Charter Cable Madison Wisconsin
Charter Cable: The company you love to hate.
6/25/08
Charter Cable has announced cancellation of its plans to spy on users of their internet service so as to be able to target them with ads based on their surfing. Charter had planned to begin the program this month in Fort Worth, Texas, Sun Luis Obispo, California, Oxford, Massachusetts and Newtown, Connecticut. Charter says that they are responding to customer concerns and that the protest from members of Congress, Rep. Edward Markey and Rep. Joe Barton as well as a letter from Attorney General Richard Blumenthal had nothing to do with their decision. They also say that "Our customers are always our first priority." Ya. If you believe that, I have a bridge I would like to sell you.
6/12/08
You will need a digital set-top box in order to view the Sun Prairie public access channels starting August 12th. Sun Prairie's KSUN-12 and KIDS-4 will be moved to where the sun don't shine in cable-land. Instead of being on the low tier of channel selection, where you only had to pay the basic cable fees, it is now on the very high end, 980-994, where you need to pay for the box in order to watch these channels. The one upside is that now the people who live in the Providence Subdivision might be able to actually watch these channels which, before now, were not available because they live too close to Madison and only receive madison Public Access channels.
5/21/08
Charter Cable has done the expected: they are canceling out of their cable franchise deal with Madison, Wisconsin and Sun Prairie can't be far behind. This means that Charter will not be subject to the city's franchise agreement which guaranteed a prime spot on the dial for the city's channels and delivered $419,000 annually to the city for community broadcasting. So, besides not having the funds for the community channels, even if the city comes up with the funds by itself, these channels could end up on a triple digit channel that nobody will find by accident as is the case now. Charter charged 63 cents per customer, each month, for public education and government channels.
5/19/08
Charter Cable is doing testing in four cities to see how effectively they can spy on your internet usage and then use that information to SPAM YOU WITH THEIR ADS. If you don't see anything wrong with this, you should. This is an invasion of personal and private information and they are doing it to harvest information so that they can display their ads that they have sold to advertisers. So, you will not be able to see the normal internet traffic but you will be detoured to view what they want you to view. This is an incredible misuse and control of the Internet and this should not be allowed to go forward at all. I'm not one for government doing a lot for me, but this is one case where they ought to step in and tell Charter: NO! They are selling a service to us: Internet access. They should have no right to interfere in our free usage of the Internet.
Charter has been struggling with a slumping stock price and is probably going to use this method of spying on you and yours to rake in extra cash. How about just trying to give decent service and maybe so many people would not be fleeing to satellite service? How about letting you talk to someone in this country when you have a service problem?
http://www.democraticmedia.org/
I'm probably the only person in Sun Prairie that is absolutely frustrated by Charter Cable. Then again, maybe I'm not because I see an awful lot of those Satellite Dishes all over the city. My problem is that I need fast Internet access and I have a too many TVs, a VCR and a DVR to have to rent or buy boxes for each so as to have Satellite access to each device. So, in that regard, Charter fills my needs.But, the lack of real competition leads to the lack of real caring about the customer.
Ever called Charter Cable because you have a problem? Ha! "If you want this, press 1." "If you want that, press 2, and etc." Then, when you finally get to where you think you want to be, you wait. When someone finally answers the phone, they might be anywhere in the world. The last call I made, two weeks ago, I was talking to some lady in Mexico, or so she said. Could barely understand her. I was trying to protest the charges on my bill. In late May, 2008,I had received a call from a telemarketer who was working for Charter. She told me the special rate that I was receiving for the last year, was going to expire. She said they would offer me the latest package which would include a free upgrade of my internet connection to the highest level. I wasn't that interested but since the package would be lower than if I didn't take the special offer, I signed up for it. Then, when I got my bill this month, I saw that I wasn't getting the free upgrade but, I was paying $5 extra per month for it. Anyhow, after talking to this lady that had a very heavy Mexican accent and didn't seem to be the sharpest tool in the shed and getting absolutely nowhere, I asked to speak to a supervisor. She put me on hold and then came back on and told me it wouldn't make any difference and that a supervisor would just tell me the same thing. I said I still wanted to talk to a supervisor, she put me on hold again and then came back and told me that the supervisors were all busy. I told her I would wait. She told me it wouldn't change anything. I told her to take off the super fast internet, that I didn't really want it and that I just took it because it would be free. She told me that, if she took it off, I would not be on the special and the cable would cost me even more. I finally gave up. This is what they want. They want you to give up or not to call at all because you know that this is the type of "service" that you will get. I ended up sending a letter to Charter complaining in writing. I expect the same lack of service by mail. Sent the letter on 4/2/2008 and I am still waiting for a reply on 6/25/2008. Did I expect any less? No.
Isn't it convenient that they hire perfect English speaking people to do their telemarketing but, when it comes to service, you get someone in Mexico that you can barely understand?
Here is a tip that you probably know of already: If your cable bill seems too high, call up and tell them that you are planning on canceling your service and going to Satellite Dish. Ask them what they can do for you. They will give you a better deal unless you are already getting it.
Just remembered: here is another gripe of mine. We live in Sun Prairie, right on the line with Madison. Instead of giving us the Sun Prairie local programs for government and for School athletic programs, we get Madison programming. Our local authorities have tired for four years to get this changed to no avail. Charter Cable just doesn't care and it goes to show that the local authorities have absolutely no power at all over this company. They do whatever they want.
Right now, the only hope we have of getting better service is when Verizon finally starts putting in their services. There is nothing like real competition to get you lower prices and better service.
If you have something you would like to add, please feel free to send it to me and I will post it on this page.
Check below to see what you really pay for Charter Cable. For some reason or other, even these telemarketers that speak perfect English cannot tell you what your final bill is actually going to be. All they can tell you is what the base rates are. I suppose it would help if they actually had computers at Charter, but apparently they don't.
Here is what I am paying right now, 4/20/08, with their "special": |
|
| Charter Bundle | $99.98 |
| HD Tier | $8.00 |
| HD Receiver Upgrade | $5.00 |
| 1 Additional HD Receiver Upgrade | $5.00 |
| Cable Modem Lease | $3.68 |
| High Speed Plus Upgrade (Which was supposed to be free) | $5.00 |
| FCD Admin Fee | $0.06 |
| Sales Tax | $7.03 |
| Franchise Fee | $5.37 |
| Total Due: | $139.12 |
| Remember when we got along with an antenna? | |
Since I can get absolutely no satisfaction from calling Charter Cable, here are my cable downtimes with Charter. They know when you are down but they make you call up and wait and then talk to someone in Mexico so that you can get a credit for the services that you pay for but you didn't get. They know that, if they make it so hard to do, not as many people will do it. They could just automatically give you a credit on your next bill, but does anyone expect that to happen?
Charter Cable Down Time |
||||
| Date | Problem | Internet |
Cable |
Duration |
| 4/19/08 | No service | X |
From very early morning until about 9am | |
| 4/20/08 | No service | X |
X |
Most of the day and into the night |
| 5/9/08 | No service | X |
From 3:49pm to 6:34pm | |
| 5/21/08 | No service | X |
From 11:44am to 2:17pm | |
4/23/08
I think every person in Sun Prairie would switch from Charter if we had any other options. How do we get Verizon or AT&T to meet these needs? Let us know what we have to do. We would like all of our services taken away from Charter.
Lisa