Well Comcast continues to be the cable monopoly for my area. Yes, AT&T just turned on U-Verse and there's always Satellite but I'm on old school analog guy and I don't want to pay $10 each for our TV's. For those of you following at home that would be $10 bedroom, $10 other bedroom, $10 living room, $10 family room, $10 DVR, and $10 Media Center PC = $60. Yeah, my total cable bill right now is $63 w/tax so forget all that. Until AT&T releases a box that works like the satellite co's multi-room DVR or the satellite company comes out with a technology that doesn't lose the weather channel during, um, severe weather, I'm stuck with Comcast.
I've been paying $0.30 a month for "Serv Protect Plan," or their inside wiring plan. This gets me out of extra service fees if Comcast has to come inside my house to troubleshoot a problem. For the $3.60/yr it was worth not arguing with them. I'm a pretty tech savvy person and have even been known to troubleshoot my issue back to the demark. Every if I call them to say there's an issue with their feed they want to roll at truck and arrive between noon and 4pm. So when the tech shows up at 3:58pm I've pretty much wasted an afternoon. Last time I had this issue, it took 4 tech visits (2 contractors, 2 Comcast) before someone got out a line tester and found that the line from the demark to the feed was bad. Miraculously, that fixed the problem.
It seems Comcast worked with a third party, The Academy for Corporate Excellence, who said they should raise rates on this line protection plan, change service rates for calls (ie, that seemingly mandatory truck roll) and only maintain up to the point of demark. It's some good reading (especially the "transition chasm") and fairly indicative of the non-customer service oriented model companies are beginning to exhibit. I'm all for the change in how they maintain their system. I agree that one should pay for inside wiring changes (outside of an initial installation). What will irk me is if they try to push a mandatory truck roll as part of their "troubleshooting." Also, it seems that this fee is as high as $4.95/mo in some markets. Add this to the constant remapping/dropping of channels and what seems like commercials from a Lifetime Channel special on the evil satellite companies and DSL providers. Very frustrating. Alas, for now Comcast, enjoy your monopoly and that extra buck a month.
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