Comcast broadband pricing no April fools

I only wish Comcast's new pricing strategy was an April Fools joke. The punchline as I come off contract: $60 a month for standalone, basic Internet service.

Internet access should be the new dial tone. Telephone services and television programming should be additional, value-added features layered on top of it. Those services should be available from a variety of providers in an open, competitive market.

But don't tell that to the telephone and cable companies. In at least some cases these companies' pricing models are designed to protect their traditional services by inflating the costs of broadband service when you choose only broadband and forgo those core telephone and television offerings. These companies use their control over Internet access to manipulate pricing to favor their own services and to block entry of competitors.

My local telepone company, Fairpoint Communications, views DSL as an add-on service to its basic, plain old telephone service. It is still delivering broadband over twisted pair wiring, so it's slower than cable. The basic price for up to 3Mbit/sec DSL is $33.99 with a one year contract, and $35.99 with no contract. And if you don't want a Fairpoint landline - and many don't these days - the a-la-carte price for DSL jumps to $43.99. I use it in the office in our primary residence.

Comcast's triple play service has vaulted the company into the top tier of telephone service providers in the past year. I signed at our secondary home one year ago when the price was right: $99.95 for telephone, 8 Mbit/sec high speed Internet and the standard lineup of cable television channels. That was $33 per service.

Now that's changed. Apparently, no one has told Comcast that there's a recession going on. As I came off contract this month the package price jumped by $15. Like many people, we're tightening up and trying to save wherever we can. So I decided to investigate how much money I could save by breaking up that package and shopping for other television and telephone alternatives delivered over the Internet.

There's just one small problem: Like many Americans I'm captive to one provider for broadband. When I called customer service, the Comcast sales person warned me that taking that road would be expensive: The a-la-carte pricing for basic 6 Mbit/sec broadband service jumps to the unbelievably ridiculous price of $59.95.

That's shocking - and it puts a big dent in the potential savings the consumer might find by going with other providers. The  broadband conduit to the home remains unregulated and controlled by a duopoly of ISPs - telcos and cable companies - that do not want to provide truly open access and have a stake in protecting their value-added services. As long as that remains the case, competitors will be at a disadvantage.

But it's hard to keep a lid on the competition. There are some interesting, low cost alternatives for both television programming and voice over IP telephone service available over the Internet. I've been investigating several. Over the next few days I'll be sharing what I've learned about them.