Quitting Cable: A week and a half without Internet

After learning about Time Warner’s 45 day waiting period before they will let you sign up as a new customer, I checked out Verizon.com. Unfortunately, my building isn’t FIOS ready, so I had to go with DSL. Of course, Verizon has it’s own set of insane policies I had to navigate.

First of all, you cannot sign up for just Internet: You must also get phone service. Why? Probably because no one wants a home phone (myself included). But at that point, I was completely out of options. So, I chose the phone and DSL bundle at the introductory rate of $45 a month. The 3.1Mbps DSL is slower than the cable modem I gave up last week.

Then came the real insult. When I clicked next on the sign-up form, it said the earliest activation date was August 22. “That’s a week and a half away, can’t you do anything sooner?” I typed to the chat representative. No, they can’t. Then I asked if I’d need to be home for the install. “No, we just flip a switch in our office.”

Then why the hell can’t you flip it sooner?

The DSL modem showed up yesterday, giving me over a week with a useless box sitting in my apartment, and no Internet. OK, I lied: I signed up for LTE service on my iPad. (Of course AT&T won’t let me tether, but I digress)

The only positive thing about this whole debacle is that I now have a new strategy for screwing over Time Warner. I’ll sign up for Verizon DSL for two months at the introductory rate. Then, when my 45 day waiting period is over, I will switch back to Time Warner for WideBand. I can just keep doing this year after year, locking in the best rate possible, screwing over Time Warner in my own little way.