ISP Promotions Blog

After holding a commanding lead for a considerable amount of time as the number 1 VoIP service with more subscriber lines than any other company, Vonage was recently Knocked out of this position. Comcast recently has taken control of this title with 2.4 million subscriber line. Vonage claims about 2.3 million.

After adding 1.2 million lines in 2006, Vonage slowed down to 166,000 new lines in the first quarter of 2007. While Vonage’s sales were leveling out in the first quarter, Comcast’s sales were climbing.

Vonage offers phone calls over the internet, but Comcast uses their own cable lines to complete calls. Due to this, the fact that Comcast has taken over several major cities since the end of their partnership with Time Warner is probably a big factor in the large increase of sales. Another idea that has been passed around is that Comcast’s VoIP success was a large factor in SunRockets fall.

With all the new competition out there, it looks like to be in the VoIP industry in the future, a company will have to offer a great service at a great price and be a leading competitor. The more competition that comes along, the better service each company will have to offer, a concept that Comcast understands well.

A Deal Too Good to Tell

AT&T is currently running a promotion that’s so good, it’s hard to find. The service being offered is a $10 a month 768 Kbps DSL connection with a one year obligation to people who have never had AT&T or BellSouth broadband. At $10 a month, it is the cheapest DSL connection currently available.

It was part of a deal that AT&T made with the Federal Communications Commission to get its $86 billion acquisition of BellSouth Corp approved last year. The catch is it’s not well advertised and a little hard to find. The link to this deal can be found (somewhat hidden) on the AT&T homepage.

This incredibly cheap service comes with a free modem to top it off. This service should be available for a few years, but should be taken advantage of now. Finding this promotion can be tricky so READ ALL OF THIS page before clicking though.

-First click this link here (after reading the other steps)

-From there click >>Sign up now>>

-There are 4 boxes on this page. The far left box is titled Basic DSL. Look at the bottom of this box and click the link that says “DSL at an even lower price, see if you qualify”

-From there just finish the sign up process to see if the $10 a month promotion is available to you. If it is, it will be listed with the other available promotions.

At such an incredible rate, it is a great way to cut your internet service provider bill in half and save quite a bit of money every year.

EarthLink has now selected a new CEO to replace former CEO Garry Betty who passed away last January due to cancer. Rolla Huff formerly with MPower Communications will now be taking over EarthLink. Hopefully Rolla has some tricks up his sleeve because right now the company is losing a ton of their dial-up customers. The company has implemented a few ideas including “broadband over powerline” which hasn’t given much result yet; but the company is optimistic that it will soon. Rolla Huff seems to feel differently however and possibly will quit investing in it.

He feels good however about the other programs the company is currently implementing and as of right now does not plan to cut any of them unless he has to. Mr. Huff plans on taking 2 or 3 months to evaluate the company’s position before making any major changes, and after that evaluation period says things are subject to change. The company knows that Rolla Huff has a ton of experience and are happy to have him.

This week Verizon began to send out a group of e-mails to their DSL customers. These e-mails were a demand of obligation. Verizon is saying that in order for DSL customers to keep their same price rates, they will have to sign a one year contract.

In many ways this could be good for many customers who could actually be paying less for the same service if they had a contract. If these month to month customers refuse to agree to a contact, their prices are subject to change, but their new rates will vary according to where they live.

In the long run, it would be very beneficial to customers who do sign a one year contact. They will only pay $19.99 a month for the first 6 months and $29.99 a month after that. But in a world of people that are not comfortable with obligation, this could be a step backwards.

Some customers have been reported saying that they are not pleased with this announcement and that they feel the company has no customer loyalty. Others say that they feel it is time to sign up for a contact.

Hey guys, I was looking a little more into the new Comcast deal with Houston and found an interesting article. It’s from Houston’s local paper.

One of the things that really caught my eye was what Comcast is calling “Wideband”. In the interview they were asked what consumers could look forward to in the future. Wideband was the answer. It’s a much faster internet connection . Faster than DSL. They tested by it downloading a 4 gigabit file, which only took 3.5 minutes. It took 4 hours with DSL.

When I read this article it fascinated me, but I couldn’t find anything else on “Wideband” anywhere else. Hopefully this will be made available soon.

This week a long partnership between Time Warner and Comcast came to an end. This means quite a large change for Houston residents. The enormous city, currently using Time Warner, will make a huge change to Comcast service. That’s right. Time Warner is out, and Comcast is in. This will mean quite a few changes to the local cable service, but Comcast is promising, mostly convenient changes. For example, price rates will not go up, and in some cases even go down. Comcast has commented that many users will have access to new TV channels and improved On-Demand service. In July, the internet service will switch over. The largest inconvenience will be the fact that users will have to changer their e-mail addresses. The old Time Warner suffix will be phased out and users will have to use addresses ending in “comcast.com”. All in all, Comcast has invested over $200 million to upgrade Houston’s network and the transition is expected to be smooth.

Hello everyone! We’ve just launched our blog…finally. The blog’s purpose will be to share new Internet service provider information as we get it. Visit us often to see what’s new in the ISP world.