Toby and I have had some serious problems with our Internet access lately. And I wasn’t going to write about it, but I’m so frustrated, so annoyed with how things have been dealt with by Time Warner Cable (Road Runner) I can’t hold back any longer. And whatever insight people might have, whatever ideas come to mind, I’ll take them all.
It’s been 3 weeks. We’ve been having problems with our On Demand, which is totally ignorable considering we have a DVR and I am obsessive about recording the shows we like to watch. The biggest problem, especially for two people who make a living on the Internet, is that we don’t have it. And when we do have it, it’s spotty.
We’re averaging anywhere between a 15% and 100% packet loss all the time. Our cable modem (and this information was given to us by a Time Warner Cable customer service representative named Judith) flaps at a 500+ rate. (She said 100 is considered a problem at Time Warner. 500 is considered, “What the hell are these people thinking paying for our service?”)
On Saturday a technician finally came out (he was a half hour later than the 8 – 12 PM time slot we were given) and gave us a new modem. He said the one we had been using was recalled in 2000. (We signed up for this service in 2003. That modem worked fine for us up until 3 weeks ago. So I’m not going to complain about the fact that Time Warner gave us a recalled modem. If they want to cut corners, fine. But I wish they’d use the money they were saving cutting corners and put it toward decent service.) The technician also replaced a piece of hardware directly outside the house. He told us that the problems we were having should be fixed.
But they weren’t fixed. We called again. And again. And again. I called once on Saturday, two times on Sunday, three times on Monday, four times yesterday, and once already today. Every single time I/we get the same story or a bunch of runarounds about how there’s nothing they can do for us. Our modem, for every five minutes it’s up, spends about an hour down, blinking incessantly. Yesterday it was down for 8 hours straight. Today it’s been down every half an hour. I can get on for a few minutes and then it drops me again.
They declared a neighborhood outage on the 30th, which has been cleared but hasn’t yet been cleared from their system and until that’s done they cannot send us another technician. Not that a technician can help us. We’ve already been told that the problem is not coming from within the house. It’s coming from a local hub someplace. And we believe that, because our modem is working just fine when it does have a signal. The best part is we can’t get any credit until a Time Warner technician comes out and writes up that there is a problem, which is why we want the technician even though he/she won’t be able to do anything to actually fix the problem. So, we can’t get a technician because their systems haven’t been cleared and we can’t get a discount for our troubles because a technician cannot be dispatched to our house because their systems haven’t been cleared of the previous outage not that a technician can help us anyway since the problem isn’t coming from within our house. And they won’t send someone if it’s a neighborhood issue because that’s a waste of their time. However, they won’t fix the neighborhood wide issue until enough people have called in to complain. You see my frustration?
We pay roughly 150 dollars for cable television (that includes HBO, Showtime, and the On Demand channels for both) and Internet Access. On Demand is currently down, has been for days now, as is our Internet service. And our options are next to none. We don’t even have an existing phone jack in our apartment to sign up for Verizon (something I vowed not to do ever again back in 2001). We don’t qualify for Optimum. We’re not sure what we can do at this point. And if you’re still actually reading this, I’m looking for answers. Because paying them for this disservice feels awful.
Today, in hopes of getting our neighbors to call in as well, we renamed our modem to, “Roadrunner sucks. If you’re having problems, please call.” We’re also contemplating dropping cable altogether, (which might kill me, I won’t lie) and using our cell phones for Internet access. That’s how desperate we are. The fact that I’m toying with dropping my precious cable TV should tell you how upset I am with Time Warner Cable.
Maybe, to some degree, I’m taking my hormonal frustration out on Time Warner cable, focusing all my discomfort on their inability to do their job. And I know that blog posts about such matters are a drag to read, but I can’t help and think that some poor sod might be move into Greenpoint, price ISPs, and decide to go with Time Warner Cable over another, more reliable option. Because if they do go with Time Warner Cable they are in for a world of frustration. So, I thought it was my duty to get the word out as much as humanly possible. Perhaps Google can help me do the rest. Perhaps you can too.
Mihow 
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