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Cable One will rebrand itself Sparklight starting in the summer of 2019, reflecting a refocus on selling broadband service.
“We are very excited for this evolution to our new brand and the next chapter in our story,” Cable One CEO Julie Laulis said in a statement. “Over the past several years we have evolved and our new brand will better convey who we are and what we stand for – a company committed to providing our communities with connectivity that enriches their world.”
The corporate name will remain Cable One, but like Charter’s Spectrum or Comcast’s XFINITY, customers will primarily know the company under its new brand.
Cable One provides service in these areas.
Cable One has just over 800,000 customers in 21 states nationwide, primarily in the South. The company’s decision to hold the line on the wholesale cost of its cable television package resulted in the company dropping Viacom-owned cable networks, which caused a significant number of customers to cancel service. Today, nearly 60% of its customers are broadband-only.
The cable company has also been criticized for dramatically raising the price of its internet service and for its regime of data caps, which limits most of its customers to 300 GB of usage a month. Customers who exceed their usage allowance three times during a calendar year “may be required to upgrade to an appropriate plan for data usage.”
Cable One currently offers four broadband options:
- Starter Plan (100/3 Mbps) $55/mo with up to 300 GB of usage
- Family Plan (150/5 Mbps) $80/mo with up to 600 GB of usage
- Streamer and Gamer Plan (200/10 Mbps) $105/mo with up to 900 GB of usage
- GigaONE (1000/50 Mbps) $175/mo with up to 1,500 GB of usage
Under the rebrand, the company will “streamline” its residential broadband options and pricing, which will likely push customers towards a more expensive, higher-speed tier. Sparklight will also offer unlimited data on any of its revamped tiers for an additional monthly fee. Both measures are likely to boost revenue, and customer bills.
“As consumer data consumption continues to increase, multi-device households become the norm, and businesses expect a broad suite of services, Sparklight will continue to evolve with our customers by offering innovative options to fit their needs, while providing helpful, proactive and personal local service,” Laulis said.
Look at their prices. Absolutely ludicrous compared to many companies, especially Charter Spectrum. I pay $60 a month for 100/10 with unlimited data. Even unbundled it’s still only $66. What kind of joke are they selling? 300gigs for me is 1 weeks worth usually of data. Plus I have a free 3.1 modem from Spectrum, which most companies charge $10 or more for. See NY, Charter is pretty good.
Question is, when will C1 start doing DOCSIS 3.1, so they can afford to have higher tiers. They could double speeds on all but the top tier. Particularly if they have fewer TV channels soaking up bandwidth :p
Lack of competition equals high prices. If I had to guess they are in undeserved areas so they can of course do what they want. The map tells the story. No large metros generally equals no real competition. Just another argument for municipal broadband for these smaller towns. The state and federal government really need to get on making it easier for municipal broadband to be a thing. Of course that is not going to happen in this current political climate.
You hit the nail on the head. I live in Aransas Pass TX and they are the only internet provider there. It’s not a small area-there’s a lot of industrial businesses there but I’m sure they get a price break-consumers do not and we get hit or miss service. It’s such a shame how we are being taken.
In our town the only other provider is DSL. It got expensive enough to justify switching to CableOne. I’m not looking forward to this change. Verizon is installing 5G towers in my area; I hope I can switch to using just that some day.
These prices are insane but like me I live in an apartment complex that only allows for cable1 and well if I want internet guess what I’m stuck. I wish there was a wireless internet company that I could get without all this BS of having to pay so much money. There are enough sales here in West Texas that can allow for decent pricing. But like the rent everything here is gouged!!!
Cable one, now Sparklight, is by FAR the worst company we have ever had to deal with! We recently moved, and only had 2 options for internet providers. We made the wrong choice! Month 1 was fine, we paid $45 for our bill. The next month was ridiculous! I saw our bill had gone up to $86! So, we called to inquire why it had almost doubled. They said we had gone over our plan, and that was $10. She said because of that it had gone up to $65. So they doubled that and charged us $20 instead of… Read more »