 Review by divefox 
UPDATED: 1.8 years ago
member for 4.2 years, 142 visits, last login: 4 days ago
 Albany,Dougherty,GA
 $55 per month
 about 20 days
 "Fast. Really, really fast."
 "Contracted installers who don't know a F-connector from their fingers."
 "Bad CSRs and contract techs, good network and company techs."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
From what I can see, Mediacom is the only real choice here in Albany. AT&T (Bellsouth) doesn't have U-Verse, their DSL tops out at 1.5 mbit, and I'm not even going to speak of D*.
I'd never done business with Mediacom before, but I heard horror stories from my co-workers, including installers missing appointments, and CSRs that don't have any understanding of what they're doing.
Taking all this with a grain of salt, I set out upon my Mediacom adventure when my neighbor decided to encrypt his Wi-Fi one Friday afternoon. I called and ordered a package that included the basic analog channels, "Digital Plus", and Mediacom Online HSI for $60 a month, after taxes. The CSR took my order in a speedy manner, and promised an install by 3 PM the following Monday.
Monday arrived, and the contracted tech showed up a half an hour before the promised install window of 1-3 PM. He was unprofessional in his appearance, but he had a DCT and a modem, and the keys to the box on the side of my apartment building, so I didn't worry -too- hard.
He took my check, connected the DCT, checked signal levels at the request of my roommate, declared everything "fine", and left... But, everything was not 'fine'.
We had a 'self-install kit' for the HSI, and after half an hour of trying to get the modem to sync up, I made a discovery - the downstream power level was -16.4! The DCT was even unhappier with this than the modem was.
I ran back to work to call Mediacom, and they informed me that they could have a tech out within 24-48 hours. 72 hours later, I called back and asked where the tech was.
The CSR informed me no one had set up a tech call for the 24-48 hour window, and that the visit was actually scheduled for the 21st, which was about 2 weeks off from the install date. As a consolation, he credited my account for about 3 weeks of service and the $20 installation fee.
Later that week, I ran into a Mediacom tech at work, who agreed to take a look at my service in exchange for a burger. One hamburger and one removed trap later, we were up and running.
I was impressed by the speed of the now-functional service; so much so that I decided to upgrade to Mediacom Online Max, the 15 mbit service. I called in to upgrade, and I then had the most surreal customer service call of my life. Not bad, just surreal. I asked for the pricing for Online Max, and she told me that if I signed up for Mediacom phone service, I could get the service for 6 months for $9.95, as well as get free Online Max for 6 months. She informed me that the offer was supposed to be for free basic HSI with the phone service, but that I'd had so many problems that she'd upgrade it to Max for free.
They came and installed the phone service yesterday, and everything is rock-steady.
Now that the customer service side is out of the way, the geek side.
With Online Max, I get about 14380kbit down and 990kbit up, with advertised speeds of 15 mbps down and 1 mbps up. The TV signal is nice and clear, although the channel selection is a little weird. I have about 9 shop-at-home channels. At least I get G4. The phone service seems OK so far; the eMTA they gave me is an Arris TM502G, which I've had before with Comcast and I really loved. Voice quality is good, and it doesn't steal bandwidth from my HSI that I can tell.
Bottom line is people are the problem at Mediacom. The network itself seems rock-solid.
Update: Moved out of Mediacom territory right around Christmastime. Mediacom Online Max, I miss you already. Bellsouth DSL ahoy.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Mediacom |
|
Mediacom
(28)
(39)
(15)
