Broadband Competition: An Anecdote

by on April 7, 2006 · 8 comments

Who says there’s no broadband competition? While reading up on franchise reform, it occurred to me that I hadn’t tried the “threaten to switch and get a discount” tactic on my broadband provider, Charter. A 10-minute conversation with an extremely helpful gentleman cut my monthly bill nearly in half, from $52.99 to $29.99 in exchange for a one-year contract. And I only paid the $52.99/month for one month, because the first six month I was paying $26.99 in a 6-month introductory offer.

This was for “naked” broadband–I don’t watch TV and I’m cell phone-only. And it’s no doubt a result of AT&T’s aggressive $12.99 DSL offering. Cable Internet is considerably faster than DSL, so I’m happy to pay a moderately higher price for the faster speed. I remember paying over $50/month for a significantly slower DSL connection as recently as 2002.

Could things be even more competitive? Sure. But I think this illustrates that a duopoly is dramatically preferable to a monopoly. The best way to help the consumer is by cutting red tape for cable and telephone companies so they can continue undermining each others’ monopolies in voice, video, and data.

Oh, and if you aren’t currently getting some sort of discount from your broadband provider, give them a call and threaten to switch to the other team. Chances are you’ll get big savings on your monthly bill.

SHARE: 8 comments

About Tim Lee

Timothy B. Lee (Contributor, 2004-2009) is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He is currently a PhD student and a member of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. He contributes regularly to a variety of online publications, including Ars Technica, Techdirt, Cato @ Liberty, and The Angry Blog. He has been a Mac bigot since 1984, a Unix, vi, and Perl bigot since 1998, and a sworn enemy of HTML-formatted email for as long as certain companies have thought that was a good idea. You can reach him by email at leex1008@umn.edu.

Read more articles by Tim Lee.

  • Samanthaattheshore

    I would love to get some competition and a lower cost, but here on the Jersey shore cable and DSL are priced about the same when I check. We keep hoping we’ll get something from Verizon called FIOS, but it seems as though the local politicians are blocking it. It really sounds as though that would make a difference.

  • Samanthaattheshore

    I would love to get some competition and a lower cost, but here on the Jersey shore cable and DSL are priced about the same when I check. We keep hoping we’ll get something from Verizon called FIOS, but it seems as though the local politicians are blocking it. It really sounds as though that would make a difference.

  • pkp646

    Sam- Cable companies are the real monopoly and their prominence has cost the customer too much for too long. Hopefully you guys in Jersey will get the opportunity to have some competition and lower your costs sooner rather than later.

  • pkp646

    Sam- Cable companies are the real monopoly and their prominence has cost the customer too much for too long. Hopefully you guys in Jersey will get the opportunity to have some competition and lower your costs sooner rather than later.

  • Jerseygirl

    Does anyone really beleive that competition isn’t good for the consumer? It’s painful for me to pay my cable bill every month when I know that there are better services out there that are being blocked from my area…

  • Jerseygirl

    Does anyone really beleive that competition isn’t good for the consumer? It’s painful for me to pay my cable bill every month when I know that there are better services out there that are being blocked from my area…

  • http://www.abc-acupuncture.com/baxqorav tramadol

    81e31de21f46 Good work http://www.abc-acupuncture.com/baxqorav tramadol

  • http://www.abc-acupuncture.com/baxqorav tramadol

    81e31de21f46 Good work http://www.abc-acupuncture.com/baxqorav tramadol

Previous post:

Next post: