LPT: If you've had the same internet service plan for a while, take a look at what your ISP's current advertised plans are. You may be "grandfathered in" on a slower, more expensive plan.

Realized this the other day, and I wish I had figured it out years ago. My family has been on the same internet + phone + cable package from Knology (now WOW) for over a decade. After fees and taxes, my dad was paying $270/mo for the whole package, and though I don't know the cable/phone details, I do know we were only getting 20 Mbps down/2 Mbps up internet speed. That didn't seem right to me, so I went and took alook.

On their website, this ISP does not seem to offer any plan that has 20 down/2 up internet speed. They do have a 10d/1u single-user service (standalone internet), but in their package deals, they only had 50, 100, 500, and 1000 internet speeds (no 20).

Turns out, we've been paying for the same service at the same rate for the past 15+ years. So while high-speed internet was getting faster and the cost was going down, we were still paying what was considered a fair price for what was considered a high speed in the early 2000s.

One call to the ISP, our plan was changed over the phone and a tech came out today and installed the new modem. We are now getting 1Gbps up, 50 Mbps down, have the same phone and cable service as before, and are paying $30 a month less than before.