Suddenlink "Price for Life" Promo

18,818 Views | 28 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by SoTheySay
InMyOpinion
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Any current customers call Suddenlink and get them to give you the new "Price for Life" rates? Would save me $40 per month on my bill - internet only customer.

Previously I understood the promotional rates for new customers, after a year Suddenlink would raise rates to what most current customers are paying. Not a big deal as I once received a promotional rate maybe?? (TCA was a long time ago)

It seems that this "Price for Life" promotion is just another slap in the face to existing long time customers.

carodz
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
100% agreed. I've done the "please lower my rate" call several times and always expressed I feel like I'm being punished for maintaining service with them for so many years. I was pretty annoyed when I saw this price for life ad and am also curious to see if any existing customers can talk their way into it.
lockett93
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
I spent almost an hour on the phone with them. After getting irate and to a supervisor, all they could do was give me that price for 12 months.

I was going to cancel and sign back up under a different name to lock it in, but was on day 2 of my billing cycle and you have to pay for the full month. I still might cancel in 3 weeks.

I completely agree that it makes no sense to offer for life to ONLY new customers.
slider676
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
If you're married, just cancel and sign back up with the spouse. Keep in mind that their marketed rate is bull though. If you get TV, you have to pay $20/month extra for just 1 receiver and $10/month for everyone one after.

You have to have at least one receiver, so to say it's $54.99 when it has to be $74.99 at MINIMUM (before taxes and fees), is deceptive marketing.
farmersfight
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
It won't stay that way. I was locked in "forever" for at $60 for internet, almost up to $100 now. Such a terrible company and terrible service as well. The internet drops here 2-3 times a week in my neighborhood.

Wishing a reliable alternative would come to town.
redd38
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
slider676 said:

If you're married, just cancel and sign back up with the spouse. Keep in mind that their marketed rate is bull though. If you get TV, you have to pay $20/month extra for just 1 receiver and $10/month for everyone one after.

You have to have at least one receiver, so to say it's $54.99 when it has to be $74.99 at MINIMUM (before taxes and fees), is deceptive marketing.


I don't get why they don't just sell and advertise service for $1, then add $75 dollars in fees. I went to add $29.99 tv service to my account today and it was going to increase my bill by like $68 or so after fees and taxes.
waltonloads11
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
There is about $40 in surcharges and after taxes, your bill will be over $100 still.
1.618
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Disconnect it before you go on vacation for a week and by the time you get back, Suddenlink is falling all over themselves to give you a special deal. It does not even take 30 days for them to spend money every day to get you back including people coming to your door. Shake them off the first few times and they really ramp up the sales pressure. It seems it would be cheaper to keep a customer but whatever.
slider676
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Is it really $40? My fees for just internet are only about $4, but I'm paying $69.99 base. Just curious to compare apples to apples before jumping through hoops to get around their walls and maybe lock this in.
Gigem314
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Sick of their monopoly.

And shame on our city leaders for letting it continue.

We're not a tiny little college town anymore.
unmade bed
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Anyone know anything about wirestar??

https://www.wirestar.net/about/
saltydog13
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
I'll trade you my ****ty rise broadband for suddenlink in a heartbeat
Post removed:
by user
waltonloads11
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
This is from the disclaimer portion on their website:

"EQUIP, TAXES & FEES: ALTICE ONE (A1): Install fee, taxes, gov't fees, other Suddenlink fees & surcharges, including an Altice One Pak monthly fee of $20/mo; $5.15 Sports TV charge, $12.50 Broadcast TV surcharge and $3.50 Network Enhancement fee apply. All fees, equip. charges, surcharges & taxes will be added to bill & are subject to change during & after promo period"

That adds up to $41.15. Add that to the base price and taxes.
InMyOpinion
How long do you want to ignore this user?
To clarify my pricing comparison

I am Internet only customer and have my own equipment

I have the "Internet 400 Unlimited Data" package and currently have a base rate of $80

If I were a new customer my base rate would be $39.99

beb08
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
unmade bed said:

Anyone know anything about wirestar??

https://www.wirestar.net/about/
A+ customer service when I was able to use them. Current area is not serviced by them or I would still be with them.
meezermom
How long do you want to ignore this user?
I use a service called Trim that once you give them access to your accounts and information will call on your behalf to get you good rates. They take a 25% cut of what you save, but for me it was totally worth it. They saved me on my Suddenlink internet and on my DirecTV rates and I didn't have to deal with the idiots at Suddenlink myself.
megaman64
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
InMyOpinion said:

To clarify my pricing comparison

I am Internet only customer and have my own equipment

I have the "Internet 400 Unlimited Data" package and currently have a base rate of $80

If I were a new customer my base rate would be $39.99


I just signed up for it a week or so ago; so far it looks like it comes out to be around $45 after taxes and fees for the 400 plan. I have no doubt they'll pull something shady at some point but for now I don't see any gotchas.
ro828
How long do you want to ignore this user?
When we moved here in 1999 the cable company was called Cox Communications. If Suddenlink changes names again, is this the end of the "lifetime" price?

Y'll should have been around in 1970 when there were two cable companies in town. When there's competition things are way better for consumers. And you could get all the Houston channels.
Eliminatus
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Gigem314 said:

Sick of their monopoly.

And shame on our city leaders for letting it continue.

We're not a tiny little college town anymore.


Does anyone actually know why there is only one company here? The consensus I've been hearing for years is that no outside competition will be allowed, and not that any other company is simply not interested. But it's always hearsay.
Nosh
How long do you want to ignore this user?
1.618 said:

Disconnect it before you go on vacation for a week and by the time you get back, Suddenlink is falling all over themselves to give you a special deal. It does not even take 30 days for them to spend money every day to get you back including people coming to your door. Shake them off the first few times and they really ramp up the sales pressure. It seems it would be cheaper to keep a customer but whatever.
Disconnect meaning cancel service completely?
Gigem314
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Eliminatus said:

Gigem314 said:

Sick of their monopoly.

And shame on our city leaders for letting it continue.

We're not a tiny little college town anymore.


Does anyone actually know why there is only one company here? The consensus I've been hearing for years is that no outside competition will be allowed, and not that any other company is simply not interested. But it's always hearsay.
I've heard the same.

I can't imagine every other cable or high speed internet service out there isn't interested in coming to College Station. It has to be internal politics.
95_Aggie
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Since the local phone company is Verizon/Frontier, that kinda keeps AT&T/Uverse out.
nwspmp
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Gigem314 said:

Eliminatus said:

Gigem314 said:

Sick of their monopoly.

And shame on our city leaders for letting it continue.

We're not a tiny little college town anymore.


Does anyone actually know why there is only one company here? The consensus I've been hearing for years is that no outside competition will be allowed, and not that any other company is simply not interested. But it's always hearsay.
I've heard the same.

I can't imagine every other cable or high speed internet service out there isn't interested in coming to College Station. It has to be internal politics.
As I understand it, and please take this with a grain of salt, but this is what I understand and it could fully be wrong.

There was at one point an exclusive franchise agreement with both Bryan and College Station cities for the TCA/Cox/Suddenlink/Altice whatever system to operate. That exclusive franchise license ended when the PUC started regulating and issuing their own state-wide franchise agreements for given areas.

https://www.cstx.gov/business___development/franchise_agreements

I can't directly find Bryan's, but did note a reading at City Council on the renewal of a Cable Television franchise renewal in 2003, and and Bryan's code says that without an election, it shouldn't be able to last more than 10 years, 20 with an election.

https://library.municode.com/tx/bryan/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTICH_S16UTSTAVALHIPUWO

So, that said, I don't think there's any legal encumbrance restricting our options to Suddenlink, but as I've posted previously, the financial burdens to deploying any new network in the area are so large that our area simply can't sustain it in a solvent manner.

Since the network physical plant and infrastructure are privately owned, there is no legal way to force them to allow a competitor to use the last mile connections. In some municipal networks, the last mile is owned and managed by a public utility type of entity, which leases out, in a vendor-neutral manner, access to the individual customers, and the ISP is an aggregator and manager of traffic. They lease backhaul connecting into the municipal network and resell that bandwidth allocation to their customers.

The most close analogy I can find would be the deregulated areas of electric service versus areas that still have municipal provided power. In deregulated power areas, you can have any one of a multitude of "power companies" but the physical plant is run and managed by a central utility and the "power company" you sign up with is more or less a sales aggregation. They make their money playing on the price of power purchased at a given time and for a given cost versus the power consumed by their customers (which is why they often have "free power at night" deals; the price of power at night is insanely cheap on the bulk market and sometimes they can be paid to actually consume that power). In municipal owned utilities, the utility is end-to-end solution. They own the transmission, distribution and all of the customer service and reliability and regulation costs.This is more analogous to a Suddenlink type of provider, just swap municipal ownership for private ownership.

Oddly enough, some of the most successful local ISP competition to the single-large-player in a modest metro area are in municipal owned ISPs. Chattanooga, TN for example has a municipally owned and operated FTTH ISP that offers residential 1Gbit/sec connections plus TV for $70/month. Comcast was the provider in the area and the town had languished in slow cable modem speeds and higher prices. EPB (the local electric utility) had deployed a very large smart grid system backed by fiber for the VW plant, and once complete, realized they had a very robust and dense coverage area, and started offering services. Somehow that spurred Comcast to do two things; 1) Sue EPB to stop their plans, get rebuffed by the FCC, have the TN State Senate legislate away competition rights against any incumbent provider, have the FCC get a court ruling staying that law temporarily and 2) Led them to "reevaluate" the "inability" to offer better and faster service in the area and started offering 2GBit/Sec FTTH service in Chattanooga

I say all this to say that there isn't a legal restriction on a competitor that I can find, but any potential competitor has either the monumental cost of building up a network from scratch or finding some legal way to bifurcate the billing from service delivery on Suddenlink's lines and both companies resell the service. Neither of those are going to happen in any timeframe soon. The other option, a muni-owned style network also won't happen, more for political reasons though.

So, unless the satellite networks of the future just get awesome, it sucks, but pretty much get used to Suddenlink as the only provider for reasonable speeds in the majority of the B/CS city limits area for a while.
DanHo2010
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
If you think Suddenlink is a bad ISP, that just means you've never done business with another ISP.
nwspmp
How long do you want to ignore this user?
DanHo2010 said:

If you think Suddenlink is a bad ISP, that just means you've never done business with another ISP.
I dunno, I had a line from Speakeasy a long time ago, but in general, yeah, dealing with ISPs from a residential level is a big bag of suck.
FarmersFight05
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Have any existing customers had any luck negotiating to get the "Price for Life" promo from Suddenlink? Trying to determine if it is worth spending a long time on the phone or just cancel and open under a new account.
slider676
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
I got it because I didn't negotiate.

I just called them a few days into my billing cycle and said I was moving and needed to cancel. Then I signed up online (takes 3 minutes) with my wife and put it under her name. Had the start date be the last day of my billing cycle.

1. Make sure to cancel a few weeks before the billing cycle ends, so that there is no risk of a technician not being available for awhile.

2. Make sure to have the start date be the last day of your previous account because they'll double bill both accounts for all the crossover days thinking the two account holders won't talk and know each other. Also no lapse in service.

3. Have your own modem and just say the previous person left it, since they'll have that MAC address registered on the previous account.

Bill lowered $30/month plus a $50 gift card.
farmerJohnny
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Their rules for the "Price for Life" promo says that previous customers (less than 3 months) cannot take the deal. I would think that even if I try to use my wife's name, they would realize and block me. I was thinking of switching to CEO ISP for 3 months and then switching back to Suddenlink.
SoTheySay
How long do you want to ignore this user?
S
My fiance and I tried to cancel and put it under her name. They cancelled our request for the new account when they requested we send our lease over and it had my name, current customer, on it.
Refresh
Page 1 of 1
 
×
subscribe Verify your student status
See Subscription Benefits
Trial only available to users who have never subscribed or participated in a previous trial.