Comcast Takes $70 Gigabit Offer Away From Cities Near Chicago (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When Comcast brought its gigabit cable Internet service to the Chicago area in August, it gave customers in some parts of Chicago and nearby towns the option of subscribing for $70 a month -- half off the standard, no-contract price of $140. Though the $70 gigabit offer required a three-year contract, it came with unlimited data, which normally costs an extra $50 a month on top of the $140 no-contract price. For Comcast customers, this was a good deal. But Comcast didn't make the $70 offer available throughout the Chicago area, and now the company has restricted it even further. The offer remains available in parts of Chicago, namely Uptown, Grand Crossing, the Loop, and South Loop. But Comcast has stopped offering the $70 price in all nearby cities and towns where it was originally available. The $70 price was briefly offered in Arlington Heights, Naperville, Plainfield, Waukegan, Tinley Park, Batavia, and Bloomington in Illinois and in South Bend in Indiana. In those areas, the $140 no-contract price is now the only option for new gigabit cable customers. (People who signed up for the $70 deal before it was rescinded will still get it for three years, as they're under contract.) A Comcast spokesperson said the company had been "testing" the $70 promotion in certain areas of Illinois and Indiana but decided to stop the tests in most of them. It's not clear why Comcast stopped the tests in these cities and towns, but Comcast told Ars that it often changes its promotions and thus could expand the $70 deal to other areas or offer new discounts soon. However, there are no expansions of the $70 offer being announced right now.

Comments

Not at all surprising

[nitehawk214]

This is how cable companies work. They give big discounts to new customers, then fuck over their existing customers because they know its a duopoly (if not an outright monopoly) and rake in the cash.

Oh, you are going to switch to Verizon? Hahaha, go right ahead. Once they start fucking you over you are not going to get any special deals to come back.

Re:Not at all surprising

[the_Bionic_lemming]

They never made the offer to the poor communities around here.

In fact the offer was only made to richer and more prosperous cities around chicago, and I'm White and ive in Park Forest Il.

LMAO, Naperville? A budget plan? I worked in Naperville, and drove past Very Expensive (over million) homes right next to the old downtown area.

And here we have a choice between 50 bucks a month for at$t's lowest teir (with mandatory cable switch rental) or 50 bucks a month for low speed and having to call every six months to complain about being pushed up to 80 bucks a month.

nothing cheaper. Unless you go with the fly by nights that use a "Fair Use Policy" that slows you down to 28.8 k if you're lucky.

Re:Not at all surprising

[freeze128]

Yes, this behavior is expected, but not for the very cynical reasons you give. You see, it's actually a *GOOD* thing that comcast is limiting its gigabit service to certain areas. Allow me to explain: In the past, comcast has sold its internet service everywhere it could. Since there is a finite amount of bandwidth in the universe, this means that they often oversold their internet service, and their customers suffered for it.

Now that comcast has upgraded their peering connections, and has started to sell their gigabit internet (which has NO DATA CAP), they are doing the right thing, and preventing the overselling of their internet service. This is the behavior that we want to encourage.

Sale ends - News at 11!

[JoeyRox]

Hate to be snarky but is it really news that a temporary offer on discounted internet service is no longer available?

Re:Sale ends - News at 11!

[msauve]

It is to the person who submitted the article, who is now pissed that they didn't take the offer when it was available. It's not news, or even interesting, to anyone else.

They mention south bend, IN but that's BS

[FictionPimp]

We just (and I mean in the last month) got access to 1gbps internet from comcast in our area. There was no special price, if there was I would have gotten it, I was one of the first installs.

Re:Where are the open markets?

[CrimsonAvenger]

We keep hearing one political party chant "free markets" and "get big government off our backs!" - yet, where are their actions to implement their words?

Being blocked by the political Party that controls Chicago? And the State of Illinois?

Completely irrelevant to this case, however. A limited time discount is ending. They do that - that's what "limited time" means....