Business Class at home (Spectrum)

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I have no idea if this is the correct sub-forum for this topic, I’ll let the mods sort it out.

Long story short, I’ve been unable to get anything better than expensive, data capped, satellite internet and wifi-hotspot in my semi-rural home. Finally seeing a way out, with businesses next door but ~800ft. and 3-4 poles away, I decided to give business class a try. For residential they always said “no future plan to cover your area”, but for business class they’ll pay for site survey, the first $5,000 for “construction”, take care of all pole/property permits, and even pay up to $500 to end any current contracts.

The subcontractor came today, measured everything, and said it was “totally do-able, a gravy job”, and wasn’t supposed to tell me this but said it would very likely cost well under the $5,000 limit. We only have 4 computers here, combos of Win 10, 7, and sometimes I dabble with Linux distros. There is no business here, per se, but there could be with broadband internet. I’ve wanted to take a few online courses for years but the current internet speed makes it nearly impossible. I know there’s plenty of hate for Charter/Spectrum, but anything’s better than satellite. Once the line comes “up” these poles, 3-4 residential customers (neighbors) are very likely to also switch from satellite, further incentive for them to provide service here.

I have a few questions for those that may know:

Do I need to make up a business name, DBA, Tax ID, etc?

Is my SSN a good enough for business tax ID?

The ads say there’s no contract but they’re paying a few thousand $ for free construction, what’s the catch?

If you’ve used Spectrum business class, how was your experience?

 

Thanks for reading, any facts or opinions on what I’m jumping into would be greatly appreciated.

 

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Does the business offer specify it relates to registered businesses only, or does it also apply to sole traders and/or home-based businesses? I would suspect their pre-signing due diligence would render any “made up” business name and tax number easily discovered, and not worth the risk…

If it did also relate to sole traders, surely your own SSN would suffice?

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I’ve read all the “fine print” and legalese I can find and there’s no mention of what they consider a “business”, which is why I asked. My landlord and home business owner lived here previously, Spectrum sent the mail to “current business owner” care of this address. The landlord doesn’t care about using the business name, actually approves anything to bring broadband access as it will only increase the property value, but obviously doesn’t want their EIN/tax ID used. That’s where it gets tricky, I know Spectrum will want a EIN/SSN.

I’m not sure why I expected an answer here, this is over the heads of anyone I can get from Spectrum via phone support. The site surveyor certainly had no clue.

I would also assume my SSN would suffice. It’s the business name that concerns me the most.

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Sole traders don’t usually need to have a business or trading name; in many places, using their own name is quite acceptable. If one was required for this, something like Schnarph’s Services should do fine – just don’t pretend you’re an LLC (or even a charity – there’s a big difference between a non-profitable enterprise and a charity).

Schnarph wrote:

I’m not sure why I expected an answer here, this is over the heads of anyone I can get from Spectrum via phone support.

Well, you never know what answers you will get by asking the question. Even if you don’t get an exact, specific answer, one thing I’ve found about AskWoody is the snippets you get often lead you in the right path to think through your own resolution. 🙂

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Schnarph

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You really should ask why the landlord wants such improvements but not allow the use of the tax id/EIN number?

Is your landlord worried that property taxes will get more expensive? Those taxes can be arbitrarily inflated anyway according to the surroundings, government agencies may make erroneous assumptions.

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Whatever SS# or EIN is used will be liable for whatever happens with the ISP. Trusting everyone here to not run illegal file sharing servers is one thing, trusting that we aren’t “hacked” (virus/malware/botnet/etc) resulting in illegal activity is another matter entirely. I wouldn’t give my best friend for life or favorite relatives an ISP using my details unless I was fully in control of all related internet security for any connected devices. It’s just due diligence IMO. I just found out a few hours ago it’s a moot point; I’ll use my own name and SSN, Time Warner/Charter/Spectrum Business class doesn’t care.

The property tax issue is over my head. I can only tell you of real-life nightmares. Basically, take the time to legally dispute any increase of property value.

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Do you ever cut your neighbor’s grass, or do odd jobs around the neighborhood? If so, then you are a home-based business. If you don’t charge for these services, then you are a “non-profit charity”.

Have you checked with any of the cellular providers? If you are in a Verizon 4G area, you can get Verizon home internet. With any of the cellular providers, you can get either a portable hot spot, or you can activate a hot spot on your cell phone. 4G is a decent speed, faster than some home broadband options.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 8.1 running in a VM

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Schnarph

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Sure, but I don’t have a business name, DBA, EIN, etc. Going LLC is a minimum of $300 to file in this state, plus other hoops to jump through (registered agent, operating agreement, EIN). Thus my question, what does Spectrum want from me as a business class customer? If it’s just whatever name I want to use and my SSN, why don’t more people get Spectrum to pay a few thousand to run a line to their house for free?

As for wifi hot-spot, I’m using one right now. The thing is their both data capped, the hotspot at about half of satellite with the largest package available. I want to take some online courses, doubtless will include plenty of video, and streaming video eats data quick.

My satellite speed compared to my hot-spot speed:

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In addition to whatever the local rules say over there, Spectrum may have corporate-internal criteria as well. Some companies do that – I know that at least Lexmark has business-only warranty extensions for printers where they may take weeks to determine if they consider you a business or not.

 

Couldn’t otherwise know even which “Spectrum” it is, English-speaking ‘net being worldwide… but since you mention “state” I’m pretty sure that it isn’t the one in the UK, which also seems to advertise gigabit lines for consumers with extra deep pockets.

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It turns out that they don’t care. It blows my mind that they’ll pay a few thousand to run the line but don’t even need a contract with me, and I can use my own name and SSN. Apparently they only need an EIN for enterprise class, which should be obvious. Enterprise would be a much, much more robust fiber bandwidth connection. I believe I have the option to go up to just barely under Gigabit fiber speeds before reaching enterprise class.

This “Spectrum” is Time Warner/Charter/Spectrum (merger/conglomerate), recently bought by or merged with AT&T. They own all the Turner channels, Warner (obviously), HBO/Cinemax, likely many more channels, and the only other satellite TV competitor to DISH, DirectTV. It’s a disgusting corporation, close to beating the Disney/ESPN/etc monopoly, likely worse in this case. Read some recent news headlines on HBO going dark on Sling and Dish and you’ll get the idea.

Frankly, I don’t care. I knew it was all coming to this, I just want real internet. Maybe the market will open up someday, for now the competition is between (a) 200mbps and (b) 2mps. A friend of mine lives even deeper in nowheresville, a town population of under 3,000 with no proper grocery or hardware stores, yet has 3 options for direct to home fiber internet all at speeds around 1gbps minimum. It must be a test bed of sorts, I have no idea.

When you live on the State’s fiber backbone line between major cities, options open up. And yes, I’m in continental ‘murica. It doesn’t really matter which state in this context.

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I got a call from Spectrum’s construction dept this evening telling me it’s been approved and would I like to continue. “Yes, thank you.” I said my boss wanted to change the listed company name, the person on the phone said that is no problem and would be handled by billing. They never asked for spelling and it was an odd company name. They never asked for SSN or EIN. Obviously this is going to be under the $5,00o they cover or they would want some way to get money.

This all seems too good to be true after so many years of internet h***. I will report back once it is all up and running. Fingers are metaphorically crossed, I can’t type with crossed fingers.

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