Spectrum is slowly pushing customers from its older cable TV service to its newer streaming service with the Xumo Box. Now Spectrum is trying to speed up the process of moving customers from its legacy cable TV service to its new streaming service by raising the monthly price of cable TV boxes but keeping the price of its cheaper Xumo streaming player the same price.
The Xumo streaming player is Spectrum’s new default cable TV box. The big difference between this box and the older cable TV box is that it only works over the internet. You can not plug a coaxial cable into the back of it for a traditional cable TV service. This means any customer with the Xumo player box will be using Spectrum’s streaming TV service, not traditional cable TV.
To help do this, Spectrum is raising the costs of its HD cable TV boxes from $10.99 a month to $12.50 a month. The Xumo box, its streaming player, costs $5 a month or a one-time fee of $60. (TV customers can get the first box free for 12 months. After that the $5 a month fee starts.)
If you decided to pay $5 a month for the box instead of buying it for $60, you need to ask to stop paying for it after 12 months. If you don’t contact Spectrum and ask them to stop billing you $5 a month, Spectrum will keep charging you $5 a month indefinitely. If you are paying $5 a month and damage your box, Spectrum will replace it for free. If you buy it and damage your box, you will need to buy a new one.
Spectrum recently also announced that the broadcast TV surcharge, which just went up by $1 in July, will increase from $23.20 to $25.75 a month. The charge for Advanced WiFi will increase by $2 to $7 a month. Its Entertainment View and Latino View packages will each increase by $3 to $15 a month. Spectrum TV Essentials, its live streaming service that can be used with Roku and other devices, will increase by $5 to $29.99 a month.
This all comes as Spectrum just announced a second round of price increases on its customers in the last 12 months. This increase comes after 2023 saw a wave of price hikes across the board, with streaming services and cable TV companies alike charging more amid inflation. In July, Spectrum raised the price of its TV, internet and phone services, with phone and internet going up by $5 a month each. At the time, it also blamed programming costs for the increase.
Customers who switch to the Xumo box will still get the same changes as the cable TV box at the same prices. The only difference is with the Xumo box you get them streaming online with a slightly cheaper but complicated device rental.
For Spectrum, moving customers over to streaming one day could let it shut down its traditional TV service. This would free the company to focus exclusively on its internet service through its network instead of needing to keep older legacy TV systems running.
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