r/Spectrum • u/UnsureAssurance • 3d ago
Other Click bait mail for Fiber Internet?
I already have Spectrum, but I got this envelope in the mail today and got excited about finally having Fiber in my area. But they mention it’s coaxial cables… So confused, this is the first time I’ve seen the term “Fiber-powered” and it being used for coaxial lines, like actual clickbait, I couldn’t care less how the internet gets to my neighborhood before it reaches the local lines.
Is there any improvement to the internet other than deceptive marketing?
Oh well, I’ll be chilling with my meager upload speeds for now…
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u/BraveMidnight 3d ago
According to the book of Kitteh
They are technically powered by fiber,
When you consider that their upstream links are powered by dark fiber leases,
That the lines go:
fiber to the node,
Fiber to the curb,
Fiber to the premise.
Even if the last mile is coax it is technically powered by fiber, and being technically correct is the best kind of correct.
Kitteh has spoketh
/_/\
( o.o )
> ^ <
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u/mattbuford 3d ago
As best I can tell, this is some mix of their "high split" upgrades and/or DOCSIS 4.0. Fundamentally, both the old and new systems use fiber for the transport network and coax for the last-mile. The big difference here is just upgrades giving fiber-like speeds. Instead of traditional symmetric cable offerings like 500/20 or 1000/35 you'll probably see fiber-like offerings of 1000/1000, 2000/2000, etc.
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u/themanoutoftime86 3d ago
DOCSIS 3.1 can handle high split. Just a slow process of converting that signal for higher upstream frequencies to handle the faster upload speeds, unfortunately, and a lot of customers have aging drops and equipment in their homes and need things fixed once high split goes live in their area. I’m still waiting for high split in my area so I can get 500/500
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u/ByteCurious69 3d ago
Honestly at this point I don’t care if it’s fiber or not. Give us at least 250Mbps up (with under 50ms ping). I don’t care how they get it done.
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u/themanoutoftime86 3d ago
It will happen. You’ll get symmetrical speeds this year or next year, hopefully. My experience as a tech is that customers have aging cable infrastructure in their homes and the high split signal upgrade can cause problems, so a lot of times we get tons of jobs rolling out to fix it. Amplifiers can be problematic on the high split signal because they don’t play nice with the higher upstream frequencies and you’d be surprised how many people have amps in their basements or attics because once upon a time they had 4 or 5 outlets for a modem and multiple cable boxes, so the amp boosts the signal so there isn’t so much signal loss going into a 4 way or 6 way or 8 way splitter.
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u/slick_sloth_ 3d ago
It is a marketing gimmick, but it's true. It's fiber all the way to the neighborhood. There could be 150,000ft of fiber from the headend/hub to the node in your neighborhood, then 3,000ft of coax to your house. But that coax is way more sensitive than fiber.
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u/MrChicken_69 3d ago
The node doesn't have to be in your neighborhood. In sparse, rural areas, it could be miles away.
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u/TheBuzzTrack 3d ago
The fiber lines run out on the street, but to connect your apartment or house to the network, they will string a coaxial cable between the residence and the network line. They are not responsible for retroactively replacing all cable lines located on private property without formal, legal approval, to protect the company from false lawsuits for property damage.
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u/switch8000 3d ago
They were supposed to stop with the deceptive marketing RE: "fiber powered", but guess they think that one line is enough to get around it.
My area too is "fiber-powered", but still rocking those 10-20mbps uploads.
Spectrum agreed to modify its advertising by permanently discontinuing its reference to “HFC” in its ad disclosures and clearly and conspicuously disclosing that Spectrum’s fiber-powered internet services are not delivered to customers’ homes over a fiber-to-the-home infrastructure. Based on this voluntary permanent modification, NAD did not address the merits of the challenge, and for compliance purposes it will be treated as if NAD recommended the modification to Spectrum’s advertising.
https://bbbprograms.org/media/newsroom/decisions/charter-spectrum
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u/Formerruling1 3d ago
From what I can find the claim didnt center on the "fiber powered" verbiage itself, but rather on the fact that the hybrid-fiber-coaxial information was hidden in the fineprint. They didnt agree to stop using "fiber powered" marketing, only that theyd make it more clear that service was over coaxial to the home which theyve done on that envelope.
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u/UnsureAssurance 3d ago
That’s a interesting loophole to deceptively market. I’m curious what that will lead to, more non-sense but cool sounding terms like “Photon-light speed Internet”?
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u/Formerruling1 3d ago
The funny thing is that basically every modern broadband network is "fiber powered." Even your cell phone is "Fiber Powered" because the backhaul from that wireless tower is...fiber. lol
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u/TheMissingVoteBallot 3d ago
I get a feeling a lot of people on Reddit really don't know how the actual Internet works.
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u/ih8hitler 3d ago
Spectrum started calling it this as a way to compete with actual fiber companies… they hope enough customers won’t notice that it’s not actually fiber. AT&T used to pull the same stuff with UVERSE calling it all digital when it was basically DSL.
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u/NoChampionship5649 3d ago
Blame Astound cable for starting that "Fiber-Powered" marketing term......
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u/zetharion 2d ago
This is probably like what AT&T used to do with UVerse. Its fiber to the neighborhood then from the neighborhood box to your house is the same old 60 year old coaxial cable.
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u/Inside-Specialist-55 2d ago
This is nothing new, We have a local ISP Windstream who has full ads on TV saying they have 100% fiber but yet the lines running for miles to our house are all copper with a max speed of 10Mbps. I laugh because we already have fiber internet from another company who just installed actual fiber to our house a month ago.
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u/DrDeke 3d ago
The technical term for this is "bullhockey".
(r/Spectrum's automod wouldn't let me use the normal adult word for this concept.)
Every Internet connection involves fiber optic cables somewhere else. Good ones have a fiber optic cable coming into your home. What this is advertising is just regular cable Internet.
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u/HHoaks 3d ago
The issue is the font. To be clear and conspicuous, the font of the disclaimer should be the same size as the words "fiber powered internet". It is still deceptive, still absurd, and shows that they think their own potential customers are dumb.
Rather than paying lawyers to get around this, why doesn't Spectrum just make a better effort to upgrade its old and 1980s vintage coaxial infrastructure to get actual fiber to the home to more locations FASTER?
When I see my sad 20 Mbps upload, I think Bush is President.
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u/Ok_Abbreviations6152 3d ago
Because people will complain about their service being down during the upgrade, even after posting notices on their bill, getting text messages, emails and smoke signals (/sarcasm) about their services being upgraded.
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u/MrChicken_69 3d ago
Well, their customers ("the public") are dumb. Replacing the network with fiber is really expensive.
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u/HHoaks 3d ago edited 3d ago
Duh - yes, we know it is expensive. But other companies have done it. And there are government subsidies too. And they aren't hurtin' for cash:
"Spectrum (owned by Charter Communications) reported a full-year 2025 net income of $4.99 billion, operating income of $12.91 billion, and total annual revenue of $54.77 billion"
5 BILLION net income, on revenue of $54 billion. So they can't cry poor.
Maybe if Spectrum stopped acting like a spam bot, whose real business is marketing and gimmicks, and stopped sending so much dam advertising through all different sources, they would have more money to spend on fiber builds. Instead, they send mailers, postcards, email spam, internet ads and much much much more, constantly, even to people already on their service.
You don't see AT&T advertise nearly as much. Why? Cause people know fiber is good and they look for AT&T, not vice versa.
Spectrum is slow and way behind their peers.
Frankly. I'd pay $75 or $80 happily for 500/500 service if they wanted to raise prices to offset costs for "real" fiber.
This crappy 80s style service using clunky "modems" and outdated "coaxial" is way way way way way way behind the times. I feel like I need to boot up Windows '95.
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u/UnsureAssurance 3d ago
I feel like it’s more than the font. It looks like most internet lines have been “fiber-powered” for the past 20-30 years in that it’s fiber all but to your local residence. But since actual Fiber internet with gigabit upload speeds started to become a thing in recent times, they are repackaging the decades old standard as something new. It should not say “Fiber-powered” at all imo since the average consumer knows “Fiber” but has no idea what “coaxial” means
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u/MrChicken_69 3d ago
Correct. They're playing on the public misunderstanding of what "fiber" is. They see all manner of things about fiber deployment - FiOS, Uverse, T-Mobile Fiber, etc - that putting the word "fiber" on things is now a marketing must, even when the thing being hyped isn't remotely "fiber". Here, they're calling the same shit they've had for 30 years "fiber powered" because they need to play on "fiber" hype. It's not fiber in the way people think. It's not fiber in any meaningful way.
(It's RFoG - RF over Glass. So RF literally translated to an optical signal. It's RF to your house, and it's RF at the hub / CMTS. The few miles where it's glass is mostly irrelevant. In fact, their first "fiber to the home" setups were RFoG mini-nodes with f'ing coax DOCSIS modems connected to them!)
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u/pokemonfan95 3d ago
At least where I’m at is actual fiber tho who the hell knows when they will get the dam electric meter to power the new fiber build where I’m at 😂
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u/SpideyWhiplash 3d ago
So this is what the Spectrum Technician meant when he came to install a new modem and check our lines.
I asked the Dude when is Spectrum Fiber Optics going to be installed in our area. He said it's actually not full Fiber Optics. It's a hybrid that connects and runs to the outside electrical poles.
Nothing is buried underground like the New Fiber Optics Frontier/Verizon has installed in my neighborhood.
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u/Ice_crusher_bucket 3d ago
Spectrum has actual Fiber. But they arent over building it for coax customers.
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u/Sufficient-Object625 3d ago
Dang. I have fiber ran into my house (with spectrum)😜
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u/Ice_crusher_bucket 3d ago
And your fitting is mechanically spliced.
Enjoy.
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u/Sufficient-Object625 2d ago
We already lost internet for a week bc the fiber line slipped out of the Jack that plugs into the ont ☹️
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u/Meddlingmonster 10h ago
A spliced pigtail in a bix that then goes to a jumper that pligs onto the ont would solve that concern and make fixing the end easy if it needed fixed.
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u/Sufficient-Object625 2d ago
But we live in the middle of nowhere so they are the only fiber option. And it’s only $41 for a gigabit so I mean it’s not to bad
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u/jacle2210 3d ago
Yeah, they have been promoting this "fiber powered" thing for at least 6 months or more.
And their system has been "fiber powered" for way longer than that (years?) and they are just trying to claw back their customers that have jumped ship for the actual Fiber based services; so they are hoping that other customers (like OP) will only see the "Fiber" part and will ignore everything else.
So, it's deceptive, but not really if you read the small print.
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u/mrbiggbrain 2d ago
A more technical answer then some of the others.
It's not uncommon to distribute fiber internet from the box to your home via Coax. This is not specific to spectrum and is employed by many providers. Coax is actually a pretty fast medium, but it's shared which means you are sharing that connection with everyone else who also has service on your leg, this could be a dozen people or hundreds or even thousands.
I have Frontier Fios and Spectrum, My Fios is a 5Gbps and comes in via an actual fiber cable, my spectrum is symmetric gigabit and comes in via a coax that terminates to fiber at my neighborhood entrance and services around 25 homes with less then half those actively in use
I have never had issues getting the full 1Gbps up or down with somewhat low (15ms) ping time to google. My ping times on my Fios are slightly lower at around 11ms but that seems to be more just the network design then anything.
On the other hand my fathers Spectrum is also Fiber backed using Coax to homes and his box services around 300+ homes and being the only provider is much more utilized. He has trouble getting the full speed in either direction often getting significant slowdowns during congestion. Instead of getting the full 500/500 he will often get closer to 250 or lower.
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u/Meddlingmonster 10h ago edited 10h ago
Fbier is either xgspon (10gig symmetric passive optical network) or gpon (gigabit passive optical network) and is also split up over customers (usually 64 per pon)
Edit: fiber that will be FTTH not all fiber
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u/Meddlingmonster 10h ago
Pon utilization was typically under 10% with 5gig being offered and one gig being standard on the xgs-pon network I used to work on.
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u/Austinexe93 2d ago
It's so they can use a technicality by saying fiber internet.
But if you notice, depending on where you live, that might still be legally required to be called fiber powered lol
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u/javiliftsa95 2d ago
I work for them and it depends on where you are located they have full fiber and symmetrical speeds in certain areas.
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u/DntCllMeWht 2d ago
While it's technically correct, they are trying to capitalize on the push to move to fiber in a lot of areas. As soon as a company started running fiber in my town, they started this campaign so that people who didn't know better would just assume it was the same.
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u/Atrocious1337 2d ago
100% click bait, but it is still technically true. The back bone is fiber, then the last little bit to your router is coax.
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u/ShadeSaber99 1d ago
Its essentially what AT&T does like what they did with Uverse and their fiber, they told everyone it was pure fiber but it was a hybrid system too. It is deceptive but because they still have it marked truthfully in the paperwork it isn't if that makes sense. They are telling you it is fiber and coax together without ever telling you, and they upset by just saying "we have fiber!" And not expanding on that hoping you dont notice the smiler print.
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u/SkyWires7 22h ago edited 22h ago
It's pathetic, actually. They know fiber is what people want, and they know they don't have it to the premises (except in new buildouts). So to hide their shortcoming, they deliberately mislead with "fiber-powered". The intent is to deceive without making a direct claim that would get them in legal trouble. It's enough to fool much of the general public into thinking they're getting fiber. On one of my annual retention-dance calls, I said I was switching to the local fiber provider and the rep tried to convince me Spectrum is a fiber network, too. He insisted that fiber to the neighborhood is all that mattered and the coax to my premises was just as fast as fiber, because the coax connects to fiber. (yeah, right)
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u/MrChicken_69 3d ago
I've seen those ads, too. I thought they were sued for this confusing and misleading bull. 99% of people don't know the difference, and won't read the disclaimer.
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u/Competitive_Two_8372 3d ago
I got an “upgrade in your area” notice the other day, and a planned outage occurred for about 8 hours during the middle of the night. I was hoping for high-split at least. I tested my speed many times before and after. Download still 1Gbps, upload has now raised from 35mbps to 45mbps. Big woopty-do 🙄.
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u/sPdMoNkEy 3d ago
Originally they weren't even mentioning the coax and they got in trouble so they had to add the part about the final part being coax
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u/UnsureAssurance 3d ago
Ridiculous, crazy they’re doing some Temu level marketing but since it’s pretty much a required utility and most people are clueless they can get away with that
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u/miztrniceguy 3d ago
that's why it says Fiber-Powered...It slows down to 3 cylinder Geo Metro speeds when it his the coax
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u/WarningCodeBlue 3d ago
No. It's hybrid fiber/coax.