Phone and internet costs have doubled! Who do you use and cost to use?

[scout]

We use business phone and internet from AT&T. It was the basic service and was about $30 a month. It has gone to $80-$90 when promotions stopped. We are located 50 miles west of Chicago-

 

[MEP001]

You're not likely to get commercial phone/internet for less than $90 a month.

 

[Washmee]

2 phone lines and high speed cable internet from Time Warner Cable for $75/month.

 

[Kirb]

1 phone line, cable internet, and static IP address for $105 from Armstrong cable.

 

[mjwalsh]

How often do you test the actual speed vs what was promised?

We use business phone and internet from AT&T. It was the basic service and was about $30 a month. It has gone to $80-$90 when promotions stopped. We are located 50 miles west of Chicago-

Scout,

Were those lower amounts during promotion period ... tied into a long term contract?

While we are on the subject of broadband & its cost ... has anyone had the broadband company promise even in writing where the proposal said a specific threshold such as 7 mbps & even left out the words "up to". Verbal promises "also firm" on the expected mbps. Then said afterwards that they are allowed to give less than half that speed as the norm & still lock the business into the long term contract or suffer early termination fee problems. I have heard of that happening by a reliable source!

mike

 

[scout]

As usual in order to go forward you need to step back. Started google search --most sites were titled-small business internet providers by zip code. But the majority were selling sites for services not available in this area or were only selling 1 provider. It seems xfinity has their own let,s say -fake site.Then the rest were even higher costs. I did call our states CUB site--citizen,s utility board--got good advice. This was geared for home owners.
Two big players-AT&T-my provider and Comcast. Good advice said to call Comcast and get prices to battle AT&T. Comcast had small business # to call which I did. After a couple of prompts-I was disconnected back to dial tone. Tried again--same thing--wondered how many actually got thru. I think this was a sign---
Next day armed with studied bills I called Small business -At&t. Went over bills and found out it was over 2 years since i last called and changes and options were available. We put the phone plan on unlimited call plan for $1 more.Then internet was set to lowest speed at that time--now pricing has changed so my price paid for 3x faster speed. My $86 bill will be $60 and we are happy to come out not skinned alive-

 

[cantbreak80]

CenturyLink (formally Qwest) internet with static ip address $76.30/mo.
Google Voice $0