Review by Phatty 
UPDATED: 97 days ago
member for 8.4 years, 4029 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Valley Park,Saint Louis,MO
 $80 per month
 "Great Package Options, Works 99% of the time better than advertised"
 "Can be slow once a network issue pops up to respond"
 "If you live in the right spot such as STL, you can't go wrong with Charter"
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(ratings above consensus)
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-------------- Update 4-------------------------------------7/2008
I am now on a business plan through my office with 5mb down/512mb up with a few static IPs. Charter had a bit of a slow down late last year that took them about a month to fix but now they are back to their usual good performance that I have grown used to with charter. Overall I still think the negotiation game Charter forces you to play to get good pricing is a bit lame as their every day price is way to high when compared to DSL. When it comes down to it though I would recommend Charter to anyone that comes asking as the only major competitor in the area AT&T has nothing on Charter's speeds or performance.
-------------- Update 3-------------------------------------8/2005
What can I say, Charter has improved a load in the many years from dialup upload(one way modem) days. The pricing is doing better, and the speed tiers that they offer have improved a load. Charter is still always a step behind when compared to other cable providers but when you actually compare price/speed to local ISPs Charter is now equally matched or better than most other providers in the area. If they could only get rid of the server rule in the TOS like most dsl providers do it would be perfect. I still get the occasional problem pop up that is directly Charter's fault, but overall I feel Charter is the best choice for an ISP and would not consider any other provider.
-----------------UPDATE 2---------------------------- 09/2003
Well service has been decent over the last year. I think the last time I had problems that seemed related to Charter over selling bandwidth was about this time last year. Charter has had a few problems here and there, usually related to the backbone so it seems like charter service is still getting better. But I still believe Charter could do a lot better on the reliability side, the backbone problems happen with them more than they happened when I had DSL.(ISP used 2 different providers instead of just using one like Charter seems to rely on.) I would recommend charter to friends now unless they need static IP/server then they are still better off with DSL. Charter changes price structures/speed a little too often, but as of right now paying around 45 a month with rental for 2mb/128 and that 128 is rumored to get increased soon. So for the first time in my 3+ years of pipeline service they are finally starting to have speeds and prices that make more since for the home user. Although the 2mb upgrade seems a bit late when you consider the number of cable providers now switching to 3mb as the standard. Oh well, if in STL area the service is fairly good, and probably a better choice than DSL unless you need to run a server.
-----------------UPDATE----------------------------
Service has stayed about the same, rarely any long term downtime. But the occasional short bits of downtime still seem to happen to often. They have changed around the prices/speeds now to give the service a bit more value, but I still feel when compared to other providers, they could offer better speed value into the packages. I currently pay around 50bux for just the pipeline after a discount of it being packaged with digital cable. I see a fairly consistant 1.6-1.7 mb down now, and upstream is a fairly constant 300kpbs but that is supposed to be leaving shortly to a nice cap of 128...
-----------------ORIGINAL----------------------------
I Originally had the pipeline service several years ago when they were One-Way service, and then had just switched to two-way... After several months of troubles when they were just getting everything going on Two-way I switched to dsl........ After a year+ of DSL that company went under so I decided to take the dive back to Pipeline in July of 2001. Overall the service is fairly reliable, although when problems do occur tech support has no tools or abilities to do anything so it always requires a service call of a tech to dispatch... and that is always slow with several hour windows of the techs coming out which waste a lot of your time, and is a long time to wait while being down. I think DSL is better overall for the money, and static IP's and such. But I didn't want to get stuck with another DSL company that goes out of biz. and that is why I went back to Pipeline.... The tiered service that pipeline offers in St. Louis area is a joke and the price/speed does not go up accordingly..
256 is like 25-30ish
768 45ish
1000 is 75...... small difference for a lot more money....
IF not for Charter's capped low, priced high plans it is pretty good. And I would recommend them to friends on the basis that I was able to switch from my DSL when it went down to Cable in the same day.....
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