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Spectrum to Hike Rates Again, Including Its Low-Income Internet Option - PCMag

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The second-biggest cable operator in the US is not imposing yet another annual rate hike: Instead, Charter Communications’ Spectrum service is raising TV and broadband rates for the second time in a year.

Cord Cutters News’ Roger Cheng reported the latest set of rate increases Tuesday, which Spectrum then confirmed to PCMag on Thursday. They go into effect on Jan. 31, six months after a round of hikes imposed in July.

The most notable change in this round affects some of Spectrum’s lowest-income customers: Internet Assist, an entry-level option limited to households with a family member on one of three federal assistance programs, will jump from $19.99 to $25.99. But Spectrum is also raising this plan’s speeds from 30Mbps downloads and 4Mbps uploads (which barely exceeds the FCC’s 2015-vintage definition of broadband as 25/3 Mbps) to 50Mbps down and 5Mbps up. 

Spectrum’s “Advanced WiFi” rate to rent a Wi-Fi-equipped modem will go from $5 to $7. Spokesman Rich Ruggiero said in an email that this is the first time Spectrum has increased the rate for this, which he said “offers the most advanced technology to deliver speed, security and reliability to every connected device in the home” but did not go into further detail.

Non-Wi-Fi modems remain free at Spectrum, a contrast with most cable operators.

On the TV side, Spectrum’s mandatory surcharge for local broadcast stations will ratchet up from $23.20 to $25.75, while the fee to rent an HD-compatible tuner box will inch up from $10.99 to $12.50. Some channel bundles will see additional hikes, while the streaming-only, no-box-required TV Essentials will rise from $24.99 to $29.99 a month. 

Spectrum points to programming-cost inflation for the TV hikes, much as Comcast—the nation’s biggest cable operator—did when it increased its own rates in December. It’s a valid explanation, as demands for more money from channel owners have led streaming-TV services such as Google’s YouTube TV to raise their own rates and resulted in Disney taking its channels off Spectrum around Labor Day. 

Spectrum subscribers have a few ways to avoid these hikes, some with their own issues:

In recent years, Americans have turned to cord-cutting in such large numbers that traditional linear TV now looks locked into a permanent decline. And Spectrum’s parent company Charter should know this as well as anybody: In its most recent quarter, it reported 30.6 million residential and small-business broadband subscribers but less than half as many video customers, at just 14.4 million.

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