Cable Companies Stick By The "Speed Matters" Mantra As Customers Head Elsewhere

Say That Again

from the yeah,-keep-trying dept

You have to wonder if the cable companies are actually starting to believe their own marketing material. They certainly repeat it often enough. In 2003, as DSL providers started dropping their prices, the cable guys held on, claiming that they would compete on higher speeds and higher prices. That hasn’t seemed like a very good idea. It quickly became clear that lower prices worked as DSL began to close the gap by signing up more new users. Then, of course, DSL providers started to catch up in speed while still dropping prices even further. The cable response has been to keep their prices high (though, some will apparently quietly drop the prices if confronted about the DSL competition by individual customers) and claim that mysterious, unknown “services” were more important than either price or speed. Now, with the latest studies showing that (once again!) DSL subs are beating out cable thanks to low, low prices, the cable providers are still in denial claiming that their “research” shows people look at speed first, and price second. Who cares what their “research” shows when compared to what the actual subscriber numbers show? That research is meaningless. At best, it’s misleading. “Speed” may be important when you’re comparing DSL or cable to dialup, but for many home users, reaching a certain speed is considered “good enough” for now, and then price is all that matters. In that game, the DSL providers are beating cable guys easily.