Review by superberg  - Location: Skokie,Cook,IL
- Cost: $100 per month
- Install: about 7 days
Good "Good value, mostly reliable internet"
Bad "Poor HD picture quality, bad DNS servers"
Overall "If you are able to troubleshoot simple issues, RCN is worth the savings."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I switched from Comcast as and ISP to RCN as a Cable TV and Internet provider about five months ago. I was getting 12 Mb down/2 up with Comcast (20/6 with PowerBoost, but that isn't sustained) for $60. RCN offered A near-complete HD package (it did not have the highest end tier of standard stations, nor any premium channels), as well as 50 Mb down/6 up for $100. This is off-contract, with a $10/month rate increase annually, guaranteed for two years. The plan includes a TiVo Premier HD in the rate.
An RCN installer (or RCN contractor, I'm not sure) came by within a week to get me set up. I had prepared my small apartment and it's equally tight entertainment center in advance, so the install was very smooth. There were some issues with the line(forward signal to noise ratio was close, but out of spec), which the tech reported and were fixed in less than 48 hours. Service ran without incident during the issue.
I receive my promised service for the most part. There are occasional outages, but nothing worse than I experienced with Comcast. There have been a couple short internet outages and one TV outage. All were brief (less than fifteen minutes), and for a consumer service not unheard of.
My two caveats with RCN are this: First, they significantly over-compress their video, which noticeably reduces picture quality. HD quality is sometimes so poor it is less than SD quality -- less than DVD quality for an HD channel is pretty sad. I don't watch a whole lot of TV, so it is not a deal-breaker for me. It isn't always bad, but it can become a blurry, macroblocking mess at times. Be warned.
Second, their DNS servers appear to be just shy of broken. Within a month, I was having some serious connection issues. However, I noticed that when I switched from their DNS servers to Google's that these issues disappeared. I have not switched back since, so I cannot say if the issue subsided. I am a tech by nature, so I tend to prefer fixing issues by myself rather than calling for support, so I cannot rate their support quality.
So, if you aren't worried about having the best picture at all times and you can handle changing the DNS server on your router, RCN can be a very good deal.
member for 3.9 years, 14 visits, last login: 96 days ago
updated 96 days ago
Comments:
|
