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.

With unlimited home wireless broadband from T-Mobile and Verizon starting to take a dent out of Cox Communications’ customer base, the cable operator is shoring up a defensive position by waiving its arbitrary data cap for existing customers signed up for gigabit speed service in select areas.

“We’re showing our appreciation by giving you free unlimited data for two years,” reads the postcard sent to one of Stop the Cap’s readers in Phoenix. “Now you can stream away without worrying about overages.”

Phoenix residents currently have a choice of up to four different providers — Cox Cable, CenturyLink, Verizon 5G Home Internet, or T-Mobile’s 5G fixed wireless home broadband. Verizon and T-Mobile both offer service with no data caps, but coverage remains selective, especially for Verizon.

Customers must receive the postcard offer and redeem it with Cox to waive their data cap, and the offer is not transferable. It applies only to subscribers with gigabit speed and after 24 months, Cox’s 1.25 TB data cap returns.

The fact Cox is willing to waive its own arbitrary data cap for marketing and competition reasons further demonstrates that artificial limits imposed on internet service have nothing to do with congestion, “fairness,” or network management.

Some financially challenged customers subscribed to legacy DSL from Frontier Communications are finding they cannot qualify for the Biden Administration’s emergency internet discount program because their internet service is too slow.

WHEC-TV’s Jennifer Lewke heard from one Rochester, N.Y., area Frontier customer frustrated to discover the phone company refused to accept their application.

The discount comes from the Emergency Broadband Benefit, a temporary program offering financially distressed consumers $50 off their monthly internet bill until the funding for the program runs out.

The roadblock comes from Frontier, which created its own rule that only customers with 25 Mbps or faster internet service subscribed to select tiers of service can qualify for the discount. That eliminates many of Frontier’s most loyal DSL customers that have stayed with the company for over a decade, despite often getting internet speeds less than 10 Mbps.

News10NBC:

John Derycke of Rochester relies on the internet for a lot.

“My [Frontier] plan is $54.99 and then they tack on a $6.99 infrastructure charge,” he told News10NBC.

[…]

“I went to the site to verify eligibility, I qualify and that was on May 11, I called Frontier and I spoke to Monique and she told me everything’s great we’re good to go,” Derycke said.

But when his bill came the next month, there was no credit.

He didn’t like what he was told when he called.

“After being put on hold for 20 minutes, I finally got back with the woman and she immediately said you don’t qualify because you have 24 MB and you need 25,” Derycke said.

He says he then asked to talk with a supervisor who basically told him the same thing.

Derycke says he searched the EBB page and information and couldn’t find a requirement that a customer have a plan with a certain level of megabits to qualify.

Based on that phone call with Frontier, Derycke would have to switch to the dominant internet provider in western New York, Charter Spectrum, just to get the $50 monthly credit. Based on current promotions, that would likely leave Derycke paying nothing for internet service until the EBB program runs out of money, likely by the end of this year. After his Spectrum new customer promotion expires, Derycke would likely have a higher internet bill than he started with from Frontier. 

A Frontier spokesperson told News10NBC Frontier might find a solution sooner than that:

“While a limited number of customers have a grandfathered Frontier product that is not eligible for the Emergency Broadband benefit, we are committed to transitioning these customers to comparable eligible offerings so they can receive the financial benefits. Frontier is working closing with our customer to resolve the situation.”

Such limitations on the EBB program do not come from the federal government. Internet providers voluntarily participate in the EBB program, and can set whatever restrictions, terms, and conditions they would like to qualify.

WHEC-TV in Rochester, N.Y. reports some Frontier customers with legacy DSL internet service may find themselves locked out of the Biden Administration’s internet benefit program. (3:20)

America’s most costly large cable internet service provider is Sparklight, formerly known as Cable One. Its internet plans are usually data-capped and it barely offers new customers a pricing break before high regular prices apply. Sparklight primarily services small cities and towns, many income-challenged, in the middle of the country. Customers do not have much to rave about, because Sparklight puts its own profits far ahead of its customers. The cable operator was among the first to slap on data caps and was the nation’s most aggressive at getting rid of costly cable television channels.

About the only thing that does move Sparklight’s pricing is the presence of a formidable competitor. In Meridian and Garden City, Ida., TDS Fiber (formerly TDS Telecom) has been bringing gigabit fiber to the home service to area residents at prices low enough to motivate Sparklight customers to abandon the cable company. That motivated Sparklight to improve their plans and lower prices.

First, let’s examine the internet rate card for ordinary Sparklight customers typically stuck choosing either the cable company or DSL from Frontier, AT&T, or Windstream:

Sparklight regular pricing nationwide

Notice the entry-level internet plan (100/10 Mbps) costs $55 a month, does not mention the $10.50/mo modem rental fee (required if you choose the company’s Wi-Fi service), an internet service surcharge of $2.75/mo (not charged in all areas), and a stingy data cap of just 350 GB, which is at least 100 GB less than what the average U.S. broadband household now consumes each month. Internet overlimit fees are $10 for each additional block of 100GB of data in excess of your allowance, up to a maximum of $50 a month. Unlimited service costs an extra $40 a month.

When you add it all up: for an unlimited (100/10 Mbps) internet service plan with in-home Wi-Fi, Sparklight charges $108.25 a month.

If you happen to live in a competitive service area, such as Meridian and Garden City, Ida., speeds are faster, prices are lower, and data caps are nowhere to be found:

Pricing for Sparklight in Meridian and Garden City, Ida.

Customers still face a $10.50/mo charge to lease a cable modem, and that $2.75/mo internet surcharge fee might also apply.

The prospect of competition could cut dramatically into company profits, which is one reason telecom companies are fiercely lobbying the Biden Administration not to fund municipal broadband projects or supply funds to a new competitor as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Plan.

In an era when cable companies love to tout increasing internet speeds, one cable company is headed in the other direction, turning the clock back by announcing dramatic cuts in upstream internet speeds beginning in mid-July.

Altice USA’s Optimum made the announcement quietly in a footnote on their website, notifying new and existing customers that change service tiers after July 12, 2021 will experience upload speeds formerly as high as 40 Mbps cut in half or more. In one instance, customers that used to get 35 Mbps for uploads will now see that speed reduced to just 5 Mbps:

Optimum’s new downgraded speed plans.

This speed change affects customers still serviced by Optimum’s legacy coaxial cable network. Parent company Altice USA has been gradually replacing that older copper wire network with an all-new fiber to the home network, but customers that live in neighborhoods not yet reached by fiber will have to live with slower upload speeds or switch to Verizon FiOS, the fiber to the home network offered by Verizon in much of Optimum’s service area in suburban New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

You would never know about Optimum’s speed downgrades unless you carefully read the fine print.