I just received an email from our reader, Malinda. She needs your help with internet provider options:
I’m looking at my Comcast bill thinking “there’s got to be a cheaper option out there.” Hoping some followers can suggest a provider in the Portland area.
If you have any advice for Malinda, please leave a comment! Go here for step-by-step instructions on how to leave a comment.
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Hey,
Just launched this website. It’s intended to help people living in apartments or condos save money by setting up an internet sharing agreement. Check it out.
Net-Neighbors.com
Share Internet, Save Money.
At this moment I am going away to do my breakfast,
after having my breakfast coming yet again to read other news.
Have you tried stephouse.net?
I have them and the lowest rate is 19.99 a month and then the next one up is 35 a month. Its a wireless network so sometimes is slower than others… but it works great for what we need it for.
We have phone and internet with Century Link.
They lowered our rate after I called and guaranteed it for 5 years with no contract-which I do believe they’re offering to everyone.
I still think it’s too much every month, but my dinosaur hubby (Love you!) won’t give up his landline, and I will say our internet has been fast and reliable. Good Luck! Love threads like this!
My wife and I have had Comcast for the last ten years-since we got married. Their prices kept going up, we’d call and ask for less expensive packages or threaten to cancel altogether. It worked every six months for about two years. We’ve down graded to the digital starter tv package-in order to keep the dvr-and 12mps internet. We pay more now than we did five years ago when we had a better package. Last year, we bought an Ooma device for VOIP (voice over internet protocal) telephone and cancelled our Qwest phone service-saved $40 a month, paying for the machine in five months of savings. Love it! We just switched this week to DirecTV, getting the entertainment package plus internet on a two year promotion (don’t know who the local provider will be yet). We’ll save $1900 over Comcast in the next 24 months, and $70 a month after that for more channels, more HD, and better service. That puts our tv, internet and home phone at about $80/month-best price we’ve ever had.
This is a great topic… i too wonder why we don’t question our cell phone rates, internet, phone, etc… It’s crazy how expensive those plans are…. We bundle with Frontier for home line, cable and internet and pay about $120. after all those taxes and fees.. blah. I know there has to be something cheaper!
My cell phone is a family plan through TMobile for about $90 / mo after taxes and insurance and I refuse to pay for internet on my phone b/c that adds an extra $20 a month… Sheesh, expensive!!
We have Clear & pay $45 month for life, no price raises. That includes our phone (internet phone -voice over ip) that is free long distance in US & Canada. We have caller ID & Voicemail and all the bells and whistles! Signal is good in SE Portland, we watch network tv channel shows regularly and it comes in good.
I have Clear for about $24 a month but you have to see if the signal reaches your address or not. No contract and no waiting for the installation guy. They send the modem to you and it is a breeze to set up
I too-first with verizon-now with frontier-called to see if they had a cheaper option-and as they put the fiberoptic in my area-they said they didn’t (I wanted to go back to DSL, as I didn’t even see an improvement with fiberoptic)-BUT -like several people above, they did lower my rates by quite a bit, so that is an idea of how to word it-ask if they have a less expensive option. Yes they raise it again eventually-and I guess you have to call back-which is what just happened to me-so this post was quite helpful. I may check out comcast too-as I have the cheap cable already with them.
I have had CenturyLink for my phone, internet, and DirecTV for years now. My bill seems to go up a little every year. When I saw my bill last month, I’d had enough, so I called them and told them I either need to lower my bill, or I was switching to the other guys. They “found” a way to lower my bill by $25, so we’ll stick with them for now.
We have comcast and just reduced our speed and we are saving a lot more money. We watch streaming video on several computers at the same time (hulu and amazon) and don’t have a problem with speed at all. This was the best choice for us.
If your kids are on free lunch at school then you qualify for internet through Comcast for $10 per month. I work in a homeless shelter and refer for that program frequently, my husband works for Comcast.
My mom has Comcast and slower speeds than I do. I pay a lot, but we use our internet for a large number of things, including watching tv. If you call every few months like suggested above (3-9 months depending on the package) you can decrease the cost. Or you can pick a slower speed and it goes down a great deal.
If your issue is only for cable TV with comcast, why don’t you try this? Tell them you only what the BARE Minimum—-it is a limited basic cable, its just the first 30 stations, so you get local news and stations, and a few cable channels like Discovery. It should cost you around $12 to $13.00 a month. THEN you add Netflix for $8.99. We like the kids programming, and with Netflix we had whole seasons of Spongebob available at our whim, even tho we didn’t have Nick! PBS has better kids programming than anything else, (my kids were all reading by age 4, thank you very much!) And you can see whole seasons of many other TV programs—I would investigate first, and see if you can access your favorite shows. There are also other options for streaming shows, but I don’t know them all–I think Amazon has something, you could check and see if you could get Xfinity Stream Pix (for $4.99 per month) and look and see what other monthly charges for streaming is available.
If you have internet service with them, I just switched from internet service thru my phone service—I still had a landline, and Verizon became Frontier, and I used their DSL. It was $21.99 and just fine for MY needs, but I have a budding filmmaker who wanted to upload his creations, and it took FOR-EV-ER. However, if you don’t have to upload movies and you don’t care that the videos play a little slower, check out Frontier (or your local phone service). Those 2 moves alone puts your cable and internet at around $43.00 before all the little penny taxes they throw in on top of that. Do-able?
We pay $18.99 per month through Cox Communications in Phoenix, AZ. Not sure if they are in other states.
Comcast likes to trick you with thier “levels” of service. They always want you to have all of these add ons for speed when its not needed. In our house, we stream our netflix from our TV, have 2 laptops as well as a desktop, an ipad, and our network storage all is run off our internet. We have their lowest internet speed and never have a problem with speed problems. Even when we have netflix, the ipad and the laptop all being used at the same time. We also wanted to opt out of cable to save money, but with Comcast, you actually get a $10 discount on internet for adding a “cable” package, so we got the 2-13 channels which cost $10.17 a month. We end up paying $44 for internet and channels 2-13. We also bought our modem through newegg.com so we don’t have to pay the $5 a month rental fee. It will pay for itself in a year.
I’ve had Century Link (formerly Qwest) for several years. They usually have some kind of low-cost deal/promo, much like Comcast. Mine was $31.99/month for life; of course that is on top of my landline cost. (It would have been $26.99 if I had other landline add-on services.)
Most promos expire after a few months and/or require a long-term commitment, and then the price often goes way up if you stay.
Shelly’s comment reminds me of what my son keeps telling me: call Century Link and Dish Network and threaten to leave unless they give me a better deal. Have not tried this tack yet.
This has worked very well for me in the past, but I found with a toddler, and another baby on the way, I just don’t have time for it anymore. I choose not to have the promo rates because I don’t want a suprise bill one month.
I wish I could find a cheaper option too. I’ve checked all the options available in my neighborhood and can’t find anything cheaper than Comcast which is no bargain at almost $50/mo since I don’t have any other services combined with it.
After pirating off my neighbors unsecured internet for years I finally had to break down and obtain my own last year when the signal disappeared. I got flyers from numerous providers and called all of them. I found out that on my street I have 2 choices, currently. I get the flyers from so many since the others might be in my area or even the next street over but the service area can vary from street to street and block by block. grrrrr. Of course they all said to call back every 6 months or so to see if they have changed and now are on my street.
FYI – all the websites said they had service for my address but couldn’t sign me up without calling them, to find they don’t have service for my address.
I’d suggest calling to see what else you have for your address then do like Shelly said and ask if Comcast will match what you can get elsewhere.
I have a laptop at home and a smartphone. So I use my phone to tether to my computer. I pay $5 a month for my internet on my phone and computer both. Most phone internet plans run $10-30/month. Much cheaper than paying a bill for both. Or wifi is a great option too!
We call every 6-9 months and ask for the best deal possible (whenever our bill goes back up). We have been with Comcast for years and we have never had a problem having them price match or give us a lower price. Sometimes you have to threaten to cancel and they will do pretty much anything to keep you as a customer and not switch. It’s kind of pain but well worth the savings!
We do the same as Shelly with Comcast. Yes, it’s a pain to have to call every six months are so, but the savings are definitely worth it. If you’re pleasant when you call and just explain that you’re a loyal customer and don’t want to leave they’re pretty great about getting things worked out. We’ve even gotten some pretty nice customer service reps who have thrown in Showtime or HBO for 3-6 months for free as well. And the thing I like I about Comcast – no contracts – so you can call and negotiate when needed 🙂
I tried that with Comcast, but they know they’re the only service in our area, so they wouldn’t budge. 🙁