Cable Modem vs. DSL - From the San Francisco Bay to Tampa Bay

2004 VoIPossibilities advertisement

Cable Modem vs. DSL - From the San Francisco Bay to Tampa Bay:

by Ken Pyle

January 5th, 2004 Issue

So, you know high speed Internet access has gone mainstream, when your seventy-something mom and seventy-something in-laws sign up for broadband. They did not necessarily realize that they “needed” broadband, but their kids proved to be the best sales people for broadband. My experience with broadband has some good lessons for independent telcos as they face increasing competition from all directions.

In the case of my mom, she knew she wanted email access and SBC Yahoo!’s offer of $26.95 per month was close enough to the price of dial-up that she agreed to high-speed access. To get the $26.95 per month, I had to order the service online. The process was fast and straightforward. Yahoo! estimated that the modem would arrive later in the week and that we would be able to do the self-install one week after the order date.

Sure enough, two or three days later, a modem, five or six DSL filters and installation software arrived at my mom’s house. I happened to be at her house on the sixth day after the order and decided to try the installation. Much to my surprise, the DSL line had been provisioned ahead of schedule and I was able to successfully perform the self-install of the DSL modem. Everything worked as expected.

Fast forward two weeks later to sunny shores of the gulf coast of Florida in the Southern part of the Tampa Bay area - I am a bum in the sun, having fun with no special plans, when my brother-in-law strongly suggests that his parents need high speed access. My first thought was, “Verizon”, as I had heard an advertisement for $29.95 DSL service that was bundled with their long distance. My second thought was, “we don’t have enough time”. We were going to be in town for only a few more days and we would need to be there to do the self-install.

We also realized that this was time for a computer upgrade for my father-in-law, so we went into to town to the “big box retailers”. While there, we saw a promotion for a “free” cable modem with service provided by Comcast. We inquired about the Comcast deal, as well as Verizon’s offering. The sales people had some knowledge of the Comcast deal and knew nothing about what Verizon offered.

We finally decided on the Comcast cable modem for several reasons:

It was tangible, as these modems were being sold at the store and we could take one home with us.
The sales person claimed a call to Comcast is all that it would take to turn up service – I was somewhat skeptical, however, as my in-laws live in an MDU and do not directly subscribe to cable television.
The cost of service was only $19.99 for the first three months. There was no contract, so my father-in-law could cancel the service and not be penalized.
After the manufacturer’s rebate, the modem was “free” for first time customers.

After leaving the store, I realized that the cable modem did not have a splitter kit. I had noticed a “free” Comcast installation kit at the store, but never realized what it was. Now, I suspect it was splitters and cables. We ended up buying these parts at a Radio Shack.

Installation of the cable modem was fast. There was a cable outlet near my father-in-law's computer. Since we were using the Ethernet port, we did not have to load any software on the PC. I figured the receipt would have a Comcast number to call to provision service, but it did not. We resorted to the phone book and I was impressed to find a number specifying Comcast high speed Internet. I was connected to a live person within a few rings.

The provisioning service took a total of about 15 minutes. This included creating a new account, as my father-in-law did not have an account with Comcast. My fears of service of Comcast not being able to provide service in this Multi Dwelling Unit proved unfounded as the service worked great. What most impressed my in-laws was when the telephone rang while we were checking their email.

What impressed me the most was this entire process took place on a Saturday afternoon. From my discussion with the Comcast representative, service could have been turned up just as easily on a Sunday afternoon. There are several lessons I learned from these experiences with broadband on opposite sides of the country:

Word-of-mouth is still the best salesperson (or in my experience, pesky relatives).
A retail presence will be increasingly important in selling broadband or video, especially as the new customers are not early adopters and will not want to deal with technology issues – the only reason Comcast got my father-in-law’s business was that they were there when he (we) were ready to make a buying decision.
Having a retail presence is not enough. The retailers’ sales people need to be educated on and have some incentive to sell the broadband product.
The ability to provision service on-demand will become expected. Everything else in this society is expected to be provided immediately, shouldn’t broadband? This probably has bigger implications for DSL, as current operations and equipment configurations don’t allow for the “impulse” purchase of DSL in the way that we were able to instantly obtain cable modem service.
Beat expectations, it will make the customer feel good. I was delighted to see the SBC Yahoo! service work a day ahead of schedule. I was even more thrilled to have the Comcast service operational on the same day.

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