You used to be able to get the new subscriber deal on an existing account? That never worked for me, so I had to cancel every year and have a roommate sign up as a new customer. I hope that still works.

I called and said I was cancelling last month. They gave me a new 24 month promo with pretty good pricing.

It's something they have offered in their monopoly areas as a way to say, "hey, we promise we're not abusing our monopoly power."

I've been able to do it every two years at the end of the 24mos price lock until just now.

When I called today, they were only willing to go halfway between my current rate and the new subscriber rate.

Go to r/Comcast_Xfinity and follow the procedure there to get intro rates. It worked for me about a month ago. Also the city council voted for municipal internet, but it was blocked/delayed by the previous city manager. There is a meeting next week where the city will hopefully begin moving forward with it.

The city council voted to extend the contract of the city manager that they blamed for blocking secondary providers.

Gentle reminder that Comcast does not do identity verification for “new subscribers”.

Not Cambridge but we've had each other sign up as a new account every year and got a discount. Can call them to switch it same day with not interruption.

Same, actually they cut my bill by $25 just to give me 6x the download speed. The service is fine but fuck them for making me play the game every year.

Tons of bullshit hidden fees too.

I keep asking this every few months when the topic comes up... So what's the status on the municipal broadband push?

We're almost there! There's just this one final step before the next final step, and then there's that other final final step. But we're basically already there so there's no reason to want any effort to be put into any alternatives.

I believe the sequence is that in 2023 there will be a study to determine the viability. Assuming that goes perfectly, in 2024 there will be a study to figure out how to execute it. Assuming that, too, goes perfectly, 2025 will be spent talking budget. Assuming that goes perfectly, deployment would begin in 2026 and will be centered around limited test deployments in homeless encampments. 2027 would see full city-wide deployment, except there will probably be a delay due to installation temporarily blocking a bike lane. So, we should see this municipal network built from rainbows and unicorns some time around 2028 assuming it all goes perfectly. The more realistic timeline has the network beginning to crawl around 2030.

And before I get written off as just a sarcastic twit, consider looking up Participatory Budget cycles. These projects are vastly smaller scale (like, three orders of magnitude smaller), already budgeted, already approved, and don't require multiple rounds of paid background research. Despite this, they still take 5-7 years to execute if they finish at all (over 7 years later, the signaling project for the #1 bus from 2015's PB2 still isn't complete, the bus signs from 2016's PB3 haven't even advanced beyond the planning phase, etc etc).

I’m going to try starry internet. Anyone try?

Several years ago, Starry abandoned new installs in buildings with fewer than 50 units.

Yes, I expect my umbilical cord to Comcast will outlive the useful life of my frontal lobes. Frustrating...

Next Monday (the 28th) the city council has a roundtable to discuss the Municipal Broadband Feasibility Study FWIW: https://cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_Meeting.aspx?ID=4186

Municipal broadband is awesome. My parents have it western mass