Celebrating The Wireless Revolution
Thank goodness for competition! I'm so glad to be living in an age where there are choices for the consumer with regards to telephone service. Although I still consider myself a young person, I can well remember a time in the not-so-distant past when you had no choices in telephone service. Telephones came in only one color- black, and if you decided to hook up an answering machine to it, the phone company would threaten to cut off your service. Not to mention countless, frustrating hours on the phone talking to customer service, who could care less about you or your problem. Expensive, confusing bills and whopping long-distance charges. Glad those 'good old days' are long gone. Now, if Ma Bell wants your business, she has to get in line beh...
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thats the beauty of free-enterprise, and im a lil concerned about all these mergers, the consolidation needs to stop, business can do whatever but these mergers are getting rediculous, the customers and employers always get screwed. its a good thing the AT&T/Bellsouth merger is being held up by the FCC and the Dems in congress.
did they seriously threaten pple's service if you hooked an answering machine to ur phone, did they have that feature(answering machine/voicemail)?
did they seriously threaten pple's service if you hooked an answering machine to ur phone, did they have that feature(answering machine/voicemail)?
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Yes, as a matter of fact they did. I know this for a fact. When I was about seven years old, I remember the man we rented our house from when we lived in Georgia had a run-in with the telephone company (then GTE). I'm not sure how they discovered he had one, but they did in fact tell him to disconnect it or else. We also had continuous problems as well. Screwed up billing almost every month, poor service, static on the phone lines constantly, you name it. And no one really cared whether it ever got fixed or not. Nowadays, phone companies know if they don't step up to the plate and offer us the very best they have to offer, we can simply take our business someplace else. I don't believe the services and features we have today on phones would ...
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well in my area>detroit, Comcast is a monopoly as far as cable, there are no other cable companies operating in the Metro-Detroit area. which means they can charge anything they want, prices are rediculous, and they have the worst customer service i have ever experienced. since they are the only cable provider in detroit, they really dont care if someone's internet or cable is out(happened to me more than 5 times) and they sure take their sweet time to fix the problem, i cant move over to satalite until i cut down a few trees, but that is an example of how bad monopolies are.
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thats everywhere I only know of one place that has two cable providers in the same town! And that provider started out as a local wireless carrier.
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This reply also goes out to wombough as well. Yes, Cable t.v. is still a monopoly in some areas and has a long way to go to ever think about beating satellite t.v. ( I have Dish Network myself), but Dish and Directv as well as other smaller companies are definitely putting a hurt on Comcast, Charter and other big cable companies. We never would have seen ANY price decreases or specials whatsoever had it not been for this. I have DSL service through Earthlink via the phone line and am not interested at all in the cable internet services these guys provide. But, I know some folks really like it. Competition is good! I'm still waiting to see if Verizon Wireless is ever going to offer any cheaper plans. They're still offering basically the same ...
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No thanks. Earthlink was rated best in internet service by both J.D. Powers and Consumer Reports. My DSL service is plenty fast enough for me and I'm totally satisfied with it.
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Well does not matter what JD Powers and Consumer Reports say it is about speed and affordability. FIOS will destroy DSL in every single way. Check out the three tier plans and speeds and compare it against yours. You might be surprised. Fast enough? You can never be fast enough the same thing if one says do you have enough money. There is never enough in this world and people want the best. You might get it at a good price. Check it out.
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Earthlink. They are only as good as the company that is providing your line to your house. Unless you have dial up they are not providing the line the cable or phone company is. I can get earthink cable or road runner. Well it TWC goes out so would earthlink. The only difference is the customer service.
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Well DSL is horrible especially comparing it against FIOS and if the packages are better than DSL which I believe that is the case, then it is better to switch. You can never have enough speed.
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even thought i despise comcast, their cable internet (6mbps i believe) puts DSL(anyspeed) to shame, i really dont like DSL but its a lot better than dial up(internet torture :lol🙂
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Speed is no good if it isn't reliable. Customer service, pricing ( I pay only &20.00 per month for my DSL) and whether or not your service works good for you most of the time is what really counts. I also get 20 hours per month of free dial-up service if my DSL does happen to go down. In my area, Charter provides high speed cable internet service. Most people I know like the speed, but hate the service. Same deal with Comcast in a neighboring community. I personally wouldn't want to pay the high price of cable t.v. just so I could have high speed internet service and have to once again deal with those guys I gave so much of my hard earned money to for so many years. I'm glad I dumped cable. FIOS, I don't know anything about. It may be really...
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jrfdsf said:...
Speed is no good if it isn't reliable. Customer service, pricing ( I pay only &20.00 per month for my DSL) and whether or not your service works good for you most of the time is what really counts. I also get 20 hours per month of free dial-up service if my DSL does happen to go down. In my area, Charter provides high speed cable internet service. Most people I know like the speed, but hate the service. Same deal with Comcast in a neighboring community. I personally wouldn't want to pay the high price of cable t.v. just so I could have high speed internet service and have to once again deal with those guys I gave so much of my hard earned money to for so many years. I'm glad I dumped cable. FIOS, I don't know
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Don't confuse monopolies w/ choice of service or more to the point, choice of technologies...
Even though in any one area there are no choices, if you want cable - you get Comcast. If you want phone - you get Verizon. The technology choices are what's helping in the end. If you're fed up w/ the high price of cable, go satellite. If you're fed w/ the service of Embarq for land-line, get digi-phone through your cable provider or go all wireless.
The problem I DO have: most homes built are pre-wired from the street w/ phone from whomever has a deal w/ the county government and cable provider for the same reason. So, there's two pikes in my front yard that split signals for either phone or cable from my house to others. You know...
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Even though in any one area there are no choices, if you want cable - you get Comcast. If you want phone - you get Verizon. The technology choices are what's helping in the end. If you're fed up w/ the high price of cable, go satellite. If you're fed w/ the service of Embarq for land-line, get digi-phone through your cable provider or go all wireless.
The problem I DO have: most homes built are pre-wired from the street w/ phone from whomever has a deal w/ the county government and cable provider for the same reason. So, there's two pikes in my front yard that split signals for either phone or cable from my house to others. You know...
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Had the government not busted up the old AT&T monopoly and had they allowed cable companies to block satellite providers from getting things like local channels or even selling in their markets in the first place, there still wouldn't be any choices, and probably very little advancement in technology either. A fiercely competitive market is the driving force behind new technologies and product improvements. Companies know if they aren't constantly striving to make it faster, better, cheaper, more feature enriched, etc., then they know it won't be long until the other guys knock them out of the marketplace completely. When you're the only game in town, then you can charge whatever prices you want to, have whatever level of service (if any) th...
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busted up ATT. LOL they are 40% back together again. And if the merger of bell south goes through it will be 50% There are only three companies left, ATT, Verizon, and Quest if it goes through.
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