Time Warner Cable Suspends Broadband Upgrades After Merger

Time Warner Cable has confirmed that the company has suspended its "Maxx" broadband and TV upgrades while the dust settles from Charter's $79 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Time Warner Cable's Maxx upgrades not only deliver faster top speeds up to 300 Mbps, but a notably overhauled improvement to the company's set top box interface. But Time Warner Cable has been telling company support techs and engineers that the upgrades were actually put on hold as of May 26.

The memo implies Charter is taking inventory of the acquired companies and is busy plotting a course forward.

"The Maxx Internet Speed Increase Program is currently undergoing review by our leadership team," says a memo obtained by Stop the Cap.

"As a result, all speed increases and customer communications were placed on a temporary hold beginning Thursday, May 26," states the internal communication. "Once the updated launch schedule is determined, updated hub schedules will be posted to KEY and area management will be notified. Customers will continue to receive notification when the new speeds are available in their hubs."

Users in Maxx upgrade markets have been seeing their 15 Mbps "Standard" connections boosted to 50 Mbps, their 30 Mbps "Extreme" connections bumped to 200 Mbps, and the company's 50 Mbps "Ultimate" tier pushed to 300 Mbps. These upgrades have been implemented at no additional cost (read: price hikes usually come later).

As of 2012 Charter had streamlined its own offerings, providing customers the choice of just two primary tiers: 60 and 100 Mbps. Those upgrades have seen staggered deployment and aren't expected to be fully completed in all markets until 2019. The sole exception is New York State, where regulators held Charter's feet to the fire by requiring it offer 300 Mbps to all state customers by that same date.

Like most cable companies Charter intends to offer notably faster speeds via DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades, but at the moment seems pre-occupied with looking for cost savings opportunities as it integrates two additional, sizable ISPs. In addition to halting (potentially temporarily) Maxx speed upgrades, we exclusively reported this morning that the company has stopped pitching its home security and automation service, Intelligent Home.