Spectrum.com

Greetings: September 29, 2022

We use Roku streaming for our TV application with Spectrum. Our signal strength is displayed as 151 mbps yet we have to constantly endure buffering, frozen video and no audio on a regular basis. This phenomenon occurs only on the TV channels we use most often (MSNBC and CNN). The problems listed do not occur on other TV channels. (UPDATE: During the weather problems in Florida from hurricane Ian, there was buffering as well as audio and video problems on the Weather Channel.

These problems have occurred many times in the past on a random basis, but currently it is every night. We can not use our TV. I have called Spectrum on multiple occasions and have been told a different reason with each call.

I have a PC that allows me to tune to the same TV channel that is experiencing the problems listed above. There is no buffering, freezing, audio or video problems when I do the so-called "double-blind" comparison on an ISP different than Spectrum.

It is my theory that Spectrum can analyze what channels we watch and can throttle back (lessen the “bandwidth”) on those TV channels. I suspect that the overall objective is to frustrate us and upgrade our subscription to a costlier level of service.

On my PC, I am able to do Internet searches (DuckDuckGo and Google) for information on lessening bandwidth that describes customer problems and gives examples of buffering, freezing, audio and video issues. The conclusion most often found is that the problematic ISP (Spectrum.com in this case) is trying to frustrate the customer and have a customer upgrade their Internet and TV package to a higher priced plan.

Spectrum has told me on two occasions that if the problem occurs for more than four continuous hours, then there is an automatic compensation given to the customer. This is a ridiculous statement. Most TV watching for daily news and world events occurs in the evening. There is no compensation for continuous problems of 359 minutes or less. That means the customer has to endure problems stated above for the whole evening...again this is met with frustration and sales of higher priced plans are believed to be a solution. Instead, the customer is playing 3-card monte.

We pay for a service and get only a portion of what we are paying for. I believe that is a fraudulent practice.

Sincerely,

Richard J.