I’m not a big fan of Comcast or Verizon — but I am a fan of saving 50% on my phone/internet/cable bill each month. We have been Comcast customers since 2001, so our history with them has been both rough and pleasing. Verizon FiOS is getting installed en masse in our neighborhood, and we were told by the landlord that Verizon would need access to our apartment to “run a FiOS installation line from the basement to our closet and then to all the closets above us in the building.” We can choose to sign up for FiOS, or not, but the construction for installing a FiOS pipe will be done no matter what.
FiOS is offering an $89.00 a month plan for internet/phone/cable for one year. That price, Verizon told me, matches our current Comcast service and saves us almost 50% off our current Comcast bill.
I called Comcast this morning to tell them “Verizon FiOS is in the house” and I wanted to know if Comcast would match the FiOS deal for a year or not.
Of course, the Comcast answer was, “Not!”
The Comcast retention representative told me this about FiOS:
- If your service breaks, Verizon will be there in four days to fix it. We’ll be there in a day.
- Verizon has higher taxes. You’ll pay $25 a month with them and only $10 a month with us.
- After that first $89 year, you’ll never get another discount from them again.
- FiOS doesn’t have On Demand.
- FiOS doesn’t have DVR.
- Comcast has more HD channels than FiOS and more are coming.
- FiOS is not giving you 16mb/5mb internet service like we give you for that $89 a month bundle price.
The woman apologized that she couldn’t do better on our current bill. She said we already have the “top of everything” and there’s no lower plan to put us on that would give us the same service.
She then offered to take $5 off our bill each month for six months — no strings attached — and to send us two Pay Per View coupons worth $4 each.
I thanked her for her time and for the information — and now comes the hard part as I need to decide if we want to part with Comcast and take a chance that Verizon FiOS will deliver what they promise.
One thing I do know is this: Comcast needs to have a better price response for current, loyal, customers to blunt the Verizon FiOS onslaught that is getting ready to conquer our neighborhood.