Life is never boring for John Vanderaart. Enough happens to deliver a short column every week. Instead of in the weekend, John Vanderaart’s weekly column can now be read on Fridays on pcactive.nl. This time, John is talking about his provider’s offer to switch from ADSL to fiber optics for the same price. His previous column was about a presentation he had to give for his wife’s chicken club.
It seems as if I am finally – here in Haarlem, in the Randstad – being connected to fibre optics. A pack of foreign connection men swarmed through the neighbourhood and in no time the low-hanging fruit (= the houses with a meter cupboard right behind the front door) were equipped with a fibre optic box. This does not yet give you fibre optic internet, but it is a start! Imagine my surprise when I received a KPN/XS4ALL message a few days later: “Congratulations, in a week you can switch from ADSL to fibre optics.” With the promise that I would be switched from 50 Mbit/second to 200 Mbit/second for the same amount.
I looked up that same amount again. Well, that same amount is €74.49. Okay, okay, that’s all true… But for the ultimately not-so-funny-joke, I still looked further on the KPN website. What do you know? If I wanted to take out a new fiber optic subscription, it would only cost €62.50 – including TV. I have no need for TV. I have NPO Start and I never watch the commercial channels anyway. And without TV it’s only €50. It’s common knowledge that a regular customer is always worse off than a new customer. But THAT bad? I’ll definitely have a chat about that at some point.
And I console myself with the thought that soon 1 or 2 more fiber optic boxes will be placed in my meter cupboard. The wires needed for this are already sticking their heads out between the paving stones next to my front door!
The proof! A regular customer is always worse off…