Brooklyn Chatter: Does Time Warner Road Runner or Verizon DSL Suck More?
There are few topics that provoke more reaction than the quality, or lack thereof, of internet service (except the Postal Service). So, we were amused to come across some emails getting at the topic of crappy internet service in Carroll Gardens & Boerum Hill and whether Road Runner is better or worse than Verizon DSL or vice versa. (What about FiOS? Well, that would seem to be an alternative that will take some time.) Regardless, here is some of the first email:I have been having a serious problem with my internet connection for the last 2 weeks. Internet is part of my Time Warner Cable service. For the last 2-3 weeks it comes and goes. I have had 2 repairmen out who have said there's nothing wrong. I've replaced the modem. And still this morning it was out for 2 hours. When I was on the phone with them just now the agent said that as far as he could see 10% of the modems in my immediate area were out at that time! That's a ridiculously high percentage that regulators would like to know about!And a response:
I was having connectivity problems for many months. On and off from minutes to hours to days...I got tired of calling, tired of waiting for repair to arrive, and it was preventing me from doing some of my job. I can't imagine how people who always telecommute cope with the service disruptions.Which leads us to an opinion about DSL:
Verizon can be a total nightmare. Ask anyone on Warren St. between Bond and Nevins. I also have a friend who has DSL who says it was great at first, but as they add more customers it has slowed considerably and goes out often. After all they don't add cable. They just add demand. That is why most of us gave up on Verizon for phone service (or the lack of it).It would seem to be a case of picking one's poison and living with it. Our own experience with Road Runner is that it has been fairly reliable in the last eight or nine months after being nightmarish for five or six months before that. A technician was able to make some wiring-related tweaks that greatly improved reliability.
Labels: Boerum Hill, Caroll Gardens
posted by rsguskind at 8:00 AM
8 Comments:
Check before getting FIOS. When installed, they may remove your copper connection which other providers like AT&T Worldnet use. Also, I understand that fibre cables cannot ring your phone--you must have the phone hooked up to electricity with a battery backup if there should be a power outage. Heard this from a communications expert, but I have no direct knowledge about it. I'm sticking with copper.
I guess if Verizon gets everyone here on fibre, they don't have to share the lines with other providers.
What have you heard or read about?
A technician was able to make some wiring-related tweaks that greatly improved reliability.
Yeah, that's how it works. Over the next few months, other technicians will make other wiring-related tweaks that greatly degrade your reliability. If you complain enough, another technician will improve it by undoing those tweaks. Then other customers will complain and other technicians will redo those tweaks. Rinse and repeat forever.
I had problems with Time Warner because the initial instal was done using wiring that was already in my house, probably done in the 80s. A technician checked the signal strength of on the line inside the house and found that the poor wiring was causing the problems. He ran new wire and now I only have problems when they issue the city wide outages.
The problem i have with TWC is the quality of their telly. Many of the HD channels are replaced by a grey screen, which leads me to suspect that they are providing PITIFUL amounts of bandwidth to my building.
Ooh, that's very interesting, 5:12. I've had no luck even figuring out where to complain to, but I get enraged and have to quit trying pretty quickly. But I will try again. I have TWC and it's slow and frequently drops out for short periods. I would love an alternative. A Verizon rep came to speak at our co-op meeting about FiOS, and it sounds great, but I realize the reality may be something else.
Greenpoint: We've had intermittent connectivity issues with TW, but because we're reasonably technical, we try to troubleshoot them, and they seem to resolve.
Last week, we had cable but no internet. I called and was told we had an outage. I asked how there could be an outage if there was cable, and when the outage would be resolved. She escalates me to second level, who tells me there is no outage in my area, they need to send a signal to my modem. They send me to a third person to set up a service appointment.
We disconnected the splitter and connectd the internet directly and it worked. Then we did the same thing with the cable, and it worked... until the next day. This time when we called we were told there was some kind of wire degredation in the area, but since it was nighttime,they couldn'tfix it until the next day.
However, it came back a few hours later of its own accord. And then I checked my phone to find a MESSAGE FROM TW CHECKING ON OUR INTERNET STATUS.
Unheard of.
But the treatment of customers is only second to, say, Microsoft. The lectures I have gotten from CS reps at TW when I explain that I cannot take time off from work to wait from the cable guy, and that I need an evening or weekend appointment - "IT's not unheard of, I've had to take time off to wait for the cable repairman" - um, YOU WORK FOR THE CABLE COMPANY!
I hate Time Warner with a passion. They have the worst customer service of any company I have ever dealt with. I can't bear to go into the details of what I had to go through to get my cable installed. I have earthlink hi-speed which uses verizon DSL and I have not had a single problem.
Earthlink is a product of Time Warner ...sorry to let you know. And the thing that I can't get over about Verizon and there FiOS internet is that they are acting like this is a brand new thing and better than anything anyone else has. Time Warner and many other companies use Fiber Optic cables right now and have for the last 10 years. Maybe the only advantage you'll see is that the cables they're putting up are brand new as opposed to some that have been up for 10 years.
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