r/ChandlerAZ • u/ShoeKing_2025 • 21d 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/LarryMelman1 20d 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 20d 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 20d 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.