Comcast historically doesn't bend much, but occasionally you get a caring customer service rep or manager who can wiggle a little bit of consumer respect ;-) The fee thing is new to me. What infuriates me is that I don't want to pay to decrease service- it's not much granted, more the principal of it. Also, I have of all of Century Link's DSL tiers available where I am at. The phone line to the modem may need to be upgraded, which is something I could do relatively easily. -- Jeremy MountainJohnson Jeremy.MountainJohnson at gmail.com On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 1:39 PM, Andrew Dahl <droidjd at gmail.com> wrote: > I recall my sister and her husband trying CenturyLink and it being > unbearable, although we live in Woodbury where the highest rate you > can get is 1.5Meg. Maybe their 7Meg offering would be better, if it's > available for you. > > Comcast recently hit me with that same increase (same promotion that > ended even) -- If you do end up being able to successfully haggle with > Comcast, you should let me know! :-) I attempted it the other day > with no success, unfortunately. > > Good luck with your search! > > -Andrew > > > On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Jeremy MountainJohnson > <jeremy.mountainjohnson at gmail.com> wrote: >> Good afternoon, >> >> I was on a promo for Comcast (30 MB down, known as Blast), and called >> to get service downgraded since my promo ended and the price nearly >> doubled. The guy wanted to charge me a fee to downgrade (I have no >> contracts with them)- I pushed back but he wouldn't wave it so I plan >> on speaking to a manager later. I have been putting off shopping for >> Internet providers since I last tried Qwest DSL in 2008 (it was no >> where near the speed they advertised when I was living near downtown, >> so I stayed with Comcast). The audacity for Comcast to charge for >> downgrading service, combined with their already high prices has >> pumped some motivation into me to look at broadband providers again. >> >> Is anyone using Century Link or USI Wireless? I don't believe we have >> any other options in Minneapolis for broadband (Clear doesn't appear >> to be an option for my usage). Unfortunately I'm on the wrong side of >> 35W for USI fiber to be option. I don't do video streaming (aside from >> short news stories) but may pick this up again in the future at some >> point. I occasionally work from home over VPN, which makes me a >> little nervous with USI and the reviews I've read. At our house we >> mostly do a lot of intensive web browsing and publishing, ssh (inbound >> and outbound), and a small amount of RDP traffic outbound, light >> gaming (Steam), and occasional large downloads (mostly Linux iso's / >> packages, and Steam games). I do use CrashPlan in Linux for frequent >> backups, so anything capped low (like Clear 4G) could present a >> problem- no worry about longer upload backup times, it runs as a >> service in the background and I can throttle it. >> >> How has USI been recently? Is it worth even trying? I'm in south >> Minneapolis and the nearest node is two blocks away, which is another >> potential drawback. Does anyone have Century Link that could provide >> some feedback about it? >> >> Someone also mentioned Clear 4G recently. My concern with that (and >> the other providers) is capping bandwidth, which everyone does to some >> extent, but Clear seems really low (40 GB), which might be a problem >> with CrashPlan. >> >> Thanks in advance for any suggestions / feedback. >> >> -- >> Jeremy MountainJohnson >> Jeremy.MountainJohnson at gmail.com >> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list