Charter Spectrum Jacks Up Rates (Again) Thanks To Merger 'Synergies'
from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept
When Charter Communications (Spectrum) proposed merging with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks in 2016, the company repeatedly promised that the amazing "synergies" would lower rates, increase competition, boost employment, and improve the company's services. Of course like countless telecom megamergers before it, that never actually happened. Instead, the company quickly set about raising rates to manage the huge debt load. And its service has been so aggressively terrible, the company recently almost got kicked out of New York State, something I've never seen in 20 years of covering telecom.
Cities like Lexington, Kentucky continue to explore their legal options in efforts to hold Charter accountable (something it's clear the Trump FCC won't do). Charter, meanwhile, has informed many of these users that they'll be seeing yet another rate hike in November across the company's entire, 41-state territory. All told, users will pay at least $100 more for the same service annually, thanks in part to increases in several of the sneaky fees Charter routinely tacks on to user bills to jack up the advertised price post sale:
"Broadcast TV surcharge will increase from $8.85 to $9.95/month, Charter said, "This reflects costs incurred from local broadcast TV stations." • Spectrum receivers will increase from $6.99 to $7.50/month.
• An increase from $54.99 to $59.99/month for Spectrum Internet for current customers who subscribe to Spectrum TV.
• An increase from $64.99 to $65.99/month for Spectrum Internet for current customers who do not subscribe to Spectrum TV."
Modest hikes, but they add up. It's worth noting that that "Broadcast TV fee" is simply a part of the cost Charter pays for programming, broken out of the bill, and tacked on below the line to help covertly jack up the advertised rate post sale. It's something most cable operators have been routinely sued for, and regulators enjoy turning a blind eye to (despite largely being false advertising). The company, for its part, continues to insist that these price hikes simply reflect the wonderful service users are now getting from the nation's second biggest cable provider:
"The price of Spectrum Internet reflects the dramatically faster speeds and investments we’ve made in reliability and quality," Michel said. "Earlier this year, we doubled the starting download speed of Spectrum Internet from 100 to 200 megabits per second. Lastly, our receivers are still comparable or lower in price than our major competitors'."
Charter omits that many of these speed hikes only came about thanks to merger conditions, or that its speed increases lagged dramatically behind contemporaries like Comcast as it focused primarily on its last megamerger. Of course higher prices, poor service, and some of the worst ranked customer support of any company in America (no easy feet given the airline and banking industries expertise) are the net result of both the blind deregulation of natural monopolies and our adoration of blindly buying into megamerger promises, a reality that our tech policy never quite seems capable of keying in on.
This is, unfortunately for you, a problem that's only going to get worse before it gets better thanks to a lack of competition in broadband and a refusal to embrace policies that actually encourage said competition. Instead, the telecom industry (with the Trump FCC's help) has been waging a not subtle war on both federal and state consumer protections, while at the same time quietly securing a significant monopoly over faster broadband speeds. You'd think the end result of this would be obvious, but given our refusal to address this reality, you'd apparently be mistaken.
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Filed Under: fees, mergers, rates, synergies
Companies: charter, charter communications
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Meet the new bill. Same as the old bill.
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Re:
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Not really, but the model was a great one. You'd pay one company for a plain local line, and choose from sometimes hundreds of companies (including local Freenets) for internet service. If you used that line 24/7 the telco couldn't do a thing about it. (Unlike ISDN which had per-minute charges in North America, which may be why it failed.)
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COMPETITION!!!
What are things the FCC doesn't understand the meaning of?
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Sometimes it IS malice rather than stupidity
What makes you think they don't understand the terms?
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Re: malice/stupidity
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Most people are ignorant/stupid about economics and government, especially government people who intervene in economics.
FCC was immaculately conceived without sin or malice nearly a century ago.
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Re: Re: malice/stupidity
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Re: Re: "Most people are ignorant/stupid"
"Most People" is a convenient half-truth that guarantees 90% of us live with without hope and with convinced futility.
Only one type of person gets the legal benefits of living on this Earth: the Invester.
All the rest of us are useless eaters or Pork Bellies to be wagered (called 'futures') by a lying oligarchy and it's teat-sucking minions. Stop propagating the stupidity lie.
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Credit where credit is due, even if you didn't incur it
Charter CFO: "It's not enough, the debt load will cost you twice this increase".
Charter CEO: "Not to worry, we've got two more rate hikes in the works, the first will take care of the debt load and the second will help our investors to see their beloved increase in profits".
Charter CFO: "Well...OK"!
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airwaves to OTA broadcasts and allowed it to be digitally transmitted .
Most of America no longer has the ability to get OTA due to those pesky hills and such that digital line of sight transmissions incur .
So you are forced to pay these thieves for stealing our
airwaves which then then lock up and dribble back to us in higher and higher fees .
The solution ?
On Nov 6th
VOTE OUT EVERY INCUMBENT
Every one is a thief and a liar to the American public .
Parties be dammed If they were in office Its time to
kick them to the curb I'd rather have a no nothing of
"how its done" in office than " I know how to screw you over " in there
So come Nov 7th
YOU have no one else to blame but yourself for
who is ruling over you .
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Again trying to get folk to believe silly things?
"Most of America no longer has the ability to get OTA due to those pesky hills and such that digital line of sight transmissions incur."
- The Carrier Radio Frequency ranges used for Over The Air TV broadcast remained the same in the analog to digital conversion process.
From where do you get this?
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Re: Re: Find a flaw, dismiss the argument
Disclaimer; i was 'facilities manager' for a few years at a 110k radio station between channel 6 & 7 and got married on Mt. Wilson.
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Re: Re: Re: Find a flaw, dismiss the argument
I imagine that much transmitter equipment was replaced in order to facilitate the difference in modulation but the overall frequency ranges used for OTA remained the same, some broadcasters moved within that range and this could contribute to the issue described.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Find a flaw, dismiss the argument
before digital broadcasts came to be
I could watch my big 3 and the 2 smaller networks .
After the great digital divide where You needed a converter box to get the "improved" digital broadcasts my service went to ONE channel of the smaller networks .
And yes I live in the hills about 60 miles from the broadcast centers .
So If I wanted to keep "free" tv I now needed a cable connection which wasn't free .
So as I said vote the scumbags out
cause they sure as hell ain't working for the people .
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Find a flaw, dismiss the argument
While you technically have a valid point, that doesn't change the fact that digital broadcasts are much better quality, and use better, more efficient technology. The problem is not the tech, it's you or your equipment/location.
The reason why digital broadcasts create the perception of worse service is because analog was very forgiving in transmission issues. You could still watch a channel if you didn't have very good reception for it, it would be fuzzy and the audio might be bad but it would be sort of viewable. Digital doesn't have as high a tolerance for errors, if one bit drops, those audio/video frames drop completely.
A lot of this can be mitigated with the right kind of antenna and proper placement. Again, this is a change from the old way of doing things where "any old antenna in any old place" was good enough. Just because it worked, doesn't make it better. Riding a horse was a valid form of transportation and wouldn't run out of gas or blow an engine or tire. That doesn't make it better than driving a car.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Find a flaw, dismiss the argument
So when do want to stop by and remove the 200 foot mountain above my house to improve said signal or can you you get em to put their antenna this side of the mountain ?
How many billions have we given to telcos for rural broadband that they can't or wont deliver on?
I stand behind my sediment Send em all packing on
Nov 6th cause I'd rather have a new bunch in there who don't follow in their old crony ways .
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Find a flaw, dismiss the argument
If you can't receive the new digital signal because there is a 200 ft mountain in the way (Can you even call that a mountain? I've seen hills higher than that.), then you wouldn't have been able to receive the old analog signal because, newsflash, the new digital and old analog signal transmissions are using the same frequencies.
It's simple physics, radio waves don't like passing through solid objects. If you can't even receive the signal now, you weren't before either. If you were receiving the analog signal before and could watch TV, you are still receiving the digital signal, you are just subject to the problems I listed above and haven't properly compensated for them or are in a unique position where you are unable to compensate for them.
Either way, your argument is invalid because physics. You are receiving the signal, it just doesn't look like it because you're equipment is dropping too many digital packets to be viewable.
Well, normally people stand behind their sentiment but I suppose if you have a 200 foot hill, standing behind your sediment would work too.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Find a flaw, dismiss the argum
Gad, try Wiki, 'Digital' TV sucks for us poor or rural or iconoclast.
And, new super high voltage electric service transmission lines had to be doubled to serve the new UHF transmitters'.
" Digital UHF station may be licensed to transmit up to a megawatt of effective radiated power. Very few stations returned to VHF channels 2–6 after the transition was completed in 2009, and were mainly concentrated in the Desert Southwest and Mountain West regions, where few geographical obstructions and adjoining co-channel stations exist. At least three quarters of all full-power digital broadcasts continued to use UHF transmitters, with most of the others located on the high-VHF channels. In some American markets, such as Syracuse, New York, no full-service VHF TV stations remained. The one remaining limitation of UHF is its greatly reduced range in the presence of terrain obstacles. This continues to adversely affect digital UHF TV reception. "
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Find a flaw, dismiss the argument
Getting mad is one thing, but spewing misinformation is unacceptable.
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companys competing in each market to provide
real competition and then the consumer will
have a choice and be able to get cable tv or broadband at a fair price.
Also allow citys to setup their own internet
services .
Big telecom companys want megamergers as it reduces competition and allows them to increase prices .
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Re: Re: last mile for the last hundred years
The last mile should be a Common Carrier utility and let the local politicians take the complaints from citizen/customers. Most states do not let municipalities reap profit from delivered services.
Disclaimer; My Grandfather, Father and two Great Grandfathers built the most successful communist electric power utility in California, see http://www.mercedid.com/
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Synergy...exactly as planned....
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OFF THE POINT..
they are NOT responsible for:
telephone/power poles..Those are the CITIES and the Electric corp takes care of them.
Underground connections..SAME AS ABOVE..but Generally run in or NEAR sewer lines..
What they are responsible for is the WIRE, the Hub/intersections of points, AND the BOX in your house.
MOST of this equipment is hidden and not seen, and is protected from abuse.
They need to replace the Wire and hubs..and NEW cable boxes..Cable boxes that COULD be on the outside of you house and bring other things TO YOU HOME..not just Internet/TV/phone/Wireless phone/cellphone services..
They would rather charge you for EACH SERVICE.. not consolidate them into 1 Large service, that could charge you an ECONOMICAL PRICE for all these services..
Its worse then looking at your cable bill or your phone bill, and TRYING to figure out what those extra costs are..
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Spectrum leaves money on the table with their own house ads
I'd be really interested to see the figures on exactly how many ad spots Spectrum uses for its own house ads.
You know, those spots where they try to tell people who are already watching their damned service how great it would be if they used Spectrum. I think it has to be larger than any other cable co. House ads are in almost every local break and it's been going on for almost two years. Imagine how much money they could earn if they sold those spots to real advertisers.
Further, the volume of junk mail they send me is huge. At least one piece a month. And I'm already a user
Oy.
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Re: Spectrum leaves money on the table with their own house ads
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Re: Re: Spectrum leaves money on the table with their own house ads
AOL, Xfinity, Spectrum...
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Can I get in?
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Re: Can I get in?
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Re: Nice post
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Re: Re: Nice post
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