Charter Spectrum Cable/Internet coming "Soon"

david_jr

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Pub Member / Supporter
May 7, 2007
2,698
990
Hancock, MA - The Berkshires
As I have mentioned in a few threads on this site over the last couple of years my town is getting broadband internet as a result of a taxpayer funded grant by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for broadband internet in underserved (by broadband) Western Mass. Now Western Mass has many definitions. If you live in Boston then Worcester is Western Mass. If you live in Worcester, anything west of I-495 is Western Mass. Western Mass really begins where I-84 and I-90 intersect (almost) and goes to the NY State Line or approximately the western 2/3 of the state. While there are major portions of that territory that are civilization (think the I-91 Corridor of the Connecticut River Valley, UMASS Amherst, etc.), most small towns in that area tend to be rural and sparsely populated leading to a lack of cable TV suitors back when cable TV became popular, hence when internet became popular there was no infrastructure in place to deliver it to most of the small towns of Western Mass.

That's where the Mass Broadband Institute (MBI) got involved in building a taxpayer funded "middle mile" fiberoptic backbone throughout rural Western Mass, hooking up police and fire stations, libraries, schools and hospitals along the way and hoping that "last mile" internet providers would swoop in and build out the last mile so that rural Western Mass could have high speed internet. Well apparently towns that weren't appealing to build out a cable system in in the 80's also weren't really appealing to build out an internet ISP service in the 2010's from an investor standpoint. So the taxpayers sweetened the pot with some more taxpayer funds and each unserved town got a special grant for a last mile company to bid on for a buildout in the respective rural towns.

My town, Hancock (named for the governor and first signer of the Declaration of Independence, and home of Hancock Shaker Village, a favorite stop for Bob Vila when he had his TV shows), had exactly one suitor bid for our grant and Charter/Spectrum was the lucky winner in a closely contested dead heat photo finish race. That was about 2 years ago. I was originally asked to sit on the cable committee in town, but was later asked to step down after missing a few meetings due to work conflicts. Those guys!! So I hadn't really heard much since then and checked in with a friend of mine on the committee from time to time and found out that an agreement had finally been finalized and the town was waiting for a vote to sign an agreement with Charter/Spectrum.

Well last week we had a special town meeting to vote on the proposal from Charter/Spectrum. There were two representatives from Charter/Spectrum at the meeting. We were told by one of the representatives that they will be building out a mostly 100% fiber-to-the-home network and they will be serving 96% of residences in town under the contract. Some homes will be too far past the last pole on their road and will not fall within the 96%, but will be able to connect at their own expense. Also there are a few roads in our town that are only accessible from our neighbor state to our west, New York State and residents on those roads will not be served by fiber, but rather traditional copper coax. We were also told that there will be three tiers of service available starting at 100 Mbps, 400 Mbps and Gigabit. They said that pricing would follow their national model and there is no minimum time commitment for service, basically month-to-month. In searching I was able to find pricing for the low tier, but was unable to find pricing for the two higher tiers. I was wondering if anyone here knows what the pricing structure for Charter/Spectrum is? And is anyone familiar with Charter/Spectrum's 100% fiber-to-the-home service as far as reliability and performance? We do plan to keep our DISH Network TV package.
 
I have Charter/Spectrum internet only, at 100/11, and the monthly price JUST went up to $65.99/month. That's the regular, NO discount price. Before that I had their 60/4, and price was the same ($64.99 then) This is NOT their fiber service, as far as I know.

Their internet service is superior, IMO. Their cable tv service SUCKS donkey balls! Though, if it's all being installed new, you guys would probably get all the latest state of the art equipment. When I had them for cable a few years back after coming from Dish's 722k, their dvr was like going 10 years back in time. In other words, Dishes 722k was like a futuristic starship, versus Spectrums 1930's Flash Gordon firecracker buzzer rocket Motorola POS dvr...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jhon69
My wife has already laid down the law that we are not leaving DISH for TV. She used some spectrum (TWC) equipment at a relative's house and said it was the worst equipment she has ever used for TV. We have had DISH since 97 so she hasn't really used much else. Apparently it left an impression on her though. We are mainly interested in the internet because our DSL while improved since they upgraded us to 15 Mbps has inane dropouts when least convenient for no good reason. You can go from 15 to 0! Thanks for the input.
 
My wife has already laid down the law that we are not leaving DISH for TV. She used some spectrum (TWC) equipment at a relative's house and said it was the worst equipment she has ever used for TV. We have had DISH since 97 so she hasn't really used much else. Apparently it left an impression on her though. We are mainly interested in the internet because our DSL while improved since they upgraded us to 15 Mbps has inane dropouts when least convenient for no good reason. You can go from 15 to 0! Thanks for the input.
You have to get cable to get a decent internet price

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!
 
For copper, the prices are:

Standard - 100 x 10 or 200 x 10 is $66
Ultra - 400 x 20 is $91
Gig - 940 x 35 is $126

Those are a la carte rates, there is a $6 bundling discount if you opt for cable TV service. If you have Ultra or Gig, Charter will provide a wifi router to you at no additional cost if you want it. Wifi is $5 more with Standard internet.

Not sure about fiber pricing or packages. But what is happening in your area is exactly inline with what my manager friend told me. Most, if not all new build outs will be fiber based. It looks like you are right on the state line, your service should originate out of Albany. For example, I believe Pittsfield is part of the Albany/NYCAP system.
 
  • Like
Reactions: david_jr
For copper, the prices are:

Standard - 100 x 10 or 200 x 10 is $66
Ultra - 400 x 20 is $91
Gig - 940 x 35 is $126

Those are a la carte rates, there is a $6 bundling discount if you opt for cable TV service. If you have Ultra or Gig, Charter will provide a wifi router to you at no additional cost if you want it. Wifi is $5 more with Standard internet.

Not sure about fiber pricing or packages. But what is happening in your area is exactly inline with what my manager friend told me. Most, if not all new build outs will be fiber based. It looks like you are right on the state line, your service should originate out of Albany. For example, I believe Pittsfield is part of the Albany/NYCAP system.

Do NOT go with their combined wifi/router!

Use their free modem, and buy your own router you need for your equipment. For home, you do NOT need anything faster than the 100/10~, especially if you are used to much lower speeds. I have a Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 R7000 router. Works very well, and has both 2.4ghz and 5ghz signals. I use 5ghz for my Roku in another room, and my personal laptop. My wife's laptop is 2.4ghz only, and everything else is hardwired ethernet.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jhon69
Do NOT go with their combined wifi/router!

Use their free modem, and buy your own router you need for your equipment. For home, you do NOT need anything faster than the 100/10~, especially if you are used to much lower speeds. I have a Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 R7000 router. Works very well, and has both 2.4ghz and 5ghz signals. I use 5ghz for my Roku in another room, and my personal laptop. My wife's laptop is 2.4ghz only, and everything else is hardwired ethernet.

We currently have the combined wifi/router on our Consolidated Communications DSL service. They said it is their newest model and we can't bring our own. Not sure if it is responsible for our occasional dropouts or not. The 400X20 at $91 is about $20 less than I am paying for internet plus phone land line. We rarely use the land line anymore, but wife does not want to give it up because some of her family still calls her on it now and again. I would be open to IP based phone solution with the new bandwidth and port our number if that is a possibility. So you're saying their free modem is decent?
 
For copper, the prices are:

Standard - 100 x 10 or 200 x 10 is $66
Ultra - 400 x 20 is $91
Gig - 940 x 35 is $126

Those are a la carte rates, there is a $6 bundling discount if you opt for cable TV service. If you have Ultra or Gig, Charter will provide a wifi router to you at no additional cost if you want it. Wifi is $5 more with Standard internet.

Not sure about fiber pricing or packages. But what is happening in your area is exactly inline with what my manager friend told me. Most, if not all new build outs will be fiber based. It looks like you are right on the state line, your service should originate out of Albany. For example, I believe Pittsfield is part of the Albany/NYCAP system.

They said "national pricing model" at the meeting so I don't know if they have a copper and a fiber pricing model. Wouldn't think so. Yes Pittsfield and the rest of the US 7 corridor from Vermont line to CT line were all Time Warner Cable out of Albany on NYCAP. Pretty much no cable TV off the corridor east or west until now. My parents in Troy, NY about 25 miles west of me are on NYCAP also. I guess we will have to give up our email addresses we've had with the phone company for I forgot how many years now and get NYCAP.RR.COM like the rest of Spectrum customers? That will be strange and a tall task to change email addresses everywhere!
 
We currently have the combined wifi/router on our Consolidated Communications DSL service. They said it is their newest model and we can't bring our own. Not sure if it is responsible for our occasional dropouts or not. The 400X20 at $91 is about $20 less than I am paying for internet plus phone land line. We rarely use the land line anymore, but wife does not want to give it up because some of her family still calls her on it now and again. I would be open to IP based phone solution with the new bandwidth and port our number if that is a possibility. So you're saying their free modem is decent?

Their free modem is great, works perfectly, costs nothing (no monthly fee) and there's no reason anymore to buy your own.
 
  • Like
Reactions: david_jr
Do NOT go with their combined wifi/router!

Use their free modem, and buy your own router you need for your equipment. For home, you do NOT need anything faster than the 100/10~, especially if you are used to much lower speeds. I have a Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 R7000 router. Works very well, and has both 2.4ghz and 5ghz signals. I use 5ghz for my Roku in another room, and my personal laptop. My wife's laptop is 2.4ghz only, and everything else is hardwired ethernet.

In D3.1 areas, Charter generally does not give out combo modem/router gateways anymore. They give out 32 x 8 D3.1 eMTAs, and if you request one they will give you separate wireless router. Everything is Spectrum branded but modems are sourced from Ubee, Technicolor and Hitron. Routers are sourced from Arris, Askey and Sagemcom. The Wireless routers are AC Wave 2, with an AX one on tap. Looking at the specs and what others have reported, they really aren’t bad routers. If I didn’t have advanced needs like dual WAN, VPN tunnels and more advanced content filtering, I wouldn’t mind having one.

Wifi is not important to me at all. The only thing that I have that utilizes wireless is my collection of IoT junk. Anything that can be hardwired, is hardwired. I have a Cisco wired router and Cisco Wireless Access Point and can get about 500 Mbps on wifi when on 5 GHz. No problem maxing out the full 900+ when hardwired.

We currently have the combined wifi/router on our Consolidated Communications DSL service. They said it is their newest model and we can't bring our own. Not sure if it is responsible for our occasional dropouts or not. The 400X20 at $91 is about $20 less than I am paying for internet plus phone land line. We rarely use the land line anymore, but wife does not want to give it up because some of her family still calls her on it now and again. I would be open to IP based phone solution with the new bandwidth and port our number if that is a possibility. So you're saying their free modem is decent?

If you want internet and phone from Spectrum ask about SPP2. With SPP2 phone is $10 a month when added to an internet plan, and there are no extra taxes/fees with Spectrum Voice. Spectrum Voice doesn't have all the features other VoIP providers have, but I've always found it reliable and you don't have to mess around with QoS.
 
In D3.1 areas, Charter generally does not give out combo modem/router gateways anymore. They give out 32 x 8 D3.1 eMTAs, and if you request one they will give you separate wireless router. Everything is Spectrum branded but modems are sourced from Ubee, Technicolor and Hitron. Routers are sourced from Arris, Askey and Sagemcom. The Wireless routers are AC Wave 2, with an AX one on tap. Looking at the specs and what others have reported, they really aren’t bad routers. If I didn’t have advanced needs like dual WAN, VPN tunnels and more advanced content filtering, I wouldn’t mind having one.

Wifi is not important to me at all. The only thing that I have that utilizes wireless is my collection of IoT junk. Anything that can be hardwired, is hardwired. I have a Cisco wired router and Cisco Wireless Access Point and can get about 500 Mbps on wifi when on 5 GHz. No problem maxing out the full 900+ when hardwired.



If you want internet and phone from Spectrum ask about SPP2. With SPP2 phone is $10 a month when added to an internet plan, and there are no extra taxes/fees with Spectrum Voice. Spectrum Voice doesn't have all the features other VoIP providers have, but I've always found it reliable and you don't have to mess around with QoS.

We have an Arris wifi router now with Consolidated. We do use wifi in the house for 4 laptops and 5 of us have phones that use wifi too. Of course when we have guests they all want to use it as well. Before the Consolidated forced router I always was partial to Netgear routers. I also have a Gigabit Netgear switch and have a couple Cat5e runs to every room in the house and 4 runs to my entertainment closet. I wish I had used Cat6 when I wired it, but oh well. If we get the Spectrum phone add on does that still include a free modem? I am probably still a year out from having access in reality so things could certainly change by then, but I appreciate everyone's input.
 
***

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 2)