Thursday, October 24, 2019

The Modem Racket

by Pa Rock
Victim of Unbridled Capitalism

Thursday morning finds me once again without internet service.     Yesterday’s break in the non-service was great, allowing me to finish the show that I had been watching the evening before when service was interrupted for nearly twenty-four hours.  I was also able to complete my daily blog and get that posted.   But now things are back at Dysfunction Junction and I am typing this onto Microsoft Word and will stuff it into a folder until I am once again blessed with a connection to the rest of the world.

It reminds me of the crappy – and expensive – internet service that is prevalent on cruise ships – but that is a whole other blog posting!

Representatives from CenturyLink, who speak with delightfully thick foreign accents, are trying to get me to buy a new modem.  Yesterday two informed me that the one I am using is worn out – and then it came back on-line.  They will send me a new one with a one-year guarantee for $100 – and it will be put in the mail in around three days.  Or, for just $180 they will send the new modem to my residence along with a technician to install it.

But I have resisted.  Yesterday during the height of my outrage I telephoned Fidelity Communications and arranged for a free audit to see if they could provide service to my house.  The results from that should be back in a couple of days.   With Fidelkty the company owns the modems.  CenturyLink is now my fall-back position.

I spoke with a friend this morning and asked him which internet service provider he used.  The friend replied, “CenturyLink – and it’s awful!”

Tell me more, tell me more!

My friend described piss-poor reception exactly like the type that I suffer.  He said that CenturyLink  always has him or his wife fun a few diagnostic tests, exactly like the ones that they had me run, and then they sell them a new modem – which never works satisfactorily.   He said that he and his wife have purchased three new modems in the last five years.

All of which left me feeling that perhaps the primary business of CenturyLink is selling modems.

I would look up the work “racketeering” to see if that applies in this case, but unfortunately my internet is down!

(Posted at McDonalds.  Thanks, Hamburglar!)

2 comments:

Xobekim said...

Check out internet by satellite at https://www.satelliteinternet.com/. You can do this from the nearest public library. However the skinny is 1)Viasat offers free installation, a low equipment leasing fee of just $9.99 per month, and plenty of ways to contact customer service if you have any issues.

Lots of Choices

There are a variety of Viasat plans with different speeds, pricing, and data caps—although Viasat likes to call them “data thresholds” because your service won’t get cut off if you hit the limit.

When you reach the threshold, Viasat deprioritizes your data on the network. That means you’ll be at the back of the line until the new data cycle starts. This won’t be much of a problem when traffic is low, but on nights and weekends, when more people are online, your service will feel slow.

Or 2) HughesNet offers the best value on satellite internet because it gives you the most speed for the lowest price. Viasat does have one cheaper package than HughesNet, but the download speed on that package is only 12 Mbps, which falls below the FCC broadband standard. When you compare only satellite plans that meet the broadband standard, you could save over $10 per month by choosing HughesNet.

Data Bonus Zone

HughesNet data caps range from 10 GB per month up to 50 GB per month. If you hit your data limit, your service will still work, but it will be much slower. You can buy extra data if you need it, but you can save data by using the Bonus Zone. The Bonus Zone is during the off-peak hours between 2:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. Your internet usage doesn’t count against your cap during this time.

Free Installation When You Lease

HughesNet offers free installation if you lease your gateway for $14.99 per month, but it charges up to $199.00 for installation if you purchase your gateway. When you add that to the cost of the gateway, it’s easy to see why we recommend leasing the equipment.

For the lowest price on satellite broadband internet, go with HughesNet.

Apparently you get what you pay for.

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