Yesterday we switched from Qwest to Comcast. We had no choice. Qwest clearly did not want our business, and Comcast was very eager to get our business. Through word of mouth we heard of a deal Comcast was running wherein we would pay $55/month for basic cable (network shows), telephone/long distance, and internet access for six months, then the following six months we’d pay $75/month, and then after a year the price would go to $102/month. I work from home so I need all of those services (besides basic cable, but we sort of need that due to our location as network television doesn’t travel to our television any other way). We were paying $140/month through qwest for those services, but this month we got our bill and it went up another $12.00. In short the switch, including free installation, gained us around $600.00 in savings this year.
Further, we were using DirectTV’s DVR for recording shows as part of the Qwest bundle, which has a horrible interface. With cable, which we had before switching to satellite I can use the Windows Media functionality in my family computer to record the shows I want, and even better than that: I can use Windows Media Center to play the shows back, and the Windows Media Center UI is polished, clean, and lets me jump 30 second intervals in the video instantly. DirectTV definitely needs to get their act together because the software that I have from Microsoft, which is for general use, is better than the DirectTV junk that they force on their customers. I did have to buy a second TV card for my Media Center PC to be able to record two conflicting shows at once, so that was an added $110.00. But for the amount I’m saving, I’m still way ahead of using Qwest for their ‘bundled’ package.
To cap things off when my wife called Qwest yesterday to cancle service they had the audacity to tell us that they’d be glad to try to get us a better rate after having jacked up the price on us just this month! Why charge customers more if you don’t have to? Because some customers will just take the rate increase and ignore the loss. If we run into any other hiccups or problems, I’ll be sure to post them, but I couldn’t believe the savings.
