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Cox Is Now Spectrum: What the Merger Means for Your Bill · The Lineup by CableTV.com. Stop Overpaying. Start Watching.

0:00
Listen up, a $34 billion, yes billion, that's
0:05
billion with a B, $34 billion merger just took
0:10
place. Charter, the company behind Spectrum,
0:13
just bought Cox. Let's talk about this big money
0:16
move further. Welcome to the lineup. Lineup,
0:26
welcome everyone. Glad to have everyone here
0:28
as normal. Joined by Nathan Sherman. We have
0:31
Eric open to show behind the controls, the usuals,
0:34
but then a very special guest today. Mike Strayer,
0:38
he is our do -everything, know -everything in
0:42
terms of TV, streaming, internet, and also he's
0:45
a doctor. Welcome, Dr. Strayer. How are you doing?
0:48
Good. How are you guys doing? Great. That intro
0:51
was wild, man. Hey, got to give credit where
0:54
credit is due. I can't leave anything out. That
0:56
would be on me. I can't have that. No, I was
1:00
talking about the graphic. The graphic was surprising.
1:02
We do things big here, Mike. So let's get just
1:08
a quick rundown. For those that don't know, maybe
1:11
for those that do know, what happened? What's
1:13
going on? Yeah, so this has been a while in the
1:17
making, really. You know, back in 2025, Cox and
1:23
Spectrum initiated the merger. So if you're a
1:26
Cox or Spectrum customer, which is a lot of U
1:28
.S. citizens or residents, rather, it's been
1:31
going on for a minute. It had to make its way
1:34
through the courts. And the FCC, so the FCC gave
1:37
approval earlier this year to the merger. And
1:42
after that happened, then lawsuits ensued. So
1:46
a group of states led by the state of California
1:49
filed a lawsuit against the two companies in
1:53
order to slow down the merger and or stop it
1:58
altogether for various reasons. And yeah, it
2:03
ended up they ended up going into various stages
2:07
of litigation and essentially Spectrum and Cox
2:11
had to come to an agreement with those states
2:16
that filed suit against them, which brings us
2:19
to right now where we're currently if you are
2:22
a Cox or Spectrum customer in you, it's a residential
2:26
account. You're now being sort of ported over
2:29
into. spectrums, home internet, TV and streaming
2:33
services. So this has got some history. Yeah,
2:38
it's been a long time in the making. It's very
2:40
much like the FCC these days is a lot more open
2:43
to these types of mergers. They've been happening
2:46
more frequently. For example, Google Fiber just
2:51
got bought up by Astound Broadband, which is
2:54
another large telco network. If you live in Chicago,
2:59
you might know about Astound. And now it's G
3:01
-Fiber. So this has been happening a lot since
3:03
Trump was elected and put in place his FCC. And
3:07
it's a lot more business -friendly administration
3:10
for this type of thing. So that's the business
3:12
side of things. We'll let them take care of the
3:14
business. But what about us people? Let's talk
3:16
about a little bit who this affects. Can we go
3:18
ahead and pull up that map of the availability
3:20
with the Coxon Spectrum? Okay, this is interesting.
3:24
I mean, first, Mike, could you give us a rundown
3:27
on, like, how many people this is affecting and
3:30
addition to that just like where are geographically
3:35
wise where are these cox customers located yes
3:39
i mean you can see the map here right um spectrum
3:42
is a massive corporation already right way bigger
3:45
than cox by acquiring cox you can tell that you
3:49
know they're expanded their footprint in areas
3:51
where they did not have a footprint some larger
3:55
metropolitan areas that are going to be really
3:58
affected by this would be like a phoenix area
4:01
or um like parts of los angeles or near los angeles
4:06
uh etc um but yeah i mean it's it's basically
4:11
70 million homes which is a large portion of
4:14
the us population wise um and yeah 45 states
4:19
it's pretty wild it's it's probably by far the
4:22
largest um merger we've seen yet with with uh
4:26
telco providers and it's definitely having an
4:30
effect on how people get their service who will
4:34
how they'll maintain their service and um and
4:38
and what other benefits they'll get from their
4:40
service and we'll kind of get into that a little
4:41
bit later yeah it looks like from this graphic
4:43
there are some states entirely that are getting
4:45
introduced to spectrum where it was Cox like
4:48
Arizona, Oklahoma, Kansas, some places in Nevada,
4:52
Virginia. So Cox is probably a mid -sized internet
4:56
provider. Would you agree, Mike? Yeah, yes and
5:01
no. Yeah, mid -size is probably the best way
5:04
to put it. Mid to small, maybe, but... Yeah,
5:07
I'd say so. Yeah, it had coverage in larger population
5:11
centers, so it sort of makes up for the smaller
5:14
geographic. So my biggest... question would be
5:17
like if i'm a cox customer is my plan is it going
5:22
to be more expensive am i going to be paying
5:23
more money that would probably be that's probably
5:25
top of everybody's minds right yeah i mean that's
5:28
the first thing that's going to pop up right
5:30
uh if you are now um your bills coming with a
5:35
spectrum logo on it if you're receiving that
5:38
in the mail what do you have to look forward
5:40
to Well, the good news is, at least for your
5:43
first year, your prices are going down. So if
5:47
you were to, they're not going to compel you
5:50
to switch to Spectrum at this point. You know,
5:52
if you're a Cox customer and you just don't want
5:54
to be bothered for whatever reason, you can keep
5:57
that plan for the time being. Although if I had
6:00
to speculate, I think it's going to be different
6:03
like six months to a year from now. So for now.
6:05
you know you can switch over to spectrum home
6:07
internet for example and in some plans you're
6:10
paying half as much money as you would otherwise
6:12
and the spectrum you know has always had a better
6:15
customer satisfaction rating than cox we've been
6:19
measuring this stuff for like six seven years
6:21
now so you're probably going to get better customer
6:24
service and you'll probably be a little bit more
6:26
satisfied with your service uh the spectrum also
6:29
has accrued more awards over the years so like
6:33
you know the the incentives to to actually switch
6:37
to a spectrum plan i think are pretty high if
6:40
not just for the savings in your first year now
6:43
the devil's in the details and you are going
6:46
to want to like be careful right you're going
6:48
to want to like mark that on your calendaring
6:50
system hey it's been a year because you're going
6:53
to have to go in and renegotiate your prices
6:55
of spectrum not anybody's favorite thing to do
6:58
but you don't want to get caught off guard with
7:00
your pants down basically. Yeah. I mean, it's
7:02
always business as usual for now, but like be
7:05
prepared for the future. I would say so. I mean,
7:07
I would just assume that it's going to eventually
7:09
fully, they're just going to force you onto spectrums
7:13
plans. So I feel like that's a safe bet. Nathan,
7:15
can you, and this is internet that we're looking
7:17
at right now. Let's go ahead. Let's compare the
7:18
TV prices between Cox and Spectre. If you can
7:20
pull up that graphic. Yeah, we have this up right
7:23
now. And. The 500 megabits per second plan for
7:27
Cox is around $85 a month. And on the right -hand
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side, we have Spectrum's prices for the same
7:34
plan. That's $40 a month, but that's just the
7:37
first -year pricing, I believe, because they
7:39
offer pretty frequent one -year promotions. Is
7:43
that right, Mike? Yeah, I mean, that's their
7:45
MO. Spectrum is, at least since I've been doing
7:49
this, it's been about eight years, and they've
7:52
always just done a first -year. um, promotional
7:54
price. Right. And that's usually what, like around
7:57
25 bucks off in that first year. And then it
8:01
jumps up. Um, you know, I don't have the numbers
8:04
off the top of my head, but it does jump up significantly
8:06
usually. Um, yeah, anywhere from probably 20
8:10
to $40. So you don't want to get hit with that,
8:12
like $40 mark. Um, yeah, it's, you, you can basically
8:17
assume that spectrum for the foreseeable future
8:20
will continue that practice, even though consumers
8:22
hate it. um so what i would do personally is
8:26
i would hop on this this promo and then just
8:28
ensure and make sure that i remember when it's
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going up to be renewed after a year and then
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i would call in and i would say i call in a spectrum
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rep and i would talk to them personally and say
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look i'm going to switch i would just give them
8:42
the heart cell i'm going to switch providers
8:44
unless you continue with the promo price and
8:46
because nine times out of ten that's going to
8:48
work for you Yeah, and you got to be pushy. That's
8:51
how you have to do it when you're negotiating.
8:52
But that's why I wanted to get that out there
8:54
because we're comparing these prices. And the
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table on the right is the first year pricing.
8:59
But it makes sense to switch and make use of
9:01
that now because they're going to make you switch
9:03
anyways. So right now, that's how much you could
9:06
save in a year. So with the one gig price for
9:10
Cox, it's $100 a month under the promotional
9:13
pricing for Spectrum's one gig. plan 60 bucks
9:17
a month and then with the two gig plan um pretty
9:20
fast 115 bucks a month for cox um their go beyond
9:25
fast plan and then spectrum's internet two gig
9:27
plan is 80 bucks a month so you couldn't experience
9:30
some savings right now just making use of their
9:33
promotional pricing if you're just going to continue
9:35
with you know it's the status quo keeping your
9:39
plan Correct, yeah. I mean, you're looking at
9:42
hundreds of dollars over the course of the year,
9:45
right? Who doesn't want to keep that kind of
9:48
money in their pocket? Let's pull up the TV graphic,
9:51
too. I want to cover those TV prices because
9:53
most people are bundling with cable providers
9:56
to save, so I want to compare those prices. I
10:04
mean, what you're seeing here is basically the
10:06
same thing, right? Yeah, this is the internet
10:09
graphic still. Yeah, we should have a separate
10:10
one for TV. Okay. I don't think we got that loaded
10:14
up, but there is some savings in there that we
10:16
can cover in another episode. But moving on,
10:20
so some savings you can get with promotional
10:24
pricing. It will jump up. I'm grateful for those
10:28
tips, you know, setting out a calendar reminder
10:30
later to negotiate pricing because that will
10:33
be very important for a lot of people. I think
10:37
next, I do know like with bundling, this happens
10:41
a lot with cable. companies, because that's where
10:43
the value is. People bundle with Cox TV mobile
10:48
services. And for a while, a lot of customers
10:50
on Cox were getting a free mobile line, maybe
10:53
some phone deals with that. How does that look?
10:56
Does Spectrum have also planned for those mobile
10:59
customers to move over to? Yeah, Spectrum does
11:03
have a pretty similar MVNO service, which is
11:07
basically a mobile plan that goes through their
11:10
network. um well sorry through like verizon's
11:13
network and um basically they've repackaged that
11:17
um service and then give you a bundle discount
11:20
it's it's very similar to cox um you know and
11:24
you can get first -year deals on the on the bundle
11:27
you know we've had i've seen in the past uh if
11:31
you bundle home internet uh mobile phone and
11:34
and uh and cable TV with through spectrum, you're
11:38
going to get like upwards of like $60 off a month.
11:41
Right. Yeah. So, I mean, that's, that's pretty
11:43
good. And if you don't really, you know, care
11:46
to have the fastest mobile phone service you
11:50
know, because what tends to happen is your, your
11:52
line will get sort of deprioritized because you're
11:54
surfing off of another provider's network like
11:57
Verizon. if you don't really care about that,
12:00
then it's, it's a huge cost savings. In fact,
12:02
uh, last year we did a survey of, um, uh, Gen
12:06
Z folk and asked them about mobile and home internet
12:10
bundles. And they were like pretty stoked about
12:12
it. So like even the young, the youngsters, the
12:14
young guns, the young blood, they're like kind
12:16
of interested in this because it does save you
12:18
a lot of money over the long haul. And it's 60
12:21
bucks is pretty significant. And here's the thing
12:24
with spectrum. Like I've always kind of, equated
12:26
them with value right it's like when i think
12:29
about like some of the perks that people are
12:30
getting when they're switching over there there's
12:32
a lot of value when you're going to spectrum
12:34
so let's real quick i want to look at i don't
12:36
i don't want to skip over this but let's look
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at the the perks that you get when you sign up
12:40
for tv because i think that this is a massive
12:43
value for spectrum itself so we should have a
12:47
streaming apps included with um spectrum tv and
12:51
so there's a few different pricing plans um so
12:54
this is starts being included at the signature
12:56
level but when we start talking about what you
13:00
get in addition to your tv this is this is the
13:04
sweet this is the full suite right this is great
13:07
from streaming yeah yeah i think you know what
13:11
they've had to do over time because of market
13:13
pressures is include more value in their tv so
13:16
those old days if you're if you ever were a spectrum
13:19
or cox customer back in the day or xfinity for
13:22
that matter you know the tv plans uh they get
13:26
quite expensive and uh live tv in particular
13:29
so obviously like over time people have sought
13:32
out cord cutting solutions via apps like hulu
13:37
like disney plus in some cases netflix um and
13:41
to watch stuff on their uh on demand when they
13:45
want to but also to save money um what's happened
13:48
though is you've seen we cover this extensively
13:51
on the site like you've seen those prices climb
13:54
and climb and climb even for those streaming
13:56
services and um you know what the irony now is
14:00
that like your cable tv package with all these
14:03
apps included is a way better deal than cutting
14:06
the cord so it obviously if you don't have spectrum
14:10
in your area you can't get this deal but because
14:13
they have such a large net large network they're
14:15
able to sort of repackage all these streaming
14:17
apps into one package with live tv channels and
14:21
then give you this kind of discounted rate for
14:23
both and honestly like if you look at the pricing
14:25
it's it's basically on par with like youtube
14:29
tv or hulu plus live tv and some of those uh
14:33
services also offer bundles obviously Hulu Plus
14:37
Live TV will get you your ESPN Unlimited. It'll
14:39
get you your Disney Plus, but they won't have
14:42
Peacock or Netflix or other services that their
14:47
parent company does not own. So this is a really
14:50
interesting move on Spectrum's part. And Xfinity
14:52
has also done a very similar thing where in order
14:55
to combat a lot of the terrible memories people
14:59
have of cable TV, they've had to really evolve
15:01
into streaming and incorporate that aspect into
15:06
their TD plans. And they've done that really
15:09
well, right? Because I mean, when I'm signing
15:11
up for stuff, I see maybe two apps included,
15:13
but five is crazy. It's pretty good. Yeah. The
15:18
only, I think competitor would be Xfinity and
15:20
they also have quite a few apps included, but
15:23
those two companies, mega corporations are probably
15:26
the pioneers in this and they've had to, they've
15:29
been compelled to by market forces. So, but the
15:32
good news is as a consumer, now all of a sudden.
15:35
your streaming uh total cost for streaming per
15:37
month go way down so spectrum really does offer
15:40
a lot of value with tv and i do think that we
15:42
do have that graphic now because i do think it's
15:44
important like we look a lot into the tv like
15:48
the tv streaming and what's mike spectrum does
15:51
really well in our customer satisfaction surveys
15:53
yeah you especially now spectrum has uh streaming
15:57
plans so like Basically, Spectrum has shifted
16:01
its technological focus from cable coax to TV
16:06
over the internet or streaming. So some of these
16:10
prices you're seeing here are actually for streaming
16:12
packages. So Spectrum TV Lite, 85 channels, $40
16:16
a month. That's a streaming package. There are
16:19
no other competitors in the live TV streaming
16:21
market that can compete with that. Spectrum customers
16:24
told us that last year in our survey where they
16:27
were the top. uh they were the the the customer
16:30
group that was the most satisfied with their
16:32
tv packages so it not only is it a better deal
16:36
it's also like very much so uh the customers
16:41
like it a lot right yeah um and we go over that
16:45
in some of our videos like on youtube and things
16:48
like that if you want to go check it out i break
16:50
it down for for for the readers as well forty
16:53
dollars a month starting out is is nice there's
16:55
not much there's not heard of it it's basically
16:57
like sling tv 12 years ago so that was like their
17:01
price point and now they're like way more expensive
17:03
than that have fewer channels so highly recommended
17:07
on multiple fronts so okay so we've covered tv
17:08
we've covered internet we've covered some of
17:10
the perks a little bit of mobile what's not quite
17:12
figured out yet uh well we're i think we're still
17:17
trying to understand exactly how mobile will
17:19
develop um and really we're kind of waiting on
17:24
like maybe a little bit more detail around the
17:28
price increases and things like that um other
17:31
than that it's pretty well mapped out i mean
17:33
you can if you're a cox customer and you want
17:36
to take advantage of these promo rates you absolutely
17:39
can do it right now you're going to get a better
17:42
deal i personally have hated on cox for years
17:45
now so um you know I don't think their TV service
17:50
is great, so you're bound to enjoy Spectrums
17:53
a lot better, in my opinion. It's all pretty
17:56
well mapped out. You just got to make the move.
17:58
Yeah, very hard to beat. Okay, so that answers
18:01
the next question I had. If you were a Cox customer,
18:03
are you excited about this? If I'm a Cox customer,
18:06
I'm probably wary, understandably so. But if
18:12
I see the information and it's all laid out before
18:15
me, I start to get excited. It's better service.
18:19
It's better pricing. It's basically like, you
18:24
know, click on a link and like sign up transfer
18:29
service. So it's pretty easy to do. You can call
18:32
in or you can, you can go through spectrums website
18:34
and you're going to get a better deal. You're
18:37
going to get better service. So it's like, in
18:39
my opinion, having seen a lot of this over the
18:41
years, this is probably the best news that Cox
18:44
customers had in a decade. no i would i would
18:47
they've had a lot of bad news over the years
18:50
yeah so this is great great for many people great
18:53
for new customers but to put a bow on this so
18:56
we have so for cox customers right now your plan
19:01
price email equipment they're going to stay the
19:03
same okay uh for spectrum customers it's also
19:06
business as usual there are some savings though
19:09
if you're a cox customer if you want to look
19:10
into tv and internet especially on that tv front
19:12
with the perks there's a lot to be desired. So
19:16
look into that for savings. That's a big takeaway
19:18
from this, but Mike, wait, we appreciate your
19:20
time. We appreciate your expertise. We know what
19:22
this, there's a lot of moving parts, a lot of
19:24
information that you have to know. So appreciate
19:26
you staying up to date on all this. Yeah, no
19:28
problem. Hey, one last thing though. Hey, a lot
19:30
of like people have older parents or grandparents
19:33
who sign up for these services who haven't cut
19:36
the cord or done their research on this. Like
19:39
seriously, check it out and help them walk them
19:42
through the process because. In my experience,
19:45
I've found that folks like that don't like change.
19:48
They don't want to change. That's so big, yeah.
19:50
But if you're living on a fixed income, this
19:52
could be a game changer for you. You see me?
19:54
I'm taking notes. When you talk about that, that's
19:57
big. That's a very, very important thing. Yeah,
20:00
sorry. It just came to my mind. Got to get this
20:02
one. Great, great, great shout out. Great throw
20:05
out. But hey, we appreciate your time. We appreciate
20:08
you guys for jumping in and joining the lineup
20:10
of cable TV dot com podcast. We're back here
20:13
every Friday. Go ahead. Tune in. If you have
20:15
anything that you want to talk about, go ahead.
20:16
Send it in. But we will see you later.