Sparklight — Local services in Rio Rancho

Where to begin! I moved out to Rio Rancho recently from Albuquerque where I had been a Comcast subscriber for a few years. I was at first a little disappointed to learn that Comcast doesn't have service in Rio Rancho, and that Cable One is the only real high speed provider. Seeing as how I wasn't too excited to keep Comcast service, I figured I would make the jump (with no other choice) to try out Cable One.

The day of my installation appointment happened to be a very cold and rainy day, and I felt a little bad for the installation technician. The service appointment took much longer than expected due to the inclement weather. At first I wasn't super excited when he told me that they cannot go into the attic to run cable inside of an interior wall. The cable outlet can only be installed on an exterior facing wall which is a little disappointing. However, the installation came out good and he did the best that he could, according to his installation rules. The most disappointing part is that the two remotes I received were used, and the technician promised me that he would come by the following business day and drop off two brand new remotes. 3 days went by and I never received them. However, when I called customer service, they promptly apologized and sent me out two new ones. That was really amazing customer service.

I also had a similar issue as another reviewer mentioned in that I never received my account number up front so I could set up my online account. I called customer service to retrieve it, and again, they were extremely prompt and helpful.

For the actually quality of the service and the value, I'd say it's pretty fair. I personally feel like the price is a little high for both TV and internet, but so far I haven't had any real issues with either one. I use my own modem and router, and I think that alleviates any service issues others have complained about with WiFi performance from their generic, rental modem/router. All the pricing is honest and upfront if you take the time to ask the right questions, so I never felt cheated on that. I have the 150 down, 5 up package and I consistently get around 160 down and 5.5 up. Occasionally, the internet service can "slow down" around certain times, meaning that some pages can take extra time to load or sometimes won't completely load correctly. The best way to describe it is that it's "snappy" when it loads pages like it would on another WiFi network. I still haven't figured out exactly if this is Cable One's fault or my own equipment, but it isn't inconveniencing me heavily yet. I am a fairly heavy gamer and user of data, but the allotted 500 gigs of data seems fairly reasonable and I don't see myself getting close to it.

So far, compared to Comcast, the price is higher but the customer service from their phone support is OUTSTANDING. They are the main factor of why I am rating Cable One 5 stars. The technician (even with the inclement weather factor) gets 4 stars because I was lied to about the new remotes being delivered. The quality of service so far is 5 stars, even with my unusual page loading issues.

My only major lingering complaint so far is that I am still yet to get technicians out to my house to bury the line that they had to run through my backyard for a temporary solution. Furthermore, the neighborhood cable box sits on my property and is 'broken' by work from the previous technician with no new one (as I was told) being installed or corrected yet. Aside from that,...

I recently had a very frustrating experience with Sparklight Internet when trying to transfer my services to a new address. I had been a loyal customer for several years and expected a smooth and seamless transition, but unfortunately, that was not the case.

Firstly, the customer service representatives I spoke to were incredibly unhelpful and seemed to have no knowledge of the transfer process. I was given conflicting information and had to repeat my situation multiple times to different representatives, which was a waste of my time and energy.

After finally getting through to someone who seemed to understand what I needed, I was told that my transfer request would be processed within a week. However, a week passed and I still had no internet connection at my new address. I called Sparklight multiple times to inquire about the status of my transfer, but each time I was met with vague answers and promises that it would be resolved soon.

Finally, after nearly two weeks of waiting, I was told a technician would be sent in an additional two weeks. This further added to my frustration and wasted even more of my time. I was told they would get with the local office to attempt to expedite my appointment and never received a call back from the service member who seemed to have lost interest in helping.

Overall, I am extremely disappointed with Sparklight Internet's handling of my transfer request. Their lack of communication, unhelpful customer service, and delayed resolution of the issue have left a sour taste in my mouth. I expected better from a company that prides itself on providing reliable internet services. I would not recommend Sparklight to anyone looking for a smooth and hassle-free transfer of their internet services.

When Sparklight went to sent a service member to pickup their equipment they even failed at that. The went to my previous address for...

Installation was horrible. Tech laid the cable out on the back yard instead of using the conduit that was already in the ground. Told me that 3-4 companies would come out to check if he could bury the line but could not tell me when. Dog chewed through the cable 30 minutes later.

When the new tech came out to replace the cable the next week, he said there was already conduit laid and was going to try to snake the line. When I said that "OK what ever you can do I appreciate it, but if the line isn't buried when i get home from work I am going to cancel the service." he got super defensive and said kept saying he doesn't work in ultimatums and that he's not required to snake the line, only to replace it. He was basically arguing with me when I told him it wasn't an ultimatum with him but more the company as a whole and that what ever he can do I would be thankful. Thankfully I came home and the line was taken care of. Additionally my roommate said that he ended up calling several other techs to come over and upgrade the equipment in the back. So was the first tech just totally inept?

Now on to the service. The download and upload speeds are fine however the ping is 30% higher to various data centers than century link. This most likely is due to inept network engineers who don't know how to set proper routing. Additionally, my ping in games such as Fortnite is terrible now when before it was great. This is on the magnitude of almost double the latency. This isn't the only game as well.

Overall very frustrating experience where I ended up paying for half a month of internet I was unable to use as well as having to schedule multiple appointments in order to get an actual installation. Also slightly disappointed in the service due to ping being much higher overall, with unacceptable performance in certain games. It just feels like...