Be aware that ISP early termination fee can hit you hard too

Internet Service Providers (ISP) are following the well known practice among cell phone providers in applying early termination fees. Customers who subscribe to a high-speed Internet service plan may pay up to $200 or more if they terminate their service before their contract has expired.

The reason of this fee is to cut down on the customer’s practice of jumping from one service to the other whenever a better deal is offered by a competitor; however, this penalty is being seen unfair because deprive consumers of the benefits of competition.

ISPs say the fee is justified because customers who sign up receive a special low rate and other benefits. The down side is if they drop the service to pursue a better deal elsewhere, they lose the benefits and must pay a fee.

Comcast and Time Warner Cable, the two largest cable companies, do not assess early termination fees; however, AT&T, Verizon, Qwest and Earthlink charge between $69 to up to $200 for a two-year contract.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 1:51 pm and is filed under IT. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.