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Verizon might buy Charter, which just bought Time Warner Cable
- Thread starter Vanillalite
- Start date
- Status
Randolph Freelander
Member
First 10 hours of programming are hi def. Programming is throttled to SD afterwards.
SocksAndShoes
Banned
I would laugh if this wasn't a distinct possibility.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
You get a text message at 9 hours you are about to hit your 10 hour cap though and can buy another 2 extra hours for $20 though.
RPGCrazied
Member
I hope people boycott this shit. We are already paying almost $300 a month for our cable/internet. Its getting to the point where we are going to get rid of it.
Charter for the time being has no bandwidth caps. Will be surprised if that sticks around too much longer.
$300? holy shit. No.. no way I would be spending that much.
$300? holy shit. No.. no way I would be spending that much.
RPGCrazied
Member
Its U-Verse, not exactly charter, I was just talking about cable companies in general getting away with murder. I forget to mention we have phone with it too and unlimited internet with HBO package with cable. Still its too much.
heavy liquid
Member
Damn it. I was with Brighthouse which I liked, but just bought out by Charter.
LegalEagleMike
Member
same
I've been with Charter for many years. Guess I might be switching to........oh wait monopoly.
Empyrean Heaven
Member
At least you CAN switch. Here Spectrum is the only game in town. FIOS hasn't come into our county, DirectTV and Dish Network are both expensive as fuck, and I'm not impressed with the quality of Sling or PlayStation Vue (not to mention that's only TV, I'd still have to have internet through Spectrum, which sort of defeats the purpose)
peppermints
Member
Isn't Spectrum a name / brand various other ISPs use? I got a thing in the mail from them and that was the sense I got.
I'm happy with WOW here in southern Indiana and are working on adding fiber. They're relatively local and have good prices. I fear for when / if they get bought out by someone else.
Yes
Joe Shlabotnik
Banned
Me too! I'll just jump to... Fios.....
Generalpsyduck
Banned
I can't wait till the bright future of there being only 8 company's.
Thankfully there's a local internet company slowly moving into the city and providing comparable rates. I'm mainly with Spectrum because they gave me a good deal, likely because of the impending competition. I'd gladly pay extra though to avoid supporting a monopoly like this.
True, although it was really only recently that switching became an option. Before Allo (local internet company) started laying fiber last year or so, Time Warner Cable (now Spectrum) was pretty much the only ISP available. Windstream is around, too, but they're shit so...
Isn't Spectrum a name / brand various other ISPs use? I got a thing in the mail from them and that was the sense I got.
I'm happy with WOW here in southern Indiana and are working on adding fiber. They're relatively local and have good prices. I fear for when / if they get bought out by someone else.
Spectrum is a pretty generic name, but it's what Charter changed Time Warner Cable to after they scooped them up.
I had brighthouse and then that switched to Spectrum. If nothing changes with the service (no data cap)then fine, but Verizon fucks everything up so I'll expect the worse and switch. Luckily where we live there's like 3 internet providers that can go to our house so I'll have options.
The Albatross
Member
It makes sense for Verizon given the AT&T/DirecTV merger last year puts AT&T in a very strong position.
As a ~20 year Charter subscriber, I wouldn't really care. I've had Charter internet since 1998 or 1999, and while their customer service has gotten much much better over the years, they're still laughably bad in a few areas that Verizon FiOS is much better in. I have DirecTV for TV At home, and while DirecTV isn't perfect, when I go to my parents' house (Charter subscribers) I'm still aghast that their cable UI is something out of like 2003. Seriously this is STILL the UI for charter cable:
It's actually worse, I think. My parent's UI has more bezel, and it's still in SD.
For internet, Charter's downstream at 60Mbps without caps is pretty much fine. I used to have a 100Mbps service from tehm, but they retired it. Sadly, their Upstream is still 3Mbps I believe... Unchanged over the last 10 years. This is pretty terrible.
Charter is the only high speed internet provider in my city, so if Verizon were going to invest in laying more fiber I'd be fine with this.
As a ~20 year Charter subscriber, I wouldn't really care. I've had Charter internet since 1998 or 1999, and while their customer service has gotten much much better over the years, they're still laughably bad in a few areas that Verizon FiOS is much better in. I have DirecTV for TV At home, and while DirecTV isn't perfect, when I go to my parents' house (Charter subscribers) I'm still aghast that their cable UI is something out of like 2003. Seriously this is STILL the UI for charter cable:
It's actually worse, I think. My parent's UI has more bezel, and it's still in SD.
For internet, Charter's downstream at 60Mbps without caps is pretty much fine. I used to have a 100Mbps service from tehm, but they retired it. Sadly, their Upstream is still 3Mbps I believe... Unchanged over the last 10 years. This is pretty terrible.
Charter is the only high speed internet provider in my city, so if Verizon were going to invest in laying more fiber I'd be fine with this.
Goro Majima
Kitty Genovese Member
^
Yeah we moved to St Louis from Houston where we had that sleek Comcast UI with the voice remote. It's like the fucking Stone Age by comparison.
Hate on Comcast all you want but damn if that X1 thing wasn't really awesome
.
There's nothing to switch to besides satellite or DSL....both of which are miserable compared to cable.
Yeah we moved to St Louis from Houston where we had that sleek Comcast UI with the voice remote. It's like the fucking Stone Age by comparison.
Hate on Comcast all you want but damn if that X1 thing wasn't really awesome
.
There's nothing to switch to besides satellite or DSL....both of which are miserable compared to cable.
WOW is fantastic, had them when I lived in Ohio. Paid $30 for 50mbps, actual performance was over 80mbps.Isn't Spectrum a name / brand various other ISPs use? I got a thing in the mail from them and that was the sense I got.
I'm happy with WOW here in southern Indiana and are working on adding fiber. They're relatively local and have good prices. I fear for when / if they get bought out by someone else.
Now in LA...Time Warner is the only option, basically... Not sure how such a big city has fewer options than a small city in the Midwest (Columbus).
This deal could be a nightmare though. Verion Wireless always cutting corners these days.
What local company? I'm in Madison.
The Albatross
Member
Yep, same. My whole state has Verizon FiOS and while houses 1 mile from me have FiOS as an option, my city does not because it's too much of an investment to wire, so we have Charter only.
I don't care that much because Charter is fine, but I'd like some choice in it.
DirecTV is expensive, but they're very good at negotiating. I call every year and negotiate down my bill. It takes a half hour of talking on the phone, but they get you with somebody who gets you a great deal.
metalslimer
Member
Combine these mergers with the impending death of net neutrality and the internet is about to become awful
TangoAlphaLima
Member
So will this be the parent corporation of Brawndo?
Guessing he's in Nebraska. Allo announced fiber plans in Lincoln and TWC responded with speed increases.
peppermints
Member
I used to do that, and almost always got a good price.. But the thing that made me finally cancel was just how much equipment you have to deal with. I love that with Vue all I need is my Fire TV (and it works with out any fuss on my phone, iPad, Roku, computer..)
well thats shit because Spectrum is the only major cable provider that doesn't fuck you up the ass with a data cap
We have to switch to X1 due to 3 TV's active at night for Vue......we were hitting 600-800GB a month with Vue alone.....that was only using the TV for 3 hours. If someone forgot to set a timer or turn the TV it fucking drained until Vue said you were inactive
fucking piece of shit data caps
We have to switch to X1 due to 3 TV's active at night for Vue......we were hitting 600-800GB a month with Vue alone.....that was only using the TV for 3 hours. If someone forgot to set a timer or turn the TV it fucking drained until Vue said you were inactive
fucking piece of shit data caps
peppermints
Member
ChaosZeroX
Banned
Seems like something they would do honestly.
Yeah, that really is a nightmare. Benefits no one but the ISP.
if I could I would be Vue for life......its amazing that you can buy a simple $40 box for every TV you need no monthly in equipment.....$52 for the channels I need and be done with it. Also DVR on the Vue is badass with a 30 day retention nothing needs to be locally saved.....it truly is an amazing service. But ISP's see the threat and instead of offering their own competitive plans they just add data caps and laugh
I've never heard of Fios having data caps unless they recently implemented them?
Compsiox
Banned
Netflix subscribers to increase 3 fold
Assuming he cares about how monopolies treat public more than about "thriving business and corporations". Also hasn't US IPS's had local monopolies for years and years now? If Trump's pick for head of FCC really goes and kills Net Neutrality it just means Trump is okay with moving more milking power to ISP's.
You need purchase website package for 59.99 / month to be allowed to NetFlix while NetFlix has to pay ISP's so their data don't get throttled.
ActStriker
Member
something something net neutrality
RustyNails
Member
How much money does Verizon have? Didn't they buy Yahoo recently?
Razgriz-Specter
Member
Don't fuck with my Internet Verizon
SliceSabre
Banned
Sucks I live in a area(Ohio) where Spectrum is the only real game in town except for AT&T(fucking lol at that one).
False Witness
Member
AT&T seems to have gotten into the fibre game in my area. Er, close to my area. Only $70 for gigabit.
PushTheButtonMax
Banned
Stay the fuck away from my data cap-free ISP Verizon.
Yea, at&t gigabit is rolling out in my neighborhood now in STL but Charter works great here (at least for internet)
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