I could opt out but i'm building a collection at this point
This is the best thing to do. Let them waste their money on printed, mailed ads, and use it to taunt them on the internet and expose how they badger and milk their cattle customers.
Not very environmentally friendly. I just send it all back, then they need to waste space and personnel on sorting their own junk.
I feel this is the most environmentally friendly thing to do in my experience because it was the only thing that stopped me from being spammed by Comcast, former house owners, etc. it's amazing how quick businesses will stop sending you junk mail when you start sending it back.
chad
lol, I’ve done this, multiple times. the only thing that has changed was that my name was replaced by “Residential Consumer” for the subsequent spam.
Yup, and in my case they started sending door-to-door salespeople. They're spending all the money to kill Google Fiber where I'm at.
Which only works if you have a product that doesn't suck. They should spend more money building their network out so it isn't 2002-era DSL oversubscribed 😂
Oh, is that how I triggered that?
It was like having a clingy boyfriend for a while.
This shouldn’t have made me laugh so much.
Call the number and ask for a pre paid return envelope to send a signed contract with.
Then fill the return envelope with all this crap.
Now they have paid 4 times for junk mailing you and they pay to toss out their own trash.
chaotic good, nice
"We don't need your signature, it can be one over the phone. Let's do it now"
The house is held in a trust so I need a physical document to sign for accounting reasons.
Spectrum still sends that much spam even if you are a customer already.
No, i dont want your tv bundle i literally havent had any desire to watch cable tv for over a decade please stop asking!
Fiber internet gang rise up! I would very much enjoy the death of spectrum
Yeah i went from a speed of 10 mbps upload to a speed of 300 mbps upload thanks to fiber
There is an actual technical reason for coax networks not being able to provide symmetrical speeds. It has to do with what frequencies (channels) are dedicated to data uplink, data downlink, and cable TV. Cable TV is still the cash cow for coax providers, and installing appropriate channel splitters network-wide to reallocate higher-bandwidth channels to data uplink would result in days or weeks of downtime for cable subscribers, not to mention the crippling amount of money in new hardware. It is a consequence of how the networks were physically built when providers thought that cable and download speeds were all anyone needed; it's not just a software switch they can flip if they wanted to.
Spectrum still sucks, but asymmetrical Internet speeds are not one of the things they suck at on purpose.
That's interesting. I knew coax wasn't symmetrical but never know why.
It makes sense when you think about it, upstream is typically in the like 5-40mhz range, where downstream/tv is in the 40mhz-1ghz range. The splitting and routing is done at the analog level, similar to how a low-pass filter routes low frequencies to a subwoofer in a high-end audio setup.
You can't just have a hardware low pass filter start filtering upstream traffic above what the equipment is designed for, and with frequencies that low there just isn't the bandwidth for the throughput people want.
I mean, they have the money. They could build their own fiber network. They already have the permits, pole access, equipment, maintenance network, distribution network, utility boxes, etc. that they could leverage to build a truly modern network infrastructure in parallel to their outdated coaxial one if they wanted to stay relevant in this century, but they don't. They stick with their shitty cable and its shitty uplink limitations and let much smaller third parties spend all that money to get their own permits, equipment, etc. and build their own fiber networks that can actually deliver the performance people want. Then Spectrum cries like the crybaby they are when everyone abandons their ancient infrastructure when competition arrives. Hell no I don't want to stick around for your lame "gigabit" cable with a pathetic 20mbps uplink.
I had to yell at them on the phone to cancel when I switched to symmetric gigabit fiber last summer after over a decade of 200/20 Spectrum. They said "but wait we can offer gigabit too" and I said that what they were selling was theoretically impossible to match what I had. Garbage company selling inferior product. I'm glad they're starting to see real competition in more and more places from smaller fiber companies.
It is a consequence of how the networks were physically built when providers thought that cable and download speeds were all anyone needed; it's not just a software switch they can flip if they wanted to.
This is true of so much of our infrastructure in the US.
Not bandwidth speeds specifically but just aging infrastructure that was built out long ago and not properly maintained and/or updated over time
I’ve seen advertisements fiber internet is in my area (Frontier), starting price is $59, guessing the price goes up eventually?
I have gigabit fiber and am locked in with a price of $59 a month for at least 5 years.
Nice, was it easy to talk them into the 5 year or is it standard? Spectrum is $79 and getting tired of it. Any comments on the equipment costs or suggestions?
At&t does the non-intro rate as standard for fiber. I'm not sure about other vendors, but it seems like maybe they've realized that most people are wise to their game at this point and have dropped the charade.
Good to know! So are there monthly equipment charges? I do know there’s different equipment for fiber.
It's included with the total for me. I only have two items on my bill: the exact amount they quoted me for 500/500 fiber, and tax.
And I mean, it's only been three months, so I'm not willing to get an AT&T tattoo yet or anything, but they are at least being above-board about everything so far.
Oh that’s better, I hate “modem rental fees”. Knowing there aren’t any seems to good to be true these days lol.
Agreed so hard. It took me weeks to get Spectrum to take it off my bill after the installer refused to take it back with him. I even drove it to their office and plopped it down on their desk. I couldn't believe they were being so shady about $5. So far no such problem here.
Amen. Such a disgusting practice that never should’ve been allowed to get off the ground.
Oh it is $79 now, sure. But next month it will be $84. The next month after that it will be $89.
In my case it is the default and there is no need to negotiate the rate.
Oh nice 👍 are there monthly equipment charges? I do know there’s different equipment.
Nope, not for my ISP.
Thanks, you’ve helped a lot in convincing me to switch. 👍
Doesn't Spectrum offer fiber?
Only to business/enterprise customers AFAIK. It's actually rock solid in terms of reliability in my experience with a couple dozen customers in the Midwest. Even their residential coax connections are fiber-uplinked from the nearest switch, and are reasonably reliable.
Edit: None of which is to suggest that they aren't still a shitty company in terms of their other business practices. They once included guest hotspots with every new business installation that used their customers' power to sell more Spectrum services to anyone within WiFi range.
There should be a different name for people at a store that answer questions about a product on request.
No one should be trying to convince anyone to buy anything as a job. What the hell is that? If you make a cool product/service/thing for a reasonable price, people will come to you. If you don't, stop trying to pressure people into consuming it when they otherwise wouldn't.
There's different types of marketing.
One type is awareness marketing, which is exactly the type that's the furthest from "forcing shit down your throat".
Then later, when you're searching for something and see their name, your monkey brain will prefer the "familiar" option.
And tbh I do have to disagree with "people will come to you", it's really hard to grow if people don't know you exist.
And tbh I do have to disagree with "people will come to you", it's really hard to grow if people don't know you exist.
I'm against the concept of unnecessary growth/metastasis. I prefer homeostasis/equilibrium.
Unless you're bringing something profoundly superior to what exists to the table that will have people who hear rumors of it coming to you, there's no need for a 76th brand of chicken sandwich.
We're growing/metastasizing our species and a lot of other species into oblivion. It's a shame our species is belligerently unwilling to consider a different strategy.
What about a thing that would actually change your life for some reason?
Would you prefer not knowing about it?
Of course there's no reason for the 76th brand of chicken sandwich, but that's also not what I'm talking about at all.
Marketing itself is fine and a healthy tool for growth, showing ads into people's eyeholes every chance you get is not.
Marketing itself is fine and a healthy tool for growth
I reiterate, our species is growing/metastasizing itself and it's habitat into oblivion.
This is a finite world with finite resources, and 3,000 or so assholes have already claimed most of its finite resources at gunpoint and are at this point swallowing one another's empires whole in their desperation to keep growing/metastasizing on a conquered board.
We can't grow/metastasize our way out of our species many crises caused by reckless growth/metastasis to begin with, any more than my country can solve its school shooting problem by handing every teacher and student a loaded glock.
If we cared about survival, if we cared about our children, we don't btw, we'd be planning to reduce our species size and footprint for the next several generations to a scale this world can sustainability support without hundreds of millions living in squalor.
So you're hating on the 3000 assholes who've already cornered the market and now you want a world where new companies possibly founded by someone no-as-assholish are doomed to stay unknown and fail?
People will keep choosing what they know, if you don't allow new players to enter the market, these old massive conglomerates will keep on growing, keep on consuming the competition.
It's a hyperbole, but only a small one.
New players largely can't "enter the market" without being bought out unless they have very uncharacteristic in business leaders unwilling to sell to a conglomerate, that's usually considered victory these days, and literally every company that grows to the point of being and agrees to be publically traded must do every sociopathic thing they can to increase profit or they will be sued.
I don't think a new group of people playing at this sick game will be any better than the last. If they were, the market ensures they won't be better for long by design. Growth isn't the answer. Growth is the problem. Our species needs to shrink or it will continue to suffer until it perishes by its own hands, and that is what we will do. I don't think there is a solution, but I do know if there is, it won't be found in economic growth/metastasis.
That's just saying the cure to a poison is to drink... More of the same poison.
Ah of course, the "everything I hear about is bad" bias.
There's an insane amount of small businesses out there, have a look at your friendly government's statostics.
You know how these small businesses start? Often by telling friends and family about them (marketing), posting ads on the local notice board (marketing), having a damn logo on the door (marketing).
People have to know you exist, else they can only come across your shop by mistake, and no way you're surviving a week like that.
All of these places would fail without any sort of marketing. Concentrating the power into the hands of established players.
Whatever you stand for, it doesn't work.
Your looking all this from a capitalist prospective, you'll never understand till you can see past that.
The world is capitalist and it's not changing anytime soon.
Meaning, whatever your ideology is, it's a waste of your and everyone elses time.
Adapt it to reality and push for smaller changes, a big one ain't happening.
a big one ain't happening.
Completely agreed, that's why there's no point playing. Just watch the slow motion, but accelerating, murder suicide of humanity and a lot of other innocent surface life, because we ain't changing. Best to see the gallows humor in it.
We buy shoes that last a few months. Cost penny's to make through sweat shops, for extortionate prices.
Years old tech/iot that does little to actually improve our lives and end up as e-waste.
Food that is killing us.
Look at the next big film/game and look at the amount of money goes into marketing, and sadly most of those films/games turn out to be shit.
Cars that lie about they're emissions.
Yet all these things are bought up due to marketing.
So while I know this won't die anytime soon, I am glad to be apart of the small percentage that see it as is.
Well in more technologically advanced sales, there are reps who understand the technology deeply and try to explain it to execs and other engineering folk who might be interested. This is a role I find pretty valuable, since some engineers don't have good communication skills.
I still get all that and I have Spectrum. It's also common for the envelope to say it's "important." No, ads are not important.
Damn blurring out all the numbers must be more infuriating right?
Yes thank you for noticing my effort
“Return to sender”
I actually bought a stamp that prints that specifically to return Soectrum's trash.
Most people don't know this but the USPS has their own official stamp for that purpose and any marked or drawn on letters they receive likely go to the trash. Try attaching a sticky note and putting it in the outgoing mail, or talking to the post office directly (although many offices go to great lengths not to give you time).
TLDR: Don't write on the envelope or it won't be returned.
I've received mail back with "not at this address" written on it.
Your postmaster/carrier likely just sucks.
That might be true, but it is also true that there IS an official stamp.
Look at the amounts of wasted paper! 😡
Free toilet paper
We've never had Spectrum and they relentlessly woo us as well. When we ignored the mailings, they started sending them in Spanish, as though they thought we simply couldn't understand them. Like nobody could possibly resist them if they could read the advertisements, right? Waiting to see what they try next.
Got fiber and never looked back, 1gb both up and download at the same time(yes full speed on 2 different tests), no throttling, advanced email notifications for maintenance that's past midnight. it's so much freedom, no datacaps too !
lmaoo they remotely update router software whenever they feel like it here. that means losing internet for half an hour without any warning :)
Yes i had that same exact issue with my local coaxial cable Internet provider before switching
We don't have any other options here :(
Lucky mate. Which service do you have and where? My apartment complex sadly has coaxial hardwired so no recourse other than xfinity :/
Small local fiber and wireless provider that worked with the large multi unit condo building I'm in
I'm a current customer and still get shit like the frequently, usually they want me to add cable TV and/or phone to my internet-only package. It's really obnoxious. You'd think after me ignoring it for 8 years they would give up but nope, still at least once a month one pops up in my mailbox.
Just sleep well at night knowing that part of the reason your cable/phone/internet bills are so high is because your rates are subsidizing these morons to mail you full color glossy double sided bullshit advertising services at you that you already have.
I kind of like all the unsolicited junk mail. I use it weekly to line the bottom of all my parrot cages.
How many parrot cages do you have?
Some of them are matte :P
Depending on the matte, it's even more expensive
And then they can deduct it as a business expense. Yay! 😭🤣
Words can't describe the inner joy I felt making that call to cancel after I had Google Fiber installed. "No sir, there is no package or temporary deal you can offer me that's going to change the outcome of this conversation."
So ISP CSRs get commission? I assume they don't, in which case they were probably super relieved. I work in a customer service call centre and I vastly prefer those outright cancellation calls to anything with strings attached because it's less work for me, though in my case the company lets me just process the cancellation outright with minimal groveling.
wait til you realize the largest ad-tech company in the world is now your ISP tho
Somehow that still seems better than being Spectrum's bitch
Hey, I'd just use VPN anyways. I sure as shit didn't trust spectrum not to sell my data.
They even ambush me every time I go to the grocery store. And they've doubled my bill since I signed up. Why bother marketing when you can raise rates whenever you want? They could save so much money by not mailing every day and hiring people to hunt me
They could save so much money by not mailing every day and hiring people to hunt me
At the scale these mailings are conducted, it all averages out into a net win for Spectrum. It suggests that enough people really do suck it up with the rate hike for some reason or another. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it. Also, from their perspective, the wasted time, energy, and paper is all someone else's problem.
That's the worst part. The fact they keep doing it means it probably works. I just don't understand how.
Do any of these have return labels?
I received these about once a week when I was a Spectrum customer. Since I dumped them when ATT fiber became available, I now receive them three times a week.
Ooooo aren't you popular.
I switched to Fiber from Spectrum a few months ago. When I took the equipment back to the store, I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't need to jump through any hoops at all to cancel; they just got my name, checked my ID, looked at the router serial number, had me sign a thing, and handed me a receipt. I was shocked. I had put an hour on the meter, and I only needed four minutes.
But less than a week later, I got my first "move in offer." It's honestly hilarious to begin with—"oh, ha ha, they honestly think their choke hold on the market is so strong that the only reason anyone would ever cancel is if they move out of the area"—but quickly got sad when I realized, actually, given the government-enforced monopoly they enjoy in my city, that's probably true for most people.
The employee was gaming the system. If you're canceling, they're required to hound you. If you're moving, it's just a few clicks with no rebuttal from the system. The employee just didn't want to hound you because they're as tired of charter's crap as you.
Unless you have some insider information, I think that might just be what they do anytime sometime comes in to the store instead of calling. There was a manager nearby, who seemed to know what she was doing the whole time.
I dunno. It seemed like a standard procedure to me.
Yeah I have insider info. The managers are the same. Most are normal humans that would rather focus on selling the service to someone that wants it. Charter is a complete mess right now. People are fed up with the terrible upper management.
Oof. That's a rough spot to be in, terribly sorry and good luck. Thanks for being a normal human.
This is me with SiriusXM. Fuck them
Imagine paying to not be able to control anything and still getting ads.
Oh, that’s just cable..
SiriusXM is the only one I went to the process to opt-out. I received 2-3 letters every week and at least an email per day. Their service would be cheaper if they didn't spend all their budget on marketing
The desire to recreate this posts image with siriusxm letters, would need a bigger table though it seems
I didn't realize there was a process, I'm going to look that up. Thank you
My ex is ATT fiber which, despite having zero love for ATT, was pretty great.
They are trying to get me back...but they don't offer fiber (or any service!) at my new address.
I have zero love for ATT but love my fiber plan. I’d like to switch, since they don’t let me change the DNS server, but the plan I had before was awful and my internet dropped all the time.
Are you sure about that? I'm using the official AT&T fiber modem (Nokia white oval) and a pi.hole for DNS. I do remember needing to change a number of settings to get it to work though.
I’ll take another look at it. I had a pihole setup and tried to switch it over when I moved to ATT but couldn’t find any DNS options. After some quick Googling the unanimous answer seemed to be that ATT doesn’t let you. But I’ll look into it again, I would love to get my pihole working again.
I am using the pi hole for DHCP, maybe you just have to turn off the DHCP server on the att modem.
Ask if you can stack the offers. That could be an incredible offer.
They are expired lol but that would be funny if I called them up to ask
I’ve never even had them, just went on their website and put in my address to see what’s available, and I get tons of these too. Frontier is cheaper and waaaaaay faster, so fuck Spectrum.
So if I really hate someone, I can just put their address into the Charter Spectrum website?
Generally you can sign up this person for many types of annoying mail by doing essentially just that
I had been a Verizon customer before the Frontier switch. I still had a 100/100 plan with them and they had jacked the price up to over $100 a month. Since I was an exiting customer they would not negotiate on the price. I'm with Spectrum now for $40 300/20 (meh). Might go back to Frontier when my rate ends if they are more accommodating.
This is me and Dish. Been over five years and I still get at least one a month. Post office was kind enough to notify them of my new address twice.
Fun fact you can mail something by name only sometimes.
These are extra ignorable because there's no way you're going to end up paying the rate on the card. They are actually trash.
I don't love spectrum but I'm currently paying less than the rate on some of these cards for 300mbps. I was with Frontier (fiber) but those MFers were charging me over $100 a month for 100/100. I called several times to try and get a better rate and they just essentially told me to fuck off. When I finally cancelled they just said, ok service will be off on x date. No attempt for retention at all.
I'm getting fiber in the spring, and I can't wait to make spectrum my ex as well.
If there was a company which charged me $1 / month to send spam mail to a company I would sign up in a heart beat.
Imagine if a company got 10,000 spam letters via snail mail every month and they had to sift through each and every one to see if any contains actual pertinent information.
Sure it wouldn't be much of a hinderance to the company itself but they would probably have to pay a few people at $30-$40 thousand a year to do it.
Could someone explain this to me? Are these gift cards?
No. These are printed plastic advertisements delivered via the postal service. (Other companies might purchase small mini catalogs/coupon books, colorful envelopes, or eye-catching postcards for their mail-based advertisements.) These mailers are sent to many people. Most people refer to these mailers as "junk mail."
Spectrum is very bad about sending lots of these, as OP has shared.
I live in a partially suburban partially rural area about 45 mins from the nearest mid-sized city.
Before, we had Windstream, $75/mo for cable internet that AT BEST got to ~5 megabytes per second (40 megabits per second) download speed and extremely little upload speed wireless, which always started cutting out constantly, was extremely unstable, terrible customer support, every time we complained they said our issues were caused by our router which we only had for a few months to a year and replaced it before it started doing the same thing after a few weeks or months. Near the end, video games just became unplayable and having to download even small files was a nightmare. Terrible experience overall.
We recently switched to Clearwave fiber, which is new to our area, $70/mo for 1 gigabyte download and upload speed (allegedly) presumably when wired. Wireless speed wise, the raw download speed isn't exactly impressive but it can get to 7-8 megabytes per second which is definitely better, but the upload speed is WAY better and matches or surpasses download speed. But the most important thing so far is the consistency, the connection doesn't just drop out randomly like the previous provider did, and I actually get a good connection on games.
I ordered this 30ft Cat6A cable from Monoprice for about $10 on sale on Amazon, looking forward to see how the ethernet experience is with them.
You can attempt to opt-out, but this kind of thing should be illegal in the first place.
https://www.spectrum.com/policies/your-privacy-rights-opt-out
I could opt out but i'm building a collection at this point
This is the best thing to do. Let them waste their money on printed, mailed ads, and use it to taunt them on the internet and expose how they badger and milk their
cattlecustomers.Not very environmentally friendly. I just send it all back, then they need to waste space and personnel on sorting their own junk.
I feel this is the most environmentally friendly thing to do in my experience because it was the only thing that stopped me from being spammed by Comcast, former house owners, etc. it's amazing how quick businesses will stop sending you junk mail when you start sending it back.
chad
lol, I’ve done this, multiple times. the only thing that has changed was that my name was replaced by “Residential Consumer” for the subsequent spam.
Yup, and in my case they started sending door-to-door salespeople. They're spending all the money to kill Google Fiber where I'm at.
Which only works if you have a product that doesn't suck. They should spend more money building their network out so it isn't 2002-era DSL oversubscribed 😂
Oh, is that how I triggered that?
It was like having a clingy boyfriend for a while.
This shouldn’t have made me laugh so much.
Call the number and ask for a pre paid return envelope to send a signed contract with.
Then fill the return envelope with all this crap.
Now they have paid 4 times for junk mailing you and they pay to toss out their own trash.
chaotic good, nice
"We don't need your signature, it can be one over the phone. Let's do it now"
The house is held in a trust so I need a physical document to sign for accounting reasons.
Spectrum still sends that much spam even if you are a customer already.
No, i dont want your tv bundle i literally havent had any desire to watch cable tv for over a decade please stop asking!
Fiber internet gang rise up! I would very much enjoy the death of spectrum
Yeah i went from a speed of 10 mbps upload to a speed of 300 mbps upload thanks to fiber
There is an actual technical reason for coax networks not being able to provide symmetrical speeds. It has to do with what frequencies (channels) are dedicated to data uplink, data downlink, and cable TV. Cable TV is still the cash cow for coax providers, and installing appropriate channel splitters network-wide to reallocate higher-bandwidth channels to data uplink would result in days or weeks of downtime for cable subscribers, not to mention the crippling amount of money in new hardware. It is a consequence of how the networks were physically built when providers thought that cable and download speeds were all anyone needed; it's not just a software switch they can flip if they wanted to.
Spectrum still sucks, but asymmetrical Internet speeds are not one of the things they suck at on purpose.
That's interesting. I knew coax wasn't symmetrical but never know why.
It makes sense when you think about it, upstream is typically in the like 5-40mhz range, where downstream/tv is in the 40mhz-1ghz range. The splitting and routing is done at the analog level, similar to how a low-pass filter routes low frequencies to a subwoofer in a high-end audio setup.
You can't just have a hardware low pass filter start filtering upstream traffic above what the equipment is designed for, and with frequencies that low there just isn't the bandwidth for the throughput people want.
I mean, they have the money. They could build their own fiber network. They already have the permits, pole access, equipment, maintenance network, distribution network, utility boxes, etc. that they could leverage to build a truly modern network infrastructure in parallel to their outdated coaxial one if they wanted to stay relevant in this century, but they don't. They stick with their shitty cable and its shitty uplink limitations and let much smaller third parties spend all that money to get their own permits, equipment, etc. and build their own fiber networks that can actually deliver the performance people want. Then Spectrum cries like the crybaby they are when everyone abandons their ancient infrastructure when competition arrives. Hell no I don't want to stick around for your lame "gigabit" cable with a pathetic 20mbps uplink.
I had to yell at them on the phone to cancel when I switched to symmetric gigabit fiber last summer after over a decade of 200/20 Spectrum. They said "but wait we can offer gigabit too" and I said that what they were selling was theoretically impossible to match what I had. Garbage company selling inferior product. I'm glad they're starting to see real competition in more and more places from smaller fiber companies.
This is true of so much of our infrastructure in the US.
Not bandwidth speeds specifically but just aging infrastructure that was built out long ago and not properly maintained and/or updated over time
I’ve seen advertisements fiber internet is in my area (Frontier), starting price is $59, guessing the price goes up eventually?
I have gigabit fiber and am locked in with a price of $59 a month for at least 5 years.
Nice, was it easy to talk them into the 5 year or is it standard? Spectrum is $79 and getting tired of it. Any comments on the equipment costs or suggestions?
At&t does the non-intro rate as standard for fiber. I'm not sure about other vendors, but it seems like maybe they've realized that most people are wise to their game at this point and have dropped the charade.
Good to know! So are there monthly equipment charges? I do know there’s different equipment for fiber.
It's included with the total for me. I only have two items on my bill: the exact amount they quoted me for 500/500 fiber, and tax.
And I mean, it's only been three months, so I'm not willing to get an AT&T tattoo yet or anything, but they are at least being above-board about everything so far.
Oh that’s better, I hate “modem rental fees”. Knowing there aren’t any seems to good to be true these days lol.
Agreed so hard. It took me weeks to get Spectrum to take it off my bill after the installer refused to take it back with him. I even drove it to their office and plopped it down on their desk. I couldn't believe they were being so shady about $5. So far no such problem here.
Amen. Such a disgusting practice that never should’ve been allowed to get off the ground.
Oh it is $79 now, sure. But next month it will be $84. The next month after that it will be $89.
In my case it is the default and there is no need to negotiate the rate.
Oh nice 👍 are there monthly equipment charges? I do know there’s different equipment.
Nope, not for my ISP.
Thanks, you’ve helped a lot in convincing me to switch. 👍
Doesn't Spectrum offer fiber?
Only to business/enterprise customers AFAIK. It's actually rock solid in terms of reliability in my experience with a couple dozen customers in the Midwest. Even their residential coax connections are fiber-uplinked from the nearest switch, and are reasonably reliable.
Edit: None of which is to suggest that they aren't still a shitty company in terms of their other business practices. They once included guest hotspots with every new business installation that used their customers' power to sell more Spectrum services to anyone within WiFi range.
it's so wild to me that america still views fiber as a new thing, it's been standard in the nordics for like.. 10 years maybe?
This is why marketing is a bullshit job.
As are modern sales.
There should be a different name for people at a store that answer questions about a product on request.
No one should be trying to convince anyone to buy anything as a job. What the hell is that? If you make a cool product/service/thing for a reasonable price, people will come to you. If you don't, stop trying to pressure people into consuming it when they otherwise wouldn't.
There's different types of marketing.
One type is awareness marketing, which is exactly the type that's the furthest from "forcing shit down your throat".
Then later, when you're searching for something and see their name, your monkey brain will prefer the "familiar" option.
And tbh I do have to disagree with "people will come to you", it's really hard to grow if people don't know you exist.
I'm against the concept of unnecessary growth/metastasis. I prefer homeostasis/equilibrium.
Unless you're bringing something profoundly superior to what exists to the table that will have people who hear rumors of it coming to you, there's no need for a 76th brand of chicken sandwich.
We're growing/metastasizing our species and a lot of other species into oblivion. It's a shame our species is belligerently unwilling to consider a different strategy.
What about a thing that would actually change your life for some reason?
Would you prefer not knowing about it?
Of course there's no reason for the 76th brand of chicken sandwich, but that's also not what I'm talking about at all.
Marketing itself is fine and a healthy tool for growth, showing ads into people's eyeholes every chance you get is not.
I reiterate, our species is growing/metastasizing itself and it's habitat into oblivion.
This is a finite world with finite resources, and 3,000 or so assholes have already claimed most of its finite resources at gunpoint and are at this point swallowing one another's empires whole in their desperation to keep growing/metastasizing on a conquered board.
We can't grow/metastasize our way out of our species many crises caused by reckless growth/metastasis to begin with, any more than my country can solve its school shooting problem by handing every teacher and student a loaded glock.
If we cared about survival, if we cared about our children, we don't btw, we'd be planning to reduce our species size and footprint for the next several generations to a scale this world can sustainability support without hundreds of millions living in squalor.
So you're hating on the 3000 assholes who've already cornered the market and now you want a world where new companies possibly founded by someone no-as-assholish are doomed to stay unknown and fail?
People will keep choosing what they know, if you don't allow new players to enter the market, these old massive conglomerates will keep on growing, keep on consuming the competition.
It's a hyperbole, but only a small one.
New players largely can't "enter the market" without being bought out unless they have very uncharacteristic in business leaders unwilling to sell to a conglomerate, that's usually considered victory these days, and literally every company that grows to the point of being and agrees to be publically traded must do every sociopathic thing they can to increase profit or they will be sued.
I don't think a new group of people playing at this sick game will be any better than the last. If they were, the market ensures they won't be better for long by design. Growth isn't the answer. Growth is the problem. Our species needs to shrink or it will continue to suffer until it perishes by its own hands, and that is what we will do. I don't think there is a solution, but I do know if there is, it won't be found in economic growth/metastasis.
That's just saying the cure to a poison is to drink... More of the same poison.
Ah of course, the "everything I hear about is bad" bias.
There's an insane amount of small businesses out there, have a look at your friendly government's statostics.
You know how these small businesses start? Often by telling friends and family about them (marketing), posting ads on the local notice board (marketing), having a damn logo on the door (marketing).
People have to know you exist, else they can only come across your shop by mistake, and no way you're surviving a week like that.
All of these places would fail without any sort of marketing. Concentrating the power into the hands of established players.
Whatever you stand for, it doesn't work.
Your looking all this from a capitalist prospective, you'll never understand till you can see past that.
The world is capitalist and it's not changing anytime soon.
Meaning, whatever your ideology is, it's a waste of your and everyone elses time.
Adapt it to reality and push for smaller changes, a big one ain't happening.
Completely agreed, that's why there's no point playing. Just watch the slow motion, but accelerating, murder suicide of humanity and a lot of other innocent surface life, because we ain't changing. Best to see the gallows humor in it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/26/climate/global-warming-accelerating.html
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/warmest-arctic-summer-on-record-is-evidence-of-accelerating-climate-change
We buy shoes that last a few months. Cost penny's to make through sweat shops, for extortionate prices. Years old tech/iot that does little to actually improve our lives and end up as e-waste. Food that is killing us. Look at the next big film/game and look at the amount of money goes into marketing, and sadly most of those films/games turn out to be shit. Cars that lie about they're emissions.
Yet all these things are bought up due to marketing.
So while I know this won't die anytime soon, I am glad to be apart of the small percentage that see it as is.
Well in more technologically advanced sales, there are reps who understand the technology deeply and try to explain it to execs and other engineering folk who might be interested. This is a role I find pretty valuable, since some engineers don't have good communication skills.
They aren't even getting their target market right, sending me "move-in" offers when I haven't moved.
I still get all that and I have Spectrum. It's also common for the envelope to say it's "important." No, ads are not important.
Damn blurring out all the numbers must be more infuriating right?
Yes thank you for noticing my effort
“Return to sender”
I actually bought a stamp that prints that specifically to return Soectrum's trash.
Most people don't know this but the USPS has their own official stamp for that purpose and any marked or drawn on letters they receive likely go to the trash. Try attaching a sticky note and putting it in the outgoing mail, or talking to the post office directly (although many offices go to great lengths not to give you time).
TLDR: Don't write on the envelope or it won't be returned.
I've received mail back with "not at this address" written on it.
Your postmaster/carrier likely just sucks.
That might be true, but it is also true that there IS an official stamp.
Look at the amounts of wasted paper! 😡
Free toilet paper
We've never had Spectrum and they relentlessly woo us as well. When we ignored the mailings, they started sending them in Spanish, as though they thought we simply couldn't understand them. Like nobody could possibly resist them if they could read the advertisements, right? Waiting to see what they try next.
Got fiber and never looked back, 1gb both up and download at the same time(yes full speed on 2 different tests), no throttling, advanced email notifications for maintenance that's past midnight. it's so much freedom, no datacaps too !
lmaoo they remotely update router software whenever they feel like it here. that means losing internet for half an hour without any warning :)
Yes i had that same exact issue with my local coaxial cable Internet provider before switching
We don't have any other options here :(
Lucky mate. Which service do you have and where? My apartment complex sadly has coaxial hardwired so no recourse other than xfinity :/
Small local fiber and wireless provider that worked with the large multi unit condo building I'm in
I'm a current customer and still get shit like the frequently, usually they want me to add cable TV and/or phone to my internet-only package. It's really obnoxious. You'd think after me ignoring it for 8 years they would give up but nope, still at least once a month one pops up in my mailbox.
Just sleep well at night knowing that part of the reason your cable/phone/internet bills are so high is because your rates are subsidizing these morons to mail you full color glossy double sided bullshit advertising services at you that you already have.
I kind of like all the unsolicited junk mail. I use it weekly to line the bottom of all my parrot cages.
How many parrot cages do you have?
Some of them are matte :P
Depending on the matte, it's even more expensive
And then they can deduct it as a business expense. Yay! 😭🤣
Words can't describe the inner joy I felt making that call to cancel after I had Google Fiber installed. "No sir, there is no package or temporary deal you can offer me that's going to change the outcome of this conversation."
So ISP CSRs get commission? I assume they don't, in which case they were probably super relieved. I work in a customer service call centre and I vastly prefer those outright cancellation calls to anything with strings attached because it's less work for me, though in my case the company lets me just process the cancellation outright with minimal groveling.
wait til you realize the largest ad-tech company in the world is now your ISP tho
Somehow that still seems better than being Spectrum's bitch
Hey, I'd just use VPN anyways. I sure as shit didn't trust spectrum not to sell my data.
They even ambush me every time I go to the grocery store. And they've doubled my bill since I signed up. Why bother marketing when you can raise rates whenever you want? They could save so much money by not mailing every day and hiring people to hunt me
At the scale these mailings are conducted, it all averages out into a net win for Spectrum. It suggests that enough people really do suck it up with the rate hike for some reason or another. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it. Also, from their perspective, the wasted time, energy, and paper is all someone else's problem.
That's the worst part. The fact they keep doing it means it probably works. I just don't understand how.
Do any of these have return labels?
I received these about once a week when I was a Spectrum customer. Since I dumped them when ATT fiber became available, I now receive them three times a week.
Ooooo aren't you popular.
I switched to Fiber from Spectrum a few months ago. When I took the equipment back to the store, I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't need to jump through any hoops at all to cancel; they just got my name, checked my ID, looked at the router serial number, had me sign a thing, and handed me a receipt. I was shocked. I had put an hour on the meter, and I only needed four minutes.
But less than a week later, I got my first "move in offer." It's honestly hilarious to begin with—"oh, ha ha, they honestly think their choke hold on the market is so strong that the only reason anyone would ever cancel is if they move out of the area"—but quickly got sad when I realized, actually, given the government-enforced monopoly they enjoy in my city, that's probably true for most people.
The employee was gaming the system. If you're canceling, they're required to hound you. If you're moving, it's just a few clicks with no rebuttal from the system. The employee just didn't want to hound you because they're as tired of charter's crap as you.
Unless you have some insider information, I think that might just be what they do anytime sometime comes in to the store instead of calling. There was a manager nearby, who seemed to know what she was doing the whole time.
I dunno. It seemed like a standard procedure to me.
Yeah I have insider info. The managers are the same. Most are normal humans that would rather focus on selling the service to someone that wants it. Charter is a complete mess right now. People are fed up with the terrible upper management.
Oof. That's a rough spot to be in, terribly sorry and good luck. Thanks for being a normal human.
This is me with SiriusXM. Fuck them
Imagine paying to not be able to control anything and still getting ads.
Oh, that’s just cable..
SiriusXM is the only one I went to the process to opt-out. I received 2-3 letters every week and at least an email per day. Their service would be cheaper if they didn't spend all their budget on marketing
The desire to recreate this posts image with siriusxm letters, would need a bigger table though it seems
I didn't realize there was a process, I'm going to look that up. Thank you
My ex is ATT fiber which, despite having zero love for ATT, was pretty great.
They are trying to get me back...but they don't offer fiber (or any service!) at my new address.
I have zero love for ATT but love my fiber plan. I’d like to switch, since they don’t let me change the DNS server, but the plan I had before was awful and my internet dropped all the time.
Are you sure about that? I'm using the official AT&T fiber modem (Nokia white oval) and a pi.hole for DNS. I do remember needing to change a number of settings to get it to work though.
I’ll take another look at it. I had a pihole setup and tried to switch it over when I moved to ATT but couldn’t find any DNS options. After some quick Googling the unanimous answer seemed to be that ATT doesn’t let you. But I’ll look into it again, I would love to get my pihole working again.
I am using the pi hole for DHCP, maybe you just have to turn off the DHCP server on the att modem.
Ask if you can stack the offers. That could be an incredible offer.
They are expired lol but that would be funny if I called them up to ask
I’ve never even had them, just went on their website and put in my address to see what’s available, and I get tons of these too. Frontier is cheaper and waaaaaay faster, so fuck Spectrum.
So if I really hate someone, I can just put their address into the Charter Spectrum website?
Generally you can sign up this person for many types of annoying mail by doing essentially just that
I had been a Verizon customer before the Frontier switch. I still had a 100/100 plan with them and they had jacked the price up to over $100 a month. Since I was an exiting customer they would not negotiate on the price. I'm with Spectrum now for $40 300/20 (meh). Might go back to Frontier when my rate ends if they are more accommodating.
This is me and Dish. Been over five years and I still get at least one a month. Post office was kind enough to notify them of my new address twice.
Fun fact you can mail something by name only sometimes.
These are extra ignorable because there's no way you're going to end up paying the rate on the card. They are actually trash.
I don't love spectrum but I'm currently paying less than the rate on some of these cards for 300mbps. I was with Frontier (fiber) but those MFers were charging me over $100 a month for 100/100. I called several times to try and get a better rate and they just essentially told me to fuck off. When I finally cancelled they just said, ok service will be off on x date. No attempt for retention at all.
I'm getting fiber in the spring, and I can't wait to make spectrum my ex as well.
If there was a company which charged me $1 / month to send spam mail to a company I would sign up in a heart beat.
Imagine if a company got 10,000 spam letters via snail mail every month and they had to sift through each and every one to see if any contains actual pertinent information.
Sure it wouldn't be much of a hinderance to the company itself but they would probably have to pay a few people at $30-$40 thousand a year to do it.
Could someone explain this to me? Are these gift cards?
No. These are printed plastic advertisements delivered via the postal service. (Other companies might purchase small mini catalogs/coupon books, colorful envelopes, or eye-catching postcards for their mail-based advertisements.) These mailers are sent to many people. Most people refer to these mailers as "junk mail."
Spectrum is very bad about sending lots of these, as OP has shared.
I live in a partially suburban partially rural area about 45 mins from the nearest mid-sized city.
Before, we had Windstream, $75/mo for cable internet that AT BEST got to ~5 megabytes per second (40 megabits per second) download speed and extremely little upload speed wireless, which always started cutting out constantly, was extremely unstable, terrible customer support, every time we complained they said our issues were caused by our router which we only had for a few months to a year and replaced it before it started doing the same thing after a few weeks or months. Near the end, video games just became unplayable and having to download even small files was a nightmare. Terrible experience overall.
We recently switched to Clearwave fiber, which is new to our area, $70/mo for 1 gigabyte download and upload speed (allegedly) presumably when wired. Wireless speed wise, the raw download speed isn't exactly impressive but it can get to 7-8 megabytes per second which is definitely better, but the upload speed is WAY better and matches or surpasses download speed. But the most important thing so far is the consistency, the connection doesn't just drop out randomly like the previous provider did, and I actually get a good connection on games.
I ordered this 30ft Cat6A cable from Monoprice for about $10 on sale on Amazon, looking forward to see how the ethernet experience is with them.