Cable still struggles to satisfy customers

[EarDemon]

I am sure if you asked Charter customers how much they liked the Verizon Fiber service they cannot get, the number would be even lower than Charter's score. If you look at what incumbent ISPs, including Charter, did to try to keep Google Fiber, AT&T Fiber, Ting and others out of their markets, I don't know how you can call that anything but monopolistic. They try to limit choice so they can charge you whatever the heck they want to. Other monopolistic practices include providing ancient set top boxes with buggy software, like the SA8300HDC running Navigator they apparently were still handing out as of a year or so ago in some markets, crappy customer service, piling fees on top of fees. Charter certainly isn't the worst, especially as an ISP, but clearly they aren't keeping their customers particularly happy on average according to this measurement.

It was nice to see NY go after Charter for not meeting the terms of the merger approval. I wish they'd do the same to Verizon, Frontier, and the other companies that took state and federal money to expand their broadband coverage and then haven't. In Otsego county, Frontier service is apparently out more than it is on in many, many cases. My parents switched to Spectrum after months of outages due to "cut fiber lines." It was just ridiculous. They are certainly happy Charter offers service where they are (and I know my brother would love to have their service where he is) but that doesn't mean they are happy with how they are treated when they call for assistance or go to the retail location.

In my own neighborhood a friend switched back from AT&T Fiber to Charter to save money. He was happy enough until he started having trouble. It took three truck rolls over two weeks to determine the problem was the line feeding his house had degraded to the point that it needed replacing. They fixed it in the end, but it was a frustrating experience for him and his wife, who works from home, and the tech support was subpar based on what he told me. I have a friend in Miami who loves his Comcast X1, but he hates dealing with Comcast. It is a common complaint, and it is reflected in the ratings. I don't know why they cannot improve the customer service experience except that they probably don't want to spend the money to do so.

I can only speak for my area. Google Fiber is a joke and should be used by no one, AT&T doesn't service anywhere within many hundreds of miles from me and is beyond irrelevant and the only Ting I know of is the Sprint MVNO. We have two small fiber start ups in my general area of Upstate NY, Empire Access and Greenlight. Neither of which Charter tried to block. One of the areas Empire Access services is town a regional headend is located in, a community where cable has had a heavy presence in since the late 80s when it was Tri-County Cablevision.

For cable set top boxes, just about all Charter areas should have access to at least the 101/201 WorldBoxes. Most areas should have access to the 110/210 Worldbox 2.0s, except for L-BHN areas. In L-TWC and L-BHN areas you still have a shot at getting a 6 tuner DVR. For extra below the line fees, look no further then everyone's fiber hero, Verizon. The bills posted online from Verizon Fios triple play subscribers have more below the line fees then any other provider that I have ever seen. Charter has zero below the line fees on internet, zero below the line fees on phone and only the broadcast TV, mandated franchise fee and 6 cent FCC fee for video. People will complain about paying $7 - $10 per month in STB rental fees, but have no problem paying $30+ per month financing for the latest stupidphone from their cellular provider.

For customer service, my experience has been nothing short of outstanding. Including a service repair within hours of a driving ban being lifted after getting 5 - 6' of snow in a four day period.

The NY thing was a joke and a ploy during an election year, another corrupt move by the second most corrupt state in the US. Last year more people left NY state then any other state, we all know the state is corrupt, and the smart ones are leaving.

Having problems that negatively impact service is terrible and frustrating, no doubt about that. If your livelihood is dependent on having reliable internet access then you should have business class service. At work I have three coax accounts with Charter and one with Comcast. We've only had these accounts for about 4 years now when we opened up additional offices around the country. Each office has had internet problems requiring a tech be dispatched at least once and all were solved same day or next day at the latest. The only repeat offender was at our Dallas facility there was an ongoing problem that was happening for over 6 months before someone let me know. Called it in at 9AM, and a tech was there at 3PM. After hours of troubleshooting the problem was discovered, and line techs were dispatched the next day. Everything has been rock solid since. My livelihood is not totally dependent on having internet, but I need to be as connected as possible for work in case of being stuck at home due to weather or taking care of stuff off hours, so that's why I have HughesNet as well.

On a side note, two of the four locations at work were brand new builds and required build outs and plant extensions from Comcast and Time Warner. While they both went relatively smoothly, my dealings with Comcast Business were very enjoyable. I got frequent status updates from the account rep and I was able to work with them to expedite the build out when upper management at my job decided to move up the target date for the office grand opening by a month. 5 stars all the way around from me.

 

[EarDemon]

I think all TV providers are having trouble keeping people satisfied. Once the introductory rates go away the bills go way up. It's the same story with Cable and Satellite. Name me any provider that will give me 200 channels for less than $150 with internet after the grace period is over.

Charter is somewhat close to that $150 price point at $165 if you have 1 non-DVR receiver. And that includes two premium move packages and pretty decent internet speeds.

Spectrum TV Silver - $85
Includes 137 regular cable channels, 8 channels of HBO, 9 channels of Showtime, 50 Music Choice channels, local and digital local subchannels. 204 national channels total, all but about 30 of the video channels are in HD

Spectrum Internet - $66
100 Mbps Down/10 Mbps Up or 200 Mbps Down/10 Mbps Up

$151 combined - $6 bundling discount for $145.

+ $12 for Broadcast surcharge
+ $7.50 for each set top box
+ $12 for 1 DVR, or $20 for up to 4

or

If you don't want HBO and Showtime

Spectrum TV Select - $65
+ $12 for Digi Tier 1 or $12 Digi Tier 2 will provide the same amount of channel minus the premiums and doing the rest of the math and we're closer to $150 at $157

 

[ncted]

I can only speak for my area. Google Fiber is a joke and should be used by no one, AT&T doesn't service anywhere within many hundreds of miles from me and is beyond irrelevant and the only Ting I know of is the Sprint MVNO. We have two small fiber start ups in my general area of Upstate NY, Empire Access and Greenlight. Neither of which Charter tried to block. One of the areas Empire Access services is town a regional headend is located in, a community where cable has had a heavy presence in since the late 80s when it was Tri-County Cablevision.

For cable set top boxes, just about all Charter areas should have access to at least the 101/201 WorldBoxes. Most areas should have access to the 110/210 Worldbox 2.0s, except for L-BHN areas. In L-TWC and L-BHN areas you still have a shot at getting a 6 tuner DVR. For extra below the line fees, look no further then everyone's fiber hero, Verizon. The bills posted online from Verizon Fios triple play subscribers have more below the line fees then any other provider that I have ever seen. Charter has zero below the line fees on internet, zero below the line fees on phone and only the broadcast TV, mandated franchise fee and 6 cent FCC fee for video. People will complain about paying $7 - $10 per month in STB rental fees, but have no problem paying $30+ per month financing for the latest stupidphone from their cellular provider.

For customer service, my experience has been nothing short of outstanding. Including a service repair within hours of a driving ban being lifted after getting 5 - 6' of snow in a four day period.

The NY thing was a joke and a ploy during an election year, another corrupt move by the second most corrupt state in the US. Last year more people left NY state then any other state, we all know the state is corrupt, and the smart ones are leaving.

Having problems that negatively impact service is terrible and frustrating, no doubt about that. If your livelihood is dependent on having reliable internet access then you should have business class service. At work I have three coax accounts with Charter and one with Comcast. We've only had these accounts for about 4 years now when we opened up additional offices around the country. Each office has had internet problems requiring a tech be dispatched at least once and all were solved same day or next day at the latest. The only repeat offender was at our Dallas facility there was an ongoing problem that was happening for over 6 months before someone let me know. Called it in at 9AM, and a tech was there at 3PM. After hours of troubleshooting the problem was discovered, and line techs were dispatched the next day. Everything has been rock solid since. My livelihood is not totally dependent on having internet, but I need to be as connected as possible for work in case of being stuck at home due to weather or taking care of stuff off hours, so that's why I have HughesNet as well.

On a side note, two of the four locations at work were brand new builds and required build outs and plant extensions from Comcast and Time Warner. While they both went relatively smoothly, my dealings with Comcast Business were very enjoyable. I got frequent status updates from the account rep and I was able to work with them to expedite the build out when upper management at my job decided to move up the target date for the office grand opening by a month. 5 stars all the way around from me.

Ask Google Fiber customers who is a joke, and I can bet you the answer is whoever the local cable company is the majority of the time. Every cable and AT&T Fiber customer that has access to "gigabit" speeds should be thanking GF for creating the demand. Ting is the same company that does Sprint MVNO, but they also do fiber:

Ting Internet - Crazy fast fiber Internet for US cities

I guess we'll have to just disagree on the Charter/NY thing. They got caught red-handed counting existing customer locations as new locations while failing to bring the rural areas they committed to serving online. The regulator did the right thing in calling them on it. More should do the same. I am not saying NY politicians aren't corrupt, but everyone thinks their state's politicians are corrupt, so grain of salt. Look at the political corruption that caused GF to leave Louisville, KY as an example.

I was not saying Charter has "below the line" fees, but they do have the stupid broadcast tv fee which you cannot avoid to my knowledge. I will say their STB fees are far more sane than TWCs were. Not sure about FIOS, but I'll take your word for it. My point was simply that people haven't enjoying watching they bills go up as what used to be a couple of line items plus taxes turn into more and more fees over time, and then those fees going up every few months instead of every year or two as you might expect, to the tune of 2-3x inflation. Yes, they added more channels, but it wasn't like customers were asking for them, and yes, a lot of the blame goes to the media conglomerates who make the cablecos take the new channels when they renegotiate, so they can sell more ads. This also affects satellite, so not just cable.

My dealings with Charter's Business folks was similarly good in Raleigh and Charlotte, but that is not what this survey was about. This is consumer satisfaction -- you know, residential stuff. Calling tech support, dealing with billing mistakes (which make a lot of news and give people a bad impression), ordering service, etc.

FWIW: I'd be willing to go back to Charter (for Internet), and I would expect a good experience. I like that you can actually get a true bridge mode our of their cable modems, unlike my AT&T Residential Gateway, and I really like the lack of data caps. There is nothing inherently wrong with the technology aside from upload speeds, which they seem to be working on. The issues they have are cultural and are related to how, on average, they deal with residential customers.

 

[harshness]

I think all TV providers are having trouble keeping people satisfied.

That said, not all the blame should be heaped at the feet of the carriers. Much of the blame lies on the content providers for demanding high prices for large suites of programming and making further demands on what packages that content must appear in.

Maybe they need to syndicate everything so that carriers have some choice in structuring their offerings. Such arrangements are almost always fraught with problems but the current hostage model isn't really sustainable.

 

[Don in CT]

That said, not all the blame should be heaped at the feet of the carriers. Much of the blame lies on the content providers for demanding high prices for large suites of programming and making further demands on what packages that content must appear in.

Maybe they need to syndicate everything so that carriers have some choice in structuring their offerings. Such arrangements are almost always fraught with problems but the current hostage model isn't really sustainable.

Both sides are to blame. The carriers should hold steady and say no carriage unless we reach a fair deal. The providers need to go around the carriers and offer over the top without the need for a subscription. They are both in it together to screw over the consumers.

 

[harshness]

The carriers should hold steady and say no carriage unless we reach a fair deal.

DISH does this and gets pilloried for being cheap. DIRECTV doesn't and their rates surpass cable.

How do you propose that the carriers hold fast?

 

[Don in CT]

DISH does this and gets pilloried for being cheap. DIRECTV doesn't and their rates surpass cable.

How do you propose that the carriers hold fast?

Honestly the only solution is if they all collude together. But that would create more problems.

 

[harshness]

Honestly the only solution is if they all collude together.

How does a mom and pop "collude" with someone like AT&T or Comcast?

On the local channels front, you may be facing the 16th largest lobby in Washington DC (the NAB) along with all of the legislation that they've already had installed.

We reason that it can't be costing DISH $12/month or Comcast $20/month for local channels but do we know whether or not they're making big money on LIL? In the case of Comcast, they may be paying money to keep the station from installing more repeaters.

 

[Don in CT]

How does a mom and pop "collude" with someone like AT&T or Comcast?

On the local channels front, you may be facing the 16th largest lobby in Washington DC (the NAB) along with all of the legislation that they've already had installed.

We reason that it can't be costing DISH $12/month or Comcast $20/month for local channels but do we know whether or not they're making big money on LIL? In the case of Comcast, they may be paying money to keep the station from installing more repeaters.

The FCC dropped the ball when they allowed the local channels to no longer be considered must carry. That allowed them to over charge for their free broadcasts.

 

[Wireless Engineer]

At least compared to Fiber and Satellite:

Shockingly, Cable TV and Broadband Customer Satisfaction Is Still The Worst In America

After enduring DSL for a few years, going to cable broadband was a massive upgrade.
I have the lowest speed package they offer at $49 a month and 17Mbs
so i can surf and stream 1080 movies without a hiccup with my ROKU.
Unless something alot cheaper comes along I'm staying with Xfinity

 

[harshness]

Unless something alot cheaper comes along I'm staying with Xfinity

The issue is usually that the Comcast price goes up until they reach some sort of equilibrium. Comcast is not shy about charging whatever they can get.

 

[ncted]

After enduring DSL for a few years, going to cable broadband was a massive upgrade.
I have the lowest speed package they offer at $49 a month and 17Mbs
so i can surf and stream 1080 movies without a hiccup with my ROKU.
Unless something alot cheaper comes along I'm staying with Xfinity

So you're happy with paying $49/month for 17Mb service because that is better than DSL was. Fair enough. Clearly you are amongst their satisfied customers. I mean, they have to have a certain amount of happy customers or their score would be zero.