saving money

Comcast cable has been bombarding the channels with advertisements for their VOIP phone service. Now I mostly use my cell phone, or at least I used to before I turned in my license and the home phone mostly sits idle. Well almost idle. Almost all incoming calls are from either my kids, or from people soliciting donations for the local police. Actually its not the police or fire departments that are actually doing the soliciting, it is the "friends of the fire department orphans" the "police chiefs/sergeants widows and orphans fund" etc. You get the picture. They are the folks who collect money and they get $.90 of ever dollar, and you get a sticker for your car, and a card telling you that this is not an IRS recognized Charity.

But Comcast phone service had one main advantage, it was twenty or so dollars cheaper than Verizon. So I called and ordered the service. That's when the fun started. Now when I ordered the service I asked whether it would adversely affect my 911 service or my monitored security system (which uses the phone lines), No and No. I also asked how they hook it up, and the answer was that they would swap out my Internet Modem (also Comcast) and put in a new one (at no extra charge) that would handle both phone and Internet service. I also asked what the charge would be. Well I was paying $139 per month for Internet and HD cable service including the DVR player. This new service would add $25 more per month bringing me up to about $165

So they installed the service and lo and behold I now had two, count them two modems, but I was assured that I would only be paying for one.

Now I have a phone my my computer and a fax machine by the wall, and one phone each on the second and third floors. The one by my computer worked great, nice and clear. They left the box and that was it. Then I noticed that my security system had a trouble light, seems the phone connection was dead. So I called Comcast again and back they came, only to discover that the phone by my computer was direct wired to the phone box, but not to any of the other phones. (the signal from the modem goes into a phone jack and propagates to all the other lines.) So he had to check all the systems and make sure all the phones had a signal/dial tone.

Then I opened the box they left expecting to find an instruction book. No such luck. I also received a flyer in the mail telling me about their special preferred plus triple play package for $129/month.

So I called and innocently asked what package I had and why I wasn't offered the triple play package. Well apparently I qualified for it, but the original person just forgot to complete the entries. I also asked about the two modems,

The third tech came today and hooked the phone service and the Internet service to one modem and took away the other one. He also made sure that my triple play package was set up. I mentioned that the flyer said it included HBO, STARZ and Showtime and he said yes it does

So for $129 per month I now have Phone service, Internet service, HD cable service, a DVR and HBO, STARZ and Showtime. All it took on my part was a little persistence