Sunday, January 08, 2012

I guess they thought I wouldn't notice

Compost, my Internet provider, did their usual Comcraptastic job and raised my Internet bill by $3 this month. I had looked at the rate hike sheet and had not seen a rate hike for Internet-only service, but apparently I was looking at it wrong, because Comcast certainly raised my rate.

Because I'm now paying more for Internet service without receiving any better service, I guess it's time for me to switch to the competitor, uhm... err... what competitor? Comcast has a monopoly on Internet service in my area! Not a government-enforced monopoly, mind you -- our local government has encouraged AT&T to expand DSL availability, for example, and has been very helpful to ClearWire in getting towers up and encouraged a WiFi startup too -- but none of these have "taken" for the reasons that I discussed earlier in this blog -- i.e., that the primary cost of providing Internet service is infrastructure, infrastructure is a fixed cost regardless of how many people use it, and there just aren't enough customers to pay for twice the infrastructure given that the current rates are already less than that. A competitor simply wouldn't be able to recoup their investment in duplicating Compost's infrastructure, so they won't do it.

So I will take my bitter pill of an unregulated monopoly up the ass without lube, just like a good American, because what choice do I have? No Internet? Yah, this Libertarian "no regulations" thingy is workin' out *real* good...

-- Badtux the Sore-bum Penguin

6 comments:

  1. It felt SOOOOOO good when I could finally call Verizon up on their phone and tell them to shove their fucking internet service up their ass.
    59.99 a month soon went to sixty five and as much surfing as I do, it was never under a hundred.

    Rotten fuckers.

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  2. A friend lived in an area that was, at first, only Comcast. Their attitude was a Russian one of "customers serve us." Then a local company strung cables and offered service and, boy oh boy, Comcast's attitude took a hard 180deg turn.

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  3. Actually I did just switch to Clear for wifi and plan to get this roku thingy and see if the wifi signal will talk to my tv. Should net out to be comparable to Comcast costs, but for better product.

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  4. I'm disgusted with the "competition" here also. Not to mention that they complicate the shit out of everything!

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  5. Tempted to tack on a data plan for my phone, and use it for a hotspot. Still gotta figure out my data use versus the plans to see if I'd be better off cost-wise.

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  6. No shit. I am still stuck with Comcrap and I hate them. Still, where else can I get high-speed internet?
    After SOPA, of course, this will all be academic, since I won't have The Internets in Gitmo...

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