Effective March 18, 2022 the cost of Spectrum’s “Broadcast TV Fee,” charged to cable television customers, will increase $3, reaching an unprecedented $21 a month, just to cover the carriage of local, over the air television stations. The Broadcast TV Fee was last raised to $17.99 in June 2021. The summer before that, the fee increased by nearly $3 a month as well. This means the average surcharge for local, over the air stations, is going up an average of $36 a year at Spectrum.

Equipment fees are also increasing by another $1 a month, to $9.99 per HD set-top cable box. Spectrum has been regularly increasing the cost of equipment rentals since its 2016 merger with Time Warner Cable. Charter Communications argued that one of the merger benefits was a promised reduction in the monthly cost of set-top equipment. Immediately after the merger deal was approved, the company charged $4.99 a month for each set-top box. But rates began rising almost immediately. In mid-2017, the rental price was raised to $5.99 a month, and in early 2018, it increased another $1 a month for $6.99. In 2020, the price went up another $1 to $7.99 a month, then yet another $1 to $8.99 a month in June 2021. This spring, the price rises another dollar to $9.99 a month.

New customers in competitive service areas can pay less for gigabit service, but anyone can get the higher speed tier for a $19.99 “activation fee.”

Charter Communications has slashed its arbitrary installation and activation fee for Spectrum’s gigabit broadband service to $19.99 for new and upgrading customers.

For years, customers paid fees ranging from $49.99 to $199.99 just to sign up for gigabit internet speed. Ongoing service pricing ranges from a promotional price of $89.99 a month in competitive service areas to $134.99 a month for broadband-only service where competition is lacking or non-existent.

Real world speed tests show Spectrum Internet Gig performing at around 940 Mbps for downloads and just shy of 40 Mbps for uploads.

Current customers might be able to order the speed upgrade online through Spectrum’s customer service portal. No service call is required.

Some customers might need a new modem to take advantage of gigabit speed. Spectrum can swap out existing modems at their cable store locations or by mail.

Charter Communications this week reduced prices on multi-line unlimited data plans.

A customer with one line of unlimited data service will continue to pay $45 a month for the plan, but each additional line of unlimited data will now cost $29.99 a month — a $15 reduction from Spectrum’s old pricing.

Xfinity Mobile, Comcast’s similar wireless service, already cut multi-line unlimited pricing to $30 a month back in April 2021.

Rutledge

Charter CEO Thomas Rutledge told investors last spring that he wanted to drive customer growth in Charter’s mobile phone offering by slashing mobile service pricing.

“Our goal is to do the same with mobile in our service area as we did with wireline voice, where we made Charter the predominant wireline phone carrier by reducing consumer telephone bills by over 70%, meaning Charter can grow for a long time because we remain under-penetrated and our growth will reduce customer costs,” Rutledge said.

For several years, Charter charged most bundled customers $10 a month for a flat-rate, unlimited long distance home phone line. The company raised prices $3 a month for landline service earlier this year, but claims it still delivers significant savings over traditional landline service.

Both Charter and Xfinity Mobile operate their wireless mobile services using a combination of Wi-Fi calling and roaming on Verizon’s 4G and 5G networks. Customers must agree to bundle home broadband service to get the lowest mobile pricing. If a customer drops internet service, mobile pricing increases $20/mo per line.

Charter’s new pricing undercuts T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon:

Service pricing for two-line unlimited data plans

• Spectrum Mobile: $75/mo
• T-Mobile: $105/mo
• AT&T: $125/mo
• Verizon: $130/mo

A dispute between Charter Communications and Roku over compensating the set-top box maker for distributing the Spectrum TV app in the Roku app store is over after a nine-month impasse that kept new Roku users from accessing the cable company’s streaming TV package.

“Charter Communications and Roku have reached a mutually beneficial agreement to renew distribution of the Spectrum TV App on the Roku platform,” a joint statement announced. “As a result of the renewal, the Spectrum TV App is now available for download from the Roku channel store. We are pleased to renew our partnership and offer this great streaming experience to our shared customers.”

The dispute began when Charter turned down Roku’s demands for an undisclosed form of compensation in return for distributing the Spectrum TV app. Roku removed the app from its app store, but allowed existing versions already downloaded to continue working. The dispute annoyed Spectrum TV customers that found they could not install the streaming TV app on new Roku devices. Roku has at least 54 million active users in the United States. Charter’s solution to cord-cutting is heavily reliant on streaming a budget-priced TV package over independent set-top devices like Roku.

The two companies did not discuss specifics of their final settlement agreement. The Spectrum TV app should be back on Roku’s channel app store today.

Early this morning, Charter Communications quietly raised rates by $3 on their digital home phone service, Spectrum Voice.

Offered as a $9.99 a-la-carte add-on service for several years, Spectrum Voice still perennially lost customers cutting the cord on wired home phone lines. According to Charter’s latest financial results released on January 29, Charter lost 103,000 Spectrum Voice customers during the fourth quarter of 2020 and 148,000 customers over the full year.

The new $12.99 rate applies to new bundled subscribers beginning today, but existing customers will continue to pay $9.99. An additional home phone line (limit one) is also available for an extra $19.99/month. Customers only subscribing to home phone service from Spectrum will pay $29.99 a month.

Spectrum Voice is a managed Voice over IP phone service offering unlimited local and long distance calling to the United States, Canada, Guam, Mexico, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Subscribers also receive a generous package of calling features including: Voicemail, 3-Way Calling, Accept Selected Callers, Block 3rd Party Charges, Block 900/976 Calls, Block Anonymous Calls, Block Collect Calls, Block International Calls, Block Outbound Caller ID, Block Unwanted Callers, Caller ID, Call Waiting, Call Waiting with Caller ID, Forward All Calls, Forward Calls When Busy, Forward Calls When No Answer, Forward Selected Calls, Repeat Dialing, Return Call, Simultaneous Ring, Speed Dial and VIP Ring. The company also recently introduced a new call blocking service designed to limit robocallers and telemarketers.