They call themselves Spectrum now-a-days because they are built up out of a rainbow (spectrum) of smaller old ex-competitors.What actually changed is
all your old cheapie competitive deals suddenly went away and suddenly Cable based Internet costs $50 a month
with no deals at all going on at all any more. Same or slightly better speed/coverage, yes, but they got their hands down your pants big time for getting more of your $$$$.
Point is that unless you got a household full of teenagers, you don't need even the current MINIMUM data speeds that cable offers now a days. Think back, you can get what you used to get (5-10 megabits per second) now from phone line VDSL modems. Yep, the phone company can give you what you need, easily, through the same phone lines that went in when your house was built.
You old person you, it crept up on you while your back was turned -- you are paying a lot of money each month for speed that you don't need.
This sucks -- prompted my household to switch over to Centurylink "Basic" phone based service for a year just to see what a cheapie $24.95 a month at the old 10 megabit download speed can REALLY actually really handle.
A $45 one gen back used ActionTec C1000A Centurylink modem/router bought used from Amazon met the Centurylink requirement of "if it is our box we can hook it up for you". I got the equipment in and got the service hooked up turned on in just 2 days, which is quicker than Time Warner can do it by a good bit.
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What can it handle, based on the most modern VDSL phone internet technology? (not very modern tech, over 10 years old, actually)
I got a Roku TV box which runs all day long, two computers, three cell phones and two Apple i-Pads and all of them suck wifi (except my Dell big box Linux computer that is). I figured I would hook them all up and just see which ones faulted out first.
Centurylink forums say the ActionTec C1000A box likes to get overheated and cooks out eventually, so I put a pair of pencils under the plastic box to jack it up off the desktop surface to mebbe allow a little more cool convection air to move up through the air slots.
So far so good ..... and at a $25 per month savings compared to Time Warner / Spectrum. No, it isn't nearly as fast or as good as the top end stuff, but I find my wife really doesn't use a lot of bandwidth watching Downton Abby and her other Brit shows.
Fun will really start on Tuesday when we call Time Warner / Spectrum to shut off the old cable service. If the Time Warner people are still running the show, I bet the big "keep your old customer" discounts magically appear again and the begging phone calls about "you are a valued customer" bullshite starts all over again.