fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
1 edit | reply to Anonymous
Re: Not a good deal
Anon,
for the record, the MCCC phone that I have used was in Ames and in Des Moines.
But moving on, if you look at your voip prices vs the others, it's mediacom that is underselling as compared to the other two giants. TWC and CC is $39.99 bundled.
However, on the FLIP side of things...  you have to also compare what Medicacom is selling their other products for.
In turn, why is medicom selling their high def service for $9.95 on top of the equipment rental AND the "digital gateway" fee. With Comcast, you rent a box for $5.00 and get the services within the tier you are already in.
Why does mediacom rend a box for additional outlets for $6.95 and THEN make you pay a $4.00 "gateway fee" on top of it?
Truth be known, medicom is not cheaper on it's service when it comes to phone. The way I see it, MC can afford to sell their phone service cheaper at a bundled price because their cable is more expensive. The unbundled price is only $5 different at that price point.
In the end, the bundled prices for each service doesn't matter because you MUST bundle to get that price. What matters most to the MSO is what the total amount due on your bill at the end of the month says.
MC realises that their triple play price will attract more people since it's $29.99 a month. What people DON'T see is that to get that bundled price of $29.99 you have to purchase many other expensive services to get it.
I am not bashing MC, well I am not happy about their video offerings in IA especially, I am mostly talking about why MC APPEARS to be a "better deal" over the others. |
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Anonymous
Premium
join:2004-06-01
IA | Well I guess other cable companies are charging $40 bundled. That's way too expensive. In fact I was hoping that Mediacom would match Vonage. |
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Big V
@68.87.x.x
| Think about this...
Vonage (and any other low cost service providers) does not provide any kind of service to your home, they just have a data center which translates your IP signal then routes it onto the phone switch. They could care less about your quality across the publicly switched internet (once you leave your ISPs network).
In this sense, the service that Mediacom and Comcast are providing is superior (assuming that it is working with the same level or reliability) as they can actually control the amount of lost packets and routing of your IP packets to guarantee QoS (quality of service).
This to me is worth the extra money as I tried Vonage and for some reason my call quality was extremely poor. After weeks of troubleshooting, I determined that it had to be the public internet component of my connection to their data center. I now use the cable company's service and the call quality is 100% better...for $15/month more.
As for the cable company de-prioritizing packets for these other phone providers, my friends at the cable company tell me that they have enough problems dealing with their own internal routing to keep it up to date and could not possibly manage to de-prioritize packets for specific services. Can you imagine the amount of administration it would take to maintain that amongst their other routing rules? Not realistic...especially since it would leave an obvious trail for anti-competitive law suits. This argument is so ridiculous I cannot believe that people even bring it up. |
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rachelsfx
join:2004-09-27
Pensacola, FL | reply to Anonymous
Cable VOIP to the home is Regulated
Vonage isn't, yet. A PSC can't really touch Vonage except maybe on 911 service. However, if a Comcast customer complains, they can fine them for providing lousy service with lots of outages. Cable VOIP ISN'T Net based either. |
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