Charter’s internet service is overloaded and failing in Cape Charles, as well as in Chincoteague. With the service is struggling to meet current demand, the Town of Cape Charles has decided to award Charter Spectrum a three-year contract to provide cable and internet service to all town facilities.
Subscribers to Spectrum internet service have been experiencing severe down times—most have had to reboot the router several times a day in order to reestablish a connection. A technician that came to check on my internet problem told me there was nothing he could do. Basically, the node that services Cape Charles is overloaded, and just can’t handle the demand.
In traditional internet services, a coax cable (analog wire) is used to transmit cable television (and internet), similar to a landline phone. These copper wires lead from your property to a neighborhood node, and eventually to your service provider, which may be several miles away.
When the node was built several years ago, the company did not anticipate the growth, mainly in summer rentals that has occurred. The amount of people using bandwidth by surfing the web, but also by installing surveillance cameras to keep an eye on rental properties, has overloaded the system.
Charter is in the process of upgrading, but given the costs (near $7 million for Cape Charles and Chincoteague), no firm date has been established.
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