Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Bundling Vs. Ala Carte Services

I recently had an offer from Qwest to "Bundle" my DirecTV, Phone, Internet and Cellular services for one "low monthly rate". Sure it might save me money, but the quality and level of services for some of them would, in my own opinion, be substandard from what I'm currently utilizing. I currently use Qwest for my home and home office business phone service, and DirecTV for my Satelite Television Provider. So I did allow Qwest to bundle those two services onto a single bill, saving me a whopping five dollars per month. (which is still $60/year)

However I did not want to bundle the other services and here's why. I have Comcast High Speed Internet simply because it's much faster than anything that Qwest offers. My friends and relatives that DO have DSL service have had more service interruptions during the year than I have and I'm very happy with my broadband speeds. My bandwidth throughput with Comcast is four to five times faster than the DSL offering from Qwest, and since I use a VPN connection to my office, its really nice having the extra speed available when I need it most. My celluar service is still AT&T because I get a service and equipment discount through my employer which saves me more than the bundle offering, and the frankly, the cellular service and coverage areas provided by Qwest was simply not acceptable for our needs.

So while bundling may "save you money" on your communications services, keep in mind that you will often "get what you pay for" if you happen to decide to bundle their offerings. Personally I think the competition between providers is healthy and using multiple providers keeps them all honest.

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