Rant about cable internet pricing and speed

[davidhelpgop]

Rant about cable internet pricing and speed.
I got a noticed that my Spectrum internet bill was to go from $54.99 to $89.99... !
The promotional pricing and gov't discount was over.

I did a chat today and the lady cut my bill to $84.99 and lowered my speed from 570mbps to 371mbps and disconnected the chat when she disconnected my modem to reboot it....
The price should go down a lot and not way UP!

This is like cell phone companies charging for texting when voice is using more bandwidth. It cost them nothing. For cable the copper and fiber optics cable is in place and they have lots of bandwidth.

I did another chat and they could do nothing.
I called and I asked what is the lowest speed and they said the lowest speed is 100mbps and would cost a total of $59.99 a month.

So I went from 570mbps to 100mbps.....
This is plenty to stream shows on Roku as they will show sometimes the streaming speed which is just 4mbps <- 4

The internet is fast. I get 117mbps at the Speedtest.net site and the webpages now load much quicker then when I had the higher speed. I tried many sites and they instantly appear. I use Firefox. I know now to call them to reset my modem on their end as when I do it no change happens.
I bet they deliberately slow the loading of websites to "encourage" you to upgrade to a higher priced speed plan which you do not need. They did keep trying to up sell me.

They have promotional pricing of 300 Mbps Internet.
$49.99 /mo for 12 mos with Auto Pay

BUT that is for new customers only and not the reliable steady customer.
They take advantage of those customers.
Cable owners must like being hated 😠🤬

[catfish1957]

Rant about cable internet pricing and speed.
I got a noticed that my Spectrum internet bill was to go from $54.99 to $89.99... !
The promotional pricing and gov't discount was over.

I did a chat today and the lady cut my bill to $84.99 and lowered my speed from 570mbps to 371mbps and disconnected the chat when she disconnected my modem to reboot it....
The price should go down a lot and not way UP!

This is like cell phone companies charging for texting when voice is using more bandwidth. It cost them nothing. For cable the copper and fiber optics cable is in place and they have lots of bandwidth.

I did another chat and they could do nothing.
I called and I asked what is the lowest speed and they said the lowest speed is 100mbps and would cost a total of $59.99 a month.

So I went from 570mbps to 100mbps.....
This is plenty to stream shows on Roku as they will show sometimes the streaming speed which is just 4mbps <- 4

The internet is fast. I get 117mbps at the Speedtest.net site and the webpages now load much quicker then when I had the higher speed. I tried many sites and they instantly appear. I use Firefox. I know now to call them to reset my modem on their end as when I do it no change happens.
I bet they deliberately slow the loading of websites to "encourage" you to upgrade to a higher priced speed plan which you do not need. They did keep trying to up sell me.

They have promotional pricing of 300 Mbps Internet.
$49.99 /mo for 12 mos with Auto Pay

BUT that is for new customers only and not the reliable steady customer.
They take advantage of those customers.
Cable owners must like being hated 😠🤬

Good write up.  I think the major suppliers are lining their coffers, before Musk undercuts them by at least 75%

[bigheadfred]

I have Sparklight. I never come close to the speed they say is available. I have no interest in paying for the equipment cost and monthly price for Starlink.

[DB]

Rant about cable internet pricing and speed.
I got a noticed that my Spectrum internet bill was to go from $54.99 to $89.99... !
The promotional pricing and gov't discount was over.

I did a chat today and the lady cut my bill to $84.99 and lowered my speed from 570mbps to 371mbps and disconnected the chat when she disconnected my modem to reboot it....
The price should go down a lot and not way UP!

This is like cell phone companies charging for texting when voice is using more bandwidth. It cost them nothing. For cable the copper and fiber optics cable is in place and they have lots of bandwidth.

I did another chat and they could do nothing.
I called and I asked what is the lowest speed and they said the lowest speed is 100mbps and would cost a total of $59.99 a month.

So I went from 570mbps to 100mbps.....
This is plenty to stream shows on Roku as they will show sometimes the streaming speed which is just 4mbps <- 4

The internet is fast. I get 117mbps at the Speedtest.net site and the webpages now load much quicker then when I had the higher speed. I tried many sites and they instantly appear. I use Firefox. I know now to call them to reset my modem on their end as when I do it no change happens.
I bet they deliberately slow the loading of websites to "encourage" you to upgrade to a higher priced speed plan which you do not need. They did keep trying to up sell me.

They have promotional pricing of 300 Mbps Internet.
$49.99 /mo for 12 mos with Auto Pay

BUT that is for new customers only and not the reliable steady customer.
They take advantage of those customers.
Cable owners must like being hated 😠🤬

If you have a backup plan, often telling them you want to close your account over pricing they'll offer you the new customer discount to keep you.

Every year SiriusXM ups my wife's satellite car radio subscription by about triple the new customer cost and she calls and cancels her account and during the cancelation process near the end they connect her with someone that offers her a year subscription at about 1/3 the normal yearly price. She accepts and it goes another year. She's done that repeatedly...

[roamer_1]

@davidhelpgop

I did alright with em.

I'm disabled and wth what is going on with me health-wise, I was going to have to drop my cable.

So I talked to their retention folks - That's where you went wrong.

Now, I was paying close to 100/mo for 300mbps.

I moved my cell phone over from straight talk, which saved me fifteen bucks a month, and gave the retention guy some wiggle room...
So now I am at around 60 bucks a month for 500 mbps, free cell service for a year, with cell costing 15/mo less once I do have to start paying for it...

Now, in the mix, I bought a new phone, which I paid entirely too much for... 400 bucks for a Galaxy a55 5g, which is about 200 bucks too much.. with 100 trade in on my old phone, which lowered the cost to 300 bucks, which is still 50 too much...

BUT, that's 9 bucks a month and locks me in for 3 years, which is why the retention guys could give me some room. still 5 bucks cheaper even with the new phone, than what I was going to pay for cell through straight talk and an old phone.

I ain't pounded it all out yet, but I was paying 100 for internet and 35 for phone. Internet was slated to go up by 30 bucks. so future me was going to be paying somewhere around 165 per month total.

Now I am paying
around 60 for internet (with increased speed from 300 to 500mbps)
about 10/mo for phone payment fro 3 years
0 for phone service for a year, and then 20/mo thereafter.

So I am one happy camper. They did right by me.

[Hoodat]

I will go without internet before I ever give a cable company a dime of my money.

[davidhelpgop]

I did mention retention but I was afraid they would call my bluff and disconnect me. I live in an apt and even though ATT fiber line runs past the place they cannot connect.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

I really need to revisit my own options, i hate dealing with this crap to my own detriment.

[jafo2010]

Those of you tired of paying high cable bills, check out:

       worldwidetv.com

I think that is the URL for my service.  I pay $30 per month.  I get everything by streaming.  All premium movie channels, i.e like 6 HBOs, and All the others.  5,000 news channels, so if you were living just about anywhere in the world, you can now watch those channels.  I am from Pittsburgh, live in Georgia, and can see ALL the PITTSBURGH channels.

All the same for British TV too, which they have a lot of great humor.

All the sports packages, for ALL SPORTS.  Recent movies, like theater movies.  And many of the streaming services that one pays for each, like Hulu, Prime, Apple, Disney, Netflix, HBO Max, Discovery, National Geographic, Peacock, AMC, Paramount, and Starz.

There are so many things, including like 25,000 movies, and TV shows going back to the 50s.

All for $30/month, and much of it broadcast in 4K.

If any of you are interested, and the URL does not work, I can give you the telephone number of the guy I got the service from.   Send me a PM.

My neighbor got it because of certain type European soccer they stream, and that Irish sport of hurling/curling???which he enjoys from Europe.  You know the one where they sweep the ice for the disc to slide.

Streaming is the way to go!

[davidhelpgop]

Thanks for the link.
Corrected link:  https://worldwidetv.tv

[DCPatriot]

Thanks for the link.
Corrected link:  https://worldwidetv.tv

Thank you very much!   

@davidhelpgop  @jafo2010

[roamer_1]

Streaming is the way to go!

Yes it is. But if you're halfway competent with a browser and a search engine, Any and all of it is out there for free.

I pay for the cable connection for the fast speed.
And I pay for Prime, mostly for the shipping, so the streaming is a perk.
And I paid for a ROKU or two... But that's more like hardware...

But that's it. And there's butt-tons to see... for nothing. For *FREE*. Without commercials, mostly.

I refuse to put money in their pockets for the crap they shovel nowadays.
I'll steal it from em... Lift their wares, and not feel guilty at all. I paid through the nose for that crap they call programming most of my life. I'll pay the freight on bandwidth... but they'll never see another thin dime from me for programming.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Yes it is. But if you're halfway competent with a browser and a search engine, Any and all of it is out there for free.

I pay for the cable connection for the fast speed.
And I pay for Prime, mostly for the shipping, so the streaming is a perk.
And I paid for a ROKU or two... But that's more like hardware...

But that's it. And there's butt-tons to see... for nothing. For *FREE*. Without commercials, mostly.

I refuse to put money in their pockets for the crap they shovel nowadays.
I'll steal it from em... Lift their wares, and not feel guilty at all. I paid through the nose for that crap they call programming most of my life. I'll pay the freight on bandwidth... but they'll never see another thin dime from me for programming.

One point though, if you don't pay for the stuff that's good then most likely you won't see as much of it. We'll get more bottom feeder crap. But I get your point.

I'm a gamer who doesn't mine paying for a collection of 1's and 0's in my steam library... as long as it's high quality.

[roamer_1]

One point though, if you don't pay for the stuff that's good then most likely you won't see as much of it. We'll get more bottom feeder crap. But I get your point.

I'm a gamer who doesn't mine paying for a collection of 1's and 0's in my steam library... as long as it's high quality.

It ain't like I can't. be talked into going and seeing a movie... I still go every few years... Maybe every half-decade... But it takes some doing. Might talk me into a stream night easier - and I'll pitch in a couple bucks, or even host from time to time... More likely.

We could talk about a good series coming out of Hollywood - but that is nearly a fiction at this point... I think the last series I was impressed with was either Justified or Hell on Wheels - Both originating long, long ago. But even at that, I am not waiting breathlessly for Thursday night, sure to be home to see that next episode. Nah. I might catch a season. or I will wait for the series to complete and binge the whole thing... I watched Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, and Chicago Med years after they started... my consumption habit has changed. I was aware of everyone raving about them, but my give-a-damn's busted.

That, maybe, is the salient point. I no longer trust nor believe this nation's storytellers. They sure as hell ain't telling my stories. I have gone elsewhere.

As to the level of quality going down because I won't pitch in - The buyer is always right. It ain't my problem that they can't sell me their woke, liberal crap. It's theirs.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

It ain't like I can't. be talked into going and seeing a movie... I still go every few years... Maybe every half-decade... But it takes some doing. Might talk me into a stream night easier - and I'll pitch in a couple bucks, or even host from time to time... More likely.

We could talk about a good series coming out of Hollywood - but that is nearly a fiction at this point... I think the last series I was impressed with was either Justified or Hell on Wheels - Both originating long, long ago. But even at that, I am not waiting breathlessly for Thursday night, sure to be home to see that next episode. Nah. I might catch a season. or I will wait for the series to complete and binge the whole thing... I watched Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, and Chicago Med years after they started... my consumption habit has changed. I was aware of everyone raving about them, but my give-a-damn's busted.

That, maybe, is the salient point. I no longer trust nor believe this nation's storytellers. They sure as hell ain't telling my stories. I have gone elsewhere.

As to the level of quality going down because I won't pitch in - The buyer is always right. It ain't my problem that they can't sell me their woke, liberal crap. It's theirs.

You are on point here, for sure. As an aside, I wish more people would check out Indie games on Steam, but yeah, games aren't really your generation's thing. But there are some awesome titles that make you think, and developers, especially overseas, don't go out of their way to cram wokeness into their releases.

[roamer_1]

You are on point here, for sure. As an aside, I wish more people would check out Indie games on Steam, but yeah, games aren't really your generation's thing. But there are some awesome titles that make you think, and developers, especially overseas, don't go out of their way to cram wokeness into their releases.

Yeah... not my bag... the last game I obsessed over was Doom. Three months straight... Day and night...a whole summer... and the only fall of my yoot that I was too fat to hunt. Nope. my obsessive personality cannot handle games. Far better to obsess over something that will pay me a hundred an hour instead... So I obsess over pooters.