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The latest issue of Consumer Reports took an in-depth look at the best cable and landline providers and named a little-known provider as its top pick.
Regional provider WOW! gets the best overall score for cable, phone and telecom. Unfortunately, this underdog company only serves a select number of cities in the Midwest and Southeast. Tying with WOW! for first place was Verizon FiOS.
Who stunk it up in the tally? Comcast, Time Warner and MediaCom, with scores of 61, 60 and 54, respectively.
Meanwhile, when it comes to home landline service, Ooma tops the list of providers yet again. This is the third time they’ve topped the tally. Those companies who did poorly when it comes to landline service include AT&T and Verizon.
I’ve been using Ooma for about six years now and it’s perfect. The monopoly local phone and cable companies all got mediocre score. MagicJack came in at the middle of heap, but still much higher than Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, or Mediacom.
Soft drinks
There are big changes going on if you drink soda that could represent a real money-saving opportunity for you.
Technological breakthroughs are making it easier and cheaper for you to drink soft drinks that you make at home. The first mover in this market has been Soda Stream and they’re booming. The New York Post reports they sell 10,000 machines a day.
Having a Soda Stream is like having your own soft drink bottling plant at home for a street price of $80 to $120. Instead of lugging soda home from the store, you put water in to your home unit and add the syrup in to make the flavor you want. The carbonation comes courtesy of these canisters made of lightweight aluminum.
I’ve tasted a variety of the Soda Stream flavors. Some are not ready for prime time. But others are really good. So it is all about personal taste.
Meanwhile, have you ever seen Coke’s FreeStyle machines? They are the greatest. It’s this red box that is basically a computer. It takes highly concentrated syrup units and you can blend any flavors you want to make your own soft drink.
My current FreeStyle favorite is Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper in the morning and Diet Cherry Vanilla Caffeine Free Diet Coke in the evening.
Now comes word that Pepsi is following suit with its own mini mix machines called the Pepsi Touch Tower that are designed for urban areas and other places where there’s little space.
The Touch Tower won’t have as many choices as the FreeStyle, but this is still exciting news considering that Pepsi controls about a third of the soft-drink market.
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