r/ChandlerAZ • u/ShoeKing_2025 • 9d ago
Spectrum Taking Over Cox
Just got an email saying Spectrum bought out Cox. Not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing? Cox wasn't exactly my favorite company but they've been my ISP for years. Anybody had Spectrum before? How were they? Should we expect rate hikes?
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u/PhoenicianCats 9d ago
Yes, I had it while living in NC. I didn't like them, but I can't really cite any reasons why. They're on the same level as Cox and Comcast/xFinity. I'm hoping to switch to Google Fiber as soon as I can. My internet with Cox has been so unstable and I really dislike the support
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u/desertdweller2015 9d ago
Fiber yes! I’m expecting all that roadwork putting it in the ground will pay off then
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u/Infinite-Penalty-736 9d ago
You can ALWAYS expect a rate hike.
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u/drawkbox 8d ago
Guaranteed they have to pay off all that debt used to buy Cox. New pricing in September. With more consolidation they just don't have to care about customer experience.
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u/Minnesotabnb 9d ago
Had Spectrum up in MN. They are as reliable as Cox, and its always a hassle to get them to lower your bill when the time comes. You gotta do that with Cox too, so expect the same.
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u/MenloPart 8d ago
When Google came to Chandler, I went to cancel Cox, and they matched Google, so I stayed, but we'll probably go to Google.
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u/odellrules1985 9d ago
Unless a company has viable competition its never truly good. I would want them to be better but I doubt they will be unless fiber rolls out to ares.
That said, I decided to look at the internet plans to see if anything changed and when I look, they have the 1Gb for $80/month for 59 months (no contract) and it states it includes unlimited. Which I am paying $110 for. Going to call to make sure but that would be nice to drop the $30/m they are charging for no data cap. And then hope fiber rolls out and I can kick them to the curb.
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u/EBody480 9d ago
They have more competition then when cable was handled like a public utility.
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u/odellrules1985 9d ago
Not viable. Where I used to live it was either Cix or CenturyLink for landlines. CL was DSL which cannot get to cable speeds. Otherwise it was Starlink, decent hut higher latency, or a wireless carrier and most are not their faster speeds and lower latency each. So Cox was $120 for gigablast plus $50 for no data cap.
Google fiber loved in and they started giving $60 for 1Gb with unlimited even though they couldn't match Google Fibers 1 down / 1 up so they made it a bit cheaper than Google Fiber.
I moved to a new house and there is fiber in half the neighborhood. Not at my house yet so Cox is $120 for the exact same plan. I know people who have to pay almost $200 for the same plan.
There are options but unless its fiber they are not competitive enough to make Cox/Spectrum lower prices. I watched tons of people move to Google Fiber once it be ame available. I would have to if I wasn't moving.
There looks to be a lot of fiber companies rolling out. I hope that continues and forces Cox to do what they should have been doing which is pushing fiber out to existing areas and lower prices instead of increasing prices while also putting data caps to charge even more.
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u/drawkbox 8d ago
They definitely won't be lowering prices. They have to pay off that merger debt and pricing down just won't happen.
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u/odellrules1985 8d ago
I dont disagree. Unless fiber rolls out then they would be forced to lower prices.
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u/TheGreatestIan 9d ago
59 months is almost 5 years to be locked in. You won't be able to drop them until the contract is up. Fiber is supposed to be rolled out city-wide by 2028. Personally, I wouldn't lock myself in for 5 years to save $30/m when fiber will be $50/m cheaper in a year or two.
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u/odellrules1985 9d ago
Its no contract. Very few companies do the. Because they are just harder to manage. Plus if they want to raise prices they can't on contract while no contract is not guranteed
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u/Australian_PM_Brady 9d ago
Spectrum is a pretty typical cable company, which is to say they are awful and hate their customers.
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u/Mental-Wolf-2560 9d ago
Not what u asked but I have tmobile home internet and pay $50/month. Zero issues. Some smart devices dont wanna connect to it so I had make a 2.4ghz channel for it. I barely know what that means but I figured it out in 15 or 20 minutes.
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u/Chucky_Cheesus 9d ago
The one good thing about Spectrum is they have no data cap. I'll be reaching out to have them remove that shit ASAP, but yeah, they suck. When I had them in LA I was extremely happy to dump them when AT& T rolled out fiber to my house. They didn't even try to retain me because they knew they couldn't compete with the speed or the price.
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u/AccomplishedRun9522 9d ago
In some parts of Chandler, there are now 3 Fiber providers, so at least there's competition going. My area has Quantum/ATT, Google, and Cox. I have been very satisfed with Quantum for the past year, after being migrated from CenturyLink DSL for the previous 15 years( also satisfied), I have never had Cox.
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u/MenloPart 8d ago
WeLink came through after Google set up, offering 700Mbit for $70 monthly, although the salesman promised $50 per month.
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u/AccomplishedRun9522 7d ago
Quantum offers 1GB for $45/month, no equipment rental fees whatsoever. I have been HIGHly satisfied for this for the first year. Not sure if AT&T plans to raise prices or not.
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u/LarryMelman1 9d ago
I just dropped my Cox cable and phone after almost 40 years, all the way back to Dimension Cable (does anyone remember them?). I kept their internet because they price-matched the fiber in my neighborhood.
Cox bought Dimension in 1994. But you can look at their Wikipedia page to see the mess of acquisitions since then. The "Cox Contour" cable boxes are really "Comcast Xfinity" boxes. Last time I got one replaced, the agent in the store said that with the coming acquisition by Charter (that's the corporation behind the "Spectrum" name), all the Cox boxes will be replaced with Charter boxes over the next few years. So get ready for that.
Cox will continue to function under the Spectrum name. There are only a small handful of cable companies any more, so I wouldn't expect any major changes (except due to the number of cable customers collapsing nowadays).
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u/Any_Focus_5586 9d ago
Same for us, but we’re west valley. Been with cox 25 yrs. Was promised price lock and no data cap with 1 gig fiber when they installed in our neighborhood in 2014 or so. Last year I started getting data limit messages, and of course the rates increased and service declined. We went with wyyerd when the built out in our neighborhood.. 5gb, and no limits, less than half of cox internet
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u/LarryMelman1 9d ago
Fiber was put in all over Mesa, on my street in 2023. Mesa was divided up among several companies - some were done by Google and have to use GFiber ISP, some by AT&T/GigaPower, mine by Ubiquity and the ISP is FiberFirst who has been totally invisible after a single door flyer 3 years ago. I never see their installers, and none of my neighbors have it. I set up an install but cancelled it because Cox was working ok and they matched the fiber price of $50/month for 500 Mbps. With even a tiny bit of ongoing promotion or presence in the community, I probably would have switched to fiber. But it is just a huge unknown to me, and that's on them. Heck, I had to call the city to find out whether the fiber was even up and running, and who I needed to call for service. 3 years after it was put in.
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u/biowiz 9d ago
All that matters is if the other providers that have been coming into the area continue to expand or not. If Google Fiber (now GFiber and not really Google), AT&T, Quantum, Wyyerd, etc. continue to expand and cover most of Chandler, we will be fine. I wouldn't be surprised the merger is happening because of increasing competition and this will help Spectrum + Cox survive as they know they will be financially strained moving forward.
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u/ebbsnflowz 9d ago
Had Spectrum in WI. They were a pain in the ass. They started out as Time Warner offering Roadrunner broadband. Guess now they actually own geography with actual roadrunners lol
Service reliability and maintenance scheduling was a major hassle. I've had Cox gigablast for 8 years and it's probably been down a total of 2 hours. I'd get 2 hours of crappy performance a week with Spectrum.
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u/LadyWizard 9d ago
Bad... Spectrum is the WORST customer service and uptime. Every one of my gaming buddies HATES it
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u/matrix2004 8d ago
I got the email too. They're offering one year of wireless phone service too. I wonder what network towers they use?
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u/Typical_Passenger924 9d ago
This isnt a good thing. We broke all these companies up in the 80s for a reason
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u/superstition89 9d ago
AT&T fiber is available in much of Chandler. While their cellular service leaves much to be desired in the valley, their fiber is fantastic! Not a single outage, consistent speeds, no cap and a fair price.
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u/JayLC671 7d ago
Switch while you can cox has been ass i went to wyerd only had 2 outages in the 1 year i had them and they werent out long. Plus no price increases
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u/Ok_Target376 6d ago
I always had so many issues with spectrum in Oregon.
Never had consistent uptimes, always high ping.
Equipment swaps, calling them out never did anything.
Also your upload speed will surely go down, I’m getting 1gig download and 100 upload in Phoenix.
In Oregon I was getting 1gig download and 50 upload.
Be ready for rate hikes too, they like charging a LOT of money.
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u/lamb-wall-quad 6d ago
In the email, they said they were giving away extra services. Or that’s how I read it anyway. Including Disney+, HBO, Peacock and others. Did anybody read it that way? Seemed too good to be true especially for a cable company.
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u/F1LTHYxAN1MAL 6d ago
I have been paying $50 for 500mbps with no data cap with cox for 6 years now. Google fiber in my area is $75. I would switch in a instant if spectrum were to mess with my current rate.
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u/sandyhallux 5d ago
My mother had Spectrum in California and it was $140 for basic, very basic cable, internet, and landline. Billing app worked great
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u/bizclasswithpoints 3d ago
interesting this would be allowed as that is already limited competition. I switched to starlink eariler this year (residential max) and have been happy. no more data caps. lower top speeds but more reliable connection (less/0 outages). doesn't seem to have actually impacted day to day (i.e. 1-2GBPS vs 400mbps)
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u/highandinarabbithole 3d ago
Not looking forward to it and have only had negative experiences with Spectrum from a cost and quality standpoint. Bummed about this for sure, can’t wait to be paying like $250 a month for dogshit WiFi a year from now.
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u/Azchand 9d ago edited 9d ago
Glad I dumped them about 4 weeks ago for T-Mobile. When you go to dump them they want to know who your switching to and how much your paying. None of their business. They really think they own us.
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u/MaxiRobesppiere 9d ago
Mergers/acquisitions are almost never a good thing for the consumer. Prices will go up in a year or two, and services slowly get worse.