Internet

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Embarq DSL Only $24.95: Your Price Until Pigs Fly*

Embarq 24.95 til pigs fly Isn’t it nice to finally find a company that doesn’t play pricing games with their Internet service?  So many ads offer a low come-on price for a short period, then the price goes up. That’s what one consumer thought who recently wrote to Consumer World.

Embarq, which is the local phone company spinoff from Sprint, is advertising a fixed price of $24.95 for high-speed Internet service, and says that it is “your price until pigs fly.” [website 1/13/07]  They also say “a price that won’t budge” … “for as long as you have the service.” 

The consumer decided to sign up because he could save money by cancelling his existing NetZero dial-up service, and even cancelling his local phone service since he had a cellphone. He could now get high-speed Internet for less than he was currently paying for slower service.

Of course, Mouse Print* would not be looking at this ad unless there was more to it than meets the (pig’s) eye.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Embarq details

pigs fly 2The fine print above indicates that the company can just cancel the service, which, obviously, would immediately extinguish the $24.95 “forever” price. In addition, their standard terms and conditions page has more fine print than a phonebook, yet seems to be currently missing detailed rules about their residential Internet service. In part it reiterates they can discontinue a service with 30 days notice, but makes no mention of the customer’s right to a fixed price for life. Also, since the fixed bargain DSL service price is linked to local phone service,  local phone service prices could easily go up with regulatory approval where required.

Unfortunately, the consumer did not read the fine print, and Embarq did not direct him to it by means of using an asterisk next to the price. He didn’t realize that the $24.95 price is only available as part of a package of telephone services, that he no longer has. He didn’t know they would add a $10 Internet access charge to his bill. And he didn’t realize to get out of this mess he would have to pay a $99 early termination fee.

There is no happy ending to this story, but a moral. You have to read the mouse print, and know that most phone companies do not sell “naked DSL.”  

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Comcast PowerBoost: Download Speeds Up to 12 Mbps*

Speed is the name of the game for Internet service providers. Competitors are continually raising the stakes by advertising higher and higher connection speeds.

Comcast generally provides 6 Mbps as their regular speed. (Don’t worry about how fast this really is for purposes of this story.) But, in the past year or two, they has been promoting “PowerBoost” which is an “extra burst of speed — up to 12 Mbps — when downloading large files.”  On their website, Comcast suggests some great uses for PowerBoost:

Music, videos, online games – whenever you’re downloading something big, PowerBoost kicks right in. Imagine you’re downloading a 10 MB file, like three MP3 songs. It would take about 53 seconds with a 1.5 Mbps DSL connection. Compare that to 6.6 seconds with Comcast High-Speed Internet with PowerBoost.

Do you really get twice the regular speed with PowerBoost? Yes and no. To read their advertising, one would think that whenever you download a large file, you get the benefit of PowerBoost so the file will be delivered in half the time. Not so fast says our trusty mouse, because of a little-noticed disclosure in their footnote:

*MOUSE PRINT:

“PowerBoost provides a brief burst of download speed above the customer’s provisioned download speed for the first 10MB of a file. It then reverts to the provisioned speed for the remainder of the download.” 

Who knew that PowerBoost only lasts for approximately seven seconds?

For example, if you want to download the trial version of Microsoft’s game “Halo”, which is 134 megs, only the first 10 megs will be delivered to you at the advertised “double speed”, and the remaining 124 megs will be at regular speed.

While smaller “large” files will indeed benefit from SpeedBoost, for most really large downloads, the promise of SpeedBoost is a speed bust. And that’s not Comcastic.

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Skybus: Airfares as Low as $10*

Skybus

In a few weeks, a new low-cost airline called Skybus will start flying from east and west coast cities to Columbus, Ohio.

The big lure will be $10 airfares.

Skybus is trying to pattern itself after some very low cost European carriers like Ryanair. The company says, “We’ve developed a very simple operating model that produces a dramatically lower cost structure to fly people safely and reliably from where they are to where they want to go.”

What are their secrets for cutting costs?

*MOUSE PRINT:

1. They have no phone number! 

“Seriously. We’d love to chat, but those phone banks are expensive.”

2. They charge you for everything (except using the toilet):

– “The first two [checked] bags are 5 bucks apiece.”

– “That also goes for blankets and pillows–which, by the way, you get to keep if you buy.”

– Want a good seat?  “You can pay 10 bucks extra to board our brand-new A319 airplanes before anyone else.”

3. You must buy their food if you want to eat:  

“Hungry? Thirsty? Bring cash. Oh, and don’t sneak food onboard unless you brought enough for the whole plane.”

4. Don’t expect many employees:

 “… to keep our costs low, at most airports our agents serve “double duty”, moving from the check in counter to the gate when it’s time to board a flight. This means that if you arrive at the airport less than 30 minutes from your scheduled flight, there may not be agents available at the ticket counter to assist you.”

5. You won’t find Skybus at some of your favorite airports: They use less crowded, cheaper, and less convenient airports such as Portsmouth, NH (instead of Boston), and Bellingham (instead of Seattle).

6. Got a complaint?

“We can’t guarantee a personal response to your message…”

7. Fares “from” $10:

They may only have as few as 10 seats at that low price.

Despite these quirks and unexpected “features”, Skybus may revolutionize low-cost air travel in the US, and put pressure on other airlines to lower fares.

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