CommentsEASTSIDER-Remember those Monsters Commercials for Spectrum? At one time there were something like 13 of them, and they live on in YouTube.
You know, the ones that talked about “Contracts Bad, Spectrum Good.” Let’s see how all that worked out for me in real life.
Full disclosure. Living in the hills by downtown LA, both cell phone coverage and internet coverage is a challenge. Prior to late 2016, we had opted for ATT’s Internet /U-verse package as the best of not so good choices. The problem was, (a) their promised 20Mbps internet speed, and (b) U-verse TV, did not in fact provide the advertised speed, and there were a lot of outages as well. Plus, it was all running about $200/month.
Anyhow, the TWC/Spectrum ads were cute, and they were promising 100Mbps for internet, Time Warner cable TV, and internet phone packages for about $90/month. So, who wouldn’t go for that deal? And TWC channels included the Dodgers.
So in December 2016, we switched.
The Spectrum Experience
When we switched, I made sure we had our own cable modem and WiFi, so we didn’t get any monthly charges for either. There were no hidden fees, just a $6 a month fee for each cable box for TV. And in the beginning, Spectrum beat ATT hands down, around 70 Mbps to ATT’s 16-18 Mbps on a good day.
However, I discovered that “no contract” means Spectrum can jack up your bill for any or no reason. For most of 2017, the bills were about the same, but I got a November surprise when the bill went up to $144.50 a month.
In 2018, the bills nudged upward to $148, and later $154. The big surprise came in December 2018, when the bill escalated to $190 a month. As of the date of this article, it is still $190. . .well, actually $192.
Who knows when the next surprise will happen? In the meantime, as Spectrum’s customer base has scaled up, their internet speeds have slowed down big time where we live in the hills.
It is not uncommon to go down to 10-15 Mbps during peak hours, so slow that we say good luck with Netflix or Amazon Prime movies.
The Takeaway
Now the only reason I can write this article is that I don’t trust any internet provider (ISP), particularly after the recent spate of mergers and acquisitions, so I decided to keep all my Spectrum bills.
Also, and I highly recommend to people that they periodically check their actual internet speed with something like a good Internet speed tester such as Speedtest.
All I can really say is, by hook or by crook, it looks like all the big boys figure their sweet spot is around $200/month, giving the customer much less than their advertised speeds, along with marginal service and intermittent outages.
Recently, I’ve explored dumping most of their services and going with Internet only and using one of the internet TV channel providers. Currently I am using YouTube TV, which is OK assuming that the internet speeds are decent; otherwise get used to a spinning circle in the middle of watching TV or Netflix.
And of course, their fees went from $40 to $50/month soon after I signed up. Sigh. I’m going to check out Sling, but I doubt the experience will be too much different.
If I really want to cut the cord, I’m toying with the idea of a rabbit ear free TV for regular channels (depends on where you live how many channels you can get), an ATT land line (when there’s an outage, the old fashioned phone still works), and sticking with Netflix and Amazon Prime for movies and such. Curmudgeon that I am.
Your mileage may vary depending on where you live, but in Northeast LA I’ve talked to a lot of friends and neighbors, and my experience is far from unique.
I also haven’t got into cell phone providers but be assured that in the hills most of them are the same as the big internet providers.
Ain’t the digital tech life grand?
(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Illustration: NY Times. Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
