New York Is Right to Kick Out Spectrum, and I'm Terrified

[UpstateNY]

Adding customers in new areas is one thing.
The TW/Spectrum network has a large number of amplifier boxes in its network. There is a battery pack in each box which will keep the network going about three hours as I figure. Under TW, if the power was out for more than a few hours, a small generator appeared under each amplifier box. Spectrum has discontinued this service, so now if the power goes out, shortly the network goes down. Even if you have power, you have no TV, no Internet, no VOIP, no security service. And the battery packs do fail.
Actually, to me, the TV service is not the issue. If the power goes out, shortly, the Internet service goes out and this takes out the VOIP telephone service. TW and Spectrum do not tell prospective customers that the VOIP modem has no battery, no power in the house, no telephone service in the house. How do you call 911? I have read that about 92% of the population has a cell phone, but what about the 8%? Years ago I recognized this fault and I have kept my Verizon copper pair.
Spectrum also converted TV service requiring every TV to have a Cisco box for a cost initially of $5/mo, but a new box now costs $11/mo. The cost of the lowest service has effectively doubled.

 

[saintstryfe]

Justin: The problem is companies like Spectrum made agreements to do certain things. When they don't live up to them, what else is there to do but tell them no? Honestly, it was the deal that gave them the chance that was the winners-and-losers choosing, not telling them they can't skate on.

 

[Kiers]

" Maybe Charter will create a shell company and sell Spectrum to itself somehow"
That you can even semi seriously make that remark, tells you how bad things are in the country.

I for one don't care. Tehy charge everyone ~$200 per month and we're supposed to be grateful?
Oh, and how strange the governor's brother is a prime time employee of Spectrum. How bad are things?

 

[razor512]

If they sell it to them self, then NY should set a new deadline of 1 year to meet all terms of the merger, and if they fail, fine them $10 billion dollars, and then use that money to build a new ISP, which can then work as a state run option. The idea will be to have an alternative until in markets where there is only 1 broadband wired provider (ignoring old standards such as DSL).

 

[rix340]

Austin Texas here with Spectrum. They raised my bill from $70 to $101 a month cable only. I have no other choice when it comes to ISPs. It would be nice to foster some competition. The service has been good with spectrum, but I am paying a steep price due to the merger recently, nothing else and no improvement in my area. Mergers are never on the customer's side anyway.

 

[sosborne563]

I lived in Brooklyn for 8 years and we ended up with Spectrum after they bought Time Warner. We had the option to go with FIOS but we have family on Long Island with it and they do nothing but complain about everything from dropped channels to price increases. We we now live on Long Island and when given the option at our condo we chose Optimum. What a big "F'in" mistake. We told them what we had with Spectrum and told them that we wanted the same channels. The only change we made was going from our legacy 300 to 400 Mbs internet. I have yet to receive satisfactory service. The best internet number I can come up with is 320 Mbs and channels that were HD on Spectrum are SD on Optimum and I'm not talking about letter box screen format, I'm talking about a 27 in picture in the center of my 55 in TV screen. At least 15 calls has netted me exactly nothing and no matter how calm I try to be during the call, after about 10 min. of hearing just how disinterested the person is on the other end, I hang up. With Spectrum, tech support would spend loads of time walking me through fixes and if all else failed they'd make an appointment and send someone out, free of charge. Optimum has told me that my choices are to disconnect everything and take the 15 mile trip to my closest Optimum store for replacement or they could send someone out to do the replacement for $89.00. I long for the Spectrum days.

 

[jj-pro]

Here in Oxford MI, Charter Spectrum is great! I'm paying 45 a month and getting 200 down 12 up, can't complain!

 

[jj-pro]

Here in Oxford MI, Charter Spectrum is great! They recently raised my speeds from 100 to 200mpbs DL/12 UP at the same price, 45 a month. No complains here!

 

[bdd5]

As a resident affected by this change, Spectrum has been abusing its monopoly in portions my state, including where I live. They came in and locked everyone into their plans. Any options to change your service (including, in many cases, to get LESS - slower speed, drop a premium channel... you get the idea) would result in significant rate HIKES. They added new bogus hardware requirements, and you CANNOT buy your own outright, you are forced to pay extra every month (>100$/year extra). This extra hardware DOES NOT improve service for many customers. What is worse is there are often NO other broadband supplier options. The internet service we receive has not changed in any way that I noticed. I'm all for competition, but it just isnt the reality we have. While the options are spectrum or nothing. And this isnt just my specific street or anything like that - I have family that has been likewise affected in other towns.
And to the bozo comment about property rights, they are in breach of contract... if they weren't going to hold up their end of the deal they shouldn't have signed it; in turn they knowingly accept the consequences of said failure. Also this will likely be decided in settlement/court, it is way too early to call which way this falls out.
Also, never thought I'd miss timeWarner, and their local customer service reps were Awesome btw (very helpful and courteous).

 

[bdd5]

Is there a way to edit comments? on mobile currently and I want to fix mine when i get back to pc.

 

[jamesrocks_on]

Cuomo is a piece of garbage............. pardoning child molesters so they could vote for him

 

[bdd5]

JJ-PRO, if I had that option, I'd be happy too!

 

[kennethradams2000]

They should be held accountable they were approved to sell there service on a promise that they did not uphold and they should be punishes for such actions. The investors if they don't like the out come then they can vote to get people in that will do what there suppose to do.

 

[Co BIY]

Kicking out a provider when lack of competition is the main problem with the market doesn't sound like a good solution or at least only the first and likely easy half of one.

 

[zerostatetechnologies]

Internet Service should be available in every home and every business in the US. The consumer doesn't have to use it, connect to it, etc, but the service should be available. The problem with private owned ISPs is that they try to monetize everything instead of competing with the best customer service and speeds and availability.

Nature and business abhors a vacuum and Spectrum knows this. They can either uphold their agreements to expand into rural areas and any other agreements they broke or be pushed aside for a competitor that will stay in compliance with the agreements.

My last thought on this is that some towns are now "nationalizing" their ISP. The township owns it like water, trash, etc. This has been very successful since the town doesn't have to compete with anyone or always keep showing a higher profit to its investors each year. It just needs to provide the best broadband to its local citizens.

So its 2 months later, I moved out of the countryside (Texas) and back to the city and I have Spectrum. I lived in the country for 10 years and I'm so happy to have Spectrum now. I have their Gig package so 988 Mbs and their wifi is awesome (I know this is off topic).

 

[matthew.r.mcdaniel]

It is about time Goverment did something to keep a corporations and wealthy investors in check and making them stand up to their word. To the people that say government is trampling their rights seem to want these corporations and investors to be able to break promises witch put the people in an unfair situation. My math 145,000-86,000=59,000 potential customers being denied a choice by a contractually agreed deadline. This is a win for the people.

 

[madmat9]

There is NO SUCH THING as a Free Market. Never has been, never will be. If anyone has an example of one I would love to hear about it. Some things go against basic human nature - we are by nature: greedy. It would be nice to think otherwise but history shows us otherwise. So comments regarding Spectrum and the "free market" are way off base.

 

[dudmont]

There is NO SUCH THING as a Free Market. Never has been, never will be. If anyone has an example of one I would love to hear about it. Some things go against basic human nature - we are by nature: greedy. It would be nice to think otherwise but history shows us otherwise. So comments regarding Spectrum and the "free market" are way off base.

Greed works both ways, that's why voluntary free exchange works. Competing interests.......

 

[kennethradams2000]

It is hard thing to do, but letting these people get away with not following thrue on a promise or deal and there is no penalty then it just opens doors for others to do the same thing. In the end you end up with less not more or better just worse. Again it's hard but it's time that they are held accountable and not give a free pass.

 

[Larmo-Ct]

Hellwig said, and I quote - "For the Spectrum apologists, why should Spectrum get to violate agreements made with the state of New York and remain in business? The whole point is that New York said the merger has to benefit a specific number and type of people, or they will essentially reject the merger. Spectrum failed to deliver, so New York is holding up their end of the bargain." I totally agree. Further, I can't believe the number of people here, that have sided with a corp., that is part of one of the biggest, "We do what we want, and pay Congress members, to do it", businesses in the U.S.
The FTC head jerk, and people like him say, "Market pressures, will benefit the consumers." That's fine.., if there is competition. The U.S. "system" is rigged to be totally favorable to the ISPs. People like JUSTIN.M.BEAUVAIS, would be outraged if they went to their one, and only grocery store, and found that the price of "bananas". That once cost $1.00, were capriciously raised to $5.00 overnight. Why? Because Mr. JUSTIN.M.BEAUVAIS, and like minded people, voted to let that one grocery store have what was basically a monopoly in their town. With that kind of thinking, people like him, will eventually feel the brunt of their "egalitarian" thinking. "Government bad! Hey.. how come my water is brown and undrinkable? Oh well, I'm sure the privately owned Water company, that has no governmental oversight, will fix things." Hmm.., I don't think so.
At some point in time, the citizens of Australia, Canada, and the U.S. Will look at the citizens of the E.U. with tears in their eyes. Because the E.U., (which I am not a total fan of), will have done more for its citizens welfare, than the incompetent, money grabbing politicians, in the aforementioned countries have.
Corporations are amoral, with one goal in mind. Make as much as they can. No oversight means they will do whatever they can get away with to make a profit. So, yes my fellow Americans. Rest comfortably in your beds. Because big business, with no oversight, will rob you blind, and deprive you of any fairness. All because you said it was okay! ;-)

 

[SyncroScales]

That's the unanswered question. By all rights, New York is doing the appropriate thing here. It is exercising its power against a giant corporation that made promises to better internet access and speeds for citizens but didn't follow through.

 

[SyncroScales]

"By all rights, New York is doing the appropriate thing here. It is exercising its power against a giant corporation that made promises to better internet access and speeds for citizens but didn't follow through."

 

[SirXena]

From someone that's been fighting for three yrs now to get ANY ISPbeyond satellite, and was last told May 2020 for them to come this one mile from where it ends to us, which includes 13 other households that have all petitioned for it back before charter/spectrum were even heard of here...everyone complaining about not good ENOUGH cable really is irritating, but at the same time we are under a mile both directions from where service is already run and we're not the only house or anything yet the estimate is nearly 5 years from our petition of the entire road to TWC, and worse, we get calls from India constantly trying to sell us service that take 20 minutes to get them to see that our 1 mile is the only occupied mile in the zip code with no service. Once they look up the address finally, after insisting it's available the whole time, they say we're sorry not available there CLICK. As necessary to even getting a job at McDonald's that the internet is (and come on, highest min wage in state LOL NY is ridiculous all around) yet all we have is $100 a month for 15gb cap that gives us at best 2.5MBps (20mbps) at 2am and 1MBps(8mbps) during the day at any point, then once over the cap which somehow last month was on the 1st, we get WORSE than dialup, avg 28kbps plus satellite latency which is 1-4seconds delay. Unless you have that as your best ISP option, your opinion on spectrum doesn't matter, that goes for you too Cuomo. Kicked in the rear, levy fines, but don't kick them out that'll just slow progress even more. Sure, service will stay, but availability will NOT progress under that deal and it's necessary. Then again, the last time this happened (landline phones) someone dropped the ball, still. Found out last month there is a populated stretch of road 2 blocks from town that STILL has no phone line available. That's bull, but likely what we have to look forward to. We can't even use 4g because no cell service either being on edge of Adirondack park and the FCC says it's illegal to add any more towers.