Spectrum is a cable internet company that used to be called Time Warner Cable and is one of the largest in the United States: As many people can have a broadband connection thanks to this company, many have also complained about poor service in recent years. But really, what is it that appears to go afoul with Spectrum’s internet service, is it?
Frequent Connection Drops
Spectrum’s Internet service Provider quality is a significant problem among its customers, with many citing constant interruptions to their service. It appears that the data link layer occasionally loses communication and is temporarily unavailable for a few minutes before re-establishing the link. This may occur several times within a day or a week, and often it is difficult to assign any specific reason to it. Disconnection halts any online content consumption that you might be in at that particular time; for example, watching videos or playing video games or doing video conferences. As we have seen from the Spectrum technicians themselves, identifying what leads to short but repetitive connection interruptions can be challenging.
This was expected to occur at slow speeds during peak traffic hours or when the flow of traffic was congested.
Although Spectrum promises high speed such as 200MB, many of it’s consumers never get to achieve that speed, particularly during the peak hours of network consumption in the evening and during the weekends. ISP networks are shared connections, which means that neighborhoods with heavy traffic are effectively experiencing crowded internet ‘arteries,’ which can become clogged. When many users are watching movies on Netflix or playing games at night, available bandwidth is taken, leaving most customers with severely slow internet speeds.
Poor Customer Service Reputation
The company has been performing dismally in Spectrum Customer Service assessment surveys, and this is still evident from Spectrum’s results. Their call centers seem to have little employees and technicians arrive late or cancel appointments for installations and services, among others. Sometimes, one just wants to talk to a customer service agent by call or through a chat and such services come with a wait time of up to 30 minutes. The service reps may not have enough knowledge on how to handle connectivity issues comprehensively and effectively, in terms of fixing them.
Unexpected Price Hikes
As most cable companies do, Spectrum just takes money from the customers every year with no warning as they give their existing subscribers minimal benefits for them to pay the extra amount. The promotional offers that used to be available end, rental fees for equipment increase, the price of internet packages goes up, and generally service fees and taxes rise after some time. It is common-sense knowledge that long-term customers have to pay tens of dollars more each month than the initial cost of subscription they agreed upon.
Availability of services in certain areas, mostly in rural regions, is also a drawback.
The only way you might get internet from Spectrum is if you live in metropolitan places as the company currently does not offer internet services in rural areas. Their infrastructure largely focuses on the population density areas, the great urban areas and the suburbs. Some rural areas are stuck with old DSL lines, which are often fast enough for most tasks. In some cases, even satellite Internet service providers fail to access some of these areas. Therefore, many of the United States households effectively have no decision-making power over receiving fast and reliable internet since Spectrum coverage is limited. If that meant going further afield and opening more outlets in small towns, they could gain a multitude of loyal customers.
Computer and other peripheral rentals and data limitations
If renting a modem/router from Spectrum, then the user has limited choice in the customization of the device and how it operates compared to purchasing a device. Renting also has one more periodical cost, which is not seen in owning, especially when leasing residential properties. And Spectrum has adopted data thresholds in some markets, which provides usage restrictions regarding how much high-speed data consumers can use monthly before attracting overage charges. Integrated conclusions show that both, renting hardware and data limits lead to the growth of the company’s revenues.
What About the Competition?
Though customers may have a lot to complain about with large ISPs such as Spectrum in terms of various aspects of performance and affordability, the choices available to them are most of the time severely limited. In many of the markets, the cable infrastructure ends up being a near monopoly in the regions in which it operates. That is why, if the DSL internet available from phone companies such as AT&T or CenturyLink is not satisfactory, Spectrum becomes the only one standing, providing a bearable broadband connection to an entire community. If there is no competition, then there is no pressure on the cable company that dominates in the region to fix the issues with service.
Well, those are some of the most prominent issues that continue to plague Spectrum its quite captive audience, particularly residential and business internet users. High vulnerability in customer service, lack of clarity with bills, corporate support, gradual increase of prices, and spotty availability in rural areas make the ISP giant with ample room for improvement. Here is one can only hope that improved competition at some point will force Spectrum to focus on their shortcomings and provide customers with better value in terms of Internet plans and services. Spectrum has a very poor reputation which could be addressed if the company were to increase the monthly fees it charges customers through better accountability and presentation of their services.
Call (844) 533-0888 to get a new Spectrum connection now!
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