Comcast vs. Verizon

For Cable / Internet / phone in our neighborhood, we can get Comcast or Verizon.  It's nice to have a few choices.  I have Comcast 'Xfinity' and overall we like it.  We have a phone at our apartment, but don't use it, for anything.  So for the house, we're going to just get Cable & Internet.

 I called Comcast first and was in for a surprise.  As soon as I called, I could tell it was a circus.  They had it all, clowns, big shoes and a red nose.  The price for the 1st year is decent.  You pay extra for a DVR and they give you a digital converter box free for the 2nd & 3rd TV.  Cool right?  Enter the clown car.  After the 1st year, the price shoots up 56% (yes.  Fifty Six Percent).  They had some dopey promotion for the 1st 3 months where it's pretty cheap.  I'm not interested in a teaser rate, I'm interested in a good rate over time.  Even the sales rep couldn't explain why it was such a joke.  I told him I'm going to call Verizon and lock in at a better rate.  He didn't seem to mind.

Onto Verizon.  The service looks comparable if not better.  Most things are par or better, I increased the internet speed as I may be working from home more often.  The monthly rate was fair.  After one year, it goes up $5-$10.  They're giving me a $100 gift card, free install, free wireless router (like I need more...) etc.  The only hiccup is that they need to run a credit check before scheduling install.  Their advice was to wait after my mortgage stuff is finalized before moving forward.  Fair enough.  I'm going to have plenty of projects around the house, and won't need TV to distract me from hanging ceiling fans etc.

PS - I personally think that Verizon's On-Demand is sub-par compared to Comcast, but it's not such a big deal in comparison to the cost difference.