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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: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @07:47PM (5 children)
... that if the story was "Charter is charging more in Republican neighborhoods than in Democratic ones", the people complaining would completely reverse their positions and be wildly enthusiastic about Charter's behavior.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @09:27PM
Well, we can't help if you can't help but think up stupid straw man scenarios.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 06 2021, @04:22AM
They do, but it usually sounds something like "If you hicks want to live out in the back of nowhere, you can make do with dialup."
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @05:44AM (2 children)
Sadly, rural areas do have worse internet and... they would still rather fuck over teh libs than get summa dat sweet infrastructure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07 2021, @03:16AM (1 child)
How do the tiny number of people in rural areas manage to fuck things up for you? Bourgoies prick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07 2021, @02:40PM
Mostly because the Senate grants them power at an incredible ratio.
Wyoming/Population
578,759 (2019)
California/Population
39.51 million (2019)
That means that a rural voter of Wyoming has about 80 times the Senate power of a voter in California (yes, I realize my rounding is favorable to my argument, 40m to 0.5m).