As a customer of two Broadband companies for years, I’m used to the annual drill. The cable company hikes your monthly bill, and you call them to find out how serious they are about the increase. Today’s call to Astound (see screen capture) was worth the effort — I ended up with a new monthly bill that will be lower than what I’m paying now.
Astound provides high-speed Internet service (no TV) to my vacation place. Their most recent price increase was about $7 per month (9 percent). Is that worth fighting asking about? To me it is, not because of the money so much, but because otherwise I would need to verify that Astound is still competitive. That means extra work for me. Getting them to reduce the amount of the increase at least counts as some due diligence on my part since I don’t really want to switch ISPs. Last time I checked there weren’t many to choose from in a rural area like Treasure Island.
I spoke to a nice lady named Sadie on the phone. Unlike Xfinity, Astound doesn’t put you on hold forever before you can talk to a human. After I explained why I was calling, she went off to search for “deals and promotions in my area.” Whatever. She did that two additional times when I prompted her with questions about the Internet service to be provided.
The last monthly rate she came back with was the best of the three as it was $8 less than my current bill. Same service, less money. When added to the increase I would have been paying if I hadn’t called, that’s a savings of about $15 month ($180 year).
But don’t feel sorry for Astound. In 2022, my bill was about $48 per month for the same service. With annual price hikes, the charges increased to $79 per month. Starting next month, the bill will be about $71. Phone calls help sometimes but not always.
Xfinity is another story. They aren’t as pleasant to deal with as Astound. But that’s a story for a different blog post.
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