These kinds of testimonials help fuel our fight on behalf of consumers for better (and cheaper) broadband:

Hi Guys,

I don’t usually take the time to write thank you’s, but I found your site the other day and managed to save over $20 on my cable bill by switching to ”Earthlink” which I had no idea was possible. When I signed up with Bright House I was promised the $45 a month price for standard Internet, but I signed up a day before their prices jumped to $50. I managed to fight to get my price down for $45, but all of a sudden that stopped and they were refusing to give me the price I signed up for, for the remainder of the year. Due to that, I switched to the Earthlink promo prices and got Bright House to switch me over. They tried to lie to me on the phone to make me think I couldn’t get the Earthlink promo pricing, but I won the argument and am now very happy.

In six months, I’ll try to switch back to Road Runner and get their promo prices.

This is such a hidden unknown gem and has saved my family lots of money. Thank you!

— Scott

Thanks Scott.  Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks have Earthlink as a hidden little secret most customers know nothing about.  It’s an arrangement that started way back in 2001 with the now-long-forgotten (and broken up) merger between AOL and Time Warner.  A voluntary agreement to allow third party ISPs to sell broadband service over Time Warner Cable has been ongoing ever since, even though customers would routinely find Earthlink’s regular prices not so exciting, if they found them at all.

The Earthlink savings are best realized for broadband-only customers who do not want to get tied down with a double or triple-play package from their cable company.  Both Time Warner Cable and Bright House charge considerably higher prices for standalone broadband service.  It’s part of a marketing tactic to convince you better savings are possible with a bundled service package.  But if you don’t care about the phone line or cable TV, why pay for either?

For every third-party ISP we’ve encountered reselling service on Time Warner Cable or Bright House, it seems mostly an exercise in branding.  For example, Earthlink’s standard and “turbo” products are totally identical to Road Runner offered by both cable companies, with two important distinctions:

• You do not get the benefit of SpeedBoost, a temporary speed increase during the first few seconds of a file transfer;
• You are assigned an Earthlink e-mail address, not one from Bright House or Time Warner Cable.

In fact, Earthlink as a company seems to be running mostly on auto-pilot these days.  We found their website woefully outdated, still selling speeds upgraded several years ago. If Bright House locally sells 10/1Mbps standard Road Runner service and Earthlink offers 7Mbps with a 384kbps upload speed, you will actually get 10/1Mbps from Earthlink as well.  The only difference is the name of the service as it appears on your monthly Time Warner Cable or Bright House bill.  Both cable companies literally just select Earthlink from a drop-down menu on the customer service computer screen.  All service calls and billing are handled by the cable companies.  If you need technical support, however, it will come from an overseas call center or online “chat” platform Earthlink runs.  But Earthlink includes something Time Warner Cable and Bright House customers lost several years ago — up to 20 hours a month of free dial-up usage when away from home.

After the Six Month Promotion….

Earthlink charges $29.99 a month for speeds that are identical to Time Warner Cable or Bright House’s Road Runner Standard service.  In most areas this is or will soon be 10/1Mbps.  Turbo, which usually increases speeds to 15/1Mbps, costs another $10 a month.  These promotional prices are good for six months.

When the six months are up, you are then qualified to participate in whatever New Customer Promotions Time Warner and Bright House are running for their broadband service.  We are commonly seeing offers of $29.99 a month for a year of standard Road Runner service in upstate New York, with occasional offers of a year of free Road Runner Turbo service thrown in.  Assuming those prices remain in effect, you should be able to secure at least 1.5 years of broadband service for $30 a month.  Remember, if your cable company charges you a modem rental fee, consider investing in your own to save that additional charge.  They are priced well under $100.

When your six months of Earthlink and a year of Time Warner/Bright House promotional pricing is up, simply threaten to take your business elsewhere, and you will usually find them willing to extend the promotion for an additional year.  If not, schedule a cancellation date two weeks out and wait for an inevitable phone call from the customer retentions department with a special “winback” offer.

Also remember you can always start new service under the name of a spouse or family member.  Third party resellers (Google “Time Warner Cable “and pay attention to the online ads) may even throw in a prepaid rebate card for signing up for service through them, so shop around when the promotions expire.

These shopping tips may apply to other cable broadband providers as well.  Remember, if your local phone company is now providing more than traditional DSL, most cable companies will go out of their way to hang on to a customer threatening to walk to AT&T U-verse or Verizon FiOS.  Let them fight to keep you as a customer, and you keep the savings.

Frontier Communications is adding a new $1.50 monthly surcharge for broadband customers not currently enrolled in a “price protection agreement.”  Labeled the HSI Surcharge, the new fee started showing up on customer bills this month, with only a vague explanation buried inside the bill:

Courtesy: Manmaniac

Frontier's Fast One.

Customers attempting to get an explanation of what this charge was all about got a myriad of answers from Frontier customer service representatives:

• It’s a broadband tax;
• It’s a surcharge to help pay for network improvements;
• It’s a charge for customers who refuse to take a price protection plan;
• It’s a rate increase.

Stop the Cap! called Frontier this afternoon and was told it was designed to collect additional revenue to fund network expansion and was, effectively a rate increase.  Even customers on 1-3 year price protection agreements will eventually pay the “surcharge” as their agreements expire.  It is not a government-mandated charge or tax.

Effectively, this rate increase allows the company to advertise their Internet service at a deceptively low price, until customers discover Frontier’s modem rental fees and surcharges.  In 2009, during Stop the Cap!‘s flirtation with Frontier DSL, we found the “out the door” price for their 3.1Mbps service was actually higher than that charged by Time Warner Cable’s 10Mbps Road Runner service.

A very pricey upgrade

Frontier Communications’ DSL modem rental fee is now as high as $6.99 a month in some of the phone company’s service areas, $14.99 a month if you want the convenience of a wireless router built-in.  That’s $84 and $189 a year, respectively, for equipment that cost the company a fraction of that.

“Lymelizzard,” a would-be Frontier DSL customer in Robbinsville, North Carolina, considers that highway robbery.

“I can go and buy the modem at a store and it would be less than one year of rental,” he wrote on Broadband Reports’ Frontier forum.

Frontier Communications’ regular monthly prices are not exactly aggressive in North Carolina, charging up to $50 a month for 3Mbps DSL, $55 for up to 7Mbps, before the modem rental fee and other charges are included.  A customer with Frontier’s wireless router would pay more than $70 a month, just for 7Mbps DSL service:

Frontier's No-Contract Prices for New Customers Only. Prices less for 1-2 year contracts that include $165 early termination fee for Double Plays and up to $120 early termination fee for High-Speed Internet only plans. One-time charges up to $60. Additional charges, taxes and terms apply.

Frontier has quietly increased equipment fees over the years.  Back in 2010, the company raised the rental fee to $4.50 a month.  Some service areas have been paying $6.99 a month since 2009, but now face even higher prices if they want a home “Wi-Fi” hotspot included.

Something else has changed at Frontier as well.  The company is making it more difficult for customers to purchase their own modems and use them instead, skipping the modem rental fee.  Customers trying to save several dollars a month now face a brick wall when contacting customer service.

“The salesman on the phone even said [the modem rental fee] wasn’t a good deal but he could not waive it,” Lymelizzard wrote.  He declined to become a Frontier DSL customer, considering the modem rental fee a deal-breaker.

“I’m surprised that all the Joe Customers out in Frontier-land haven’t complained,” he said. “This is merely a money grab on Frontier’s part. I could see the fee for a year, maybe two, but for the life of the account that’s bogus.”

Despite claims from Canadian Internet Service Providers that Internet Overcharging schemes like “usage-based billing” are about pricing fairness, paying for what one uses, and keeping prices down, comparing broadband prices across the west and east sides of the Niagara River tell a very different story.

We went shopping for the lowest possible prices for standalone broadband service from two cable companies serving the Niagara Falls area, on both sides of the border.

Here is what we found (prices roughly equivalent in CAD/USD at today’s exchange rate of $1US = $0.99CAD):

Niagara Falls, N.Y. — Time Warner Cable

$34.95/month

Road Runner Standard Service: 10/1Mbps
No Usage Limit
No Overlimit Fee
No Modem Rental Fee
No Contract Commitment

Niagara Falls, Ontario — Rogers Communications

$39.00/month

Rogers Express Service: 10Mbps/512kbps
60GB Monthly Limit with $2/GB Overlimit Fee
$14.95 Installation Fee
One Year Contract Required
(Price above reflects a one-year promotion that includes the monthly Home Gateway Rental ($4.50 value) for one year, $5.50 per month thereafter, effective 3/2011)

The $46.99 price noted above reflects regular Rogers pricing, before the modem rental fee.

Ontario residents enjoy less than half a serving of broadband their neighbors in Quebec enjoy from Bell, for less money

Residents of Quebec enjoy more than double the broadband usage allowance Bell provides its Ontario customers, showing once again h0w arbitrary Internet Overcharging schemes are for consumers in North America.

Broadband Reports reader Ironsight200 ponders why customers in Quebec enjoy substantially less abuse from the skimpy usage allowances Bell imposes on its customers.

The prices charged differ as well, with Quebec residents also getting an out-the-door lower monthly price because Bell does not impose charges on the modem Ontario customers rent for $3.95/month — $6.95 a month with the Fibe 25 service.

Let’s take a look (and don’t worry Ontario readers, Bell promises you can still look at least 624,999 additional web pages this month without incurring overlimit fees):

Quebec users get more than double the usage allowance of...

...their neighbors in Ontario.

Pricing for Bell broadband service at the bundled price:

*- includes $3.95 modem rental fee. ^- includes $6.95 modem rental fee.