 Review by semick 
UPDATED: 335 days ago
member for 6.6 years, 134 visits, last login: 88 days ago
 Cleveland,Cuyahoga,OH
 $50 per month
 about 2 days
 "Fast install compared to DSL, & easy setup"
 "network is very fast to about 25% of addresses and slow to many others"
 "Better than DSL in the E200th st area because the copper wires are crap here"
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(ratings match consensus)
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Well I've had cable modem from Armstrong (excellent), and COX (excellent) before so my expectations are somewhat high when it comes to cable. Calling Road Runner at 877-77-CABLE in itself is a negative whether it be for ordering or support because typical hold times are 10-15 minutes early in the morning up to an hour in the afternoon. The only redeeming thing they have is callback queue where you can put in your callback number and get called when it's your turn. I never had to wait as long for customer service with Cox or Armstrong or Cavalier telephone either.
The good thing is when you call for cable, they normally come within a day or two. I called in on a Tuesday and they came Thursday morning for the install. I could have opted to run out on Tuesday and grab the modem myself and do the install which I've done before with Cox and that works just as well.
I ordered digital cable + phone + internet (turbo 15 Mbs down/1 MBbs up). The quoted price was 114 / mo plus tax plus digital converter renal fee which would cost me around 130 a month or so. The price for phone is high compared with other voip providers and they charge for inferior voicemail so I opted not to get the voicemail. Time warner voicemail I think doesn't even have a web interface nor does it email you when you have a message. The only redeeming qualities of their voip service is 1) Caller Id on the TV display and 2) Anonymous Call Rejection. If I don't like their voip after a month or two, I'll just get Vonage.
So now that I've had the service for 5 days I can say the max I get down is about 10-12 mbps and up about 700 mbps. There is a bad latency when loading web pages from far away like California (google etc) at many times and sometimes the speed will drop down to almost zero for a few seconds.
I kept losing my ip address on my ZyXel P-330W router and I'm not sure if it's a problem with Road Runner DNS Servers, the cable mode, or the router. Today I replaced the cable modem since that was the easiest thing and one customer service representative at Road Runner said there were issues with the Motorola surfboard that I had and turbo speed. So I will see if I have the same problems. The next step will be to get the wirless router replaced. And the last step which I don't want to get to will be to diagnose their damn DNS servers if necessary.
Overall I'm satisfied with upload and download speeds for my purposes. I occasionally download torrents and those scream. Streaming video/audio is excellent for the most part. Surfing is good at most times except when the lagging/latency issue pops up. I've put in a tertiary backup public DNS server into my router in case it is DNS related.
If you live where I live which is near 200th Street in Euclid, Road Runner is really the only way to go. The copper wires here are crap which I figured out after trying to get my DSL to go over 3.5 mbps (DSL2). I've talked with countless AT&T repairmen who all said they've asked for the wires here to get replaced many times but it never gets done. This area's C.O. is the one on Nottingham in Cleveland and we are 8,000 - 12,000 ft away so what can you expect anyway. The folks on the east side of Euclid are lucky, they can at least get U-Verse and have a choice.
Scott Emick
Euclid Friendly Computer Service
»efcs.webhop.biz
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