When visiting Shrewd'm with a laptop, it can be pleasant to hold Command (or Ctrl with Windows) and '+' a few times. The site scales to allow any font size, and the larger font can be pleasant to read even for Shrewds with perfect sight! For luxury Shrewdness, you can combine that with setting the browser to full screen. You'll then find yourself Shrewding a lot.
- Manlobbi
Personal Finance Topics / Macroeconomic Trends and Risks
No. of Recommendations: 0
I've been using Optimum for years. I have a love-hate relationship. Their service has always been good, but every time I come to the end of a service year, I have to threaten them with leaving to get the deal de jour at a rational price. I use internet only ("land line" is VOIP and TV is by antenna).
My existing 300mbps contract is "specially priced" at $34 a month, but is due to rise in a couple of weeks. My internet streaming needs are nominal. (I came across the following:
https://www.optimum.com/buy-flow/list-quotesWhich offers a 5-year price protected 100 Mbps Internet connection for $15 a month and thought (assuming you are in there coverage area) it was a good enough deal to mention it here.
Jeff
No. of Recommendations: 0
you are very lucky.
the most hated providers (comcast, spectrum) do not even have humans , or online servicing, for anything other than upsell. they have been losing subscribers to ANY 3rd-party since 2020.
>95% of their efforts to regain former unhappy customers has massively failed.
our only escape finally came from google fiber in 2023, where we pay $70 @1gbs, and have had 0 hours of outage since.
No. of Recommendations: 0
While it pains me to say it (it's much more fun to complain), Optimum's support has been excellent. When the reframed my bill, for the balance of this billing cycle, they credited $13.50 towards next month's $14.99 bill. They sent me an email outlining the changes to my billing and it included removing a $5 monthly credit for using auto-pay and paperless billing. I called them back (not because I wanted another five bucks off the bill, but to make sure they didn't de-activate my monthly auto-pay) and was told that the rate wasn't stackable with the credit, but the autopay was still on. Ten minutes after I hung up, their support department called me back (I guess because I had telephoned twice in the same day and offered to escalate my issue to a supervisor if it hadn't been solved.
I'm used to spending hours arguing with ultra-polite Philippians in an effort to speak to a supervisor and their gratuitous offer of one was very impressive.
On the other hand, my ditching of Verizon in 2011 and cobbling up a Google Voice phone system which cloned their services (and then some) was due to their appalling customer service. It was incidental in my decision to drop them, but certainly beneficial as, for about $100 out of pocket, I haven't had a landline phone bill since.
Similarly, for the cost of an indoor antenna, I receive a vast number of TV stations "over the air" (being on a high floor in a major metro city probably helps), as well as the hundreds of streaming stations my smart TV seems to bring in for free from the internet (life is too short to watch them).
Jeff
No. of Recommendations: 0
We live out in the boonies. We got internet over our CenturyLink phone line for 20 years -- 3 Mbps. Yes, you read that right. We couldn't run the TV at the same time as Zoom. VOIP was out of the question.
Finally, T-Mobile erected a tower in town. I got a postcard and within a week had switched.
Wendy
No. of Recommendations: 0
3 Mbps. Yes, you read that right.
My U-Verse service is 3M. CNET used to have an internet connection speed meter. They kept bumping the upper limit of the "speedometer", repeatedly, The last time I checked, before they discontinued the service, the needle on the speedometer barely twitched for my 3M service.
Steve
