Reviews:
 ·Embarq Now Centu..
| [HSI] Adios Patriot Media! Back in January this year I ditched my trusty ole' Sprint [now Embarq] DSL service to take advantage of a PatMedia promotion offering $20/mo for the first 6 months. At the time PatMedia's rep suggested that it was very common for offers to be extended and that it would be quite likely that $30/mo with a 1-year "contract" would be achievable at the end of my initial promo. I do not have cable TV or phone with PatMedia so the full rate would otherwise be $58/mo plus $2/mo for cable modem rental.
Well, the 6 months were up today so I reached out to PatMedia last week seeking what they could do. Instead of a competitive offer, I was pretty much just asked when I'd like to disconnect service which occurred today. PatMedia is apparently not very interested in retaining customers; the "best" they would do was $35/mo provided I moved to a premium cable package and also used them for voice service. Total would have been well in excess of $120/mo. Not only do I have no need for their cable TV service much less a 'premium' tier, the voice service is far more expensive than I'm currently paying from my LEC-provided service.
I returned the cable modem directly to PatMedia's Somerset NJ office since the appointment times were so inconvenient (you know, a vague 4 hour window) that it was simply more cost effective to hand-deliver the modem to PatMedia in travel time and gas from Clinton NJ versus taking a half day off from work.
What was perhaps most interesting was my interaction with the representative in PatMedia's office. My distinct interpretation is that they are arrogant enough to believe their service is worth a significant premium and they have no need to match other service provider's pricing. "We don't have to match prices" I was told, and that they'd be losing money if they extended promotions. The gentleman there was quite adamant that DSL simply isn't comparable (in terms of speed, and price wasn't an issue to people who appreciated the speed PatMedia offered). When asked about FIOS in the surrounding area he didn't seem quite sure what it was, but was rather confident that it wasn't going to be an issue. Allegedly for every one customer that leaves of their 80,000 subscribers 12 new ones jump on board. Based on that I guess DSL PatMedia just picked up 12 new subs. 
What's perhaps most disappointing is that these folks obviously have no idea of the economics of customer retention vs. new subscriber acquisition or winbacks. I spent ~15 years in a large consumer services company and know all too well that its expensive to acquire, lose, and attempt to winback a customer compared to keeping an existing one especially if its based strictly on matching market prices. These guys probably didn't even come close to recouping the costs of their initial truck roll for installation in January!
On the bright side I'm back to DSL with Embarq's 5.0M/640K service at $44.95/mo. 2 days from order to live (equipment overnighted for free, they even waived the $13 S&H fee since I was a previous customer). Speed is right-on and seems to be more "crisp" than the cable modem, though I've not yet really done any serious benchmarking other than for file transfer throughputs.
At first I had some reservation of cancelling the cable modem service which offers 7M/1M -- the 1M upstream was indeed nice... Even with the chronic performance issues from last Winter/Spring, an abysmal installation experience where my house tiles were shattered, tech support that's generally non-existent or worse, $30/mo was the pain threshold where I probably would have stayed. After my latest set of interactions with PatMedia all doubt and hesitation was completely removed. I'm happy as a clam and have no regrets of leaving PatMedia.
Bottom line is that competition and having real choice is GREAT. With a mentality like PatMedia's it'll be a wonder if they'll still be around after services such as FIOS are widely deployed. |
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| You are my IDOL. Can you upload a picture of yourself so I can print it out and tape it to my wall of idols. That was actually just a joke, I not a pervert. But I think it is very noble that you have the guts to cancel PatMEdia, cause I sure dont. BUt trust me I am going to give that honors to the Verizon REP that will be installing my Fios in August after Corzine signs that bill and I have FIOS TV. |
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xcdcxx
join:2004-10-04
Somerset, NJ | lol think corzine will make it? »www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/03/···dex.html
looks like he is slow to make stuff happen. now this is a real problem in NJ not TV |
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 DaveDudeNo Fear
join:1999-09-01
New Jersey
kudos:1
 ·Vonage
·ViaTalk
| reply to MEDIAPATRIOT
said by MEDIAPATRIOT:You are my IDOL. Can you upload a picture of yourself so I can print it out and tape it to my wall of idols. That was actually just a joke, I not a pervert. But I think it is very noble that you have the guts to cancel PatMEdia, cause I sure dont. BUt trust me I am going to give that honors to the Verizon REP that will be installing my Fios in August after Corzine signs that bill and I have FIOS TV. What guts are required to cancel a service ? Thats totally stupid. I think Corzine has very big problems now, considering state workers will not be paid till his passes his budget. This administration is by far the worse NJ has ever seen.
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the darkest moment is often just before dawn (unless we hold onto the darkness). Anxiety spoils everything and solves nothing. |
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| Actually, this is what this state has needed for a long time. Someone who actually understands that's there's a problem and has the guts to try to fix it. |
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DaveDudeNo Fear
join:1999-09-01
New Jersey
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Vonage
·ViaTalk
| said by robjlevin:Actually, this is what this state has needed for a long time. Someone who actually understands that's there's a problem and has the guts to try to fix it. Well its not fixed yet, so i guess "fixed" has a different definition depending if your a democrat or a taxpayer.
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the darkest moment is often just before dawn (unless we hold onto the darkness). Anxiety spoils everything and solves nothing. |
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| reply to MEDIAPATRIOT
said by MEDIAPATRIOT:You are my IDOL. Can you upload a picture of yourself so I can print it out and tape it to my wall of idols. That was actually just a joke, I not a pervert. But I think it is very noble that you have the guts to cancel PatMEdia, cause I sure dont. BUt trust me I am going to give that honors to the Verizon REP that will be installing my Fios in August after Corzine signs that bill and I have FIOS TV. you don't have the "guts" to cancel your service? are you retarded?
you won't have fios in princeton in august. after he signs the bill, the earliest the franchise will take effect is something like october. the time vz finishes their overbuild and upgrades the CO equip you're looking at something like 8 or 9 months from now. |
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| reply to DaveDude
You're right. It took a long time to get this messed up...it's going to take years to fix it. |
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