Cheaper and Better

A little over two weeks ago I wrote how I was doing a slow burn over Comcast's frequent, exorbitant price hikes. The last straw was Comcast's $54 billion bid to acquire Disney. My hard-earned shekels will not be going toward service improvement but toward the acquisition and dismemberment of a unique company that has given pleasure to generations of Americans. Comcast has the right to do what it's doing, and I have the right to not purchase their product.

I went to the local Best Buy and ordered DirecTV. My first year's cost will be:

Non-premium channels (over 150) $40 x 12 months = $480
HBO - 7 channels, 3 months free, $12 x 9 months = $108
TiVo and 2nd receiver service, $10 x 12 months = $120
TiVo eqpt + 1 receiver + 1 satellite dish, less rebate = $100

SUBTOTAL $808

Installation is free, and taxes will raise the total to at most $900.

Comcast is billing us $94 ($1,128 over 12 months), so we will save over $200 in the first year. It is not an apples-to-apples comparison because we will not be subscribing to as many premium channels; on the other hand, we have TiVo.

Today we had our dish installed. The signal is clearer to both our sets and we are beginning to appreciate the hard-to-explain technological breakthrough that is TiVo (digital videorecording). I derived immense satisfaction from terminating our Comcast account and explaining to the harried customer service representative that we were switching because of price (and a large dollop of corporate arrogance, which I refrained from mentioning because it wasn't the poor guy's fault). He offered to reduce his price to match the competition, but for us it was too little, too late. As for you, gentle Comcast subscriber, it surely doesn't hurt to pick up the phone and ominously hint at your displeasure.

It was indeed a lovely day. © 2004 Stephen Yuen