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Product type | |
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Owner | Charter Communications |
Country | United States |
Introduced | 2014 |
Website | www |
Spectrum is the trade name of Charter Communications. The name is widely used by both market consumers and commercial businesses. Services that Spectrum offers include cable television, internet access, internet security, managed services, mobile phone, and unified communications.
The Spectrum brand name was first introduced in 2014. Prior to that, these services were marketed primarily under the Charter brand. Following the acquisitions of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks by Charter in 2016, these operations also merged into the Spectrum brand. [1] [2]
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Time Warner Cable first launched what would become Road Runner with a 1995 market test in Elmira, New York, under the banner Southern Tier On-Line Community. [3] [4] Later it became known as LineRunner [5] (a moniker subsequently employed by its VoIP service[ citation needed ]), before Time Warner Cable adopted[ when? ] the Road Runner brand name.[ citation needed ]
Road Runner High Speed Online employed the Road Runner character from the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons (part of the Looney Tunes / Merrie Melodies franchises) distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures as its mascot and brand name. However, in 2012, it was rebranded as simply Time Warner Cable Internet, dropping the Road Runner branding that Time Warner Cable had to license from the now unaffiliated Warner Bros. [6] With Charter's acquisition of Time Warner Cable in May 2016, the service was rebranded as "Spectrum Internet" on September 20, 2016. [7]
Despite raising prices of its Internet service within the previous year, Time Warner Cable announced in February 2009 that it would expand its bandwidth caps and coverage fees into four additional markets by the end of the year.[ citation needed ]
On April 1, 2009, the cities to have metered billing were announced, which included: Beaumont, Texas; Rochester, New York; Austin, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; and Greensboro, North Carolina.[ citation needed ]
These metered based billing plans were canceled[ when? ] according to Time Warner Cable "due to customer misunderstanding".[ citation needed ]
Caps would range from 5 GB to 100 GB with no unlimited option. The bandwidth will include downloads and uploads. If a user goes over, they will be charged $1 per additional gigabyte. Time Warner Cable announced they would provide a meter for users to monitor their usage. The new plan was set to begin in the summer of 2009, however due to protests they had decided against the bandwidth caps. Currently, users have unlimited bandwidth usage given that it does not exceed the predetermined data service maximum as given in the "master agreement". [8] Time Warner Cable would have offered unlimited data for $150/month had the plan continued. [9]
Glenn Britt (1949–2014), [10] [11] CEO from 2001 until December 2013, justified the new billing plans by claiming that the infrastructures had to be continuously upgraded and users would pay for how much they use. In February 2015, a Huffington Post article alleges a 97% profit margin on Time Warner Cable's Internet service. [12]
Facebook groups have been created in protest in addition to an online petition and a Web site dedicated to stop the movement. [13] Other Web sites have been recently following the Time Warner Cable cap plans that were already following broadband Internet providers metering and capping plans. [14] [15]
U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressman Eric Massa, both of whom represent portions of the Rochester, New York market that would be affected by the changes, announced their opposition to the plan and even went as far as to threaten legislation to ban such a scheme. On April 16, 2009, Time Warner Cable abandoned the plan. [16]
As a condition of the merger with TWC, Spectrum agreed to not impose any bandwidth usage caps for seven years post-merger. [17]
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On January 30, 2014, Time Warner Cable announced its new TWC Maxx initiative in New York City and Los Angeles which substantially boosted service speeds at no additional cost compared to the existing speed tiers, with the highest speed tier tripling from 100 Mbit/s to 300 Mbit/s. [18]
As of mid 2016, TWC Maxx upgrades have been completed in New York City up the Hudson Valley, Los Angeles, [19] Austin, Kansas City, Dallas, San Antonio, Raleigh, Hawaii, and Charlotte. Rollouts of TWC Maxx were in progress in San Diego, Greensboro, and Wilmington and were completed in early 2016. [20]
After the TWC acquisition by Charter in June 2016, TWC Maxx upgrades have indefinitely been put on hold. [21]
After its merger with TWC and Bright House Networks, Charter Spectrum started offering broadband Internet plans across its entire service area. In December 2017, Charter began its rollout of DOCSIS 3.1, [22] initially in early TWC Maxx markets, which increased speeds and added a gigabit tier. As of April 2020, most of the Spectrum footprint has Spectrum Internet Gig available and starting base speeds depend by area which at one point will all be upgraded to 200/10 Mbit/s in the near future. [23] [ citation needed ]
In late 2009 after splitting off from Time Warner (now Warner Bros. Discovery), Time Warner Cable began reselling Clearwire mobile WiMAX service as Road Runner Mobile, bundled with the company's existing broadband, TV and VoIP services. In October 2009, the company indicated that they'd be launching their incarnation of the service starting December 1 in Raleigh, Durham, Cary, Chapel Hill, Charlotte and Greensboro, and later, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Honolulu, and Maui. [24]
As of late 2011, Time Warner Cable stopped signing up new Road Runner Mobile customers under resold Clearwire WiMAX service. Existing WiMAX customers could continue to use the service, but TWC began signing up new Road Runner Mobile customers under resold Verizon Wireless 4G LTE services. As of late 2012, however, all mentions of Time Warner Cable-branded mobile broadband services have been removed from Time Warner Cable's website and most regional franchises, and eventually, those customers were transitioned directly to Verizon.
On June 30, 2018, Charter launched Spectrum Mobile, [25] a mobile virtual network operator service. Spectrum utilizes their service area's Wi-Fi network for extended network coverage, while Verizon Wireless provides the network Spectrum Mobile utilizes for mobile service, both a traditional 4G network and newer 5G network. [26] [27] [28]
On June 26, 2018, Charter Communications announced it had given L.A.'s Finest a series order for a first season consisting of 13 episodes. [29] The series premiered as the cable service's first original series on May 13, 2019, marking Charter's first foray into original programming. [30]
In August, Curfew [31] and E Is for Edie [32] received pickups. On March 6, 2019, the service picked up a 12-episode eighth season of the 1992–1999 NBC sitcom Mad About You , which premiered six of the episodes on November 20, 2019. [33] [34]
On June 11, 2019, a series titled Paradise Lost was announced as having received a pickup. [35] On February 19, 2020, it was announced that the series would premiere on April 13, 2020. [36]
On June 26, 2019, the DirecTV Latin America original series Todo por el juego (Everything for the Game) was announced as premiering on Spectrum Originals on July 15, 2019. The original series would be offered, along with an English-dubbed version entitled Side Games. [37]
On January 18, 2020, it was announced that Manhunt: Unabomber would return as Manhunt: Deadly Games and premiere on February 3. [38]
On February 13, 2020, it was announced that the Sky One series Temple would premiere on March 9, 2020. [39]
On August 11, 2022, Charter Communications announced that it would phase out Spectrum Originals due to rising production costs. [40]
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On May 23, 2017, [41] about 1,800 Spectrum workers went on strike in New York City, following the company's efforts to take control of workers health insurance and pension plans. [42] The strike, which ended on April 18, 2022,[ citation needed ] is currently the longest strike in United States history. [42] Spectrum has refused to negotiate with the workers' union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 3, instead, hiring a large temporary workforce of strikebreakers, and attempted to launch a vote to decertify IBEW Local 3. [41] [42] Spectrum's efforts to decertify the union has faced legal challenge, including a March 2020 decision by the National Labor Relations Board, which found "a serious and substantial issue" regarding Spectrum's efforts to decertify the union. [43]
In 2018, Charter agreed to a $174 million fine with New York state, in lieu of the state completely revoking its franchise to operate throughout the state, which would have inconvenienced much of the state's residential and commercial operations. According to New York State, Charter did not provide new high-speed internet service to as many homes as they had promised during merger discussions with Time Warner Cable. [44] [45]
The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are located in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather forecasts and weather-related news and analysis, along with documentaries and entertainment programming related to weather. A sister network, Weatherscan, was a digital cable and satellite service that offered 24-hour automated local forecasts and radar imagery. Weatherscan was officially shut down on December 12, 2022. The Weather Channel also produces outsourced weathercasts, notably for CBS News and RFD-TV.
Vidéotron is a Canadian integrated telecommunications company active in cable television, interactive multimedia development, video on demand, cable telephony, wireless communication and Internet access services. Owned by Quebecor, it primarily serves Quebec and Ottawa, as well as the Francophone communities of New Brunswick and some parts of Eastern Ontario. Its principal competitors are Bell Canada and Telus Communications.
Rogers Hi-Speed Internet is a broadband Internet service provider in Canada, owned by Rogers Communications. Rogers previously operated under the brand names Rogers@Home, Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet, WAVE, and Road Runner in Newfoundland. It is currently the second largest Internet provider in Canada, after Bell Internet by customer count.
Spectrum Center is an indoor arena located in Uptown Charlotte, North Carolina. It is owned by the city of Charlotte and operated by its main tenant, the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The arena seats 19,077 for NBA games but can be expanded to 20,200 for college basketball games.
Shaw Communications Inc. was a Canadian telecommunications company which provided telephone, Internet, television, and mobile services. The company was founded in 1966 as Capital Cable Television Company, Ltd. by JR Shaw in Edmonton. The company was acquired by and amalgamated into Rogers Communications in 2023; most operations were rebranded to the Rogers brand beginning in July of that year, with services and sponsorships in former Shaw markets having used the transitional brand Rogers together with Shaw for promotional purposes.
DSLReports is a North American-oriented broadband information and review site based in New York City. The site's main focus is on internet, phone, cable TV, fiber optics, and wireless services in the United States and Canada, as well as other countries.
Spectrum News 1 Capital Region is an American cable news television channel owned by Charter Communications as an affiliate of its Spectrum News slate of regional news channels. The channel provides 24-hour rolling news coverage focused primarily on the Capital District of eastern New York. The channel is headquartered in Albany, New York, and maintains a sub feed serving the Hudson Valley region. Spectrum News 1 Capital Region is carried on channel 9 throughout most of the region, although its channel slot varies in the towns of Queensbury and Canajoharie, and in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
NY1 is an American cable news television channel founded by Time Warner Cable, which itself is owned by Charter Communications through its acquisition in May 2016. The channel provides 24-hour news coverage, with a focus on the five boroughs of New York City; its programming primarily features news, traffic and weather, however NY1 also features specialty programs such as Inside City Hall.
Charter Communications, Inc., is an American telecommunications and mass media company with services branded as Spectrum. The company is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.
Spectrum News 1 Central New York is an American cable news television channel owned by Charter Communications, as an affiliate of its Spectrum News slate of regional news channels. The channel provides 24-hour rolling news coverage focused primarily on central portions of upstate New York. The channel is based in downtown Syracuse, New York out of the former New York Central Railroad Passenger and Freight Station building along Interstate 690.
Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, doing business as Xfinity, is an American telecommunications business segment and division of the Comcast Corporation. It is used to market consumer cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services provided by the company. The brand was first introduced in 2010; prior to that, these services were marketed primarily under the Comcast name.
Spectrum News 1 Rochester is an American cable news television channel owned by Charter Communications through its acquisition of Time Warner Cable in May 2016, as an affiliate of its Spectrum News slate of regional news channels. The channel provides 24-hour rolling news coverage focused primarily on Rochester, New York and the nearby Genesee River and Finger Lakes regions.
Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operating in 29 states. Its corporate headquarters were located in the Time Warner Center in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with other corporate offices in Stamford, Connecticut; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Herndon, Virginia.
Bright House Networks, LLC also simply known as Bright House, was an American telecom company. Prior to its purchase by Charter Communications, it was the tenth-largest multichannel video service provider and the 6th largest cable internet provider in the United States. The company served more than 2.2 million customers.
Spectrum News 1 Austin is an American cable news television channel owned by Charter Communications. The channel provides 24-hour rolling news coverage focused primarily on Central Texas. While its main feed serves the Austin metropolitan area, it also maintains sub-feeds for San Antonio and Waco.
Spectrum News 1 Kansas City is an American regional sports and news cable and satellite television network owned by Charter Communications. The channel mainly serves the Kansas City metropolitan area; Lawrence, Kansas; and the state of Nebraska. In addition to being carried on Charter Spectrum systems in the Kansas City area, it is currently available on cable providers such as Comcast and MIDCO in metropolitan Kansas City, Lawrence, and areas of Nebraska.
Spectrum News is the brand for a slate of cable news television channels that are owned by Charter Communications through its acquisition of Time Warner Cable in May 2016. Each of the 17 regional channels primarily focus on local news, weather and sports coverage in their given areas, in addition to national and international news stories. With the exception of NY1 and the Spectrum News channel for Dallas-Fort Worth, all of the channels are available only via Charter-owned pay television in their respective markets, not appearing on Verizon FiOS, AT&T U-verse, DirecTV or Dish Network.
Spectrum SportsNet LA and Spectrum Deportes LA is an American regional sports network jointly owned by the controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball team and Charter Communications through its acquisition of Time Warner Cable in May 2016. The channel's programming is devoted completely to the Dodgers, and includes coverage of all Dodgers games not being exclusively televised by MLB's national television partners, along with news, interview, and documentary programming focusing on the team.
On February 13, 2014, Comcast Corporation announced its intent to acquire Time Warner Cable. The deal was proposed to take the form of a stock swap, estimated at the time of announcement to be worth about $45.2 billion. The two companies argued that the merger would increase their overall scale, allowing the company to become more competitive, improve customer service quality, and quicken innovation. The companies also argued that the deal would increase competition in the United States' cable television and internet markets, as they planned to divest subscribers to Charter Communications to regulate the market share of their combined operation.
In broadcast television, cord-cutting refers to the pattern of viewers, referred to as cord-cutters, cancelling their subscriptions to multichannel television services available over cable or satellite, dropping pay television channels or reducing the number of hours of subscription TV viewed in response to competition from rival media available over the Internet. This content is either free or significantly cheaper than the same content provided via cable.