Getting My Cable Bill Reduced With No Loss Of Service

Ah! Competition. Ya gotta love it. Use one company to get concessions from another. My wife has been after me to change to DSL from cable, because of the cost of Internet access. Qwest has been bombarding us to change all of our services to them: phones, cell phones, television, and internet access. We have Qwest as our phone company. We get a nice deal from them, including long distance. I don't know how they would be at the other things. They keep marketing that they will give us DSL for something like $29.99 per month. Now, I have had DSL in the past, and it was fast. But I gotta tell you, I have had cable with Comcast for almost 2 years now, and cable is faster. But, I am paying $45.95 per month for it. I don't want to change to DSL for a number of reasons. I would have to get new equipment. I would have to set it up. I would have to get a new personal email address. I would be unable to access the net for a time. And, DSL is slowwwer!

So I decided to call Comcast, and negotiate. I figure that some of their customers have gone to DSL because of the price. I keep getting adverts from Comcast telling me that if I am a new customer, they will give me 4 months of cable internet for $24.95, but it will go up to the regular price after that. I call and tell the guy at the other end that I am constantly getting pitched by Qwest, at quite a reduction in price, and isn't there anything he can do for me so I can tell my wife that it pays to stick with Comcast. He says that he knows Qwest is trying to pull me away, but that cable is way faster. I tell him that the blazing speed of cable, while nice, isn't absolutely necessary for me (whether true or not), and that I need a break in the price. He says the best he can do is reduce the price to $29.99 per month for the next six months. He can't do any more than that. At this point, this is sufficient. I am saving $15.95 per month, almost $96 for that period of time. To me, that is the equivalent of 2 tankfulls of gas, or couple of nice dinners at the Olive Garden. I'll take it. And, it only cost me a 7-minute phone call. Remember, you only get benefits when you ask for them.