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It's no surprise that cable companies charge lower prices for broadband when they face competition from fiber-to-the-home services. But an article yesterday by Stop the Cap provides a good example of how dramatically promotional prices for Charter's Spectrum Internet service can vary from one street to the next.
In this example, Charter charges $20 more per month for slower speeds on the street where it faces no serious competition. When customers in two areas purchase the same speeds, the customer on the street without competition could have to pay $40 more per month and would have their promotional rates expire after only one year instead of two.
Stop the Cap said it examined promotional offers to new customers in the metro Rochester, New York, market, "where Spectrum faces token competition from Frontier's slow speed DSL service" and more robust competition in limited areas from Greenlight Networks' fiber service. Greenlight fiber is available in 23 percent of Rochester, while Charter cable is available to homes throughout the city, according to BroadbandNow. Greenlight prices start at $50 per month for 500Mbps.
"Charter's offers are address-sensitive," Stop the Cap founder Phillip Dampier wrote. "The cable company knows its competition and almost exactly where those competitors offer service. That is why the company asks for your service address before it quotes you pricing."
Am I the only one that's appalled at the Upload speeds? From the linked BroadbandNow page for Spectrum: Speeds up to:1,000 Mbps Download, 35 Mbps Upload
Previously:
Charter Must Pay $19 Million for Tricking Customers Into Switching ISPs
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 05 2021, @05:19PM (4 children)
Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I did pull it out of my ass. But, I thought I laid out my reasoning well enough to understand. The most affluent parts of town see every internet provider in the region installing hardware, and competing for business, while less affluent parts of town are left at the mercy of whichever monopoly comes along.
You figure out exactly what "less affluent" means. Poor folk of course, but there is some evidence that poor black folk might be poorer than poor white folk. It's the black folk who live in those inner city slums after all. White folk migrate out to the suburbs.
As for profiteering - it's funny how there are laws against it, when it suits government to enforce those laws.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07 2021, @11:30PM (3 children)
"Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I did pull it out of my ass."
Which is why none of it is true.
I'm pretty sure that the people that live in Palos Verdes and Rolling Hills pay more for Internet and for water than people that live in cities. I'm certain because I've known people that live there and talked to them and I know how much water costs in some of those areas. It's WAY more expensive because it's expensive to get water up in those areas and more difficult to get anything up there. Plus, for whatever reason, these people don't like cell phone towers in their areas and so it's hard to get cell phone reception in these areas.
Stop making things up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 08 2021, @12:55AM (2 children)
Ahhhh, first world privileged white people problems. It's expensive to get water to the top of a hill in the desert.
No worries, though. Soon, there will be no water, and your friends can move to someplace that has water - and internet.
https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=49138¬e=&title=Las+Vegas%E2%80%99s+New+Strategy+for+Tackling+Drought+%E2%80%93+Banning+%E2%80%98Useless+Grass%E2%80%99 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 08 2021, @05:41AM (1 child)
So make things up and when you get proven wrong change the subject. This is why I hate the left.
Also Chicago's mayor refuses interviews from white reporters. Imagine if a white mayor refused interviews from a black reporter. How is this not racist.
Also didn't Biden undo Trump's executive order allowing us to purchase pharmaceuticals from Canada. Biden talked about reducing prices but what has he done to do so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 10 2021, @02:14PM
(same poster)
Anyways let's bring this to its logical conclusion. If this affects 'minority' communities more than it affects affluent ones perhaps it's because the minority communities are the ones that keep voting for the wrong politicians and those politicians keep limiting competition in their communities for whatever reason. Are you saying that minorities are less able to vote for good politicians than affluent people, that perhaps they're poor because they make bad decisions and that includes the bad decisions with respect to whom they elect?