Bundled after long debate

We are all being presented with the same dilemma.....bundle our telephone, Internet and TV connections and save money. The three major players appear to be Verizon, Time Warner and AT&T. I have not been approached by AT&T because of logistics in my immediate area....even though you would think Santa Monica could not be considered rural by any stretch of the imagination. Time Warner and Verizon have sent monthly flyer's regarding their bundle packages. Verizon's service, FIOS, was not available north of Wilshire for almost two years while they laid the foundation of their network.

Last week I finally made the decision and selected FIOS to handle my various connection and entertainment distractions. Anything that takes me away from my art is a distraction, but also a necessary part of staying informed and somewhat social. FIOS was installed in about two hours and now I am saving almost $100 a month.

The best part of the decision is that I now have a NEW television experience. The remote is new and the format of programing is new and while I still haven't entered the flat screen world I now have new channels and different ways of interacting with the boob tube.

I highly recommend when making your decision to bundle (and you will eventually do it if you haven't already) that you wheel and deal until you get everything you want. There are no term contracts and if they try to make you sign something or pay for the installation then you are not being due diligent. The more you ask for the more you will get. I didn't ask for a two year price on the promotion but I should have.

My Internet speed is faster with FIOS then it was with Time Warner and I was always under the impression that Time Warner's Roadrunner connection was one of the fastest methods other than T1 connections. Then I realized that FIOS stands for Fiber Optic Service and.......duh! Light is usually faster than MOST EVERYTHING and that's what fiber optic means.....transmitting information by eletromagnetic carrier waves through the optical fibers.

The two year delay in my area of Santa Monica was simply due to the time it took to lay the fiber optic cable. The odd part is that when they did the installation they used the Time Warner cable that was already here. Obviously outside of my building is a different connection but I was told that Time Warner and Verizon use each other's cable whenever necessary. I'm not sure how the fiber optics work with existing cable but it is working quite nicely. Of course I'm going to learn more about it, but for now it is what it is and I can see cable jockeying being a problem in the future....but for now they seem to be sharing.

One of the things about Time Warner that always bothered me is that promotions for new customers were constantly arriving in my mail and I saw that if I wanted a better deal on my cable it would behove me to not be an existing customer. It actually doesn't make any sense not to offer your customers an occasional deal just to keep them happy. I was a Time Warner customer since they took over Aldephia and now I'm not.

As soon as AT&T gets their U-Verse service up and running in my neighborhood maybe I'll give them a try. I will use FIOS for a year because that's how long I get free HBO. I will be interested to see what their price will be after the year promotion is up. At that time maybe Time Warner will be offering free dinners and Dodger tickets.

For now I'm bundled and feeling warm and cozy with FIOS.

Is anything else going on in the world?

Michael Timothy McAlevey