After verifying that my DSL connection was worth the savings of $27.01 per month, I decided to call comcast and cancel my cable modem. Here is a recount of my call. First, after all my years using comcast this was the fastest I ever got a person on the line (when I am canceling). I finally get a guy on the line, and he is very interested in why I am canceling my service. He asked if I was unhappy, and I answered truefully that I was not unhappy and did like the service. He asked if the service was unreliable, and I told him that it had been very reliable. He finally asked why I was canceling and I said that I was going to another provider.
His next question was interesting, he asked if I was leaving due to cost. I then said that was correct and I was looking at saving some money. At this point I was asked if I would be interested in a better offer? Well of course I was, I love a deal. His first offer was to reduce my 45 monthly amount by 5 dollars. I said no. He then goes on to discount the monthly amount by 10 dollars to 35 a month. I still say no. I then get a great comment that DSL could never provide the same speed as Cable, I agreeded with him. And argued that there is no reason that I need bandwith capable of 5 MBS when I only really use 256 - 728 KBS (I love mrtg) I have mrtg traffic graphs from the last 4 years. He could not understand why I would not want a faster service, I responded that it was like owning a car that can go 200 mph and only being able to drive on the highways at 70 mph. Why pay for a car that can go 200 when you only use it to go 55 or 70.
Even with VOIP I have not topped out my bandwidth or even got close to it. Infact, most sites won’t give you content at 4 MBS. Think of the bandwidth cost for those sites if they did. The main thing that I need is upload speed, and my current DSL line actually has a better upload speed. This is very helpfull with VOIP. I have also noticed less latency with DSL.
Back to the Comcast guy, I finally get an offer from comcast for 27.99 a month for a slower service, with fewer features. He then reminds me that comcast offers 12 email address, spam filtering, the “FAN”, and their software. Which I retort with the fact that I don’t use their email, have never seen the “FAN” and would not install any software from an ISP ever.
This is where it gets interesting. I finally tell them that I really would like to cancel my service (10 min into phone call). He begins the cancel process, I then get asked if I would like to return my Modem or have a tech come out and get it. It will be a 13 dollar charge to have a tech come out. I am not happy at this point, it will cost me 13 bucks to have someone come out and get a Motorola Surfboard Cable modem from 1999 that is worth about 5 bucks on ebay (I saw a ton of them for .99). I can have the tech come or I can drop it off at a comcast billing location. I ask what would happen if I just kept the junky modem. That would cost me 50 dollars for the item. At this point I am doing math, I leased the modem for the last 6 years at 3.00 a month (36 yr), which is about 216 dollars that I have paid for this item. I figure that paying for tech that is from ‘99 should cover or basis, well I am wrong. I say “no thank you” for the tech and that I will drive to a station and pay.
15 min later I have cancelled my comcast high speed internet, become angry, and have to drive to a payment center to return a crappy out of date cable modem. The saving of $324 per year is worth it, and I am really happy with my DSL.
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