Playing the System

In my opinion, in the realms of technology presently available, satellite TV is at the bottom, followed by cable and finally the new fiber systems (AT&T U-Verse and Verizon FIOS) are at the top. Given that fiber has not arrived here yet, cable is the lesser of the two evils in my opinion. I like cable's bi-directional abilities, I like having access to community service channels, and I like having the local weather on TWC (call me odd, but even with a computer that can provide instant weather, I still love the Weather Channel).

Given that, every so often I call up Charter to see if they can beat my current Dish Network price. For awhile they did, then they didn't and now they can again… but there's a problem: they don't have any standard, two-tuner Moxi Box DVR's, only four tuner Moxi Box tuners that come with the Moxi Mate for a second TV (it is like a dumb terminal that works with an upgraded Moxi Box). That system is really nice, but it costs a whopping $24.95 extra a month — $10 more than a standard Moxi. It seems there is such a high demand for standard Moxi Boxes that it is impossible to get them for about 1-2 months.

Figuring that U-Verse should be here soon, I decided to call up AT&T. The benefits of AT&T are substantial, if they could beat Charter's deal for Internet and Telephony. Unlike Charter, AT&T can offer a quadruple play (land line, Cingular wireless, DSL and TV). For the moment, AT&T resells Dish Network and I found out that existing Dish customers can not get AT&T | Dish, so even switching to AT&T would not allow the “perfect” bill convergence just yet. But it is still tempting. AT&T offers a package that is $10 cheaper per month than Charter for Internet and Telephony for the first year, plus $3/month off the existing Cingular account, plus $50 in the form of a Visa Gift Card, plus $60 back if you keep the service for four months. All of this is a “buy back” promotion to bring stray customers back into the arms of Baby Ma Bell. After a year, however, the price is $28 more a month than Charter.

Of course, switching is easy, so it might make sense to play the two companies against each other: switch to AT&T now and then in a year, get whatever “buy back” promotion Charter wants to offer. Alternately, I think I'll cut to the chase and see if Charter will try to instill customer loyalty by just giving a better deal right now.