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Yes another reason why something must be done about the Cable empire monopolies. All of these companies are monopolies and they will continue to be terrible and have terrible service until they can be broken apart. Either that or the government needs to step in and tell them that anyone can resell their lines, even though that specific company laid the line.
@Heresy_Fnord: @rpm773: Shoddy customer service has EVERYTHING to do with being a monopoly. When you have no competition, you have no reason to try harder or take care of customers. Do you understand basic economic principles?
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All of these companies are monopolies...
So they're all monopolies, but there are many of them? I'm with kingofmars on this one.
But again, with so many choices for cable, phone, and internet, Comcast (nor any of the other companies) is not a monopoly. Most people, like you, who cry foul don't even bother to research their options -- satellite, DSL, etc. In the vast, vast majority of cases (I'm just guessing > 90%), you have two or more options. Even those folks in apartments with unenforceable \"exclusivity contracts\" or \"no satellite dish clauses\" are allowed choices, under FCC mandate.
@supercereal: There are many cable companies but not many in one market. You may have Comcast in one market, Cox in another, Charter in another, Time Warner in another, but never in one market.
Why is this hard for you all? Go ahead and continue to get burned. Maybe you'll figure it out eventually...
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@supercereal: No view of the satellites where I live, so now what? Heresy_Fnord's not entirely incorrect. I'm stuck with a 3Mbps/1Mbps DSL at one of my home because Time Warner doesn't have backup power on any of their street amplifiers so any power burp in town and my data's out. At my other home I have a 23GHz link back to my data center. 48Mbps+ up and down. I only wish I could get this level of access commonly in the USA. Sad that it's quite common in other countries.
The real problem with many of these large monopolies (Comcast/Time Warner/Verizon) is that they've grown too large and haven't managed to scale their operations to match. Calls get routed to call centers in far away places where reps are judged solely on the # of calls per hour, not actually resolving the issue. No one with accountability. It's terribly inefficient, but these companies haven't figured that out yet. They're too busy looking at call metrics and stock prices rather than customer satisfaction and long-term profitability.
@FLConsumer: Yes and I understand how people say, you don't need cable, get Satellite. But that's wrong because that's like saying you don't need a landline, get a mobile phone. Those are exclusive services offering a similar service. AT&T offering me TV and Comcast offering me TV is not a choice. It's literally you can have this specific type of physical line, or you can have this other completely different physical line. That isn't a choice.
A choice is wanting a mobile phone, one specific technology, and having many providers that offer it. If I could get Comcast, Cox, Charter, and Time Warner all at my same address, without moving, that's when the monopoly would end.
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@supercereal: I have to say I agree with you.
When my boyfriend and I were looking into internet service for our apartment, we opted to go with cable internet for 2 reasons. 1) it was already wired, 2) we didn't want to have to pay to get a landline so we could go through a carrier such as AT&T. Once we narrowed it down to a cable carrier, we had a few options, but went with one that we were familiar with, and had had a good experience with in the past, CableOne. Granted, we don't have the fastest internet, or even a great computer, we at least have something, and that's always better than nothing...especially since my boyfriend requires the internet to work from home....
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@Heresy_Fnord: Monopolies -you keep using that word I don't think you know what that means. Princess bride
Anyway, speaking as somebody who works for Verizon, I know my company never would have bothered to put in fiber optic lines to homes if they would have to just resell the line to a competitor
@kingofmars: A monopoly is when one company has all of the market. Here I looked it up for you.
1. exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices.
By the way, nice job making personal attacks at me.
I could care less where you work, that's the problem with running line. It's also what the phone companies faced when Ma Bell was a monopoly, it was that exact thing. They ran they line so they owned it and no one else could use it, hence the Bell monopoly and hence the Bell phone company was broken up into \"baby bells\" as they were called.
God you people fail at comprehension of anything.
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@Heresy_Fnord: This is a billing error, and has no relevance toward the issue about cable monopolies. The existence of competition will not prevent Comcast from billing its customers incorrectly. Plenty of consumers are mis-billed by vendors in commercial sectors where competition is prevalent.
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@rpm773:
The term \"billing error\" ended when it was brought to their attention and Comcast elected to claim they are entitled to do whatever they wanted.
@rpm773: \"This is a billing error, and has no relevance toward the issue about cable monopolies. The existence of competition will not prevent Comcast from billing its customers incorrectly.\"
If customers could get cable TV from a competitor that did not engage in fraudulent billing (if it was simply an error they would have corrected it when it was brought to their attention, it wouldn't have taken a call from the AG's office or the FCC) then Comcast would wither and die like it deserves to.
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@rpm773: It might give them some motivation to improve their service (including billing) to attract customers away from competitors. Competition is a driving force that improves all customer related aspects of a business, not just price.
@LastAndLeast: Perhaps there would be some added motivation to existing and prospective customers. But we're talking about a customer getting billed after closing her account. What's Comcast's motivation there?
There is plenty of competition in the mobile phone industry. I'm sure more than a few people out there have been mis-billed by their respective providers.
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Time Warner did the same thing to me. It's a good thing you saved that receipt. Keeping that is the only thing that saved me more hassle.
I think I'm just going to go back to drawing on rock walls for entertainment.
@synimatik: Charter did this to me after I canceled and also moved. I didn't know anything until a collection agency tried to contact me after two years.
@synimatik: Same here. Time Warner sucks the big one. Intermittent service, retarded CSRs, and billing that goes on and on for months after you think you're finally free of the bastards. I didn't go as far as contacting the AG, but I should have in retrospect. Apparently, anything short of that - you know, like calling them every day and screaming - is bringing a knife to a gun fight. They have your money, and they don't care.
@synimatik: It's gooood that you're drawing on the walls for entertainment.
This poster apologizes for watching The Twilight Zone episode 'It's a Good Life' yesterday and drawing parallels to everything.