So I currently have TWC aka Spectrum and my rates keep going up and the service remains shitty. I have been looking around and no other provider is available for me in my area. I checked fios, AT&T, Google Fiber, etc... and none are available. I guess it's not a monopoly since I can technically get dial up. Total bullshit.

Same where I'm at. One cable based provider that is less honest than a car salesman.

Timely post! I have the curse of Spectrum. I just had the Tech out to see why my upload speed is turtle like.
He checked the signal. Said "yep, its slow". Then explained its an "interference problem" they cant track down. And then he left.
Love paying for this kind of service!

The no-service providers change their name more frequently than I change my socks. I guess if enough people get fed up with their crap they just disappear and come back as somebody else.

My choices at home are satellite, a Verizon hockey-puck thing, AT&T U-Verse, or Time-Warner / BrightHouse / Spectrum (or whatever their Name-Of-The-Week is.

At the hangar, internet can be had by satellite, the Verizon hockey-puck, cable via Time-Warner / BrightHouse / Spectrum, or DSL from Sprint / Embarq / CenturyLink (I might have missed a name or two).

I use Spectrum at home, CenturyLink at the hangar. I don't like dealing with CenturyLink very much, but Spectrum is truly the devil. I can't think of a punishment / torture evil enough for the Spectrum people.

Windstream's here.
Poor service, slow, expensive.
The Feds gave them about $100 million to upgrade rural service. They must have a great lobbyist.

I have choices but there's only one that's viable. They provide great service but it's expensive and a little slow compared to what's out there now.

Try using Hugh's Net Does not matter where you are, you can get service and it is fast.

We had Hughes Net. It was OK. But damned expensive. Like $90.00/month. My local electrical co-op, came through and put in fiber optics with phone/internet/television, boy is it great.

Never heard of Spectrum.. Must be more east coast? We have Cox out here and they are pretty good.

This is one of the things that scares me about our potential move.

Daughter has already checked, DSL not available. Time-Warner cable appears to be the only viable choice.

I've had satellite internet, it sucks. Not as bad as dial up, but it sucks.

I'm hoping a bundled package (TV, Internet, Phone) won't break us.

Only have two choices here and Spectrum/TWC is one of them and my local Telehone Co. DSL being the other. Spectrum being far superior to the latter and, doesn't cost that much more. AT&T u verse all around me but can't get it nor Verizon FIOS.

I'm about to completely drop my internet service as we speak. I'll miss it, but in my area its Comcast or nothing, and I've about had it with Comcast.

It's up to $100 a month, higher than ever, and they just started enforcing bandwidth caps so I have to monitor my traffic to make sure I don't get slammed with overages. I already got rid of cable TV, I'm about to cut the internet cable too.

 
Strange as it may seem, out here in the AZ sticks we have a choice of 5, but until recently only a choice of 4, and all of those four are wireless. There's always satellite, but the latency sucks, and the price and data cap are horrible. Cellular is available, but again expensive and a low data cap. And we have two ground-based wireless providers. Both were reasonably priced, but could offer no more than about 5Mbps down over 1Mbps up, and were subject to outages from various problem sources (weather, power, having to climb a tower on top of a mountain to fix something, etc). Finally, two years ago, CenturyLink was able to pull a fiber optic cable out our way (not for us, but for a big development down the road). We managed to get a piece of that to provision a remote DSLAM, and so now we have VDSL (very high bit rate DSL) over our existing underground copper that was originally put in place for phones. I get 35Mbps down an 4Mbps up. Quite happy with that.
 
I believe in most parts of the country there is very little choice.
 

There were some bills I read that were written up for affordable internet, fiber, etc. Got shot down like the plague. Any attempt to get price caps, etc, on carriers, goes deaf once on the hill. Many other countries get affordable high speed internet services. Here that gets labeled as socialism. We pay some of the highest prices for broadband anywhere. Expect to continue getting gouged. The only way you can get decent pricing is to flip-flop. Get a promotional rate with one, and when that expires leave for the competing service.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
There were some bills I read that were written up for affordable internet, fiber, etc. Got shot down like the plague. Any attempt to get price caps, etc, on carriers, goes deaf once on the hill. Many other countries get affordable high speed internet services. Here that gets labeled as socialism. We pay some of the highest prices for broadband anywhere. Expect to continue getting gouged. The only way you can get decent pricing is to flip-flop. Get a promotional rate with one, and when that expires leave for the competing service.

No competing companies for my address so I'm fucked.

quote:

...a remote DSLAM...underground copper...for phones. I get 35Mbps down an 4Mbps up.

You must live damned close to that DSLAM. You're lucky.

Spectrum/TWC here as well. Before that it was Brighthouse. I can't tell that the suck has changed at all. Still bad.

RMD

Be careful what you wish for Dusty. My brother lives in Charlotte and is plagued by the same problems you have but he has AT&T. He keeps getting told that he lives in a "slow zone" according to them.

Charter/Spectrum here in SE MN. 60+ down and about 5.5up. I've been pretty happy with them for the past 17 years or so that I've been here.

quote:

Originally posted by Kskelton:
Never heard of Spectrum.. Must be more east coast? We have Cox out here and they are pretty good.

See my post, above, in which I mention that these companies change their names frequently. Spectrum is what Time-Warner / BrightHouse is now calling themselves.

Name of the week. Will be changed next week. As they piss customers off, the change their name. They think we're dumb enough to believe it's a new company. Nope, same old company, new name, new ways to aggravate customers.