A few years ago Verizon moved into our area and gave us notice that they were going to bring fiber to our neighborhood. Overnight, the Comcast that I knew was gone and replaced with a new one. They doubled our Internet speed and I get this letter from a VP at Comcast saying if I have any issues I can contact him and had his email address and phone number. So of course, I let him have it. Their then new DVR would not work at all. It had so many bugs it was hard to count them. To my surprise, he answered, accepted that the firmware did not work and promised an update (which later came). Every week or so we would get a letter from them then saying how much they loved us. I recall calling them and getting an instant person. Life was great.
Fast forward a couple of years later, Verizon gets hit with lawsuits from cities (prompted by Comcast I am sure) saying they cannot run video on demand because they are not paying the surcharges cable is paying. The number of lawsuits ballooned and meanwhile, profits started to pour in from wireless side of the business. What to do? Sell the land line business to Frontier and mothball the plans to roll out video services. Overnight, the old Comcast that we knew and hated came back. And here we are.
It was a great way to experience what added competition does. And lack thereof right now as rightly pointed out.
