Sudden... WHO?

Our local cable TV company is Cox Communications. Well, mybe I sould say "was."

They (Cox) recently divested service in my local market to an affiliate, or spin-off, or something, called Suddenlink.

We've had billboards around town announcing the change, ads on the local (cable-provided) TV stations, ads on the radio, and even in the newspaper. All are clearly designed to make me and other customers feel good about our new cable provider.

Concerning cable TV, the provider of that service seems to me to be like a commodity. As long as the prices are similar, one provider is pretty much as good as another. Of course, I live in a “small market,” so there IS no competition. But a change from one cable company to another is no big deal.

For broadband internet service, however, it’s a different matter. Before too long I’ll have to change my email address. I’m not sure yet if it’ll be “@suddenlink.COM,” or “@suddenlink.NET.” But neither of those is as easy to type as “@cox.net.”

I may not be able to keep my email “prefix” or I.D. either. A few years ago Cox changed their domain name from cox-internet.com to cox.net. You'd THINK they would just move all their customers' I.D.s over to the domain, right? OH, no! We all had to "apply" for new email addresses at "@cox.net." My old one of "jearle" was taken.

I just received an email “newsletter” yesterday warning me that I needed to back up my personal web space (currently on cox.net) onto my home PC. That tells me that soon I'll have a new domain name on my personal web site, links I post on this blog to pictures, and other pages.

I’ll need to get new business cards for my "author" business. I still have some correspondence out relating to my novel that lists my current “cox.net” email. Hopefully they will automatically forward any mail sent to that old address for a while.

But what bothers me most is the lack of information about all this. I imagine every one of their cable internet customers shares some of these concerns. I sure wish they’d tell us details about the upcoming changes.

But then, as Carol is fond of telling me, I’d have to find something else to worry about.