People always say DSL is worse than cable. We used to have cable until I realized that our download speeds were far less than what was anticipated. They were so bad it really shouldn’t have qualified as cable in the first place (we’re talking 1Mbps here). At that point Adelphia was charging an extra $10/month for not having cable TV with our broadband. As soon as DSL became available I switched because anything was better than what we had. I’ve been a happy DSL (Basic) customer ever since, especially since they doubled our speed at no charge some time ago. Verizon is now offering FiOS (fiber optic for those not “in the know”) at some very competitive rates assuming your utility backbone can handle it. Great, maybe we’ll get that in our next house.
That brings us to today. The new house is not only incapable of getting FiOS, it’s also incapable of getting the standard fallback of DSL. What’s that leave? You guessed it, Adelphia cable… joy. A lot of people have cable and love it so what’s the big deal, right? Let me break it down for you. I’m basing all the “*” numbers on a year of whatever promotions they currently offer and rounding to the nearest dollar. If we keep the service more than a year the prices will go up ~$4/month.
- Cable Basic ~ Down: 4 Mbps, Up: 0.4 Mbps ~ $38/month*
- Cable Premier ~ Down: 6 Mbps, Up: 0.8 Mbps ~ $55/month*
- DSL Basic ~ Down: 3 Mbps, Up: 0.8 Mbps ~ $26/month*
- FiOS Basic ~ Down: 5 Mbps, Up: 2 Mbps ~ $35/month ($40)
- FiOS Premier ~ Down: 15 Mbps, Up: 2 Mbps ~ $45/month ($55)
Now just eyeballing those numbers you can see that for $3+ less than cable we could be getting fiber optic with a bit faster download and upload 5 times faster. There really is no excuse for Adelphia to offer the ridiculously low upload speed they do and charge so much. The DSL Basic (what we have now) offers twice that for $12 less per month! Hell, for a few bucks more I could get 3-4x the cable download in FiOS Premier. Absolutely ridiculous.
That’s not even the best part of it all. When I called to schedule installation they told me I can’t do so until the previous owner’s service ends. If they make the appointment in the system it will immediately terminate the service of the current owner. That’s right, I can’t even schedule to have a technician come out until the day we move in. That means time off work waiting around for Adelphia to show up rather than getting it done the same day as the electric, gas, water, satellite and phone companies. You’re charging your customers so much money, you should at least be able to offer a bit better service. Bastards.
Edit: I’ve been asked to note that…
- A phone line is a sunk cost for me due to alarm and TiVo.
- A cable TV discount bundle isn’t an option due to satellite equipment investment and well, I freaking love DirecTV.
- This “rant” may not be valid for everyone, especially if you have Cox. As a result I added their prices in parens next to the FiOS packages they match. Cox is a bit more expensive than FiOS but at least it’s fast at a reasonable price.