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lesopp
join:2001-06-27
Land O Lakes, FL
| Re: insanity This is double dipping. I have a long distance provider pretty much 4.5 cents per minute to anywhere in the US, Canada, South Korea and a few other places I've never called. There is no monthly plan charge. If this charge appears on my bill, then bye-bye Verizon. After all, quality alternatives do exist. | |
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King P
Don't blame me. I voted for Ron Paul
Premium
join:2004-11-17
Inman, SC
 ·Windstream
 ·Charter Pipeline
| Cable does it too Charter charges me an extra 10 bucks a month on my internet service, because I don't get their cable TV service too. I'd rather get 16 channels of DTV over the air for free anyway.
I know that an extraneous cable tv charge is different from being charged extra for not getting Long Distance service through the Telco...but truthfully, I've been waiting for this to happen anyways. Glad I switched to VoIP over 2 years ago.
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Forget 'em, Support the Indies.
»www.ind-music.com | |
| | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| Re: Cable does it too said by King P  :Charter charges me an extra 10 bucks a month on my internet service, because I don't get their cable TV service too. That's an argument that goes back and forth. The other day, someone said that "U-verse gives me a discount for bundling" meaning the same thing... services are higher than the bundle rate. A bundle rate is a discount from a provider, and it's not a penalty. Some places may word it that way.. but still.. it's a different argument.
What you are talking about here is a bundle discount. This is a "fee" for a service in which you don't have. In your case, your HSI is the normal fee with out the bundle charge and your HSI is higher than if you bundle. Here, they are charging a "fee" for a service in which you refused.
It's different.
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"Complaining is the least path of resistance for the self-reitchous and lazy..." | |
| | | Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA | Re: Cable does it too Of course the difference is semantics.
If you drop your cable service the HSI portion just goes up $10's instead of adding a seperate line to the bill that says "$10 fee because we can". | |
| | | | | | | | tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Floral Park, NY
| Well, you get charged $10 extra, but look at it this way.. you can go with $17 Sunrocket voip and save at LEAST $13 over the cheapest cable voip service.. (cablevision's $35 voip or $29.95 in their 1st year bundle)
NO telco/cableco voip service is below much below $24.95 for unlimited. | |
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ColorBASIC
8-bit Fun
Premium
join:2006-12-29
Corona, CA
| That isn't the case with Comcast. Comcast's fee only works one way. If you drop CATV and keep HSI they levy the "how dare you not have CATV fee". Drop HSI, the CATV bill stays the same. When I had ATTBi and Comcast took over, I suddenly saw my bill jump $15 because I didn't have CATV. NO ONE's bill went down because of the so-called bundling discount.
Prices would have had to drop for someone if they had a discount. Bundling simply grants avoidance of the price increase.
They're all whores...Verizon, Comcast...greedy bloodsucking whores. | |
| | | | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| Re: Cable does it too ok.. that's one way of looking at it, but in your case, ATT BB is a company that no longer exists. When Comcast purchased ATT BB, you became a comcast customer. They are under no obligation to honor the rates or the former owner, which is what happened. So, your rates went in line with Comcast pricing.
As in your argument, the One-Way theory, Comcast is a CableTV company. Their main line service is television. You're right.. they don't bundle discount cable tv. So? They DO, however, offer a bundle discount on HSI and Telephone services, their second line products.
Phone does the same thing.
It's funny - discounts used to be a 'good thing' until too many people got them. Once they did, they forgot the real price of services and only saw their promotional or bundle rates.
Sorry, I don't agree they are all whores. This is a capitalistic society.. it's supply and demand. If people want to purchase a product or service - so be it. You have the option not to have something.
Prices may be going up, but in case no one noticed, they're going up everywhere. I don't see anything in life or reality that states that "..while everything else goes up, phone, tv, and internet must remain low."
I'd love to see things like Gas, electric, dining out, movies, TAXES, car prices, lawn care, home prices, groceries, health care, air line tickets, .. get it? go down.
What has become the norm, today, is that people know they have to buy certain things in life. What you hear people wanting to go lower are the 'extras' in life.. the luxuries.. and they are usually the most expensive.
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"Complaining is the least path of resistance for the self-reitchous and lazy..." | |
| | | | | rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO
| Re: Cable does it too I agree everything goes up but usually technology products get better and cheaper. Although salaries always rise, the cost of equipment used to provide HSI probably isn't rising. At worst, it's getting faster, smaller, cooler and staying the same price. This should enable the company to provide more for less cost -- meaning as they expand their network to service more customers, they can buy less equipment because each new device is faster and can serve more customers.
As an example, think about trying to provide today's typical free e-mail service ten years ago. The prevailing Intel processor was probably something like a Pentium 133mhz. Disks were probably 10GB. Imagine building a server farm to service 1GB e-mail accounts with that hardware! Contrast this with today's quad-core multi-gigahertz processors and terabyte disk drives. Same cost, 100 times the capability.
Of course video services is a different matter. The providers raise costs and those costs must be passed through to the customer. | |
| | | | | | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| Re: Cable does it too You've got it right, in many cases, however it's not always right in what you speak of.
In this case, the line equipment is being updated both in the field and in the head ends. So there are still capitol investments going on. Millions of dollars go into upgrades per system.
Using your own example, labor costs go up and it takes labor to install these upgrades. Also, the cost of this new equipment isn't really getting cheaper. Fiber is still expensive and the new equipment is as well. (Example, the RSU house equipment that cable used for digital telephone, cost several hundred dollars.)
Could they lower the costs and keep the speeds where they are? Sure!! Look at AT&T. They keep their DSL priced so low that they don't have the margin to compete, innovate, and bring the fiber to the home like they should. Now, look at Verizon, while they are dropping the price of DSL, their other costs are generally rising and getting higher. But, they are deploying fiber. Same with cable.. cable has made many improvements over the last 20 years alone that are obvious. (Telephone fanboys and cable haters can jump in here if they choose - I will ignore)
Basically, if you take the cheap route to undercut the competition, which DSL providers are doing, you don't get as much innovation and "new" stuff. Those companies that are raising rates, cable/verizon and some other smaller companies, you see the new toys. The way I look at it, I'd pay the extra $15 to have cable or that extra on, ugh, Verizon, KNOWING that they are both pushing hard to deploy new services... unlike AT&T.
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"Complaining is the least path of resistance for the self-reitchous and lazy..." | |
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Meridion
@comcast.net
| Actually if you paid attention when they first came out with the "bundle" you would have noticed that before the bundle the normal price for HSI was approx $42. After they came out with their bundling scheme the price was $42 with the bundle and a lot more without it, some places were as much as $60 or $70. Now how can it be a discount for the bundle when it's the same damn price as it was before? | |
| | | | | | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| Re: Cable does it too Actually, I'm quite familiar with the prices. In the MN region, the prices were as I explained them. ATT BB, when they took over Media One, had a price for HSI, which was actually about $50 a month for what ever the node would allow. Speeds were ALL OVER THE PLACE. (To old McDonald) "With a 5 Meg here, a 1 meg there, he a K there a meg all over the place your speeds were.. " Then, ATT finally set it to 1.5 when they ditched Road Runner and went to @home. When Comcast took over, it was $52.00 stand alone and discounted to $42.00 as a bundle.
This is one system that specifically states "Included bundle discount for cable tv customers" - Some systems state a $10 charge for NOT having cable which is why some people state it's a penalty.
And for the record, HSI was ALWAYS discounted in a bundle in the hsd1.mn.comcast.net area even when it was a one way modem service. 
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"Complaining is the least path of resistance for the self-reitchous and lazy..." | |
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Notallrises
@charter.com
| The problem is that all the corporations are raising their rates while the customers aren't seeing an increase in their salaries. Many people I know are making LESS than they did 5 years ago doing the same or similiar things, yet they're paying MORE for goods and services. Is that how capitalism is supposed to work?  | |
| | | | | axus
join:2001-06-18
Washington, DC | Actually they still have to follow the terms of the contract until it expires. The contract probably says they can raise prices at any time for no reason, of course. | |
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