Orlando area just got a $5 increase for charter internet (60Mb/s). My only other option is ATT and they only have DSL service, which is trash. Anybody in the Orlando area around here? Same experience? Has anyone won this battle and got them to retract the price increase? If so, suggestions? I called them tonight and they nicely told me it's a price hike, I get nothing more for the money and they won't do shit.
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Jacksonville had a similar problem after I first moved here around 2002. The AT&T raised rates a few times less than 6 months apart while constantly getting complaints about service. After the third time the city of Jacksonville took them to court. Before they could get sued by the city, they bought Comcast and put them in place as the new local cable provider, and RAISED THE RATES AGAIN! I canceled shortly after. $20 hike in under 2 years was absurd.
Unless you can get a huge number of people willing to give up their convenience and go without internet and boycott, then my guess is there is little you can do. You might be able to spend a few hours on the phone and keep politely demanding to talk to the highest level person you can and have them offer you a deal not to leave. If you can keep it to brass tacks and not let emotions (like PURE RAGE!) wash over you then this can be effective. If you believe time = money or think talking to customer service is torture, then you are really just paying in a different sense.
When a channel learns that they will be dropped by a provider, they run a little dialog thing at the bottom of the screen telling the audience to call a number and ask for the channel to not be dropped.
I suppose you could do the same thing. Go to different parts of the Internet, and tell people to call your ISP and tell them to stop upping the rates.
I gues Reddit would be the best place. Lots of eyes are on Reddit.
Other places would also be useful. I wonder if Wendell would allow you to post their phone number here. Lots of users here too.
Mine went from $40/mo to $75/mo over the course of a year with TWC.
Funny thing was, they kept reporting that my bill had not changed. I could go on their website and download every single invoice they had ever sent, and they all had the same amount that my current rate was at.
For a sanity check I cross-checked the charges to my bank with their records, no real surprise that they did not match up.
I wish there was a better way to fight it. Unfortunately, there are no other providers in my area.
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Also I have att here in Illinois, and they upped the bill by 7 bucks and yet they took away 5 channels from our package this year.
Like WTF.
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Mine went up as well but they did it while upping our speed from 75mbps to 80mbps. Afterwards I talked to the mayor and we are working on getting municipal broadband but we are a long ways out.
During the process we did find a new competitor to come in to town and they should start deploying soon. They are LOS radio based but the product looks great. Company is point broadband.
I suppose one could also ban together with the community and city/town/whatever and create their own ISP.
I believe I looked that up before, and some towns had their own ISP.
Since I've been with my ISP they have upped our data from 30mbps to 100-115mbps over the years and haven't charged extra for any of it, feels good being in a market with competition.
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If you live with a roommate/SO, you can alternate the bill so you always get the introduction​ rate. By the time the intro rate expires, the other account should be eligible for new customer discount again.
Just don't tell them that's your reason for cancelling tho, complain about data caps, price hike, etc.. downside of this method is you might be without internet for a few days during the transition
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Probably raising the price, so if the bill passes and becomes an exception, they can "prove" the bill benefited consumers
Call and say you are thinking about changing isp's. Did that to comcast and actually got a price decrease. Obviously that only works if you have another ISP available.
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ATT is the only other provider other than satellite internet. ATT offers a whopping 6 Mb/s up and 1 down for only $45 a month. woo.
Just have to act as a dumb consumer and say you will switch to them, trust me they will try their hardest to keep you.
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