| Nothing New I get a 5% discount on my Homeowners insurance because I buy my auto insurance from the same company.
I get a discount, compared to individual prices, on my phone bill because I buy a package that includes caller id, call waiting, call forwarding etc. I get an additional discount because both of my land lines and both cell phones are all on the same bill.
I get a discount on my dry cleaning because the same place does all my work shirts.
Nothing new. It is one of many ways used by companies to get you to purchase additional goods and services that you might have purchased elsewhere or not at all.
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Dave
I'd rather be fishing!
Speakeasy, Covad - Not fast enough. |
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| The problem isn't that they give a discount on internet service to people who also subscribe to the tv service. Giving a discount would be dropping the cable modem service 10% like $4.25 for people who subscribe to TV. Not jacking up her cable modem service more than 25% for not subscribing to cable TV service. Time-Warner use to have a similar pricing policy, although it was like this from the beginning the service was offered. You knew that if you didn't get cable tv you would have to pay an extra $10 more per month for cable internet. Luckily TW-RR realized that it was a bad business practice, and have since discountinued it in the Tampa Bay area. |
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| In my city it was $40 more if you didn't have cable TV service. They got harassed and terrorized out of this practice. |
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echoes
join:2002-01-11
West Harrison, NY | reply to bassdude
You're close but using your own words:
"I get a 5% discount on my Homeowners insurance because I buy my auto insurance from the same company."
I can see a maybe a 5% or 10% difference between bundled and unbundled service but 25% as in this case is the work of an arrogant monopoly. I'd like to see them try this if they had some competition like your insurance company and dry cleaning service. |
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| I live in Comcast territory.
There is competition for some of us.
Covad DSL 2 years ago because high speed cable internet was already at least 6 months late.
Comcast cable was replaced last fall by DirecTV when they wanted to raise my rates from $38 to $53 for the family cable package. DirecTV is $40 plus it has more channels.
For those who cannot get DSL I feel sorry but you can get Satellite Internet but I don't think it is as fast as 1.5MB DSL but package it up with DirecTV to get the "bundled rate" at it is not so bad.
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Dave
I'd rather be fishing!
Speakeasy, Covad - Not fast enough. |
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echoes
join:2002-01-11
West Harrison, NY | It's great when you have a choice so that when one company suddenly raises their rates an insane amount, you're able to switch to someone else as you did going from Comcast to DirecTV. Unfortunately, the choices aren't always there when it comes to broadband internet connections.
I looked into Direcway satellite broadband for our office in Chicago a couple years back when we couldn't get DSL and I remember the upfront costs being very high, the was speed relatively slow (up to 400K) and there were latency issues. For many, it's just not a practical solution.
I believe the best way to show your displeasure with your service from a company in any industry is to go someone else (a competitor). If you don't have that option and you feel the company is acting unfairly then you have to look to the government to protect the consumer. |
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