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I like to think that here in America, where we strive for such things as an unfettered “free market” and no consumer protection, that equal competition will always make businesses strive to provide the best possible service to their customers. While I have little doubt that most residential customers in major metropolitan areas actually do have access to more than one cable and internet provider, I am not so confidant that the rest of us do.  Such is the case for my myself and my parents, who live in a small town….village… in rural Louisiana.

The area’s primary provider for telephone, internet, and TV is Suddenlink.

When I heard back in 2008-2009-ish that the area was finally going to have high-speed internet, I was pretty happy.  Up until that point, the only way to get access was through dial-up or by purchasing satellite — a wildly expensive option that, to this day, is not really optimal if you do anything more than check email or read blogs.

The blessing has turned out to be a curse, though.  Or at least, an enormous headache.

I spend an inordinate amount of time watching my modem.  I plan my internet usage based on, “HOLY CRAP, it’s connected!  GO GO GO!”  While I still haven’t wrangled the contract my folks signed with Suddenlink from my parents (who have no idea what they bought or signed) or the business, I really do feel that they are being preyed upon.

First, the price.  My parents pay about $110 a month for extended cable and high-speed internet.  This sounds fairly inline with what I would be paying if I had had these services with Cox while I was staying in Arizona — however, what my parents actually get makes the price kind of unconscionable.

The Internet:  In any given week, I spend approximately two days without internet service AT ALL.  Two to three other days are usually stop-and-go service, with outages ranging from constant flickering to full 4-to-6 hour cut-outs.  When the internet does work, I can enjoy “cable” speeds of approximately 15 to 35 kb/sec — I have NEVER seen my download speeds peak over 80 kb/s, and often, my page loading is actually SLOWER than it would be on dial-up.  Common services like Pandora or Hulu can be FRUSTRATING to use.

To make matters worse, Suddenlink has decided what you should use your internet service for.  According to other complaints I’ve found, and even the responses from the company itself, these slow speeds are because you shouldn’t be doing anything except checking email anyway.

The TV:  My folks have ‘extended’ cable and, I believe, a movie channel.  My first complaint is simply that the channel selection is deplorable.  The “basic” package is literally nothing more than what you would get with an ANTENNA for free, and it’s in standard-def.  (I’m not sure about this area, but I know for a fact that Fox is already broadcasting HD channels over the air.)  The “extended” package does get you some of the ‘normal TV’ stuff, like Nickelodeon, Disney, TNT, and Comedy Central, but they must be in less-than-standard def.  Is there a such thing?  There must be.

Every channel outside the basic channel is fuzzy, and flickers constantly.  Sound and video often lag, and channels will cut out similarly to the way that the internet cuts out.  The set-top boxes have extreme difficulty keeping up with you if you flip channels too quickly (more than 1 channel per every 3-4 seconds); doing so will cause it to freeze.

All in all, it makes me miss the 90’s.  At least back then, dial-up was a straight-forward, sure thing, and TV “just worked.”  That old 9-foot-wide manual-turn satellite we had in the backyard even worked better than this (I miss you, Galaxy 25).