Share your telecom "bundling" experiences

These days it seems like everyone wants to provide you with Internet, telephone and cable TV service. Double- and triple-play packages that offer some or all of these services are being heavily promoted offered by cable and telephone  companies, as well as by satellite service providers such as DIRECTV and DISH Network. Verizon's high-profile entry into the market with its much-publicized FiOS fiber-based service has created yet one more choice for consumers to ponder.

Adding to the complexity is that individual providers frequently offer a variety of bundles, allowing you to increase your Internet surfing speeds, for example, or the number of channels included with the TV portion of your service, all, of course, at a higher price. Promotional pricing that ends in anywhere from 3 to 12 months can make difficult to find the amount you’ll ultimately pay.

Given all this, we’d like to find out whether you’ve ventured into the jungle of bundled choices. If so, how was the experience?

Among the questions we’re curious about:

• How easy (or difficult) was it to compare bundles within a provider and also to compare among providers?


• Did you try negotiating with the providers to see whether they’d sweeten their offers or extend promotional prices?


• Did you end up opting for a bundle or buying your services a la carte from different companies, and how satisfied are you with your choice?

Have you reviewed the choice you made, perhaps some months after the fact? If so, some additional questions:

• If you went with a bundle, are you saving money compared to the amount you were paying for individual services, even after the end of the promotional pricing?


• Were there any nagging gimmicks or gotchas that you didn’t discover until after you signed up?


• What do you like best about your provider, and what bothers you the most?


• Finally, do you have any horror stories or tips for other consumers?

Your input will help us create upcoming content on so-called telecom bundles.

Thanks.

[Update 3/9/2009: We have updated our article and Ratings on telecom bundles. Find the new story here. —Ed.]

Comments

[Joan]

Roadrunner is slow. Slower than when I first got the TV-Internet bundle. Now they are offering a faster service for more $. That infuriates me.

[liz]

I have bundled phone, tv and internet with verizon (fios). I just recently added my wireless for an additional discount. As a previous comment states, it's not easy to read a verizon bill, which makes it very hard to compare with other providers. These different divisions still don't have a common billing practice. The most obvious example is that I used to pay my verizon wireless bill using a discover card, but cannot use a discover card on the verizon site. This means that the bundle discounts aren't obvious. (A $10 discount may show up as $9 on the main page and $1 on the fios page.)

However, I have always received decent customer service when trying to understand my bill. So, I've been able to receive the price I wanted and have been able to extend discounts for over 2 years.

The best part is that I have a much better picture quality and pretty good internet response time. The downside is that every tv needs a box. Not only do they charge you for each box, but it makes adding a tv or moving a tv much more work.

[stan bziukiewicz]

I had a bad experience with Qwest which bundled with DirecTV. They charged me for early termination after I upgraded to a DVR but failed to inform me that with my upgrade they would be holding me to a contract.

[Gene Lewis]

I'm not sure if this belongs to this area but if not, would you please redirect it. We currently have Comcast basic cable TV service and their internet service.

In the last week of October, early in the week, we received an automated phone call from Comcast. The automated attendant announced there would be upgrades occurring that would provide better service to the customers. A day or so later, our street was swamped with Comcast and Verizon trucks. As can happen with service upgrades, during the next couple of days, we experienced lengthy and intermittent cable TV and internet service outages. After the service trucks dust settled, we were left with a degraded cable TV signal and no cable internet.

We placed a service call to Comcast. The representative had us power up and down, the Motorola surfboard modem. After a few repetitions of this exercise, the technician said we might have a problem with our cable modem. I explained that these issues only began after the neighborhood service upgrade. And that we still had a degraded cable TV signal. The technician opened up a ticket and said someone will be there Sunday. I alerted him, that we were in somewhat of a predicament, because we used our internet service to host our Vonage phone service.

During lunch the next day, I had our home phone calls forwarded to my wife’s cell phone. That’s a very nice Vonage feature. Cell phones are ok for on the go communication but ours are at the low end for sound quality. The Verizon land line provided the best phone sound quality but Verizon was the worst in cost per call offerings. Vonage, over the internet, offered a respectable phone sound quality at $24.99, a relatively excellent cost savings and offering. The down side to the Vonage offering was inconsistent faxing. So for dependability, we spent an addition $9.99 for a fax service.

Sunday arrived and we waited for the Comcast service repair technician. After 6:00pm we called the Comcast 800 number and found that the service call was scheduled for next Sunday. When the technician said someone would be there Sunday, he neglected to mention, the appointment was two Sundays away. I though I could expedite the matter by purchasing a new cable modem. I called Comcast technical support and we again tested the old modem with no success and tested the new modem, with no success. Poor or almost no signal on the line, sighed the technician.

It was Sunday and upon arrival from Church, around 1:00pm, to our surprise, there was a Comcast truck in the driveway. A technician was working or checking something at the outside cable connection. I walked over, happy to see him but surprised at the early timing. When I questioned him concerning the visit timing, somehow his sarcastic remark about coming back next Thursday, did not sit well but I responded when he asked to come inside and see the modem.

We started in the garage; he visually inspected the cabling around the wall. I asked if he wanted to see the basement, he said no, can we look at the internet modem? When we got to the modem, Voila, the modem internet LED was on. We had not seen this LED lit in the past ten days. The service technician explained that there was some corrosion on the outside cabling. I thought it odd that cable connection corrosion could coincide with what the technician termed the “rebuild”. He wanted to reset our Vonage and WiFi modems but I said thanks, I’ll take it from here. And by the way, the TV is once again, extremely clear, no more degraded signal.

[Robert Moussou]

One of the problems with satellite services is that they
do not work in all locations. In Fla we have very heavy rain
at times causing "rain fade". Our home is masonry with a tile
room. Sometimes we have to step outside to use our cellphone.
What works for 1 person might not be the answer for another.

[Smitty]

I would like to explore different providers offerings (bundling) but I cannot decipher them. It is my complaint that the "spin doctors" are now writing the copy for the advertisemente. My neighbors tell stories of "gotchas" that they never contracted for when the services were installed or when the promo period expired. If you have a disagreement with a "bundled" provider you stand to lose all service and get a ding on your credit report too. Stick with individual providers.

[Jay Gatz]

Since we moved recently, I decided to go with Comcast's 3-way bundle and went from paying $35/mo (Qwest) for local phone, $50/mo (Dish) for satellite TV, and $55/mo (Comcast) for internet, total $140/mo, to $100/mo for all three. The promotion is only good for the first year and I will reconsider when I see the new prices but for now it is fine. Our TV channel options are different now than with Dish, but TV is the least important of the 3 things for us. Also, we use a separate service (Onesuite) for long distance since most of our calls are overseas and we kept that service as is.

Neither Comcast nor Qwest would/could port our old phone number to our new house even though we were in the same area code.

[Chris]

Here is what I submitted to the Better Business Bureau for what I still believe to be false advertizing regarding packages offered by Cox. Cos responded by issuing me a credit for 6 months of the charge but did not conceed to the validity of my claim. They said we're sorry if you feel as though it was not properly disclosed......[my letter to BBB--->]
I received a letter from Cox Communications dated July 14, 2006 regarding their 'Cox Service Assurance
Plan' after subscribing to their digital telephone and high speed internet services. The letter states that the
assurance plan is $2.95 a month. The plan covers repair related issues for the services they provide. I called
Cox to ask them to remove this plan from my account as I had never authorized them to add it initially. The
customer service representative then informed me that because I subscribe to 'Unlimited Long Distance' that
I MUST choose between either the 'Assurance Plan' @ $2.95 a month, or their digital voicemail @ $5.95 a
month. She stated it is a requirement of having the unlimited long distance package. I asked the customer
service representative what one service had to do with the other. She said it is just a condition of the
package. I let her know I was very upset that I was being forced into subscribing to either service since I do
not need either of them. I then asked her to keep the account as it is with the 'Assurance Plan' since it is the
lesser costly of the two. I am filing this complaint because it is my opinion that this is a tactic being used to
have more competitively published base package rates for their services. The additional $2.95 or $5.95
would be a "hidden" charge not taken into consideration by the consumer when viewing deceptive so-called
'package' rates.

[Jami Rowland]

I bundled our landline and cellular bill after ATandT took over Cingular. The only thing I figured out I already knew. It's time to get that over priced landline in the history books. It really put the monthly out-go in perspective. Goodbye ATandT landline.

[Jerry]

HAHAHA! It’s funny to hear someone try and make excuses for staying with an ISP that is far to expensive and slow. Actually you’re not the only one even recently. Many of my family members have the same complaints yet they find ways to justify horrible service and speeds that would make dial up look like the speed of light. I think it may be a while but the days are numbered for companies offering ground based communications. The next big thing is satellite internet access (http://www.ipinternational.net) and eventually I think there’ll be nothing but mobile connections to choose from. My only hope is that they don’t “adjust” their pricing because they become popular. Stay with your lame ISP if you want but you’re missing out on many good possiblities with mobile connections.

[Robert Moussou]

In South Fla we have our CATV with Comcast (HBO with DVR recorder) for $46 per month. Our ATT/Bellsouth bundle includes
DSL Lite,Local Land Line and 1 wireless phone ($114.50)for a total of $160.50 each month. I have been thinking of dropping
the land line, a saving of $38 per month and just using our cell
service but then I will have to change my DSL service. Att might
be providing CATV service soon. Im going to call ATT/Bellsouth
to see if I can make some changes to lower my bill.

[Jen]

I chose to bundle some of our services and while it was really time consuming from a research perspective, it was well worth it. First, I calculated the cost of all our "technology" services spread out among Verizon, Comcast, AT&T. It came to well over $200/month. Then, I compared bundles and also considered bundling just to get it down to fewer bills. Finally, I called Verizon and told them I wanted to cancel all my services. Once I threatened to leave, they got my phone and DSL bill down $50/month. I also plan to add wireless when that service contract ends with AT&T. I was able to convince Verizon that to keep my business, they needed to offer me DSL for $15 a month (fixed for life) and they also got my land line service down to $18. The DSL offer was supposedly only for new customers but the phone center said they had access to deals even the web didn't. Did you even know that you don't have to sign up for long distance on your home phone? Your phone just won't let people make long distance calls if you don't have a provider (we use cell phones for those calls anyway). So, I also got a $25 gift card for agreeing not to cancel my services (wahoo!). The cheapo DSL is slower than the regular but a non-issue for me since the only downloading I do is photos of the family to Costco/Shutterfly. Otherwise, you kind of notice that the connection is slower but the $50 a month is worth it!

[David Soncrant]

LOL...the biggest complaint I have is: only one provider in a town. What's up with this...we need competition. I have internet with 6Mb speed and have a special price of $45.00 a month. This is outrageous. After 12 months, it will go up to $61.00. The bundle offered by Mediacom is $99.00 a month on special. Don't know what it would cost after that. I've already contacted my elected official and have voiced my concerns.

[Allan]

This content bundling is a rip off. Verizon charges me $44 a month for DSL internet service. That's over $500 a year! But because I don't want to also take their phone service (which would be VASTLY more expensive than Vonage), I have to choose between DSL for $500 a year and Comcast's cable service for over $700 a year. I would have like to have Comcast TV, but they don't offer a channel that I need that DishNetwork has. All of the big companies try to squeeze people into a "bundle" which has a contract agreement for 1 or (more often) 2 years of service, offering a "teaser" rate for a few (perhaps 4) months, then they smack you with a giant bill that can go up whenever they please.

A simple regulatory way to solve these problems would be to disallow bundling. Require the telecoms to offer the same price for TV, internet, and phone service to all of their customers. Then there would be competition and rates would drop precipitously. It would also allow smaller companies that can only offer one kind of service (internet, for instance) a chance to compete. Otherwise we will soon have no other choices except the major national companies like Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner.

[Linda Donahue]

We have had Time Warner Cable bundled service for 2 years. Cable internet, phone, and TV (with added movie channels) comes to about $189 a month. I would have shopped around if there had been some other service to look at, but our town negotiated a deal with Time Warner years ago and that is the only cable TV service we can get. The cable TV is the largest expense of the 3 so adding the other services actually has given us some savings. Given that almost all our relatives are out of state, $40.00 a month does save us some money on the phone bill (we were with BCN before and they charged for looking at the phone and thinking about a call) and it is a real pleasure to not have to look at the clock before dialing since there are no more concerns about the time the rate changes. Switching was easy and there are free added services (more than we would ever use). Customer service for all 3 things has been great. It's not cheap, but it does give us great TV, fast internet, and savings on our phone bill. There were no promotional offers since they were the only game in town, quite literally.

[Honey Lee Barrett]

One thing that's most frustrating is the live chat today.
I never seem to accomplish a dog-gone thing via chat with any company regarding my accounts or otherwise.
I am bundled with DirecTV and Qwest and am NOT happy. Plus, they pin you in a corner with a 2 year contract!

P.S. under this webpage in the area below
"Have you reviewed the choice you made,"

Beside that second bullet it should read: 'WERE' NOT WHERE.
Thanks!

[Bob]

I've got basic cable and RoadRunner(both TimeWarner) for about $95/mo.and unlimited Vonage for $27/mo. and am very satisfied with features and price. My TV needs are minimal, I want fast internet, and full featured phone service. The bundles I've looked at seem to give me stuff I don't need(especially TV) and cost more. Touting the convenience of one bill seems silly, besides both Vonage and TM bill my credit card automatically.

[Richard Tebaldi]

I am being serviced by Comcast. My original deal for phone, internet and TV was $99 12 month deal. It was increased eventually
to $150 due to HDTV. On the 13th month I received a bill for $198. I called Comcast and was told, no matter what, I had to pay the $198. I was so upset that they did not give me the courtesy of forwarning me 30 days in advance, I could no longer talk to the person from Comcast. I paid the bill and called them again voicing my disgust with their lack of ethics. I was then able to give up 2 movie channels we never watched and got a deal for $130... the other thing that bothers me is that no other service like Verizon was able to compete for my business. "You want it? This is the only game in town!". What happened to good old fashioned competition to keep them honest.
I'm disgusted!

[Kurt Heitman]

I had Qwest bundled service (telephone, Internet, DirectTV). I signed up on their "football package" where I was supposed to get the whole thing for $98. I never got that price -- in fact, it averaged around $150. The price kept changing, plus, Direct TV tried to charge me installation fees that weren't mentioned nor agreed to. The Direct TV telephone customer service reps kept forwarding me to incompetent and rude "other departments" that were consistently inept, rude, and would almost always let your call expire on hold. I spent hours on the phone with no resolution. I won't do business with that kind of company and if more people had standards, that company would be out of business. I think Qwest is a great company, but DIrect TV is laden with liars and ethically challenged people. In the end I called the BBB and got most of my money back. I still have Qwest but went to Dish Network. Better menu, cheaper, but no NFL Package.

[Cristian Erazo]

So much of the ratings and research focus around the technology, but rarely do they rate the billing and customer service. I have Verizon FIOS and am generally pleased with my voice, data, and tv options. However, the billing aspect has been a nightmare. Since we signed up 8 months ago we have been double and triple billed. We have spent an inordinate amount of time with countless supervisors getting nowhere. In fact, in attempts to correct our bill they have disconnected our service, twice, both times on a weekend leaving us high and dry until Monday. Verizon has been completely incapable of getting this resolved. This highlights some of the concerns when attempting to bundle backend billing systems that were not originally designed to work together (being a previous employee of Verizon's billing department, I can say that with confidence).

[paul]

For the little we use the phone, I grew tired of paying ATT 50 dollars a month.

We now get our home phone via the internet and will not pay time warner a high fee for fewer features. we have time warner and the cost was too high for digital phone, not enough features.

I researched and went with ViaTalk out of New York, for about 14 dollars a month, I have a 'land line", with voice mail, anonymous call reject, custom call routing, power outage forward, etc. There are more features than I use, but the ones I do, I love!