Phone Calls On The Cable Bill
from the triple-play dept
The telecom battle continues. While the phone companies and cable companies have been battling it out for high speed internet connection, the cable companies are upping the ante by pushing phone service over cable as well, according to this NY Times article. The cable companies are specifically focusing on a bundling strategy of offering phone, TV, and internet access all as a single bundle. They figure (perhaps, correctly) that by offering all three things, they keep people from switching to a competitor that only offers one (or possibly two) components. The strategy definitely makes sense, and it’s almost surprising that they haven’t been making an even bigger push already. They’re basically consolidating all the data pipes into a single service. Of course, some consider it both a good thing and a bad thing to be totally at the mercy of a single provider. If you look at AT&T Broadband/Comcast’s recent strategy of signing up a bunch of people and then suddenly jacking up the prices, personally, I’m not entirely comfortable with giving them complete control over the data pipes into and out of my house.
Comments on “Phone Calls On The Cable Bill”
You know, I have that available to me right now...
And I have absolutely no plans on getting telephone service via AT&T (Comcast) now or in the future. If your cable goes out, wiping out all three at the same time, how the hell are you going to call AT&T and tell them about it?
Also, going with their service means a telephone number change, which means a telephone number that has been good for 11 years is going to change, just because we decide to change service.
We have the cable TV and the broadband Internet. I’ve had issues with dead DNS servers, and other hardware going bad on the Internet side, and I’ve seen problems with the TV side. Usually not at the same time, which is a good thing.
The other thing being, with the number of transformers that seem to be popping around here right now, loss of power would mean the loss of all three!
Re: You know, I have that available to me right no
I have subscribed to all three through AT&T for over two years now (in NH). The phone service went out briefly for less than 24 hours about 2 months after I had made the switch. It hasn’t gone out since.
Also, I did *not* have to change my phone number, so I don’t know where this came from (I only scanned the referenced article and didn’t see anything there).
I’ve been quite happy wiht the phone service.
Now if they’d stop increasing the broadband rates…
Re: Re: You know, I have that available to me right no
I wasn’t referring to the article, I was referring to the mailing/propaganda that came directly from AT&T. You must have it better in NH than we have in FL. It’s just warmer here. 😉
About the rates…. The cable TV rates around here are just plain stupid. I moved here from Columbus 1.5 years ago (wife has been here for a lot longer), and we are paying twice the rate I was paying in Columbus for less channels. The bad thing about Columbus was that Internet (Road Runner) wasn’t available to me until 6 months before I moved down here, I knew that time table, and they wanted a 12 month contract! Meanwhile, the Internet cost is the same as any other ISP and a second phone line, so go figure. :/
Re: You know, I have that available to me right no
The is a 3rd party provider that gives a Cisco phone router that you can plug into your broadband (DSL or Cable) that gives you REAL phone service over your internet connection and will let you keep your current number and the price is a steal, unfortunetly I cannot recall their name/url right now.
Re: Re: You know, I have that available to me righ
Cable, Phone, Internet Bundle
If I remember correctly, back about seven years ago, GTE offered the same service in Thousand Oaks, CA and the surrounding area. It was 5x the speed of 56k and you also got digital phone service and tv on the same line.