Regarding installation, right now is the perfect time. I am in the process of building a garage, and the current coaxial line is right where the garage is going to be, so the line has to be moved. So even if I stay with wow, I need them to come out and probably run a brand new line so they can secure the coax to the support wire so the drop to my house comes not from the pole, but from the support wire about 40 feet away from the pole. I don't know if they can just run another 40 foot cable and join it with my existing wire, or if they will replace the entire run from pole to house (~100 ft).
Unless you know something that I don't, nearly all of WOW's service area is like Earthlink. They're reselling and piggybacking off of Comcast's network infrastructure (similar to how Toast and other regional vDSL providers are reselling AT&T), including there in Detroit from what I've been able to gather. The field support ticket is likely going to have to go to Comcast no matter what, and you're grossly overestimating how much leverage and freedom you have on demanding how they run that wire to your house without you paying them huge wads of money to re-route it. This said, if it's just a sag issue, you could likely tighten it up at the anchor point on the house yourself... and that's honestly the best you're going to likely have to expect out of any field tech doing a "free" adjustment to the wiring anyway.
Example: Just for giggles, last year I did a low voltage ethernet wiring upgrade to the house, and stuck my own DMARC outside, and even accommodated possible cable. Cox had an ancient wire and DMARC connected to our house that hadn't been used in over 15 years, and it was cracked and damaged and sagging and was less than five feet off the ground after the ice storm we had last October. To replace the run, even if I signed up with new service, would cost $500... and the line wasn't good enough for service. They happily took it down for free, though. This is perfectly in line with attitudes and expectations from any network maintaining their communications infrastructure on the residential level. I had similar tales as a customer with Comcast and a nicked buried cable in a neighbor's yard some 15 years ago. I mean, crap, just relocating the ONT the AT&T tech installed for Toast last year up three feet on the wall today would cost an additional $100 to roll a tech out. Install fees, unless it's a new infrastructure connection like fiber, really only cover installs from the DMARC on the house where the existing wires already are to wherever you're wanting your service.
YMMV, but I doubt you're gonna see much free (or even $100 install) cooperation past tightening up the slack in the line, "new" customer or not, and forcing them to-reroute their infrastructure to accommodate your new building is going to put dollar signs in their eyes.
I'd love to just find a no bullshit company and stop worrying about rate increases and other shenanigans. Toast seems to be the only option I have in that regards, and at $65/mo I just don't know if I can justify it. Even if WOW won't budge below $50/mo, that's still $180/yr savings over Toast. I dislike wow's bullshit, but do I dislike it to the tune of $180/yr?
Most of that BS is self-inflicted.
Be nicer to your future self. Stop shopping by introductory prices, and shop by long term prices.
I sincerely doubt that the Comcast rep gave you a price quote with all fees and taxes included, and I suspect that the plan you're looking at switching to is likely going to easily go up to somewhere between $65-80/month after the first year, and likely zero of the plans offered today at the rates you currently can get or already have will likely be available then. If $54/month for 100/10 isn't acceptable to you today to the point that not even a $5 discount is tolerable and making you still want to switch? Any price over that certainly won't be acceptable to you a year from now, and that is the price you're going to have to fight against then.
So, you're looking at $50+fees/month and $100 install to leave WOW! just to go to Comcast. And you're currently only paying $54 out the door with everything to WOW! today, for a speed service level you already find acceptable, and you're already outside of a contract where you know what the monthly price is going forward and will probably be fairly stable at that price point for the foreseeable future, provided you don't keep yanking your own chain and theirs.
But! Faster! You say. More for my money! So what? It's the illusion of options. Artificial scarcity. What matters is having the access and stability. As long as it's fast enough to do what you need it to, there you have it. My wife and I were satisfied with 6/1.75 for five years at $40/month up until last year and Zoom classes became a thing, and Toast was about to lose their 60/60 plan at $45/month. So we upgraded.
When you shop by intro prices and discounts alone, you're forcing yourself into this eternal cycle of fighting and re-negotiating and clawing and scrapping, because you've set your pricing expectations based on a fiction. Those intro prices are pretty worthless when you realize they always get their pound of flesh, and they're just playing numbers games to make you
feel like you're saving money while they're still carving off that same pound of flesh one way or another.
Look at how much time you've invested this past week on this. How much of my time, and of others. And you're setting yourself up to do it again in another year.
You can either shop and prioritize by cost or speed. If $55/month is on the edge of being too expensive for you, then you have to accept much slower upload speeds to ensure you always have a price in line with your expectations by selecting a plan that will be at or below that price during normal rates. If speeds are more important, than you need to re-adjust your expectations on what a "reasonable" price is per month. Right now, you have both the speed and a price within spitting distance of each other... the only thing in your way, is you.
I know you're dreading WOW! constantly jacking the price up unchecked... but the way you've presented things, it doesn't sound like you yourself have ever given them the chance, to wait and see what happens once an introductory or requested discount price expires and goes unchallenged for a year, because the instant it goes up again, you're back on the phone trying to wrangle it back down threatening to take your business elsewhere. And even if it does creep up slowly, if it's still at or less than expected for out of contract at that time for the upload speed, so?
It's like planting a tree, even if the world were to end tomorrow.
Be nice to your future self, make peace with WOW!, and take a rest from the dance just to see what happens. You're clearly exhausted.
