Spectrum Fiber Optic Internet?

[EddieWalker]

A couple months ago, somebody ran fiber optic down the the road, in front of my place. There isn't a sign on the box, or anything to say who it was.

Yesterday we found a Spectrum business card in our mailbox from Perez, with a phone number on it, and hand written on the card "fiber optic internet call to sign up"

I never heard of Spectrum, so I went to their website and saw that they offer two packages. One for $50 at 500mbps and the other for $70 at 1gig

https://www.spectrum.com/internet

Currently we're with Skynet and paying $90 a month for the fastest service that they have available to my location at 50mbps.

https://www.spectrum.com/internet

My wife has Zoom meetings all the time, and in order to do that, we have to turn off everything in the house and unplug the TV. I feel that we are borderline able to do this. We also watch TV with our ROKU, which usually works fine, but we have had buffering issues. The other issue is that this internet service is over the air from a tower. We have an antenna facing that tower with what we are told a very strong signal. If there is a big storm, we only have internet as long as their generator has gas. Once it runs out of gas, they do not fill it up again, and there is no internet. We also have random times when we lose our connection and other times when it's painfully slow.

I read through another post on here that was talking about Spectrum and Direct TV. What I heard the most was the constant increase in pricing. Is that from Direct TV? We don't want Direct TV, we just want reliable high speed internet.

Another concern, and I probably have to talk to Perez to find out, but how do they get the internet from the road to my house? I'm about 700 feet from the road, and probably 800 feet from their box.

Currently we have an Orbi25 Router. I'm not aware of anything else that we have other then the ROKU for the TV. Is there something that we need to buy if we switch to Spectrum?

If you have Spectrum, is it reliable? Do they actually answer the phone if you call them with an issue? Do the rates stay the same or will they shoot up every year?

Thank you,
Eddie

 

[garry1p]

I don't know about Spectrum but here the government had grants to run fiber and the local power company ran fiber just about everywhere.
I signed up for 200mbs for $52. They offer 1gb for $80.
Service is great, they ran fiber cable from the highway to my house and installed the wiring at no charge.

The only drawback is you have to use their router as it is integrated into their billing system. I have a faster router that I use as an access point.

 

[Oaktree]

We've had Spectrum here for about 12 years (well, it was called Time-Warner until around 2020). Reliability has been fine, I believe all their customer service reps are U.S. based. I've never had any trouble getting thru to them, downtime has been minimal...usually storm related.
Downside is they're a bit pricey, and actual speed vs advertised speed is quite different (supposedly I'm getting 500m, actual is in the high 90s...still more than enough for anything we do). We currently have a 3-way bundle; landline phone, internet and tv. Our tv package is strictly cable channels, no broadcast. Their broadcast tv fee adds over $20/mo to the cost...not worth it to me. Most network tv shows can be watched via stream services, likewise local news. There is no off-air tv reception to be had here.

That having been said, the phone company is launching fiber in my town, supposedly it will be active within the next couple months. More plans to choose from, and much cheaper. I'm seriously considering jumping ship.
Currently, my only choices are Spectrum or DSL.

Your router should be fine. They provide the modem at no charge, they do offer a modem/router too but there's a rental fee. We use our own.
Can't help you with the long cable run...I'm only 50' or so from a pole on the road. ISTR there being a per-foot charge for installations longer than a certain length, but that was 12 years ago, dunno what they do now.

You imply that it's fiber direct to the house. Ours isn't. The trunkline along the road is fiber, but "last mile" is via copper. I don't know why, and never got a straight answer any time I've asked.

 

[BnRidge]

Mostly we have the same situation here, previous slow land line internet, recent cables run out front, got the card(s) in the mail.

My observations:
We went with the 500mb earlier this year. There were a couple different prices, due to whether their router was included or not. Their router is $7/mo, or skip that and chance getting your own and see if it works. We went with their router.

No price increases yet, but am anticipating some, whatever they can nail you for and get away with.

From box to house was 150ft. Right away they put down a "temporary" cable, and sent out a guy to hook up the router, and wire in a modem in a central location in the house.

Keep in mind that one department seems to not talk to the other, and all of the work is subcontracted, so accountability was sometimes strangely lacking. Every little install step needed a work order called in and was done ny seperate crews.
Finally called our "local rep", surprisingly easy to get ahold of, told him about how the snowplow is going to take out their temporary cable if they don't take care of it asap. Next week they sent out a guy with a trencher, who spoke only french. He handed me the phone so I could speak to his interpreter about how and where I expected the cable to be run.

Overall, the permanent cable is installed nicely, router and modem works as expected, no outages in 8mo, video streaming or other bandwidth issues non existent. Customer service is still just a matter of getting our "local service rep" on his cell phone.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you for the replies.

Reading more about the $50 a month 500mbps plan, there are some other costs listed, but it's also an introductory price. The regular price is $80 a month, which is still better then what I'm paying now by ten bucks, and a lot faster speed.

Monthly Price​

$50.00

---

This is a 12 month introductory rate and does not require a contract. The post-introductory rate is $80 and subject to change.

---

Additional Charges and Terms​

Provider Monthly Fees​

• Optional Wifi Service$10.00

One Time Fees​

• Professional Install$65.00
• Self-Install Activation$30.00
• Late FeeUp to $8.95

Early Termination Fee​

$0.00

Government Taxes​

$0.00

---

Discounts & Bundles​

Visit the link below for available billing discounts and pricing options for broadband service bundled with other services like video, phone, and wireless service.
spectrum.com/packages

---

Speeds Provided with Plan​

• Typical Download Speed551 Mbps
• Typical Upload Speed21 Mbps
• Typical Latency20 ms

---

Data Included with Monthly Price​

Unlimited

• Charges for Additional Data Usage$0.00

 

[DarkBlack]

You imply that it's fiber direct to the house. Ours isn't. The trunkline along the road is fiber, but "last mile" is via copper. I don't know why, and never got a straight answer any time I've asked.

That’s not surprising. A good cable run from a road to a house isn’t going to compromise speed at all. Many homes are already prewired with cable from every room to the cable entrance, outside the house, so no AC powered fiber optic converter is required.
Fiber optic cable is data only. Conventional cable is data and small levels of power.

 

[JeepHead]

You will like the fiber much more. It has much better upload speeds than copper does. Not sure how Sparklight does it but I left AT&T 2 years ago as a lineman and we ran fiber up to the actual modem. Either way, coming 750' off of road won't be an issue.

 

[5030]

I guess we get away cheap. 50 bucks unlimited speed fiber optic and the landline and smart TV is on it as well and we use our own router, not theirs though we do have their connection box in the office, no charge for that either. Goes south every so often but they credit us for the downtime after some whining....

 

[JeepHead]

I guess we get away cheap. 50 bucks unlimited speed fiber optic and the landline and smart TV is on it as well and we use our own router, not theirs though we do have their connection box in the office, no charge for that either. Goes south every so often but they credit us for the downtime after some whining....

Hate to be the one that tells ya but your landline isn't really a landline. Your internet or power goes down, your landline goes with it. Nothing like the landlines from the past.. In fact, a cell phone is better than those internet based telephone lines...

 

[caver]

Spectrum is Charter Communications. I was with them for many years (cable interwebs) but got tired of the price increases and poorer performance. When I dropped service the employee said i was good as in all paid up. I went to the local store maybe 2 days before the end of the month. Two months later I get a collection agency after me. Never had that happen in my life until then. They have funny ways of billing. If you go with them save your initial paperwork. I had been with them for so many years and couldn't recall how the initial billing was done. Apparently when you end your account the billing continues to mid month. They never sent me any mail saying hey you still owed us for a month. I paid what I feel was their extortion fee of one months service I never used. At least I had a receipt for the returned modem. The area coop, which doesn't serve this town, put in fiber and was $10 cheaper than the $80 Spectrum. Loads of threads on reddit about that company so buyer beware.

 

[5030]

Hate to be the one that tells ya but your landline isn't really a landline. Your internet or power goes down, your landline goes with it. Nothing like the landlines from the past.. In fact, a cell phone is better than those internet based telephone lines...

I know that. My wife wanted it for Township business.

 

[WM75Guy]

Spectrum ran fiber in front of our property a few months ago and we switched over to Spectrum. Our property is 700' from the road. I have 2 accounts, one to the house at 300 Mbps & phone ($65/mo) and one to the shop at 100 Mbps & phone ($45/mo). Since install they increased the speed for the house to 400 Mbps without any additional charge. I cut my data and phone bill down from $170/mo to $110/mo.

They laid 2 fiber cables across the pasture, down the fence line from the pedestal at the street to each building. The cable connects to a demarc box on the outside wall. From there they drilled a hole to the inside wall, mounted the modem, and connected the 2 with a short piece of fiber. There are 2 ports on the modem, one for data and one for phone. The modem does require an outlet for a power cord. I have 2 Cat 5e lines run from the modem to my garage utility closet on the far side. In the closet I have 2 42" boxes, one for phone & data, and one for the Directv equipment. I connected the data line to a new D-Link mesh router and the phone cable to my phone network.

Spectrum employees did the initial install of modems and cables. It took a while but eventually a sub-contractor came out and buried 2 new lines. They left the 2 original cables still connected on top of the ground, as they are not allowed to connect them. Spectrum employees then came back, connected the new cables at each end, rolled up the original cables, and took them away.

So far it has worked reasonably well. The majority of the outages at first were from cable cuts due to all the new fiber being laid in Henderson County. That leveled off and now it is the occasional outage. Speeds down are as advertised, upload speed is about 15-20 Mbps. Much improved over our Verizon Home LTE at 50 up/5 down Mbps. Zoom or Webex sessions would be no problem.

 

[newbury]

I've written several times about how in the last dozen years the government has gone like a spider on drugs laying cable in an effort to remove the backwardness of rural areas.
When we bought our "place to retire" in Mississippi a dozen or so years ago the best internet we could get was speeds of ~1.6 Megabits down and 600 kilobits up, on the local Telephone company's DSL.

Then about 8 years ago the government decided to "upgrade" the counties. Two companies, The Telephone and the Electric Coop competed for our county. Their rates were about the same 100Mbps up/down $55/mo. But Telephone went underground and Electric went on the poles.
Electric got to us first, about 3 years ago.
Well last year Telephone gave up, stopped digging.
Service has been fair to middling. Now mind you this is Northeast Mississippi.
I run about a dozen IP cams to monitor the place, plus relatives stopping by. Last summer, about June, we had left for a couple of months in Virginia and a storm came through and I lost connection. I called the company, was told to check a couple of things, I told them I was 900 miles away. BIL drove over (~16 miles) checked it out, all looked fine on the inside. He rebooted everything, still no connection to the net. I called customer support, they said they could not do any thing unless someone was there to let them in and stay with them. And they couldn't do anything from the outside. My BIL is a practicing Doctor and I didn't want to task him.

So I finally got back down end of September. Network had been down July, August, September. Call the support, they go through about 50 questions of any added equipment, etc. etc. and they finally send someone out. He couldn't find anything wrong, he then checked the connection on the pole at the street. Wasp nest. Could have easily been fixed the day after it went offline. Been working fine since.

"They are so sweet" my MIL would say.

But they did change the rates, now it is 300Mbps up/down for $55. 1GB is $85.
Monthly costs have stayed the same, minimum speed tripled. And I routinely check the speeds, now getting ~250+.

So Eddie - go for it.
/edit - note - I think your getting shafted on upload speeds.

 

[EddieWalker]

Spectrum ran fiber in front of our property a few months ago and we switched over to Spectrum. Our property is 700' from the road. I have 2 accounts, one to the house at 300 Mbps & phone ($65/mo) and one to the shop at 100 Mbps & phone ($45/mo). Since install they increased the speed for the house to 400 Mbps without any additional charge. I cut my data and phone bill down from $170/mo to $110/mo.

They laid 2 fiber cables across the pasture, down the fence line from the pedestal at the street to each building. The cable connects to a demarc box on the outside wall. From there they drilled a hole to the inside wall, mounted the modem, and connected the 2 with a short piece of fiber. There are 2 ports on the modem, one for data and one for phone. The modem does require an outlet for a power cord. I have 2 Cat 5e lines run from the modem to my garage utility closet on the far side. In the closet I have 2 42" boxes, one for phone & data, and one for the Directv equipment. I connected the data line to a new D-Link mesh router and the phone cable to my phone network.

Spectrum employees did the initial install of modems and cables. It took a while but eventually a sub-contractor came out and buried 2 new lines. They left the 2 original cables still connected on top of the ground, as they are not allowed to connect them. Spectrum employees then came back, connected the new cables at each end, rolled up the original cables, and took them away.

So far it has worked reasonably well. The majority of the outages at first were from cable cuts due to all the new fiber being laid in Henderson County. That leveled off and now it is the occasional outage. Speeds down are as advertised, upload speed is about 15-20 Mbps. Much improved over our Verizon Home LTE at 50 up/5 down Mbps. Zoom or Webex sessions would be no problem.

Thanks Randy!! This is what I was hoping to hear. I'm probably going to call Perez and get things started, but I really wanted to know what to expect before I made the call.

Why do you have phone? Is it like a landline? What does their phone service do that a cell phone doesn't do?

 

[WM75Guy]

They are landlines. We still have a fax machine in the house office. Some government agencies only accept fax or snail mail to submit signed documents. It goes straight to voicemail. I give it out instead of my cellphone so I am not bothered by telemarketers. It gets 10-20 calls a day, especially during Medicare open enrollment times. The shop landline is for the stained-glass business. Cheaper than another cellphone line.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks. I was worried that I was missing something.

My dad retired from AT&T and got a huge discount on his landline phone, so he had to have it. When he passed away, they removed his discount and my dumped it.

I'm actually relieved because it rang non stop and he always answered it. I was sure it was just a matter of time before he gave away his life savings!!!

 

[JeepHead]

Thanks Randy!! This is what I was hoping to hear. I'm probably going to call Perez and get things started, but I really wanted to know what to expect before I made the call.

Why do you have phone? Is it like a landline? What does their phone service do that a cell phone doesn't do?

The phone service that comes in over a fiber network is NOT a traditional landline. Thy will not function if the fiber modem isn't functioning. They need power and data to work. They carry no voltage over them like the traditional landlines did.

 

[WM75Guy]

The phone service that comes in over a fiber network is NOT a traditional landline. Thy will not function if the fiber modem isn't functioning. They need power and data to work. They carry no voltage over them like the traditional landlines did.

If the fiber network goes down, the phone does go out. But my traditional copper landline went out more than my fiber landline has done so far. Every heavy rainstorm took it out. The local tech told me they were running out of good pairs in the underground cables, with no plans to replace them. I was one of their few remaining customers in my neighborhood, and that was before we got access to Spectrum fiber service. Most had switched to cell service.

 

[JeepHead]

If the fiber network goes down, the phone does go out. But my traditional copper landline went out more than my fiber landline has done so far. Every heavy rainstorm took it out. The local tech told me they were running out of good pairs in the underground cables, with no plans to replace them. I was one of their few remaining customers in my neighborhood, and that was before we got access to Spectrum fiber service. Most had switched to cell service.

I am a former communications lineman for AT&T so I know a little about this stuff. Fiber is really reliable stuff, it pretty much only goes out if the line is damaged. But we found that whatever coating they use on the lines, the rodents love. Squirrel chews are a constant thing with fiber on the aerial lines, obviously not so much for the underground lines. But what we found with underground lines is that many installers don't ground the lines so they become undetectable and are often cut accidentally.

The copper network is very old, some of the main transmission lines have been in place for decades. It's yesterday's technology and it's going away. At AT&T we got to the point of charging customers many hundreds of dollars month if they wanted to keep their landline. We forced them away from it by making it not affordable. I had one guy that I went to change over and he was irate. He had the landline for 40 years and we increased his bill to $400 a month and he kept the landline, so we knocked him up to $850 a month for that one telephone line and he finally said NO WAY. But he certainly gave me an earful that day even though I didn't increase his cost. lol And if you were in an area that had fiber available and you still didn't wanna change over to fiber, if you had any line problems whatsoever, we would refuse to repair your current line. Only option you have was to convert.

But phone service over fiber is internet based phone service and not a landline.. A lot of people don't realize this.

 

[Oaktree]

I've worked with point-to-point data links (T1 lines, etc.) and audio dry pairs for years and agree that fiber is head and shoulders above copper. Even lines where the "last mile" is copper, most of the trunk lines have been fiber for a couple decades now. Maybe there are a few small independent phone companies that still have an old-school central office with batteries, but they're few and far between

But phone service over fiber is internet based phone service and not a landline.. A lot of people don't realize this.

Can't speak for others, but when I refer to a landline these days I'm just talking about a wired phone as opposed to a cellular device. At some point in the circuit it's all VoIP these days.