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Charter Confirms Time Warner Cable Broadband Upgrades Killed

Back in June we noted that one of Charter's first actions as owner of Time Warner Cable was to freeze that company's ongoing "Maxx" broadband upgrades. These upgrades were not only delivering faster top speeds up to 300 Mbps, but a notably overhauled improvement to the company's set top box interface. But the company has been telling company support techs and engineers that the upgrades were actually put on hold as of May 26.

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Instead of Time Warner Cable's upgrades to 300 Mbps, Charter will instead focus on expanding its own, slower options: a $60, 60 Mbps and a $100, 100 Mbps tier.

“There is, obviously, the significant amount of all-digital activity that was continuing at TWC,” Charter CFO Christopher L. Winfrey said in an earnings call with analysts. “And that will be largely put on hold as we put in the Charter all-digital strategy the beginning of next year.”

In short, customers will get slower speeds than they may have if the merger had never happened at all. But Charter defended the move by criticizing Time Warner Cable and Bright House for formerly offering too many promotions.

“Through different metrics and stages of development, we can see that TWC and more recently, Bright House had both become reliant on rate increases and retention offers, each of which has various short and long-term effects including encouraging customers to initiate more transactions,” Charter CEO Tom Rutledge said. “We’ve addressed these types of issues at Legacy Charter and we’ll do so at TWC and Bright House during the Spectrum pricing and packaging migration."

Charter customers will have a better idea if this is a step forward or a step back when Charter expands new pricing/tiers and its new Spectrum set top box into acquired territories next year.

Most recommended from 199 comments



banditws6
Shrinking Time and Distance
Premium Member
join:2001-08-18
Frisco, TX

29 recommendations

banditws6

Premium Member

Are you serious?

They would actually downgrade me from 200/20 to 100/5 and make me pay more money? You can't be serious, can you? We just got Maxx here last year and I suffered through years of promotionless high pricing and poor value from TWC for it. Charter can get F'ed.

AT&T is rolling out Gigapower in my neighborhood and I swore I would never switch to those clowns, but if Charter pulls this crap, I'm going over to the Death Star.

Hall
MVM
join:2000-04-28
Germantown, OH

21 recommendations

Hall

MVM

Gov't merger approval

Remember folks, the gov't was only going to allow this merger if it would benefit consumers. It's a shame that just weeks later, they won't hold Charter to the deal !
TelecomRFPro
join:2015-07-28
Holly Springs, NC

15 recommendations

TelecomRFPro

Member

A Step In The Wrong Direction!

The thing that surprised me most about this is that they may migrate/downgrade already established Maxx markets to a top speed 100Mbps for 100 dollars! What!!!! Rutledge is an A__hole. This merger sucks, bring back TWC!

KoRnGtL15
Premium Member
join:2007-01-04
Grants Pass, OR

12 recommendations

KoRnGtL15

Premium Member

Upgrades being downgraded

Wonder how those 300mb users feel dropping to 100mb/5mb. They are going to be furious. They just stuck it to all TWC customers. Now only 2 tier choices with high pricing. Welcome to Charter.
priceshawnm
join:2013-06-12

1 edit

12 recommendations

priceshawnm

Member

Bye bye Time Warner

I will now be taking my business over to wow as the offer download speeds up to 600Mbps in my neck of the woods. Once again, Capitalism screws over the customer.

syslock
Premium Member
join:2007-02-03
La La Land

12 recommendations

syslock

Premium Member

Going Backwards

Charters exec staff are very old fashion. No forward thinking.
All the TW IT talent that telecommutes, are about gone. Its meat in the seat in the office or your out of there.
This is not a company looking to push the cutting edge and advance.

karlmarx
join:2006-09-18
Moscow, ID

10 recommendations

karlmarx

Member

Translation from marketing speak

Since Altice has purchased us, we have realized we are not raping the customers enough. That is going to change. We are now offering lower speeds + higher prices + worse support, just because 'we can'. Guess what sheeple, there's a new sheriff in town, and he's going to make you pay and pay, and then pay some more. Expect a plethora of new hidden fees, lower caps, longer install times, and overall a far worse experience. Workers can expect to be laid off and outsourced to india, because we can pay them $12.00 a day instead of $12.00 an hour. That means more profit for us, less satisfaction for you. Welcome to monopoly.

wavelength
CyberSec Pro
join:2015-05-22
Raleigh, NC

9 recommendations

wavelength

Member

My money will be walking...

Nothing like a downgrade... We were thinking about possibly staying with Charter, but with Google Fiber trenching just down the street in my neighborhood, Charter will be losing us as a customer when Google Fiber is available.
ham3843
join:2015-01-15
USA

9 recommendations

ham3843

Member

Now it is expensive internet or NONE at all from Charter.

At least TWC offered value oriented tiers for customers that didn't need a lot of speed and have budgets to keep. Now you get expensive 60/4 service or you don't get service from Charter at all.

I chose not to pay Charter for faster speeds I don't need, now instead of them getting a reasonable amount of money from me they get NONE at all.

How's that working out for you Tom Rutledge, I am not the only one that told you to
take your one tier/price fits all and stick it where the sun don't shine.

trparky
Premium Member
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH
·AT&T U-Verse

6 recommendations

trparky

Premium Member

Really all I want is...

To be honest, I don't give a crap about download speeds in excess of 100 Mbps. 50 Mbps is more than enough for me.

What I want is more upload! 5 Mbps is not nearly enough!

Now if they provided more upload with their 50 Mbps plan it would be a whole lot better.
etaadmin
join:2002-01-17
united state

1 edit

6 recommendations

etaadmin

Member

Un upgraded users can complain

by downgrading to lower tiers while they last.

Anon86887
@rr.com

6 recommendations

Anon86887

Anon

Everyday Low Price!


Thomas Rutledge
Click for full size
So whats gonna happen to the low income tier? I don;t need super high speed just a internet connection at a reasonable price. Charter doesn't have a low tier that F***** UP. they only gonna have 60mbps for 60$ and 100mbps for 100$, they should just sell people a 1$ per mbps package those A**hole.


Charter
host image

buzz_4_20
join:2003-09-20
Dover, NH
(Software) Sophos UTM Home Edition
Ruckus R310

6 recommendations

buzz_4_20

Member

My Money will also...

oh yeah... I don't have other options. I'm just stuck with this BS.
And here I was excited seeing a TWC Contractor working on some new fiber runs towards my neck of the woods.
Guess it's a good thing I didn't get and itchy trigger find an buy a MAXX ready modem. Guess my SB6141 will work for the foreseeable future.
SDHank8
Premium Member
join:2005-04-10
Escondido, CA

5 recommendations

SDHank8

Premium Member

San Diego

Parts of San Diego did get MAXX speeds and the Time Warner website is officially showing them as available for purchase. I'll be very, very disappointed if/when my 200/20 drops to 100/5. No, actually I'll be really pissed off. But since that's still better than than the only alternative currently available - AT&T - I suppose I'll just have to live with it. Ugh. Fargin bastages!
alexintexas
join:2003-01-11
San Antonio, TX
Netgear CM500
TP-Link Archer C7
Obihai OBi200

4 recommendations

alexintexas

Member

Charter churn in 2017

Well if charter is stead fast on rolling Charter's Plans across its acquired networks Charter will loose my business!!

I pay total $46.88 for 100/10 a month, a jump to $100+fees a month is a no go for me and 60 Mbps plan is overpriced and will barely handle a 100% streaming home..

Decisions decisions decisions
existenz
join:2014-02-12

4 recommendations

existenz

Member

Will be interesting to see if Charter changes pricing in Google Fiber...

markets with TWC. In KC, TWC is 50/5/$30, 100/10/$40, 200/20/$50, 300/30/$60 and they are managing pretty well considering there are now 5 Gigabit players in KC market. The $30 50/5 is a pretty good deal for those looking to save. Will Charter budge?

»What happens when you have multi Gigabit ISP competition?
Chuck_IV
join:2003-11-18
Connecticut

4 recommendations

Chuck_IV

Member

The sad part about all this is...

that TWC has tech that blows the doors off what Charter offers, yet Charter is more than happy to sweep it under the rug.

If Charter was actually smart, they would be focusing on rolling out what TWC already has, to all Charter subs. This would be a HUGE upgrade for all Charter subs and probably save Charter some money in the long run as they could drop their vaporware "World Box" development. But the morons that be over at Charter(I'm speaking directly at you Rutledge) are clueless.
me1212
join:2008-11-20
Lees Summit, MO

3 recommendations

me1212

Member

that sucks, glad the kc area got their 300m upgrades already then

jerks

Elector
join:2000-05-25
Albany, NY

3 recommendations

Elector

Member

Deja Vu or nothing new

As you can see this will bear out the Albany Times Union's blog as to what speeds New Yorkers can expect.

And yes that 300/mb speed will be available on December 31, 2019 just as agreed.
The public has been screwed over once again.