Got me that sweet, sweet upgraded internet speed

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein) 01/06/2018 at 12:54 • Filed to: None

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Charter has been advertising for a month or two that their base internet speed is now 100 Mbps. But so far, I’ve consistently been seeing the same 65 Mbps speed tests that I usually see with my “60 Mbps” service. So yesterday I decided to do something about it.

I called Charter, said I had been hearing ads about this new 100 Mbps service, and asked if I needed to do something like swap out my modem (provided free by Charter) for a new one to get the higher speed. They said that no, my modem supports the higher speed, they just need to re-provision the account for the higher speed, and that once they make the change I needed to wait 12 hours and reboot my modem. This person also checked my account to confirm it was in good standing (of course it is, it’s on autopay) before offering to re-provision it. Ok, fine.

This morning I went to go buy some movie tickets online because with all the theaters here in Madison now being on reserved seating, even going to see the most random-ass movie at the most random-ass time is now an exercise in pre-planning. At least when you sign up for a Marcus Theaters rewards account, you get to buy tickets on Fandango without paying the convenience fee.

When I went to complete my purchase through Fandango, the connection dropped. Dammit. So I figured it was time to reboot the modem. It took 2 tries to reboot and get a connection, so to make sure I got the movie tickets, I redid the Fandango purchase on my phone while waiting for the modem to reboot.

I now have “100 Mbps” service that’s consistently pulling 115 Mbps. Cool. But come on Charter, if you’re going out of your way to advertise that your new base speed is 100 Mbps, why the hell do people with compatible modems have to call you so you can re-provision their accounts? These ads have been running on Pandora for at least a couple months. Why not just bump everyone?

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > Textured Soy Protein 01/06/2018 at 12:59

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because to them, why spend the bandwidth bumping everyone when they know a lot of people wont bother calling in to get the higher base speed

LOREM IPSUM > Textured Soy Protein 01/06/2018 at 13:14

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Nice upgrade! Mind if I ask what you’re paying?

Just ran a test on mine, although we’re watching a HD stream on IPTV and there is a fisher price video streaming on one of the tablets, so not a completely accurate test.

$100/mo for internet only.

Textured Soy Protein > LOREM IPSUM 01/06/2018 at 13:18

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After taxes we’re at $68.56 for internet only, plus we pay for Netflix and Hulu. I guess you could also say we pay for Amazon Prime but we were paying for that before they had video, and we buy a ton of shit from Amazon with Prime shipping, so I don’t count it as a video cost.

Ash78, voting early and often > Textured Soy Protein 01/06/2018 at 13:39

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Thanks for the tip!

I’m paying the standard $65 for 60Mbps, which is more than enough, but I may have to give them a call.

victor > Textured Soy Protein 01/06/2018 at 16:49

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You guys are paying brutal prices. Seattle has 3 providers here that can provide internet/cable/telephone. 2 of them are fiber (wave and CenturyLink) and one coax (Comcast) . Because of that, 1gbps down/ 1gb up fiber costs me 85 dollaars/month tax inclusive, no data caps.

Textured Soy Protein > victor 01/06/2018 at 17:24

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This may come as a shock to you but ready availability of fiber internet connections directly to people’s homes is still rare in many parts of the country. My choices are 100 Mbps (formerly 60 Mbps) from Charter with no data cap, or 50 Mbps and a 1 TB cap from AT&T.

victor > Textured Soy Protein 01/06/2018 at 17:50

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I think it’s either that your local and state officials are in the pockets of these companies, or they are incompetent when it comes to these matters... Or both. It’s not hard to get fiber deployed in most suburban and urban environments affordably these days.

Textured Soy Protein > victor 01/06/2018 at 18:19

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The blue spots on this map are where fiber is available.

You can see more detail here by selecting only fiber to the end user.

Katsumoto > Textured Soy Protein 01/06/2018 at 18:49

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I’ve got Spectrum(charter) I pay 44.99 just for internet and I regularly see similar speeds to the image.

Now to be fair, I am considered a new customer, or at least was when I started service nearly a year ago. I started with the 60mbps service, then got the free bump up to 100(without calling).

I do have an issue out at the pole. Cuz I’ve had probably 20 techs out here. So far I’ve gotten my house rewired from the pole to my modem. New equipment, new ethernet cables, new everything from the pole to my modem to my pc. I still have intermittent issues where my internet just randomly slows WAY WAY WAY down. But the techs all seem to think it’s my equipment and/or house. When they realize I’ve been completely rewired, “I’ll submit a ticket for them to look at the pole”. No one ever shows up. The pole is in my backyard, and they’d have to contact me to be able to get to it. Which they never do. My home security feed has never once seen someone at the pole in the last year. So short of putting a bullet in it(which I’d never do) they wont fix the pole issue.

pip bip - choose Corrour > Textured Soy Protein 01/07/2018 at 04:28

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Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Textured Soy Protein 01/11/2018 at 16:55

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Ugh but those upload speeds though. I miss having Verizon Fios, thats the only thing that sucked about moving from my previous apartment. It was nice having 50 up AND 50 down for a solid price. The wonders of fiber!