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Review by dataice See Profile

  • Location: Crisfield, Somerset, MD, USA
  • Cost: $40 per month
  • Install: about 1 days
Quick Install, and free modem.
Only offers 8/1 in my area, but charging me for the 30/4 tier. Speeds are inconsistent, and drop dramatically in the evening.
Charter is my only option, if I want more than entry-level DSL.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)

04/23/2014: I stopped by my local office today to see if Charter is running any specials on their internet service. I was told by the lady in the office that I could get 30/4 for $39.99 a month plus $5 a month extra for a wireless router. She said if I bundle it with their Silver TV package she would knock off $10 a month from my internet service, and give me both services for $54.99 a month, not including taxes and fees. She said with those added, I would be paying around $60 a month. I thought that was a good deal and I decided to take her up on her offer.

I was told however, that we still don't have access to any HD content from Charter, even though all of our local over the air stations broadcast an HD signal. We also don't have any DVR options here with Charter, or On Demand features. Charter is truly stuck in the 90's, in my local area. But, considering she's throwing in the TV service for $10 more a month than standalone internet, I still thought it's a decent deal. I'll just drop the TV service after the one year promo is up. I have a Netflix, and Hulu Plus subscription, so I will rarely watch their TV service anyway, unless it's to watch Game of Thrones on HBO, or a breaking news or weather event.

She said there would be a one time, $39.99 install fee, and a one time $29.99 activation fee for the wireless router which she said has to be paid up front before they will schedule an install. This company will find any excuse to nickel and dime you to death. I paid the up front fees, and was given a install window of 8 am - Noon tomorrow for my install. That's a pretty good turnaround. So, I set it up and told them I would make sure to be home when he comes.

04/24/2014: The technician showed up at 10 am. He had a bit of a mess to sort out in the junction box of my apartment complex because many of the lines to the individual units were missing their corresponding apartment number tags, so it took him nearly an hour just to figure out which line was mine.

After he came back in to begin the install, I casually mentioned what I was paying currently with Verizon for 3 Mbps DSL, and was happy to discover for about the same price I was going to get 30 Mbps with Charter. He quickly stopped me and said who told you that? I said, the lady down at the local office. He said, I don't know why she keeps telling people we offer 30/4 when we only offer 8/1 for your area. Well, that's just great I thought to myself. But, even at 8/1, it's still better than the 3/768 that I get with Verizon.

About an hour later, he finishes his install and calls in to provision my services. The picture quality of the SD digital service is poor. They are still using a late 90's Motorola DCT2000 SD receiver for our cable system. The SD digital picture is out of focus, and heavily pixelated on at least two-thirds of the channels. He asked me to do a speed test before he left to make sure everything looks okay. I pulled in just over 12 Mbps. Considering I'm only supposed to be getting 8 Mbps, I considered myself lucky.

04/25/2014: So far, so good as far as the internet goes. My speed did drop down to about 7 - 8 Mbps during peak hours from 5 - 11 pm last night, but considering I'm only supposed to get 8 Mbps to begin with, I can live with it. I am able to get 11 - 12 Mbps during non peak times.

04/26/2014: I logged into their web-site this evening to set up my account. I then discover I am not getting my services for $54.99 a month like I was told at the office. I was going to be paying $64.99 a month, plus an additional $6.99 for the SD receiver that she said would be included in the cost of the promo, for a total of $71.98, and that doesn't include any taxes or fees. With those added, I'm looking at around $80 a month. Quite a bit more than the $60 I was told I would be paying. Yet another false statement from this company.

Considering I have had dealings with Charter in the past, doing battle with them, just to get them to provide my apartment complex with services in the first place, I know it's a waste of time to get them to honor their agreement with me. They have no problem telling you one thing, and doing the opposite. I'm not about to rearrange my schedule to drive to the other side of town to deal with the lady at the local office. Shame on me for thinking that maybe they had changed. I will just keep it for the first year, then scale back to internet only when my promo is up. I'll update my review if I begin to have any issues with my services.

04/28/2014: I received an email that my first bill is due. They didn't waste any time. My monthly total with taxes and fees will be $79.23. I just loved the part of my bill break down that said I am subscribed to their Internet Plus 30/4 tier, even though they only offer 8/1 in my area, for the same cost as the 30/4 tier.

05/01/2014: I've been having to reset my modem at least twice a day. It simply stops responding. Tech support is useless. Their only option is telling you to unplug the modem for a minute, or sending a tech to your location. After checking with a neighbor in my complex who also has Charter, I discovered he's having the same problems. They send a tech out, he says our numbers are okay, and he leaves. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I'm also noticing some major issues with speeds, especially during evening hours from 5 - 11 pm. But, I know with cable internet that's just the nature of the beast. I live in a 330 unit apartment complex, so I imagine I'm on a congested node. My speeds in the evening hours are now dropping as low as 1 Mbps, and on a few occasions have dropped below 1 Mbps. I can forget trying to stream a movie during the evening hours, which is when most people are at home watching something.

05/29/2014: I suffered a 12 hour outage today with my internet. Of course when I called support their first response was to blame me. I told the CSR that I had already reset the modem and router before calling to rule out any issues on my end. Of course, he has me do it again anyway. They said my only option then is to send a tech. I've been there and done that with this company before, and they billed me for a service call, even after the tech determined the problem was on their end. Then you have to battle them for a credit. No thanks, I told the rep. I decided to wait until more people call it in. It's a good thing I still have my Verizon DSL connection as a backup, or I would have been SOL.

06/02/2014: I went down to the local office today to inquire about if/when we would see a speed upgrade. A tech who was coming back from his lunch break said, I wouldn't hold your breath. Those were his exact words. He said I don't see that happening in the next 24 months for this system, if not longer. In other words, be happy that you're getting 8/1.

06/06/2014: I returned my cable equipment to my local office today, and am scaling back to internet only. There are so many issues with their TV service, that it isn't a value, even at the promo pricing. Constant freezing of channels, heavy pixelation, and the program guide constantly losing programming information. My internet price will increase by $10 a month to $44.99 by dropping TV service. I'm probably going to sign up with DirecTV. They've been trying to get me back as a customer for several years.

07/09/2014: There was a front page article featured in our local newspaper today that the city has decided not to renew Charter's franchise when it expires on January 1, 2015. You know things are bad when it makes the front page of the newspaper. There was a local town meeting with city council and the County Commissioner last month, where apparently things got very heated, when customers were allowed to speak directly to Charter's regional manager about the dismal service. Apparently Charter said it had no plans to do any upgrades to the local cable plant here, and basically the city said, then we are done here. End of discussion.

So, now the city is in talks with Comcast about coming in to provide service to the area. There will be considerable upgrades that will have to be performed to the local cable plant, due to Charter's neglect of the plant. Comcast provides services to the northern half of the county, so this will fill in the southern half that Charter will be losing. I'm crossing my fingers, because if this deal falls through with Comcast as it is apparently tied into the swap of systems because of the Comcast/TWC merger, that will leave thousands without services. Charter is the only fixed line provider available to about two-thirds of the town's population, since Verizon stopped taking on new subs for DSL.

07/16/2014: I was able to find a TP-Link router on Amazon, so I returned the Charter provided router today to save the $5 monthly lease fee.

07/23/2014: Internet has been down since 6 pm this evening. Of course Charter has no idea why it's down or when it will be back up. So, I basically have to wait until more customers from my area phone it in before they do anything about it.

07/24/2014: Internet didn't come back up until just shy of 4 pm this afternoon. 22 hours total downtime.

08/02/2014: I'm trying to watch a movie on Netflix, and it's buffering every two to three minutes. And this is only a SD stream. I did a speed test to several sites, and discovered I'm averaging 1.2 Mbps right now as of 8 pm Saturday evening. I'd get better results with Verizon 3G if not for the caps. This level of service should be criminal.

08/03/2014: Yet another outage. I lost connectivity shortly after 9 pm. As usual customer service was useless. Let's see how long this one lasts.

08/04/2014: Service wasn't restored until just after 5 pm. A total of 20 hours of no service.

08/05/2014: I decided to go by my local office today to put in a request to disconnect service. Last night I was getting less than 1 Mbps. I refuse to continue to pay $40 a month for barely usable service. I'll just keep my DSL service active. It's only 3 Mbps but at least it's always consistent whenever I need it. 8 Mbps is useless to me if I can only get those speeds at 3 am in the morning when I'm sleeping.

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member for 21.4 years, 3125 visits, last login: 172 days ago
updated 9.5 years ago


W8vi
@24.210.166.x

W8vi

Anon

Inept or corrupt

You have been ripped off. I'd be fuming and getting a price reduction for the 8/1 speed and the additional charges they did not mention to you. Then I would be contacting Charters customer relations department. If not satisfied then I would be contacting BBB, State Attorney's office and writing an editorial for the local paper explaining your recent "purchase".

There either inept or corrupt - probably a little of both. Not all providers act this way. I'm with Time Warner in SW Ohio and they haven't pulled that kind of crap with me or the family members I've referred for service -At least not yet.

Please take action against bad business practices.

dataice
Premium Member
join:2002-10-27
Crisfield, MD

4 edits

dataice

Premium Member

Re: Inept or corrupt

My father said the same thing to me yesterday. The more I sit and stew about it, the angrier I'm getting. Had I known the truth up front at the local office, I probably would have stayed with Verizon DSL. It's considerably slower, but at least it was consistent, especially in the evening hours when it counted the most.

The only reason I didn't cancel as soon as the tech came, is because they already had my $70 for the install and activation. I was trying to watch a movie on Netflix last night and it was buffering every two to three minutes, and that was a SD stream! I had to switch over to DSL to finish the movie.

Charter's franchise with my town is up at the end of this year. Several TV news stations here and our local newspaper have covered the situation of the poor service the county is getting. The city council has threatened to not renew Charter's franchise when it is up at the end of this year, but they've threatened to do that before and it was just a bunch of hot air.

People here are just fed up but we have nowhere else to go for service. When our local central office with Verizon DSL maxed out in 2011, it made Charter the only provider for fixed broadband in the area. And we can forget Verizon rolling out FIOS here. They stopped in neighboring Delaware in 2010, and passed right over Southeast Maryland, where I'm at.

My neighbor in the apartment across the hall, switched from Verizon DSL to Charter a couple of weeks before me, but he made the mistake of dropping his DSL line before he put his Charter connection through its paces, and now he's stuck with them. When he called Verizon to get DSL back they said no, because of the central office being full. The rep told him she couldn't add him back in, even if she wanted to. Her system blocks her from overriding it.

Knowing what I do about Charter already, I made sure to hold onto my DSL connection, just in case I found service with Charter's internet to be substandard. They didn't surprise me. I have to make up my mind soon, because I can't afford to pay $80 a month to Charter, and another $55 a month to Verizon.
csal1
join:2014-05-05
US

csal1

Member

Re: Inept or corrupt

Holy crap!... I've never heard of any telecom company refusing to take customers because, basically, they can't handle the load. I'm from New York and out there they have FiOS. Its the best service I've ever seen. And I've also had Charter when I lived in the mid-west for a bit and they weren't bad as far as service is concerned but I had heard way before subscribing that their customer service was sub-par (similar to Comcast).

You should definitely make some noise on this. I know you said you said its a waste of time to call support based on past experiences but you cant just let them get away with this type of incompetence. I'm with W8vi, if you have to involve the State Attorney's office, do it (if you have the time because it does take time and effort)

dataice
Premium Member
join:2002-10-27
Crisfield, MD

4 edits

dataice

Premium Member

Re: Inept or corrupt

Verizon hasn't taken on any new customers here for DSL service since late 2010. My cousin who recently moved back to the area tried to get DSL with Verizon and was told they couldn't because the central office is full. Verizon refuses to dump any more money into POTS. It's been the case for several years now. At least in my neck of the woods. They rather focus on wireless. You can still get a voice line, but a no go on DSL here in my county.

And as far as our State Attorney's office, they simply don't care about this part of the state. It's rural, and we are largely invisible to them. I already fought a battle with Charter last year. They had refused to upgrade my apartment complex with Internet service because they said the manager had told them he didn't want them coming in, even though they already provided Cable TV service to the complex, and Internet service to the entire block, including a sub division just down the street from me for several years. They simply just skipped right over the complex.

After going to the manager, I discovered it was a blatant lie. They simply didn't want to perform the upgrades required to bring us Internet service, because they had some people in the complex not pay their cable TV bills, so they just wrote everyone off here for Internet service. Even though the majority of us pay our bills on time. Eventually, because of my efforts, and our local newspaper running an article about it, eventually Charter gave in, and did the required upgrades to get us Internet.

That was nearly a year of my life, going around knocking on doors, getting signatures, etc, with very little help from my neighbors. And our local city council whose job it is to make sure Charter is providing a service, required by their franchise agreement was worthless. I don't have the desire or time to do that all over again. Just to get them to provide a decent service people are paying for. It's a sad state of affairs in this country. You can get away with practically anything as a large company, if you know who to pay off.

Charter is doing the same thing right now across town from me, in a low income housing development. Charter is giving them the same runaround my apartment complex encountered. Several people who reside there are going door to door, like I had to do. Charter never ceases to amaze me. Now that it has been exposed, yet again by our local town newspaper, maybe those people will get Charter to cave. But, as I discovered, that doesn't mean you will get a service that is actually usable.

I will probably vote with my wallet and just go back to DSL. It's considerably slower, but at least it's dependable during the evening hours when I need it the most. Thank God I held on to it.

strmhawke
@71.90.87.x

strmhawke

Anon

Re: Inept or corrupt

Have you tried looking into Hughes net or similar? If you live in a rural area is it still possible to get a break in the bill because where you live?

dataice
Premium Member
join:2002-10-27
Crisfield, MD

4 edits

dataice

Premium Member

Re: Inept or corrupt

Several relatives tried satellite for internet and said it left a lot to be desired. Speeds were slower than 4G wireless on average, with low caps, and high latency which make it practically useless for gaming, VoIP, or other latency sensitive applications. My only other option is wireless with Verizon or AT&T. They're the only two carriers that have wireless coverage in this area.

I tried both, and was passing my caps every month. They only allow 10 GB's a month, and it was sending me into the poor house in overages. I tend to average about 150-200 GB's a month with Netflix and Hulu, which streaming wasn't an option on wireless. I'll have to live with 3 Mbps DSL, or stay with Charter and live with crippling speeds during evening hours.

Since I'm on a 12 month promo with Charter, I know they won't give me a break on the bill while I'm on that, which is a reasonable price at the moment. However, when I come off of it next April, that will no longer be the case for the speed I am getting. I would be shocked if they would give me a discount because they are only offering 8/1 to my area.

I read an article here on BBR recently that said, that some of Maryland's Charter systems would be traded with Comcast, as part of the Comcast/TWC merger. That's probably my area's best bet for decent service. If Comcast does acquire my system, then maybe they will do the required upgrades. Charter hasn't performed any major upgrades to our system in at least a decade or more.
wirelessdog
join:2008-07-15
Queen Anne, MD

wirelessdog to csal1

Member

to csal1
said by csal1:

Holy crap!... I've never heard of any telecom company refusing to take customers because, basically, they can't handle the load.

DSL technology works on Channels. When you run out of channels you can't add more customers unless you add additional equipment. Verizon has limited the number of DSL customers in many areas.

runnoft
Premium Member
join:2003-10-14
Nags Head, NC

1 edit

runnoft

Premium Member

DirecTV & oral offers

1. Caution on going back to DirecTV given that your beef with Charter was that they didn't honor the deal they offered you. I recently moved into a new area and wanted TV service and was faced with deciding among Charter, DirecTV, and Dish TV. I quickly ruled out DirecTV when I started reading a highly disporportionate rate, in my opinion, of reviews here and elsewhere from customers who had **major** problems getting DirecTV to do what they promised at the rate they promised it. Too many new customers, in my opinion, are complaining that DirecTV reneges and then wastes hours of customer time on the phone trying to get it resolved. If I were doing satellite, I'd go with DishTV because of the appearance of better and more honest service. Of course for any one customer in any location, the mileage can vary. But at least read the reviews and see if you think DirecTV is as good these days as you remember.

2. I don't trust what any of these telecom agents orally promote as deals in person or the phone. Notice they won't generally e-mail you the deal so you can print it before committing to it. When it's on the website, you can print it off and it's harder to pull a fast one. I did get Charter TV and Internet, ordering service online, and the deal was exactly as promised on the website. The pricing was very transparent. Add this box, the price per month for the first 12 months goes up this much. Take this channel package off, it goes down this much. And as I say, the bills have been exactly right with no gotchas. The one thing I couldn't tell online with any degree of confidence was how much it would go up when the 12 month promo deal expired. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

dataice
Premium Member
join:2002-10-27
Crisfield, MD

2 edits

dataice

Premium Member

Re: DirecTV & oral offers

I haven't decided yet on which service I'm going with. I've been reading some reviews for both Dish and DirecTV. Both seem to have mixed reviews, with slightly more negative reviews with DirecTV. Right now, DirecTV is looking like the better deal for me, because of local networks. Dish Network doesn't carry all of my locals like DirecTV.

I may decide to just cut the cord again, and live with Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Vudu for more recent releases. I can use an antenna to pull in a couple of my local channels for local news and weather. Until I went back to Charter in April, I had gone two full years without cable, and after a couple of months, I found I really didn't miss it like I thought I would. Thanks for the info.

Darkstar1485
@71.119.65.x

Darkstar1485

Anon

Charter

Use their chat service to get the service and the terms. PRINT OUT what the deal was - they normally re-cap it all. Print it out. All of it...every word.

If they don't meet that, you can PROVE what your expectation was and what was represented.

dataice
Premium Member
join:2002-10-27
Crisfield, MD

2 edits

dataice

Premium Member

Re: Charter

I would have used their chat function, but it wasn't available when I tried to use it. I assume they aren't available 24/7. Even if they had stuck by their terms, I still would have cancelled. The quality of service is beyond subpar.

Now I know why over half the homes in this town has a satellite dish. They actually used that as an excuse in a town meeting with city council recently. They have lost so many customers here to satellite, that they can't justify spending the money to upgrade the cable plant. Well, I guess we should thank them for their honesty?
cross12095
join:2011-04-10
Hillsboro, AL

1 recommendation

cross12095

Member

Stop bumping your review to the top!

@dataice
I have noticed that every time someone else posts their review about Charter you quickly update yours with nothing new to add, just so your review sits at the top.
We get it, you hate Charter or whatever just stop bumping your freaking review!

dataice
Premium Member
join:2002-10-27
Crisfield, MD

1 edit

dataice

Premium Member

Re: Stop bumping your review to the top!

If you had bothered to look carefully, you would have noticed that I lowered the cost of what I pay in my review by $5 to reflect returning my router to save the router lease fee Charter was charging me.

Zenit_IIfx
The system is the solution
Premium Member
join:2012-05-07
Purcellville, VA

Zenit_IIfx

Premium Member

Comcast Swap

You will probably see upgrades pretty quickly in your areas cable system if Comcast takes over with the intention of keeping the system.

Sounds like the plant will need a total rebuild - that will take time.
wirelessdog
join:2008-07-15
Queen Anne, MD

wirelessdog

Member

Re: Comcast Swap

I could have fixed this problem months ago but the mayor, now new mayor, won't even return a phone call or email. I took the time to figure out how to get bandwidth to Crisfield (fiber) and redistribute low-cost 30 meg service to the residents. Apparently the mayor is stuck so far up Comcast's ass it doesn't matter. I wonder what happens when Comcast determines its too much work and they don't want Crisfield?