Step 1 - I reaffirmed the "rules of the game" that I had called in previously to suss out. There is an activation and installation fee of $109. It is the monthly charge ($39.99) plus $70. I agreed to autopay because I'm sick of setting these firms up with my bank and they offered up a $100 Visa card (after 15 weeks - this turned out to be a lie) if I would. The rate is for a year (vs a $49.99 two year deal). The sales person acknowledged the rate will rise to $89.99. I believe I also have to start paying a $5 advanced wifi charge and a $7 router fee. I can sever service then or request a lower rate at that point. They may agree. We set up an installation date and time. I also accepted their one year free mobile service. I had to buy their phone for $200. I put it on a 36 month payment plan. $5.55 a month. The first charge was 19.99 for sales tax. It will be $29 after year 1. Also auto pay. They Fed Ex'ed me a Samsung. I agreed to this because I wanted a new phone (don't like some of the features of my current one) and a back up since I dropped the land line.
Step 2 - The tech guy came out and tested my cable outlets with some device. It took a while, but, he found they were usable. He dug a shallow trench in my lawn and ran the cable from the connection point at the street through the wall onto one of the outlets. He hooked up a router and a companion device. It took about an hour for him to get the home base to "receive" their signal. I was getting worried. He covered up the trench. He showed me the password. We made sure my tablet and computer recognized the router. They did. That was it. I don't even think I signed off on anything.
Step 3 - Really just Step 2 for the mobile device. It arrived. I had seven days to activate it. I think I had to go online (it has been many weeks). I believe they then called me or I called their number because I was confused about something. They picked up right away and walked me through the set up on the phone and some updating of software. I have barely used the phone. It also has the things that annoyed me on their earlier model plus more.
Conclusion - The best part about wifi is that I had a Roku tv. I now have all their free content (you have to sign up on their web site). The CBS Sports channel, Rich Eisen and Hot Ones are enough to make the wifi a win. The signal has been fine and it hasn't failed yet. It was easy to cancel my phone contract and my ISP contract. My ISP offered to keep my email going for $1 a month. The only real issue is that I just saw a commercial for $29.99 Spectrum! And the looming price escalations. They also offer land lines with long distance for $19.99 with a $65 install charge.
*I just looked and I have 23 tutorials now. I will do a post on what they are some time this year.
**Update 5/6/2025: The first year ended and the wifi price was to increase. Bot as much as expected. When I called, they said the "discount off" the price lowers each proceeding year. My newest charge would be $28 off (was getting $43). I got them to just match an AT&T offer of $55 all in. However, my next bill charged me $65. I tried to sort it out with them. They claimed it is in the system as that price. But, my card was charged $65. Going to call them again after I double checked my credit card charges. Additionally, I was going to cancel the "free" cellular service (would owe the rest of the phone cost in a lump sum) because it would now cost $30. But, they said they could put it on hold for three months to let me think about it. I agreed. Here I was also charged the service fee although they said their system had it as suspended. I am going to have to call again about that to. I also learned that when you cancel the wifi, you bring the equipment to UPS and they box it up and send it back free to Spectrum. The Visa card promise turned out to be a lie. They did an investigation and said they had no knowledge of this promotion. AT&T's sales guy made the same promise. I wonder if it is an industry wide affliction/scam? Land line was down to $15 a month.
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