At the risk of self-promotion, there was a piece in Sunday’s Eagle business section that I found especially interesting, as someone who’s weighing the future of remaining with Cox or making a switch to a less-pricey provider of bundled communication services.
I don’t live in an AT&T U-Verse area, so my choice is a little more complicated – and complicated even more by some things I really like about Cox: Customer service and high quality HD programming top that list.
But, Cox is pricey in an era when no one’s got extra dollars to devote to a unilateral bill hike. And our relationship has had some bumps: an unusable computer safety software package that brought my state-of-the-art laptop to its knees, the company’s inability to get me into an HD box that works for more than 24 hours without being rebooted.
Plus, I’m a sports viewer. Satellite and U-Verse have an unmatched selection of sports channels to watch that Cox hasn’t matched to date.
I’d rather not switch, frankly, because customer service on satellite is reportedly not very good. On-the-spot troubleshooting is Cox’ strongest feature, in my opinion. But it’s a change I’ll take a close look at if 2009 continues to pinch my budget.
Let’s talk about the options. Where is the battle for communication marketshare headed?
5 Comments
Who’s cheaper than Cox for internet? I don’t have a TV or land line. I had the same number land line for ten years until Cox didn’t get my payment posted to that side of my account and it was lost. I recognize that I have had much less trouble with cox than with AT&T’s DSL.
I think it depends on the provider – but I can tell you that my alternative to Cox is $20 a month cheaper for Internet, with no discernible difference in the service I’ve seen demonstrated.
I’ve been checking out U-verse and cannot wait until it is in my neighborhood. I will be switching in a heartbeat.
I have AT&T’s DSL, Home phone and mobile, so I can have U-Verse in a bundled deal and get a great rate for it.
The channel selections for even the low end has all the channels and more that I would need then my standard digital cable package from Cox, and that it comes with a DVR (Cox you have to pay more) and additional receivers are only $5 ( I think the last I check it was more with Cox, but not by much, but still more that U-Verse.)
I’m on the e-mail and call list for U-verse once it becomes available.
I’m wondering though, how long you will get this great price for the bundling of services. Usually, they throw out a good price to start out with, then start raising it. We’ve had DirecTV almost 10 yrs. and have seen it go from $38./mo. to $90/mo. We did add one high-def receiver last summer and took their high-def programming, which adds $4.99/mo. for the receiver and $9.99 for programming. However, we don’t have the receiver with the built-in dvd recorder, or we don’t take any of the special movie pkgs. We just have total choice programming, plus the high-def. Since we live in the country, we have no choice other than Dish and I’m sure once we changed, their prices would go up as well. If push comes to shove, though, we will cancel the service, because we can get about 18 channels with our rooftop antenna. And, we do have digital tvs, so the switchover won’t take that away.
Yeah, I’ve heard that UVerse is already raising its prices.
Regardless of the provider, that just doesn’t strike me as good business – giving the consumer a disincentive to utilize your service in a down economic time.
It strikes me as greedy – which is the reason why we’re in this economic mess.