I pulled the latest issue of Comcast Cable Finance Monthly out of the mail box today, only to find out that the rates have gone up; enough to put us over the century mark ($100) for the month.

One of the problems I have is that with the basic cable tier, we have about 80 channels.  If you’re the type of person who watches TV for a living, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.  However my wife and I don’t watch much television, and we probably watch 14 of those 80 available channels.  Of those 14 we watch, 7 of them are local broadcast network feeds, the same stations you can still get with a set of rabbit ears for free.  So all in all, we utilize less than 10% of the stations that are made available to us, yet we pay $50 per month for that “luxury”.

The real problem is that Comcast, outside of satellite providers, has absolutely no competition in our area.  None.  So they can charge what ever they think their customers will pay. 

I finally picked up the phone and went on an economic rampage.  I’m no longer willing to pay for a product we hardly use.  I politely shelled out my angst to the customer service representative, and suggested he find a way to lower our bill or they would lose me as a customer.  It’s funny how those magic words have such a dramatic effect: …lose me as a customer.

In the end, the representative was able to lop off $10 per month for our cable television service, and put us on a reduced rate for the internet for six months.  All in all, he cut about $23 off our monthly bill.

The real irony behind all this is that, even after reducing our bill by $23 per month, Comcast is still making money of us, albeit not nearly as much as they used to.  However, they don’t make a dime if they lose us as a customer.

We’ll let the discount ride for six months, but if we get sent back to our old rate, Comcast will get another phone call.

After thinking about it for a little while, it was the psychological effect of us paying more than $100 per month that really set me off.  If our bill would have been raised to $99.99, I probably wouldn’t have a problem with it.

What a difference a penny makes.

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