I had the same thought. For the sake of clarity, Spectrum is not a cable company unto itself. It is a brand owned by Time Warner Cable, a thin facade to escape their reputation for costumer dissatisfaction.
> a thin facade to escape their reputation for costumer dissatisfaction
Not quite. TWC switched to the Spectrum brand when they were acquired by Charter, because Charter was in the process of rolling out the Spectrum brand for their own services at the time.
(to be fair, you could probably argue that Charter launching the Spectrum brand was "a thin facade to escape their reputation for costumer dissatisfaction", but it's not why TWC switched to the Spectrum brand)
Charter launched the Spectrum brand as a thin facade to escape their reputation for customer dissatisfaction. Charter acquired TWC. Charter re-branded TWC as Spectrum, a thin facade to escape TWC's reputation for customer dissatisfaction, among other benefits. Charter advertised heavily in existing TWC markets, spending lots of $ to broadcast the message of 'free' speed increases existing TWC customers would get as a result of the Spectrum takeover. Charter did all this as a thin facade to escape scrutiny for increasing minimum internet service costs in TWC's existing markets.
Actually, Spectrum was a new brand introduced after TWC was purchased by Charter Communications 2 years ago, so it was more an effort to unify the two brands than trying to run away from a bad reputation.
That also helps explain why they stopped offering discounts to new (and determined) customers. With fewer competitors, there's a greater ability to jack up prices and earn monopolistic rents.
Somehow they managed to escape into even more dissatisfaction. At least Time Warner had different plans and didn't spam me several times a week with letters. Now they only have one $70 plan and are sending me a ton of mail with "deals" that aren't deals.
I must've lucked out, then, as I only pay $15 a month for an Internet-only plan through Spectrum. Granted, the speeds aren't anything to write home about (30 Mb/s download), but it's more than serviceable.
Where's that? I have an old $15 plan for 3 mbit grandfathered in but I would like a little more speed. The only plan they are offering to me is $49 for 12 months which then goes up 70.
In Los Angeles. Oddly enough, I went to see if I could find that plan again and it's nowhere to be found. The cheapest it's showing for me is a $50 a month plan for 100 Mb/s speeds.
Just in case anyone is still reading this thread, Spectrum was launched by Charter in 2014, two years before the TWC merger. It's just a gimmicky brand, similar to Xfinity, Fios, or Uverse.