Review by dipswich 
UPDATED: 26 days ago
member for 5.2 years, 1629 visits, last login: 1 days ago
 Raleigh,Wake,NC
 $99 per month (24 month contract)
 about 3 days
 "Consistently achieves rated speeds, knowledgeable tech support"
 "Service offerings compete regionally and are inconsistent across divisions"
 "A good, reliable broadband option"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
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I've had the Business Class home office solution at my present address for about 9 months, now. As a RR customer of 8 years a couple miles away, the residential always met or exceeded expectations, so I moved to the Home Office solution when that need arose. For the most part, the service has performed well.
From a technical standpoint, the service hits it speeds and is reliable. I can only recall one outage that wasn't due to problems on my end. Well, one "technical" outage... I did have one outage caused by a cable network auditor who didn't realize I was supposed to be connected.
In order to keep residential video service available, RoadRunner was attached to a "1/2" address, like 123 1/2 Wisteria Ln. Evidently, the "1/2" addresses sort to the bottom, and the auditor disconnected my wire has he went through the neighborhood. While this was an inconvenience (and the reason for the point drop under "reliability"), support did offer to roll a truck after-hours to get me back online when I called after returning home. Overall, support is a step up from residential, as expected.
As for installation, the installer was prompt. The only knock I could give on installation is that information for the various elements of the Home Office package arrived via separate e-mails (for e-mail, web hosting, dial access, domain setup, and off-site storage). I would expect a single "welcome" bundle with all of this information vs. the several e-mails. It's nice having stuff in one place. But, no dings for any of this, as this is definitely getting "picky."
The only real issue I have with RoadRunner Business Class is with the billing, shared with the residential side. First, the contact numbers on the bill are for residential customers. Since bills come regularly, that's usually the easiest place to find a number. Second, I had trouble with electronic bill-pay being rejected and returned. TWC blamed it on a slight change of the account number format when changing banks. Everything's smooth now.
Regarding value, it comes down to price for what's needed. Part of the Home Office bundle is web hosting, remote storage, and DNS. Really, all I wanted was a little more upload bandwidth. So, for what I *need* vs. the residential offering, 384kbps more upload, the price more than doubles vs. the residential price. At least the support is good.
* Update: August 8, 2007 *
Silently over the 2 1/2 years I've the HBS SOHO package, Time Warner Business Class has upgraded the speed while holding the line on cost (term contract has expired). I originally signed up for a 3M/768k line. Early on, it moved to 5/768k to match the download speed upgrades that were rolling out to residential users. It is currently 7M/1M, hitting those speeds consistently on the speed tests, even though the residential side in the Raleigh-Durham market hasn't seen the FiOS-competitive speed bumps that others have seen. Based on this, I've bumped the value rating up a notch.
Connection has been pretty reliable. Only a couple of hiccups, and I can't swear that they weren't my router. I have seen a couple of DNS issues, though, so I'm leaving the reliability at "4."
Since the last review, I had to call TW when a contractor cut the RG6 from the street to the house. The line was replaced within a few hours. I couldn't have been happier with that.
* Update: September 15, 2008 *
Reliable connection and DNS/mail services, and speed is now measuring at 8M/1M. Billing now looks like a business offering, so that is an improvement. Not much new to report here.
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