Posted on 07/02/2024 3:18:18 AM PDT by Libloather
American cable giant Spectrum is raising its TV, internet and phone plan prices in July.
Spectrum's internet base price will increase by $3 a month for all plans beginning in July, CNET reported.
The provider's home phone plans and TV Select service will also increase by $3 in some states.
It is the second time Spectrum - one of America's main cable providers along with Comcast Xfinity, DirecTV and Dish - has hiked it rates this year alone.
In January, Spectrum raised its low-income plan from $20 to $25 a month.
At the same time in January it also raised the price of renting a router from the company from $5 to $7 per month.
Existing customers wishing to negotiate the price rises may have trouble contacting the company's customer service - because call centers have recently been shut.
Spectrum closed three call centers over the last two months, laying off 745 employees in the process, the outlet reported.
It comes after a recent earnings report shows Spectrum lost 72,000 internet customers and 405,000 cable TV customers in the first three months of 2024.
'We continue to expand and improve our offerings to ensure all customers have products and packages that best meet their needs,' Spectrum said in a statement.
'While our services have been impacted by rising costs, we strive to keep prices as low as possible.'
The price rises come amidst a reckoning for internet and streaming consumers as more and more providers raise their prices.
Last week, Paramount announced that it would be hiking the price of its streaming service as it looks to boost falling profits.
The Paramount+ Essential option is set to rise by $2 to $7.99 for new customers - which works out as a huge 33 percent price rise.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I live in an area where Spectrum is our only terrestrial option. Their customer service is abysmal, and despite paying for business class service, they refuse to provide business class service. Looking forward to replacement options. It wouldn’t take much.
BTTT
Wish I still had a link to the article. It was about things that people think are worse versus things that ARE worse compared to old days.
TV was high on the list for actually worse. For MUCH more money we now get
1. More commercial time than ever
2. Less real choices in quality shows (most good movies even old etc are now pay only)
3. More social messaging
4. General drop in quality of shows
Especially # 1 angers me. The whole idea of pay TV back in the 80s was to decrease commercials.😡
“TV” of course being an all inclusive term
I had Cox Cable for years, mostly because my area had no other options for reliable(?) high speed internet. 90% of what I watch on TV I can get from broadcast. Cox was bleeding me white.
Then Metronet came to town. With an antenna and Roku I get everything I want to watch and only pay for two streaming services.
I cut the Spectrum cable 3 months ago. Haven’t missed it once. They suck anyway.
The ads I get on television are so Black it is like living in Africa. They are usually shown with expensive cars or houses, and working on investments.
“The ads I get on television are so Black it is like living in Africa.”
That’s the huge pet peeve in our house. If Procter & Gamble has a white model, we haven’t seen it. I sent an email to them last week calling them racists. Haven’t heard back.
I did the same for Pair Eyewear. Blue-eyed people wear glasses, too.
I dream that there would be a nationwide effort to blackball every company using black models more than 25% in their ads. I know that we aren’t that committed to anything, but it would be nice instead of just sitting back and taking it.
People demanded choice. Well everyone’s got it. I’m still stumped by thinking that cutting the cord was going to be a long term financial advantage. The cable companies will eventually make that money back by having internet cost 200 bucks a month. It’s coming.
Is Starlink available in your area?
I live in a rural area where internet options are severely limited. I got Starlink in May and I’ve had terrific service thus far. It’s expensive but, where I live, it’s the way to go.
CEO: “We’re losing costumers ever since our last price hike, what should we do?”
CFO: “The best option to cover rising prices is to hike our rates, that should fix the loss of customer problem.”
Live out in the country and just got Fiber and dumped Spectrum. Cheaper and faster. We had a storm 3 months ago and the wire was severed. I was able to get the new Fiber line run and in service before Spectrum came to fix it. They never came after 3 phone calls.
“Live out in the country and just got Fiber...”
So do we, nearest house on our side of the road is a mile away and to get any internet we’d have to walk in circles outside and hope we get 4G just to email as there are no cable companies. The storms are always damaging the power, last time recently was for two days so we fired up the generator. We got fiber a year ago when it was installed in our township and were off the grid, it was like the storm never happened.
These pharmaceutical commercials posing as Broadway sing alongs are driving me crazy. All the singing, dancing, jiggling and giggling has got to go. I’ve never seen that happen in real life.
Another raise on top of already too high-priced? What are they trying to do...self-destruct?
Starlink is available across 90%+ of CONUS, and yes, I’m fortunate to be in that group. Cost and latency are considerations.
The Cox Uckers are a monopoly in my area too.
We dumped cable 6-7 years ago. I honestly don’t even know where our TV is. 😆
Because paying for government mandated spying on it’s subjects is expensive! That’s why.
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