 Review by zvolts 
UPDATED: 1.6 years ago
member for 4.8 years, 671 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Bay City,Bay,MI
 $45 per month
 about 4 days
 "Tech Support,Reliability"
 "Slow rolling out faster service"
 "Decent deal for the money"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I signed up online and had someone call back within 3 days or so. The rep that called me was very knowledgeable and helpful. The rep wasn't allowed to recommend a cable modem, but when I asked "If you were me what would you buy?" he mentioned one that I was already considering, which I'm very happy with. I installed the modem myself with no difficulties.
I've been with charter for about 5 months and have only noticed one outage, which was scheduled.
Upstream/downstream speeds are consistently as advertised. I've never had a problem with their pop/smtp email. I use their bundled web hosting just for testing web pages that I've developed. It's slow!!!!
I don't play online games or do P2P, so I'm satisfied with the 3M/256K speeds. They don't seem to be leaders in rolling out faster service. I probably wouldn't pay more for faster service, but would like to see my current price drop when faster service is available. Wishful thinking on my part perhaps.
I reluctantly signed up with Charter initially because I had nothing but problems with the DSL line I was using. Charter was about the only other option in this area, so I went with them. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with their service. Overall, in my opinion, they are not a bad deal.
**Update ** 4/15/08
I've moved and had to give up my Charter cable internet connection after more than 3 years. For the most part my initial review stands. However, I have changed my Tech Support rating (lower) to reflect my overall experience.
The Good: I had very, very few outages and my connection speed was very consistent. I rarely checked my connection speed because I just never had any issues with it.
The Bad: Customer Service seems to have gone the way of the dinosaurs in the technology field in general. Charter is no exception. If you find that you're able NOT to yell at the stupid troubleshooting auto attendant/IVR, you're a better person than I. If you manage to weather the auto attendant you're likely to be greeted by "John" or "Mary" with a very south-Asian accent who will faithfully read from their scripts without deviating and without providing much in the way of "tech support". Luckily, because of the reliable connection I had, I didn't have to deal with anti-tech support much.
Given a choice, I would keep Charter because of the great connection quality I had with them. They're just not available where I've moved.
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