Vindictive Comcast!

[Chicago Democrat]

OK, maybe I was a little bit too happy when I returned the Comcast boxes in the DISH network box.

And maybe I was a little bitchy when the Comcast employee said, because I'm canceling Comcast Cable, Internet services will go up from $41 per month to $60 per month.

I said I didnt care because I'm getting SBC DSL as soon as next week but I just need it for a couple more weeks!

Then maybe I had a wee too much to drink and played "torture the Comcast online help guys!" by asking questions like "How do you sleep at night working for such an evil company?"

So today they turned my internet off and blocked called from my phone when I tried to complain about it!

Evil, wicked vindictive Comcast!

[intrepid_wanderer]

1. Charter sucks just as much...

... but, with either... we're sorta at their mercy

DAMMIT! :angry:

... and if the SBC DSL offerings here weren't such crap, we'd use it instead

Blarg! :-(

[MercutioATC]

2. Get WideOpenWest if they serve your area.

They're great!

[Patiod]

3. Why the hell are they allowed a monopoly on cable service?

We have competition for phone service, electrical service, why why why why why do they get a monopoly on cable? I refuse to do business with them, and don't have cable. $60/mo? I don't think so.

[sendero]

4. A better question..

.... would be "Why would anyone buy cable when satellite is twice as good and costs about the same?".

As for your original question, that is pretty simple. In order to have cable at all, someone had to make a huge investment in putting in the cable (wire) itself. To entice companies to do that, they were given monopoly status.

[Patiod]

6. someone had to put in phone and electric lines too

yeah, I know, that was monopoly too, at first. Well, time to Baby Bell Comcast is all I'm sayin.

as far as satellite, my friends who had it found it had a tendency to cut out if the weather wasn't great. They loved it at first, but had it cut out during shows and football games, so they reluctantly went back to Comcast.

[sendero]

7. Valid point...

... they "could" release the monopoly - but my opinion is that if it weren't for internet services (cable modem), the cable companies would be sucking wind big time right now. So really, there wouldn't be anyone dying to jump into the cable services fray right now I believe.

Fact is, cable is functionally obsolete. It is much more cost effective to launch a satellite. The marginal cost of adding a user to satellite is near zero. The outside plant (wiring) on a cable system needs constant maintenance, expensive maintenance, and adding a user that is not wired is expensive.

I have a total of about 1-2 hours of outage on my DirecTV a year. That is better than I ever got on any cable system. If someone is getting blackouts over a little rain, your dish is not pointed correctly, or there is some other flaw in the installation.

[driver8]

8. Exactly! We had Charter for about a week...

The quality of the picture sucked so bad that we quickly switched to a satellite dish. I would never, ever use Charter again.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

5. Ugh, I live in NW Indiana, close to Chicago, and Comcast is all we have.

I HATE them. When I moved, I called all the utilities nice and early. Phone company was there on time, gas was turned on on time...cable...three weeks I think I had to wait AFTER I moved in.