Every so often – a bit too often for my taste — I am reminded why I have such disdain for cable TV companies.
Before I signed up for Dish Network service back in 1998, I had been a cable TV customer for at least 10 years. My memories of those years are not good ones. What do I remember most about my cable TV service? I’m only too happy to tell you:
Lousy picture quality. Despite all their claims about wonderful picture quality at the time, I was never impressed with the picture quality I received with cable TV service. It was no better than the picture we used to see in the “old days” with a TV antenna on the roof of the house.
Long outages. Although the cable companies love to lie about frequent outages due to weather conditions that customers experience with satellite TV, I experienced many more outages with cable TV than I have with Dish Network and the outages I endured with cable were a lot longer.
Frequent price increases. I’ve saved the best for last. What I remember best about cable TV service is the frequent price increases and apparently, in the last 8-plus years I have had Dish Network service, that’s one thing that has not changed with cable TV service. How do I know this? Let me explain.
High-speed Internet access is an absolute must for me because of my business. There is no way I could do what I need to do on a dial-up or other slow Internet connection.
Where I live, I have one option and only one option for high-speed Internet service and that option is called Comcast. This places me in the unpleasant position of being a Comcast customer — almost whether I want to be or not. We cannot even get a slow DSL line where I live.
My previous cable TV company here was a company called Adelphia and I was their customer for the same reason. They were the only game in town if I wanted high-speed Internet service.
A couple of years back, the crooks that were running Adelphia (yes, they were real crooks — convicted in a court of law and now facing possible prison time!) were caught with their hands in the cookie jar and from that point forward, the company slowly sunk into non-existence.
Comcast and some of the other big cable companies bought up Adelphia and split it up amongst themselves. My area was gobbled up by Comcast and we were switched over to Comcast about 10 months ago.
I had been paying Adelphia about $48 a month for a good year-and-a-half previous to the Comcast takeover. Actually, that was a pretty impressive amount of time with no price increase for a cable TV company. However, there was all that criminal activity and those bankruptcy proceedings that may have made them a little embarrassed about raising prices during that time.
By now, you may have figured out just where it is I am going with all this
babbling. If you guessed that Comcast is raising prices, you are correct!
I just received this bit of happy news by way of a nice form letter that was waiting for me in my mailbox today. And this one is a doozy.
When Comcast took over from Adelphia they increased my monthly charge about a dollar to $48.96. Welcome to Comcast!
Recently, I purchased my own cable modem because of some major problems I was having with my connection and since the modem I had been leasing from Comcast was about 3 or 4 years old, I thought it was starting to get a little flaky as they often do after that much time.
It seemed like a good time to get my own modem and save myself $3 a month by eliminating the monthly fee for leasing their modem.
After I returned their modem and began using my own, my monthly charge dropped down to $43.37. How a $3-a-month modem lease charge reduced my bill by $5.59 I will never know. It must be “Comcast math,” but I was not going to complain about saving a few bucks.
Well, it seems Comcast is more than making up for that now with a whopping $15 increase to $57.95. Wow! That’s some increase! Probably the biggest single increase in a cable TV company bill I have ever seen.
As you can see from the attached copy of that letter (the one that starts with “Dear Valued Comcast Customer.” Gee, if this is how they treat “valued” customers, I’d hate to find out what it would be like if I was not “valued” at all!) there really is no explanation for the price increase.
I would expect them to tell me they are spending more money by adding new services or maybe that the price of buying programming from networks has increased or something, but all they tell me is what a “great value” my new Comcast High-Speed Internet is. Do they really think I will believe that load of crap?
Then they go on to tell me why their service is such a “great value”. Let’s talk about that a little bit, shall we?
Firstly, they point out the free McAfee Security software they allow me to use at no additional cost. What they don’t say is that it is permitted to be used on only one computer in your house (who has one computer these days?). I actually tried McAfee on my wife’s computer and it was a bloated and inflexible program that slowed her computer down enough to make her demand that I remove it. I did and I replaced it with one of the free anti-virus and firewall packages available on the net that is probably just as good as McAfee and probably even better. So much for that benefit.
Secondly they mention some software called PhotoShow for enhancing and sharing my photos with friends and family — an $89 value no less! Are they serious? There are probably dozens of free programs and web sites on the net where I can “enhance and share” my photos with my friends and family. Another “benefit” falls by the wayside.
Thirdly, they mention “Rhapsody Plus,” which I must admit, I know nothing about and have never heard of. Apparently they are offering a bunch of commercial-free radio stations to listen to. And of course, it is a $59 value! Well, guess what? I have a ton of commercial-free music channels, including all the Sirius Satellite Radio music channels on my Dish Network Service at no extra charge. No thanks, Comcast. That’s another “benefit” I don’t need from you.
Finally, they are touting something called “The Fan,” which they do not mention a price for, so that must not be much of a value at all. It has something to do with streaming video clips for news, sports and entertainment updates. Ever hear of YouTube? I don’t use that all that much either and I certainly don’t care about “The Fan.”
Apparently, those great “benefits” are the only appeasement they have to offer customers who are having their monthly bill jacked up $15. None of them, as you have read, are of any use to me.
One other fact I would like to point out here is that never, in the 8-plus years I have had Dish Network service, have I experienced a huge price increase like this one from Comcast. I don’t have the old bills right here in front of me right now, but I can’t recall a price increase from Dish Network that was more than $2 or $3 and compared to cable TV, those increases were very rare events indeed.
The real reason for this increase is probably to penalize customers like me who have the gall to get my high-speed Internet service from Comcast without getting my television programming from them as well. They make it very clear that I can lower my bill by signing up for one of their “bundles” of packages.
What they don’t know is that they are only making it more unlikely that I will ever sign up for any of their other services. They could raise my high-speed Internet bill to $100 a month and I will still keep my Dish Network service and tell them where to shove their television service.
One thing is for certain. When another genuine high-speed Internet option becomes available here — whether it be Verizon FiOS or some new technology I have not even heard of yet — I will be canceling my Comcast service with the intention of never doing business with them again.
That is the kind of customer loyalty you create when you pull a stunt like this, Comcast. You have earned a prominent spot on my growing list of companies that truly suck.
By the way, the problem I was having with my service that prompted me to purchase a new modem turned out to be a problem Comcast was having with some of their equipment and had nothing to do with my modem at all.
It took them at least three weeks of service that was constantly going up and down to finally figure out what was causing it and correct it. Nice going, Comcast. How can I begrudge you a major price increase while I am enjoying superior service like that?
July 24th, 2007 - 9:51 pm
[...] I do suspect, however, that we are talking about a pretty small number of folks. And for them, I feel sorry that they have only an outfit like Comcast to do business with. I feel their pain. Permalink [...]