A Penguin in the Orchard

Moving away from Mediacom

We’ve been Mediacom customers for years. Then again, if you want cable in Iowa City, they’re the monopolist, so it’s not like we’ve had a lot of choice. In the past few years, we’ve jumped completely into bed with them, using all their services: high-speed Internet, phone and TV. This morning, a DirecTV installer will be here to help us start tearing ourselves away from the beast. We’ll have 40+ HD channels for less than we’re paying Mediacom for 14 (including the 6 local broadcast channels). In total, we’ll be well over 200 channels.

The minimal HD offering from Mediacom is only part of my utter dissatisfaction with them. The problems run the gamut, from product to customer service to general business practices to an utter distrust of monopolies. They offer minimal HD service because they can - they have the cable market to themselves in Iowa City and flourish under minimal supervision by the city. We waited more than two months after purchasing our HD TV in November to receive an HD box from Mediacom. The local office ran out of boxes in August, and by November were just receiving the order they placed at that time. They blamed the delay on the FCC, noting that the requirement for cable cards had caused the shortage of boxes. But, the FCC is a government agency - they work publicly and at a snail’s pace. Everyone in the industry knew that a change in boxes was in the wind. Any company with competition would have made a business decision much earlier to order new boxes. Because they don’t face that competition in Iowa City, Mediacom waited until the last possible second, choosing to put their customers on a waiting list.

Customer service is abysmal. Mediacom has a penchant for hiring office personnel who, frankly, couldn’t give a damn. Not that that’s unusual, these days, but it seems especially true for Mediacom. I’ve simply never had an experience with them, either on the phone or in person, that wasn’t completely frustrating.

There’s also something very frustrating about Mediacom’s offers for new customers. These new customers pay less than half what I’m paying for the full package of services, even if only for the first year of service. Meanwhile, my costs continue to increase annually, apparently subsidizing the new customer campaigns. Back in the days when I sold TVs, one of the first rules of sales was, “Never give a discount without a reason. And, ‘I want your business’ isn’t a reason.” It grates on me to see the Mediacom commercials touting VIP (Voice, Internet, Phone) service for less than $100 a month for new customer, while I’m writing checks for well over $200 after more than ten years of service.

We’re also moving back to Qwest for phone service in the next few months. They’re no less a monopoly in Iowa City, but, at this point, they feel like the lesser of two evils.Unfortunately, we’re too far from a Qwest switching station for DSL, so we’ll stick with Mediacom for the Max high-speed service (10 Mb down, 1 Mb up). It wouldn’t be possible to do The Roadhouse without high speed.

So, this evening, I hope to be surfing through my new viewing options on DirectTV, and feeling some quiet satisfaction at the beginning of a break from monopolistic Mediacom.