| Posted elsewhere, but on topic So, how much has *your* monthly fee increased in less than a year? 5%? 10%? Those are both well over our current rate of inflation; as found at www.whitehouse.gov, our current Consumer Price Index is at 0.1% over the previous month. Averaged out over the previous 12 months, it is less than 1.3%.
With all this in mind, how in God's name can you justify 2 price increases in less than a year, bringing my bill from $35.95 per month, to $57.95 per month!!! This is almost a 65% (?!?) increase. This is being done for one reason, and one reason only. Comcast desperately needs to recover the estimated 250,000 or so customers that AT&T is said to have lost over the past year, in order to justify the merger to their stockholders. What better way, than to force people that don't have or want your cable TV service to take it, or else risk paying outlandish penalties if they don't? The bundling argument is a ruse, by the way; those people who DO already have internet AND cable telephone service ARE NOT ELIGIBLE for the discount anymore. In fact, they lose their current 4 dollar discount, AND still need some sort of TV add-on, or they pay an extortion fee on 15 bucks a month, making their total boost 19.00 a month. It's cable TV that counts to Comcast, so they can artificially pad their "subscriber" base, parade those inflated numbers to the stockholders and say, "Wow! Look how many people we have picked up in one month! We are really making lots of money!", while at the same time, telling advertisers they need to pay higher rates, due to the increased viewership.
I appreciate the efforts by some folks here to troll in a discussion where they have absolutely nothing to bring to, however, this mess is going on across the country, for two reasons; one, this is what government-authorized monopolies do, because they can; and two, because our beloved congress-critters, in their ultimate wisdom, decided that they would leave the cable companies a large loophole to make money from their customers, by explicitly NOT including internet service (via cable) as being federally regulated. (See the Telecommunications Act of 1996.)
One would do well to read up on what they are talking about, so you might actually sound like you know something. Try this link out for size, and then try to come back here and continue being a cable industry apologist. There is no way you can - trust me.
»www.consumersunion.org/telecom/l···c201.htm
These cable people make me sick. Their greed is exceeded only by their arrogance and stupidity.
-Bob Salwasser
[text was edited by author 2003-01-18 12:27:01] |
