Phone, Cable & DSL

Does it ever bother you when you are paying for a service at one price and then the company begins offering the same service to new subscribers at a much lower price? After all, you've been paying for their service for a long time. Where's the company's loyalty to good customers?

Well, this happened to me. I was paying $45 a month (plus all their taxes) to the phone company just for my DSL connection. Of course, for my phone service, I have to pay for every little service individually. I need both for my business, and I was paying $102 each month for the two services, though the company was offering lifetime DSL connection rates of $26.99 to new subscribers.

I also had been thinking about adding cable television, since the regular channels don't give me enough variety. I don't wish to watch nothing but reality shows, police and court dramas, and comedies with all the sexual innuendos. But, I kept saying to myself that I wouldn't add another bill until my finances were at my goal amount.

God must have taken pity on me for both situations. I paid my phone bill online in June, following all the online instructions — not really that difficult, when you consider I've been paying bills online for many years now. In this case, however, the company never received the payment; and it wasn't removed from my checking account — but I wasn't aware of this until they sent me a disconnect notice. Worse yet, it was dated July 2nd, but I didn't receive it until July 11th (a Friday). They were disconnecting my service the following Monday on the 14th.

When I asked why I didn't receive this notice earlier, I was told it was probably because of the July 4th holiday. I'm not sure how one holiday held my notice up for a week, but basically the implication was that it was my problem — not theirs. That meant I had to come up with that month's money (which I had) and the current month's bill, since it was already on the books. For a freelancer, that's a bit difficult to do. But the customer service rep was doing her best to get me to give her the money I had over the phone, which would give me phone service (which I could easily do without) but not my DSL (which I couldn't, since I work over the Internet with people all over the world).

I hung up, trying to be objective and to see the positive God had in this situation for me. I heard God's voice telling me to look into the cable company's new deal. I immediately got online and found they were offering phone, cable and DSL for $29.95 for each service for 18 months, if I got all three. I called and found that I would be paying only $12 more each month than I currently was with only two services and would have digital cable with quite a few movie channels — everything except HBO, Cinemax, another major movie channel (can't remember which one), and a few other special channels. (I had everything for five days, and I don't miss any of the things I don't now have, except the second History channel.)

After 18 months, the cost will go to $140 a month, but that means that I'm only adding about $30 to the current price. So, in the long run, I'm getting digital cable with most of the bells and whistles for only an extra $40 a month over what I was paying for just phone and DSL with the phone company. Pretty good deal, I'd say.

Additionally, my phone line is much clearer than before with the phone company. Previously, I could barely hear my callers. Now, it's like they are standing next to me, using the same phone.

The only downside is that I won't have phone service if the electricity is out. I can live with that!

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for not allowing that online payment to go through. I know You were behind this!

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