Dish Network and Internet Access

[jimpghpa]

I live in an area where I have both Verizon Fios and Comcast available to me for internet access. I have no need for a land line phone. So anyway you would think I would be happy that I have internet competition and I could get my internet on the cheap. But no....Seems they both are trying to get my to cancel my dish network service by constantly raising the price of "internet only" service. They both charge basically $60 a month for "internet only" and keep trying to tell me that the only way I can get economical service is to also buy their TV. So after analyzing their TV against my Dish Absolute HD I am still better off staying with Dish but I imagine when they raise "internet only" to $100 they will finally force me to drop Dish. How can one battle against this? Start a neighborhood network sharing a connection?

 

[TheKrell]

How can one battle against this? Start a neighborhood network sharing a connection?

Darn good question; I wish I had the answer. Duopolies suck almost as badly as monopolies.

You need to watch out when trying to share your neighbor's Internet service. Residential services will all have Terms which prohibit this. So you would need to pay for a commercial service first, and that may defeat the whole purpose of sharing that connection.

 

[harshness]

Contemplate naked DSL or WiMax.

I'm getting pretty close to dumping Comcast and have been looking at the local telco's (Qworst) "fiber" Internet service. Telco has issues with wanting to provide a phone line too but I'm not keen on the $60/month bill from Comcast (even though it supports my VOIP setup).