Remember that whole thing where Time Warner Cable was going to install really fast internet upgrades and try to suck a whole lot less? Yeah, that. Well, like the TWC brand itself, the plan to upgrade cities to “Maxx” internet speed is now being left in the dust thanks to the acquisition by Charter.
In 2014 and 2015, TWC made much ado of its plans to upgrade its cable and broadband services to a new service called “TWC Maxx.” Maxx was to give users speeds up to 300 Mbps, where previously TWC’s broadband options had maxed out at around 50 Mbps. Austin was up first, followed by Charlotte — both, conveniently enough, Google Fiber cities. New York and Los Angeles were also both on the list.
But as tech news site DSL Reports first noticed, those plans have been put on hold. Hard.
DSL Reports first noticed the pause in June, but it started even earlier than that, in late May.
Charter has its own upgrade plans it plans to put in place across the TWC footprint they now own, but those plans offer slower speed at highr prices than the Maxx rollout promised. Charter’s offering a $60 60 Mbps option and a $100 100 Mbps one, where TWC’s upgrade plans topped out at 300 Mbps and claimed not to increase prices above what subscribers were earlier paying to get 50 Mbps.
And even that, Charter and TWC customers should perhaps not hold their breath waiting for. The company’s CFO said in a recent earnings call that the TWC digiral strategy is “largely put on hold” as the company works on Charter’s all digital strategy in “the beginning of next year.”
It makes sense that Charter would be putting a hold on any TWC-only programs, since now they are faced with the complicated task of trying to integrate and unify three companies’ worth of systems — and they’ve long since said they’re killing off the TWC brand in order to bring all subscribers together as Charter Spectrum customers.
Analysts have also long supposed that in the immediate aftermath of the merger, customers could expect service and customer care to languish, with improvements on the medium-to-long term horizon at best.
by Kate Cox via Consumerist
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