OT/ ALTERNATIVES TO CABLE BUNDLE (HISPEEDINTERNET/PHONE/TV

I'm wondering about what they told you regarding using the phone land line to transmit high speed Internet signals. I have the same cable bundle from Time Warner Cable here in NC, and there have been times when my digital phone went out completely, but my TV and Internet were still fine. Mine is cheaper than yours, which could be due to company, geographical area, etc., but I do have to call and negotiate a new price whenever my so-called "promotional" price runs out. I have to threaten to have all of the services taken out of two houses if they don't give me a better price. If I didn't do that every time, my bill would be the same as yours, but I pay $120/month.

If I were you, I would pin them down about using the phone line to transmit your Internet signal. Also, see if you can negotiate a better price.

When we lived in Pa we had everything bundled with Verizon FIOS and the prices were reasonable. Now we get comcast cable in with our HOA fee - we have our landline phone and our internet with verizon and we use tracfones for cell service. By the end of it all I am sure we pay more than if it was all bundled with Verizon - plus we would have much much much better cable TV than we are getting from Comcast.

I might have to try that "negotiating" route as I am not about to give up the excellent service I get from Cox that is steady and reliable.

I called a competitor, Dish Network, and they could only offer me cable service that would have to be supplemented by Cox for Hi-Speed Internet, and the price was only a bit less expensive than the whole bundle from Cox.

Also, the Dish offer was also a Promotional rate, so as we all know, that would be subject to change in a year.

I don't think your bill is outrageous. We live in the country and have limited choices for everything, so we have our landline and satellite in a bundle and those alone average $130 per month now. My internet is a separate local Wi-Fi service which is marginal at best and it's another $80 per month.

I called on my bill last summer to get a better price, said I was thinking about switching companies. They reduced my bill about 35.00 a month as long as I signed a contract for 2 years. Lower price and no changes on my bundle coverage. You need competition in the area.

I did the same thing on my trash company bill and got a great lower price. No one ever tells you about signing a contract which I had not known about before.

I have not been that happy with Time Warner Cable since I had to go digital. I never had any problems with regular cable, but now I have problems I never had before. Plus they now have customer service located in the Philippines, and the last time I had a problem, I wound up having to get a supervisor on the line by threatening to discontinue everything, again.

They are supposed to help you get problems resolved over the phone, and after talking to three different reps including a supervisor one night (on my cell phone), they could not resolve a problem with my phone. They told me it would be five or more days before they could get someone out, and meantime I had no phone service! I got a manager on the phone and "raised cain", and a technician came out the next day. All he did was unplug the battery in my modem and it resolved the problem. He said the battery backups for the phone service never worked anyway, and the CS people on the phone should have told me to do that. That's the kind of customer service they have now. Even the cable service man who came out (finally got one that knew what he was doing) confided in me that a lot of the technicians are very unhappy, since TWC has gotten so big and now the Philippines CS is apparently not working very well from their point of view.

We need some competition here, because Time Warner has had a monopoly on cable service for a long time. I use all the problems in my "price negotiations" for my rates - their CS leaves a lot to be desired. The only good thing I can say is that they don't make you go under "contracts" any more - it's just a promotional rate and you can change it if you want to.

That's why I post on these boards...definitely, the best, most well-informed people around!!

OK, I'm getting the picture that if I want to continue my present "lifestyle" that includes reliable, high-quality service with US-based customer reps, I better plan on making some modifications in other areas of my budget!!

My service plan expires on 1/25/15 so maybe I can get some accommodation from Cox between now and then, and, yes, a bit competition wouldn't hurt!!