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Are ISPs transitioning to comedy now?
They’ve always been a joke
Ya, and the reason I’ve never been in a car accident is cause I’m a fantastic driver, not because I’ve never owned a car…
“excellent customer service” is a really weird to state “monopolistic practices”
It’s a good way to say, “customer service that blocks the exit,” though!
Welp, the gig is up. After all of these years we’ve been publicly pretending otherwise… these companies have finally seen through our charade. We no longer need to excitedly whisper to eachother in basements and bars, and other locals in the shadows, tales of how our local Internet service providers always go above and beyond for each and every one of us. Now they know we think of them not only as a part of our family, but also as one of our children, as kin, and with more esteem than our elders. Truly we are a blessed people. The future is bright my brothers, we can now rejoice openly in the sun the ISPs shine down unto us.
USTelecom, which represents telcos such as AT&T and Verizon, said that “the competitive broadband marketplace leaves providers of broadband and other communications services no choice but to provide their customers with not only high-quality broadband, but also high-quality customer service.”
That’s so much bullshit in so little space that I’m surprised it didn’t become a black hole.
competitive broadband marketplace
Represents multiple supposedly fierce competitors
I see the problem. Someone must’ve convinced them that opposite day was real in 4th grade, and they’ve been stuck that way ever since
I work for an ISP, we have 10 second to 3 minutes hold times before you’re speaking to a real rep, we have had downtime 5 times since I started working for them 4 years ago for maintenance (upgrading hardware to support larger bandwidth in different areas), we sell 1Gbps symmetrical speeds with unlimited data for $50/mo, we have 50k customers (in a specific area) and 5 customer service reps. Customer service quality is definitely important, but providing a service with minimal issues and great prices, that’s why the ISP I work for can get away with such a minimum amount of representatives and continue to get a 4.7 star rating on Google as an ISP.
It’s fun working for a company like this because you get to see how 50k customers paying for 1Gbps only use 70-85Gbps at any given time on average lol, people think they need a lot of bandwidth when in reality they just need a better router for their local network’s bandwidth. WiFi hasn’t been a great tech so far honestly, Wi-Fi 6 made a lot of improvements, maybe with WiFi7/8 that changes though. Big name consumer routers like Netgear have been dropping the ball with quality for years, but they still rake in the cash because at one point they made really great hardware.
I’ve learned a lot about networking because of this job, and it’s given me a really great perspective of how awful Comcast/Xfinity/spectrum and CenturyLink/QuantumFiber really are, how much they try to get in the pockets of the people who make the decisions for infrastructure in our cities, there were so many hate ads against the ISP I work for during an election season all paid for by Comcast and CenturyLink.
Anyways, customer service is great, but quality of service is much more important. Having both is a win all around.
1Gbps symmetrical speeds with unlimited data for $50/mo
God I wish I lived in the 2% or so of the geographic U.S. that had access to service like this. It’s $116/mo here for Comcast’s 1000/150Mbps service, capped at 1.2TB. Costs an extra $30 to remove that cap.
I don’t mean to make you feel bad but in my area in the USA I get 10Gbps symmetric for $40/month, through an ISP that has awesome support, provides a /56 IPv6 range to each customer, lets you use your own router, and is publicly pro net neutrality.
Which isp is this? We nameshame, let’s honorname too.
There’s practically an unwritten rule among tech-savvy people in the San Francisco Bay Area (and some surrounding cities): If Sonic is available in your area, you must use them. Non tech-savvy people like them too, since their pricing is great and their support is actually useful. Nearly my entire street uses them, at least the people that don’t still use cable TV.
Seriously, I’m in Utah so this isn’t a thing out there, but thank you, I’m going to share this, and maybe, hopefully, we will become Sonic’s competition some day <3 this ISP looks like the whole entire package and what I dream the ISP I am currently with becomes one day.
We offer everything Sonic does, Internet up to 10Gbps symmetrical ($200/mo which is competitive in it market), VoIP, TV, WiFi router rentals, but it’s different than how Sonic is doing it. I wrote out a bunch of stuff, but afterwards I decided I may have started to reveal too much and it may become too easy to understand who I work for and my position… Long story short, you’re a lucky bunch out there, Sonic seems fantastic and thank you for sharing this with me/the community.
Honestly, one of the criteria when I was looking for a house was whether Sonic was available in the area. Really glad to have escaped Xfinity (I didn’t have a choice at my previous place)
In case you didn’t already see it, take a look at their transparency page :) https://www.sonic.com/transparency
They undergrounded fiber down the road from me but still no service in my city :(.
Oh my! They look absolutely amazing!
And yet it gets worse the more rural you get. I know a buddy that lives 10 miles outside of the closest town and they can get up to 3Mbps. I know it gets even worse in the boonies. At least my cell service isn’t terrible up there. It was pretty atrocious ~15 years ago.
Canadian here. I got 500/500 for $50 cad after tax. 1000/750 is $65 but I’d have to upgrade my hardware.
Hahahahahaha.
Fuck. It’s so fake it makes me feel sick, I hate large corporations, especially ones with monopolies. It’s disgusting.
I’m contractually obligated to take it in the ass from the only ISP in town.
NO it’s because of the excellent customer service
The only reason I take their customer service up my ass is because it always sucks no matter what ISP I use.
The only reason I do it is because I have no other choice. For me it’s either suffering with Comcast or using extremely shitty DSL (which is too slow for me to do my job properly). I live in a suburban area, but for some reason, my neighborhood has only one high speed option. And I know there are plenty of other people all over the country in the same predicament.
Stares in local duopoly
if you want to listen to 35 minutes of annoying music, press 1. If you want to get insulted personally by an operator stay on the line
Every 5 minutes, at max volume:
YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US. ALL AVAILABLE OPERATORS ARE HELPING OTHER CUSTOMERS. PLEASE STAY ON THE LINE.
2 minutes later:
DID YOU KNOW <COMPANY> IS WORKING TO SAVE CUSTOMERS LIKE YOU MONEY? UPGRADE YOUR PLAN TO ULTIMATE TODAY AND SAVE! YOU CAN ADD BASIC CABLE TO YOUR INTERNET PLAN FOR FREE FOR 3 MONTHS. MAKE ANY SOUND AT ALL TO LEAVE THE SUPPORT QUEUE AND SPEAK WITH A NEW ACCOUNT SPECIALIST RIGHT AWAY.
returns to playing compressed elevator music through an old can
And “we are experiencing higher than average call volumes. Please continue to hold”. Every single time you call. That’s not how averages work!
if you want to get insulted personally by an operator stay on the line
20 minutes later, a robot voice - Please wait, our attendants are busy. You are very valuable to us.
Line is disconnected randomly.
Accurate
shoutout to Andrews & Arnold, best ISP in the uk. I called to stop using them because I was leaving the country forever and they were like “good, what else do you want?” MFs gave zero shits and gave great high speed service.
I audibly laughed.
In Algeria no one switches because there’s only one ISP.
Customers must be very happy!
