Viodi View - My Switch Back to Comcast

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My Switch Back to Comcast

by Ken Pyle ([email protected]), Viodi, LLC

In a word, price; the deal Comcast offered was difficult to beat – $21.99 per month for 16 months, no contract required. This price is much more attractive than the $48 per month I paid for comparable service from Dish. In addition, they are providing one digital set-top box and the prospect of Free on Demand service. I realize that Comcast will probably raise the price at the end of 16 months to levels that are higher than Dish.

My thinking is that by that time, SBC will have some form of their video product available (probably will still be their hybrid dish/dsl Homezone platform) and that they will be anxious to win me as a customer and will offer a better price. In the meantime, Comcast, with their low ball offer, risks upsetting their loyal customers. The deal I received was only for Dish customers.

This is the beginning of a price war that could get ugly. For all of the talk of a single provider bundle, I am finding it more cost effective to create my own bundle with the $21.99 cable package from Comcast, the $26.95 DSL from SBC Yahoo!, the sub $20 basic phone package and the $39.95 1,000 minute all distance, no roaming cell phone from T-Mobile. The sales person did not even try to upsell me on a bundle of Internet and telephony services – this will probably come later.

So, a couple of observations from this experience:

One-to-one personal selling is still very effective, especially when the proposition is simple and easy to understand
Discriminatory pricing can be a two edged sword – the customer they gained in me, may be lost as my brother-in-law, a loyal Comcast customer who was very upset that he could not get my deal, defects to a satellite service.
With increasing competition, the bundled service world of video, telephony and high-speed Internet may start to look like the long distance world in the 1990s. The only difference may be that, with fewer competitors, the cut-throat pricing may not last as long before it settles into a more stable pricing structure.