True, I had not though about the changes in the 'Net that have made today extremely different than the 'Net of years ago- you are probably right that dial- up is not viable. And my wife does like as a remote satellite from her office so that alone would be a deal- killer for dial- up.
And I also do not know if Verizon (my local phone company, the current name of the Baby Bell in my area) will even install a real, honest to goodness, copper pair, landline anymore. Probably not as they offer FIOS.
Agreed on the cellular connection, both too expensive and too slow. Never had DSL; while I was waiting for a switching station to get close enough, FIOS fiber optic appeared and wiped out DSL.
I think if push came to shove, I would try satellite. I know it is not perfect and U/lding is slow but again, I am willing to go a long way to [not support] a poor, disreputable entity (business or person, makes no difference to me). As I said, I am pretty angry but I have to agree with you that there are times where there just is no choice 'B'. And on the bright side, I have to say that both high- speed services I have used, COX as well as FIOS have performed extremely well, and both delivered what they claim they would. Per my original post, my only complaint is with a very specific aspect of their business practice, not the company as a whole. I think they charge too much but that is a decision one makes at the start of the deal, not in the middle, and both services honored the terms of the agreement (what they supplied with a few small changes in the channel line- up, as well as the charge) for the stated time, although both jack the bill beyond excessively and without warning which again is a poor and unethical business practice. But nothing like playing hide and seek with a payment they clearly owe to a customer.
Brian
For what it is worth, this is the forwarded message I received from COX, as well as my response to my local rep. She e-mailed me immediately that she had forwarded the letter to both her supervisor and manager and would wait for a response before forwarding it to the VP. So if nothing else, and I expect nothing at all really, at least someone a little higher up the food chain at COX may be made aware that they have not duped the entire customer base. Caution: it is a long letter.... but you kinda' knew that anyway, right?
And I am counting on you guys to 1) find any typos 2) point out any errors 3) suggest alternative ways I could have written this, in part or in whole 4) and, of course, point out anyplace I should have slipped in an 'Easy Boys!' to amuse the staff at COX, I find I do not do that enough in business correspondence.
Begin quote:
Hi Katy,
Well, I received this (forwarded, text below) in response to my application for the credit that was part of my signing with COX. I find it both interesting and disturbing at the same time, so let's concentrate on the disturbing parts:
1) There is no reason why I should have to "apply" for this credit in the first place. When I signed on with COX for the current service period, this credit was part of the package or 'deal'. There is absolutely no need for any action on my part at all; COX certainly knows where I am and how to reach me. If the application to confirm that I did, in fact, actually want this credit than I think COX needs to re-evaluate their marketing. If this was merely a sly business tactic to avoid paying some percentage of credits already agreed to due to some lack of action on the customer's part, then I find this reprehensible. Either way, it is quite poor and just as a comparison, when I signed with Verizon, and part of that deal included a $400 credit, they sent it along without any further input from me, as was expected then, as it was expected at this time with COX as well.
2) There are two interesting but again, reprehensible in my opinion, clauses in the attached communication from COX. The first is that the credit due (to the customer, from COX) would be null and void had there been any 'past due balances' during 'the 90 days of service'. That of course is not a problem with me and my account but I think it is quite poor business practice as well as an incredibly obvious attempt to avoid payment of an already agreed- to sum w/in an already executed contract (verbal and understood if not written).
2A) The other clause is that there is a submission date deadline. This ties in very nicely with the fact that I received absolutely no notification of any kind that I had to do anything at all in the first place to "apply" for a credit that was part of the original signing with COX. I would give this one a solid A- or even an A rating on the slimy, back- handed business practice scale.
The manner I find interesting about these practices is that they are a clever and wiley method to avoid payment of some number of credit packages owed to customers. Surely some people fail to pursue the credit, and further, some people who do pursue it fail to do so within the arbitrary but strict rules COX has put in place to make payment a 'less than 100% event'; I would be interested in just what percentage of customers have been denied their credits due to these practices and policies. Even 1% would be successful I would imagine given the small amount of effort and no expense required to put up these artificial barriers.
It is business practices such as this that force the unfortunate but necessary requirements of government legislation to prevent. But as that is really the consumers' only option to fend off unacceptable behavior on the part of large corporations, just as it was over 100 years ago when they were needed to break up monopolistic trusts, and I am absolutely confident things would be yet worse even today if it were not for at least some, limited competition. And I assure you, these policies must be perceived as 'manna from heaven' by Verizon.
To you specifically Katy, this is not directed at you personally of course. I am merely sending this to you so that it has the best chance of being 'kicked upstairs' where policy is made and implemented.
Sincerely,
Brian D. Felice
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Cox Reward Center <status@mypromorewards.com>
Date: Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 2:22 PM
Subject: Your Cox Prepaid Card Request Has Been Received
To: bdfelice1 at gmail.com
Hi, BRIAN
BRIAN FELICE,
Your submission for a Cox Visa® prepaid card has been received and is being processed. Your prepaid card will be mailed to the address provided once we confirm that you have met all of the eligibility requirements including:
* Have requisite levels of service
* Have had at least 90 days of continuous service
* Have had no past due balances at any point during the 90 days of service
* Have submitted your application before the applicable submission date deadline
Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery of your prepaid card after the 90 day validation period.
To check the status of your submission please visit
http://status.rewardpromo.com/coxYour tracking ID is:
<put big, long series of letters and numerals here>
THANK YOU FOR CHOOSING COX
I guess that depends on how choices are defined. The definition of "high speed internet" certainly varies, but I need an absolute minimum of reliable, unlimited [or a large bucket], 10Mb/s connection to support my modest browsing, work, and streaming video requirements. At my address, there is only one provider: Cox. Verizon FIOS doesn't exist, and DSL is not fast enough nor reliable (I know because I tried it in the past, and my neighbor tries to suffer with it now). Using metered cellular data is so expensive it isn't really an option.
As for video, the two choices are Cox or satellite. Done them both. They are priced about the same. Cox's tuning adapters are almost unusable. Satellite equipment is difficult and not always reliable. Not much choice there either. But the kicker is one would STILL be stuck with Cox for data, even if you left their video... and when you don't "bundle" then the data cost goes up a lot more. It is quite the racket.
I don't think 54kb/s (the maximum a dialup could support, and in practice, it will be a lot slower in the real-world) is even usable with modern websites that are sometimes megabytes PER PAGE. You would be waiting 20+ minutes on every click. And the latency would be so poor, remote session operation would be impossible, and don't even think about streaming anything. I am not sure "dial-up" modem service can even be purchased now, it is totally obsolete.
