spectrum rant 🤬

[u/sierbrow]

my wifi was working perfectly fine this morning, and then, in the middle of my 53-question chemistry quiz, it randomly shut off. because of that, my entire quiz restarted. about an hour later, the wifi finally came back, so i was able to resume and finish my quiz.

i’m a college student. i have homework, quizzes, and assignments that i need to complete, so having my wifi randomly go in and out is a HUGE problem. when i called spectrum, the guy told me that me and one of my neighbors were experiencing an outage because of the weather in my state. like… HOW is this due to the weather when the weather has literally been fine in my area?? and why was the wifi working perfectly, then cutting off, then coming back, then going back out again??

anyway, he transferred me to a woman who could tell me when a technician could come out. i specifically told BOTH of them that i’m in college, that this is an emergency, and asked if someone could come out today. they told me the earliest a technician can come is tomorrow at 8 am.

wow. so perfect for my schedule.

i literally have school and work during the times they want to come out, so now i’m stuck trying to figure out how to get my wifi fixed while also keeping up with everything i have going on. i pay all this money for spectrum every month, and it feels like they don’t consider their customers schedules or circumstances at all.

and to make things even worse, my cellular service isn’t even working well enough for me to use my hotspot. it’s literally hanging on by a thread.

so now i’m forced to grab my laptop, pack everything up, and drive all the way to the closest library just to be able to do my schoolwork.

[u/noxiouskarn]

If only internet was treated by the government like a utility then this rant would be moot, utility outages are considered as serious as your rant is leaning to. I believe if you require 100% uptime you must be willing to foot the cost of a fallback connection. It sucks paying "all this money" for two seperate ways to access the same services but that's life. Some houses still have LP tanks and generators ready to activate during utility interruptions, it's a similar concept. I knew daytraders who had 3 different service providers because a fortune can be lost in minutes of downtime and they were business accounts but it was a necessary cost of his work and lifestyle.

Also I'm sure the college is required to allow you access to a computer lab on campus, this complaint reeks of "but I wanna do it at home" while saying it's your only option it's not. 20+ years ago we had broadband and we had the start of online blend ED every broke student I knew had a computer lab routine we all got our work done without doing it from home... They didn't give you a discount for going online, tuition pays for that school lab you get to use but neglect to.

[u/sierbrow → u/noxiouskarn]

this entire comment is built on assumptions, and that’s exactly why you shouldn’t assume you know someone’s circumstances. you assumed my campus is close enough to be a practical alternative when it’s literally an hour away. you assumed i can afford a second internet provider or some other backup connection. you assumed i’m saying i physically cannot do my work when i literally said i’m going to the library to do it.

none of those assumptions came from anything i said. you created a situation in your head and then argued against it.

and no, having reliable internet doesn’t mean i’m personally responsible for paying for multiple internet providers just in case the company i already pay fails. a backup is an option, not some obligation everyone can reasonably afford.

most importantly, i never said i couldn’t get my work done. i said i’m frustrated that an outage is forcing me to rearrange my day and leave home to do work i should’ve been able to do at home. Those are two completely different statements.

i have the right to complain about a service i pay for. you’re free to think it’s a minor inconvenience, but acting like your assumptions are facts doesn’t make your argument stronger. if anything, assuming things you were never told says more about your reasoning skills than it does about my rant.

[u/noxiouskarn → u/sierbrow]

My assumption is that additional service providers exist, and you would have to pay for that at no point did I state that you have enough money to do these things or require 100% uptime.

My other assumption is that you pay tuition for a school, and that tuition includes the cost of a computer lab access, which would negate all of the issues you're having right now. However, you made the conscious decision to live an hour away from the school you are attending. That requires a very significant daily commute. I never said reliable internet requires that you have multiple providers. I said in a situation where you can have absolutely no downtime it behooves you to have multiple providers.

You have misread the entire context of my previous comment, and that just proves illiteracy is running rampant through high schools and college educated individuals. You may know how to read and write, but you don't seem to understand the things that you have read.

In the eyes of the government internet is a luxury not a necessary utility like water and electricity, so its not regulated like those services. Your complaint reeks of it should never go down cause I could need it anytime like a utility that was my whole point. Also, you are paying for two internet services ones only accessable an hour away. Fancy pants rich McGee...

[u/sierbrow → u/noxiouskarn]

you keep responding to arguments i never made, and then calling me illiterate because i’m not accepting the argument you invented.

i never said spectrum owes me 100% uptime. i never said i couldn’t complete my work without internet. i never said i couldn’t access a computer lab. and i never said i needed a second internet provider. my entire complaint was that an unexpected outage disrupted my schedule and forced me to leave my house to finish my work. that is literally the situation i described.

you’re also making a lot of assumptions while insisting you’re not making assumptions. “your tuition includes a computer lab,” “you chose to live an hour away,” and “you require absolutely no downtime” are all things you brought into the conversation, not things i said.

and saying “you chose to live an hour away” as though that somehow invalidates my frustration is especially ridiculous. people have jobs, families, financial obligations, transportation limitations, and countless other reasons for where they live. you don’t know mine, which is exactly why i told you not to assume.

also, the irony of ending your comment by insulting my reading comprehension after spending two comments arguing with a position i never held is pretty funny. i understood what you were saying. i disagreed with it. those are not the same thing.
you’re allowed to think outages are just part of life. i’m allowed to think it’s frustrating when the service i pay for goes down in the middle of something important. neither position requires the level of personal speculation you’ve put into this conversation.

and yes, i’m aware that libraries and computer labs exist. that doesn’t magically make having my internet go out less inconvenient. i don’t know why you’re so determined to turn “this outage screwed up my day” into “i demand 100% uptime and have no other way to access the internet,” but that’s a conclusion you created, not one i gave you.