insightful)
Or how about how I get 90% off on French Fries because I made them myself using a $3.99 10-Pound bag of potatoes?
Also I saved $73 on ketchup and toilet paper last year by hording ketchup packets and always asking for extra napkins everywhere I go.
I also made $2,223 in extra income by only going to the bathroom while at work, so I not increased my leisure time but received a 100% return on investment for sitting on the toilet.
Or something
Speaking of monopolies... Comcast (Score:2)
Comcast has a monopoly in our area. I have had conversations resembling the one in the article with Comcast reps. About a year ago, a rep put me on a promotion that lowered my bill while also adding a phone service, which I didn't have at the time. The rep said I would have to call back after 9 months and ask to be put on a different promotion if I didn't want my bill to go up. 9 months later I called again and the rep in question claimed that I was going to be on the promotion for another year. After argui
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never deal with the phone reatards, there is a local customer service center in your local town, go there, spend 5 min and watch them freak out when you look them in the eye while they lie to you
boom fast and done
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never deal with the phone reatards, there is a local customer service center in your local town
No, no there isn't. PG&E has an office here, but AT&T doesn't. They have a CO, but there's no customer-facing interface there. I'd have to drive for an hour to find an AT&T office. There's an AT&T reseller, but that's for mobile. And hilariously, they are almost completely useless. For example, they didn't get the iPhone for like two years.
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talking about comcast here you asshat, where did you confuse that with ATT?
Common Knowledge (Score:2)
I don't even watch cable TV for a few years and I knew this. Are there people so incredibly ignorant here?
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We're just nuts for boobs.
OTA all the way (Score:2)
I'm only getting 14 channels, was wondering if I would miss TV, but NO. Main PC running BeyondTV with one tuner, Win7 Media Center Machine running 2 tuners in the living room, Homeworx 150PVR in the bedroom on a 27" Trinitron XBR.
100% cable-free since 2009. Now building a big-ass antenna (DBGH open-source) http://imageevent.com/holl_and... [imageevent.com]
Try this one weird trick! (Score:2)
You wouldn't believe how easy it is to live without cable.
Total savings: 100%
Bill increases, really? (Score:2)
Rep: It goes up by $5-10 every year after a promotion ends.
Wow. I never cease to be amazed by the land of free competition.
My ISP, Free [wikipedia.org], billed me 30 € ($39) in 2003 for 1mbps and no data cap. Over ten years later they still bill me 30 € ! Of course a lot has changed, there's still no data cap but the bandwidth cap has been removed too, I get unlimited phone calls to France but also about a 100 other countries including the US and Canada, and they provide me with a box which is an Adsl modem, network bridge/router (my choice), 4 port 100Mbps switch, CPL a
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I miss my freebox... :(
The thing is that there is a serious lack of competition in the US regarding network providers. In my area, there is only one provider that can give me more than 3Mbps. So there is little you can do to fight. I believe the various internet operators see no interest in having too much overlap between them, as they know it would ultimately drops their profit margin.