Hello Mark,

On 16 Jun 14 18:58, Mark Hofmann wrote to Nicholas Boel:

 NB>> It's amazing to see what they can get away with until you actually
 NB>> do something about it! They're probably STILL making a profit off
 NB>> of me, but it took every bit of what I did to get them to finally
 NB>> budge, which the lady at that counter told me is exactly how the
 NB>> company works. So in a year, I'll have to basically do the same
 NB>> thing in order to get the best rates possible, otherwise they'll
 NB>> jack the price right back up to where it was.

 MH> Was this Comcast or another ISP?

At the moment, another ISP (Time Warner Cable), but they were bought out by
Comcast and should be switched over by the end of the year or something
like that.

 MH> We have the duopoly of Comcast and Verizon here in Maryland.  Verizon
 MH> does not negotiate, but Comcast does.  Verizon also advertises low
 MH> rates, but when you add in all their fees and gear you need to use the
 MH> service, it ends up almost doubling their "advertised price".

Here the duopoly is Time Warner (soon to be Comcast) and AT&T. Any
experience I've ever had with AT&T has been horrible, and their
customer service is terrible. Time Warner has always been the frontrunner
for internet speeds around here and their customer support is usually
pretty helpful (especially their "tier 3" support).

 MH> It takes persistance, but Comcast will give you promos forever if you
 MH> hound them enough.  I have been doing this for over 7 years now.  All
 MH> my stuff stays on promos.

Yeah, same with Time Warner. Just that I didn't know there would be that
big a difference between calling them and physically taking the equipment
back. :)

 MH> Currently, I have Digital Preferred + HBO, (2) cable cards and Blast
 MH> Internet (105/10Mbps) for $83 a month with taxes and everything.

Hopefully we start seeing rates and packages around here like that when
Comcast starts taking over. At the moment I think the highest speeds I can
get is 50/5, but it's expensive and not worth the extra when I already have
30/5. If the upload speed was doubled I'd probably go for it, though.

 MH> You can save some money by getting rid of the boxes and getting an
 MH> HDHomerun Prime (uses a cable card).  I have two of them, which serves
 MH> up 6 tuners for the entire house to use.

I may very well have to look into that. I do know the equipment is friggin
ridiculous, and we have 3 boxes here. I want to say their like 12.99/month
each plus the actual service to them which is another 12.99/month. That's
60 bucks just for that!

Regards,
Nick

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