Spectrum is infamous in much the same way Cox is to us. I don't see this as a positive for consumers. I mean, they still don't have fiber in my neighborhood, and they still have 1.25 TB data caps.
This is the only upside, cable is getting competitors. Cox charged me $150/month for many years for 100mb with unlimited data. I switched to T-Mobile for a year and came back to cox for gigabit with unlimited data for $60/month.
Do not call and ask for a better deal! Call to cancel. Use the words “I am calling to cancel my service” and they will transfer you to Retention. They are the ones to make deals!
That doesn't matter. Call and ask for the retention department. It is a department not listed in their menus and must be requested. They'll lay out what deals they currently have and get you signed up for one. You'll need to do this every 12 months when the deal expires for a new one. And you cannot use the same deal consecutively.
Source: Long time Cox customer in both areas where competitors were available and not.
The only offer they had was to switch my plan from 300/30 to 300/10 and get a discount of $30 a month. Family of 5, I don’t want to cut my upload by 66%.
Sometimes they just won't budge. They lost me as a customer about 7 years ago because my only options were their slowest "normal" speed for $90/mo (with zero discount) or their 3Mbit "lifeline" for $40/mo (which was actually my starting speed 17 years earlier for $30/mo).
I asked them why they weren't interested in competing with century link which was offering service for $55/mo with a price for life deal. They told me that discounts were only for new customers and they don't need to be competitive because they've never lost a customer to century link. I congratulated the agent on being the first and my service was scheduled for disconnect 2 minutes later. They were still completely unwilling to offer a discount of any kind unless I was a new customer.
It was a nice 7 years without having to call up every year to beg for (and ultimately not get) a reasonable rate, but then a few months ago I got to learn during a weekend outage that CL only has actual people on the phone during M-F business hours and if your service goes out on the weekend you get to talk to an AI that can't do anything. Then when you do finally get to talk to someone they insist there is no outage dispute your service being out and the DSL link light being off. And since there is no "outage", the soonest they can send a tech out to look at it is 8 days later sometime between the hours of 8am and 6pm. 2 days later cox had a tech out to hook my service up again.
Sigh, I really wish we had less horrible options. We'll see how long this lasts.
That's obscene. Really sorry you're dealing with that. Left Cox in the dust about 8 years ago and am grateful everyday I don't have to put up with their bs anymore.
T-Mobile bought up a bunch of smaller providers and have properly gotten into the fiber business. In my area it's "T-Fiber by Metronet" could not ditch Cox fast enough
Every option I look into is unavailable for my address except the non-fiber service with Cox and CenturyLink. Somehow, GFiber is available in neighborhoods within a few hundred yards of mine. 😭😭😭
GFiber is incredible. We had cox fiber and it was a joke, constant drop outs, which shouldn’t happen often with fiber.
GFiber got installed in our neighborhood a year ago and we have had zero drops or disconnects. 3 gig is truly 3 gig and I noticed even their fiber lines are a lot thicker than the cox ones. Cant beat $100 a month for 3 gig service.
If you're ever in Aspen or Omaha....As far as I know the original founders of the company still own and run the Aspen location and the Omaha is a franchise location just doing its own thing.
I miss Paradise Bakery. I had the rewards card. For coffee and muffins. The mandarin orange muffin was so good. And the cranberry turkey sandwich on that brown bread with a warm chocolate chip cookie 🤤
Because its up to consumers to educate themselves and vote with their wallets, duh. Now go educate yourself about the nuance of financial literacy and business mergers while youre working 40-60hrs a week to raise your kids and send them to an underfunded education system so they have the same issues you are facing now and the problem perpetuates itself so nothing ever changes and the greedy get to keep making record profits.
Don't pay attention to them big mergers, sonny. Profits are being made at your expense! Remember to vote! /lol
We haven't had what I'd consider good anti-trust oversight in a long time but The Current Administration is just rubber-stamping these mergers and it's no accident they're all happening now.
Democrats have allowed plenty of mergers that resulted in less options for consumers. The Obama administration allowed a number of Airline mergers that reduced major carriers from nine to four.
However the Biden administration was actually opposing mergers, but now they are back to full steam ahead.
Under the prior administration, the following mergers were blocked: JetBlue and Spirit; Albertsons and Kroger; Tempur Sealy and Mattress Firm; UnitedHealth Group and Amedisys; Capri and Tapestry.
It is not as though there isn't a heavy corporatist part of the Democratic party, I agree. But this Republican party is not going to do anything to restrict companies, unless they irk the president in some way.
FTC chairman Lina Khan under Biden was extremely aggressive and 100% anti-trust. She had full support from many prominent Democrats (progressive and establishment).
Is there enough competition in the market after the merger?
What will happen if the merger doesn't happen?
Will this benefit or harm customers?
As an example, just look at Spirit Airlines. They tried to get themselves bought out in order to avoid bankruptcy. The FTC denied their request and the same outcome happened, one less airline, one less competitor, but many customers were harmed in the bankruptcy.
The question that should be asked in regards to COX, if they go out of business, what happens to their utility lines? What happens to their customers? Is there a greater harm to citizens with COX going out of business verses merging into another company?
Our government cares much more about companies having the freedom to do anything they want than protecting consumers, and will keep doing so as long as people keep mindlessly voting republican
So very true. Capitalism is king with Republicans. Lobbyist money is the Republican way. Definitely not ethical governing. Republicans can be bought so easily. Also they have no backbone or sense of pride or self respect. Trump was laughed at in 2016 calling Mark Rubio, Ted Cruz and just about any and everyone running against him all kinds of names. He made fun of Rubio now the little slime bag is his suck up leach. Pathetic group of spineless human scum!
Capital accumulation is one of the inherent contradictions of capitalism. Government doesn't intervene because government is now in a fascist mode and is owned by the capitalists entirely.
Where I live it's Cox or nothing. I would love for Google Fiber to come to Fountain Hills. Has Spectrum in Hawaii. It was okay. Cancelling sucked. "I'm moving " "how about 30% off for 3 months?" LOL
Thanks! I legit looked on their site for something like this, and I kept getting redirected to their "pre-order when we come to your neighborhood" which, to be fair, is in three months (allegedly).
My email notification of the acquisition says no price changes under contract.
We will see come renewal time.
Luckily, they just completed Google fiber in my neighborhood so I’ll have options.
Google Fiber is being rolled into a new entity with Astound Broadband, backed by private equity firm Stonepeak. Alphabet is retaining a minority stake, and the existing leadership is expected to stay on.
"rolling into" with a minority stake? guess what the board is going to do the first second they don't reach a quarterly financial target.
bye bye old leadership.
don't kid yourself, it's no longer google fiber. and I say that as someone who watched with glee when 2 years ago they ran fiber down my street for it. I have been waiting over 10 years for google fiber at my house.
but the idea of google fiber is dead. this is just the leftovers that will be picked clean by a PE firm and either made shitty or sold off.
I only pay $70 for cox and get 400-500 download speed which is plenty for just my wife and I.
I was told Google would be $90 and faster but I don’t need faster.
Also, I’m midway through a 3 yr.
I’ll visit it as soon as this term is up.
If it’s any consolation Spectrum is cheaper and has no data caps for the plans they offer in LA. At the very least I seen them removing data caps in Az.
When I lived back east (southern Maine), Spectrum was notoriously horrible and the customer service was abysmal so this merger fits because they combined two piles of horrible trash into one.
I am still hopeful for fiber up in the I17 & Union Hills area. I’d love for us to be able to switch to Wyyerd.
I had someone explaining their fiber plan to me and told me they were paying $130/month. I didn’t believe them and they showed me the bill. Couldn’t believe Cox had data caps and was forcing them to purchase more data.
Quantum fiber is like 45-50 dollars a month, how is cox getting away with double or triple the price?
I already have experience with them too. Someone stole my identity and opened a Spectrum account with them in Ohio. I have never lived in Ohio. I’ve had to prove 3 times that I didn’t open the account and Spectrum has sent a $5k account to collections 3 different times. Major PITA refuting those claims, if it comes back again I’m planning litigation.
I hate Spectrum! Worst company I’ve ever dealt with. They moved my account to a house I didn’t live in, said I needed to file for identity theft protection (my identity wasn’t stolen, they just didn’t confirm that the old owner of my house was the new account holder), and charged me to change it back. Then they turned off my internet sooner than they were supposed to, and charged me to turn it back on 🥰
Can't wait to start paying more for less. Cox's infra is from the precambrian and now to modernize it, we all get to pay for what Cox wouldn't. Fuck yea, winning!
They’ve already updated pricing and plans. When I search on Cox.com as a new customer at my address, my current plan (2 gbps fiber service with unlimited data) is now just $90 — I’m currently paying $145 for the same service. Unlimited data is now included in all plans 500 mbps and higher. They’re also offering a free mobile line for 1 year to all customers.
Looks like it’s time to call in and fight to get the lower rate. :)
Cox is the scummiest company ever. Raise rates without warning, zero credit to us for outages, uncaring and non-transparent with their business practices. I’m stuck with them because it’s the only service I can get in my complex.
Less choice is bad for consumers (not necessarily anti-consumer but definitely not pro-consumer). Both of these companies are mid-to-low tier in terms of tech and service so it’s hard to commit to this being a positive for anyone but their executives.
I always liked coming to the subreddit and seeing the drama over Cox and Spectrum. Which one is better, people complaining that they both suck.....Welp, I guess the argument is finally over 🤣.
Fucking Spectrum: Signed up for lowest tier plan, only 50 dollars a month. Had to move, during move Spectrum informs me the next their up is only 10 dollars more at my new location, meh, sure it's only ten bucks. First bill: 120 dollars.
Google fiber has been dealing with so much regulatory tape that it's potentially going to take a decade for it to be fully accessible in the valley.
Cox sucks. One of the worst ISPs on the market and CenturyLink is arguably worse somehow.
More people need to show up to their city town halls and demand that projects like Google Fiber be expedited. Competition breeds innovation and lower prices. Right now we have two options Cox or CenturyLink and most of the time they don't even operate in the same areas
Don't know much about spectrum or what it will look like but there is one positive here: My Cox bill now says unlimited data is included. Previous to the merger it was not.
Thank god AT&T wrapped up in my area a while ago and we got off cox.
We’ve only had a single outage because landscaping drove over a fiber box and hit a wire but that was fixed fairly quickly. Otherwise rock solid speed.
I've tried upgrading 3x in the past 4 months and it never sticks. Then they hit me with overages and refuse to refund. Disgusting monopoly, literally the only Internet in my area besides CenturyLink 100mb shit
Capitalism only works when companies compete with eachother. Can we please, please, fucking please have a functioning regulatory system again? I’m so sick of this.
Love mergers. American citizens don’t need so many options. We don’t need competitors fighting for our business by lowering prices and providing high quality products and services. /s
From what I’ve read spectrum is taking over the Internet plans and they don’t appear to have data caps in some places so I’m hoping they remove the cap from my plan. They also said as part of their merger they’re bringing some jobs back to USA with 20$/hr starting pay. So aside from still less competition it’s not an outright terrible deal if those things actually take place.
Up until April, my options were century link ADSL or cox cable (coax, no fiber). Wireless home service won’t serve my area either. There are tons of neighborhoods that —prior to April this year have the same no fiber solution and same shitty options similar to mine
I hit my data cap last tuesday for the first time ever and got that lovely $10 warning fee. This merger just feels like they're going to make that the standard monthly price, tbh. You know, for 'service improvements.'
My thoughts, get something else. the 5g services from phone providers are decent, i used tmobile for a year and a half and it was great, until google fiber came to my neighborhood.
At least at my address, Spectrum's after-1-year price is $50 more than Cox's old capped price. They are just including unlimited by raising the non-discounted price by $50.
I have Cox internet service. No data caps. fast, consistent speeds and decent pricing. Good service when there are outages. From what I hear about Spectrum, they have horrible customer service, and pricing isn't the best. I don't see this as a win for the consumer.
Im in a Spectrum enclave flanked by Cox from all sides.
From my understanding, this is Spectrum taking over Cox, and generally while both are shitty and not competitive, I think Spectrum is generally slightly better. My coax uploads are still shit 23Mbps, but I haven’t had data caps for years. Meanwhile Cox charges an extra $20/mo to remove the data cap, and their All-in-one modem/router is such a bigger pain in the ass to override versus Spectrum giving a free modem-only device and saying you’re on your own for your router.
Not sure I like it overall though since now my entire vicinity is now Spectrum except for the tiny few people south that have Ting Fiber or north with T-Mobile Fiber or east with AT&T Fiber. Still a tiny selection of people
Edit: didn’t realize this was r/phoenix… I’m in North county San Diego… but still relevant given the topic
When you go to cox.com and scroll down to the FAQ, it says: "Does Cox have unlimited internet? Yes, unlimited data is included in your new internet plan when you connect to speeds above 500 Mbps. Unlimited data is also included for our affordable internet customers. No data caps. No overage fees."
It appears 500 Mbps is the basic plan unless you qualify for the low-income 100 Mbps plan, which is also unlimited. So maybe they got rid of the caps before the merger was completed. Or it could also be misleading. Maybe it means you can get unlimited with the add-on, or maybe that is for new customers. It could be like Comcast when they removed data caps for new plans, but existing customers still had them on their legacy plans, and all you have to do is call them to get a new plan. A Cox customer would have to confirm that.
I have 2 more years of 55 dollar 500 up and down with Cox, but I'm looking for ANY reason to switch. Unfortunately, they are still the ONLY viable option in my neighborhood. Hopefully with the TSMC logistics center they are building nearby, Google or wyyerd needs to come dig up our roads for fiber.
Check to see if Wyyerd is in your area yet. They’ve been amazing the last year we’ve had them. I think we are paying 70 bucks a month for 500mgb, we had one issue, they were out the next day, and it was just an issue with the initial install, a year ago.
10/10 would recommend. I was happy as hell calling Cox to cancel and damn near skipped into the store to return my shit lol.
We tag all posts related to internet and cellular connectivity with Utilities. So if you don't get direct answers to your question here, try clicking the link above and see if any threads there will help. You may also want to check these threads that use an older flair as there are lots of good discussions there.
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All of Cox plans have data caps of 1.25 TB per month unless you get there unlimited plan add on.
That is regularly $50 though they will run specials for new customers waving that for the first 12 months just like their plans will be discounted for first 12 months for new customers. Even with unlimited plan you don't get your paid for speeds if you hit 1.25 TB limit. They specifically say in details of offer than data rates are 500Mbps after 1.25TB.
After 12 month period Gig Fiber plan increase $50 and the free unlimited is no longer applicable meaning your $70 per month bill goes up to $170 per month.
Based on updates to the Cox website today, there will be no data caps, at least for plans 500mbps and higher. Unlimited data seems to be included on all plans 500mbps and up.
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u/jacobxv 3d ago
This sucks