Julia Hall

Comcast Helps You Avoid Bundling Blunders

Bundled service package is a way of marketing telecommunications services to private consumers in such a way that two or more services are invoiced on the same bill and the consumer is often given a major discount in exchange for entrusting that particular company with extra business.

It seems like these days every major telecommunications company is offering some sort of bundled service package.  Typically this is a way of marketing telecommunications services to private consumers in such a way that two or more services are invoiced on the same bill and the consumer is often given a major discount in exchange for entrusting that particular company with extra business.  Generally, bundling services like this is a good idea for both you as a consumer and the company that's providing the services for you.  You get great convenience and savings and the company gets more business.

Despite the apparent benefits of bundled services, there are some pitfalls that you could experience if you don't shop around carefully.  On the other hand, you can avoid many of the pitfalls completely by choosing a higher quality company to provide you with your telecommunications needs.

One of the major pitfalls that you could encounter is the possibility of getting a bundled service package from a company that outsources one or more of the services that you've signed up for to another company.  This is extremely common among satellite TV companies and traditional phone companies.  That's because phone companies are decidedly ill equipped to provide TV and satellite TV companies are similarly ill equipped to handle phone services.  Neither are particularly good at providing Internet service either.  For example, when you sign up for a satellite TV service that can theoretically be bundled with a home phone calling plan and a high speed Internet connection, you're probably getting the phone service from a traditional telephone company (with all of the expense and frustration that goes with it).  The high speed Internet service will either come from the same phone company in the form of DSL or through a satellite Internet company.  Neither of these options is particularly good because DSL tends to be relatively slow and satellite Internet service is both slow and expensive.  Plus, as if to add insult to injury, the satellite Internet service also comes with a built in time lag which makes it impossible to use with real time applications like multi player video games, VoIP, and video conferencing!

The difference between this type of bundled package and the one that's provided by cable is that cable company uses digital cable technology instead of the pie in the sky technology of satellites and the archaic technology of phone lines.  Digital cable technology is able to do at least as good of a job of providing TV service as satellite TV and with the implementation of new technology, it will likely be significantly better than satellite in the near future.  Digital cable technology also does a better job of providing Internet access in terms of speed, response time, and value.  Broad band high speed cable Internet access has about four times the speed that DSL or satellite are capable of and doesn't have the time lag of satellite.  A cable based Internet connection is also a much better value than either of the others because, despite its greater speed, it doesn't cost any more than the typical DSL service and only costs about half of the monthly rate for satellite.

Article Tags: Digital Cable Technology, Internet Service, High Speed, Satellite Internet, Digital Cable, Cable Technology

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