 Review by artulo 
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 6.4 years, 1218 visits, last login: 1 days ago
 Madison,Dane,WI
 $150 per month (12 month contract)
 about 5 days
 "Easy connection to set up yourself, decent speeds."
 "No competition in the area to keep service up and prices down."
 "Expensive, connection is mostly stable."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I had initially wanted to get DSL with TDS Metrocom or Verizon and not have cable TV, but both TDS and Verizon gave me the finger after initially saying that I could get it, even after extensive line tests.
So, I broke down and ordered a package with Platinum Pipeline and Digital Cable for around $100/mo. Initialy started at 1.5/256 and was recently "upgraded" to 2/128 thanks to Charter, but that's another issue altogether.
Service is DHCP, I called in my MAC address to the tech support folks and they said I would be up "within an hour". Well, after numerous phone calls and 5 days of waiting it was determined there was a "filter" on my line and they removed it. Viola! Good speeds.
The service has been mostly good, with the occasional outage. It seems to have had more problems recently since they "upgraded" it.
I have never been able to get the 2Mbit download speeds. 1.8 is about the best I have been able to do.
I had my own modem from an old Charter Business Networks account, so I saved on that monthly fee. It's an old RCA DCM 235 (?) and works well enough. I don't know if it would be worthwhile to get a new one, perhaps a Motorola Surfboard.
All in all, I am basically staying w/ Charter until I have some more options and find something better.
Update 10/19/04: Charter service has been SLOW during evening hours for the past few weeks. We have been upgraded to 3.0/256 earlier this year, but it doesn't make a bit of difference if you've got a 600+ ping to everything...they'd better fix this soon or away I go.
I've had to knock down the "value for money" and "connection reliability" since the service has been so bad lately, we'll see how it turns out.
Update 7/5/05: Charter fixed the peak hours lag issue, and everything is fine. Connection is stable, and rarely is there an outage when I want to use it. It's definitely more reliable than my Linksys wireless router, that needs to be powered off and on at least once a day to get a connection back.
Service is 3/256, which I guess is adequate. I'd prefer more upload. Supposedly there are 5mb upgrades coming "soon" but in Charter terms that could be years off.
My package recently expired, with the HSI/Biggest Value Package combo so now my cable bill is quite outta hand (over $120/mo) so I'm looking into DSL and dropping down to expanded basic cable, or at least getting rid of the movie channels. Service for DSL has expanded recently so hopefully I can get into a $20/30 per month rate.
Update 6/23/08: I have purchased a Motorola SurfBoard modem of my own to replace the now-defunct RCA modem. It's working fine. I've been upgraded to the new 10/1 service and get around 9.5/1 so that's pretty good. Prices have steadily risen but also the services they provide have gone up, too. The On Demand features are great, it's nice being able to watch pretty much whatever's on the movie channels plus other network stuff anytime. Although they do need to increase capacity because at peak times errors happen since too many people are attempting to view an On Demand show. We have pretty much every channel plus 10M HSI and telephone and all of it is around $150/mo.
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