Review by TomScott Location: Oviedo, Seminole, FL, USA Cost: $89 per month (month by month) Finally, super reliable Lighting 60 service It took a month to get it fixed. I'm in my happy place again. 65Mb/s on 5.0 GHz Wireless 24 x 7

Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection Reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money:

I started having download speed trouble with DirecTV movies. I had Road Runner Lighting 30, but barely getting 10 Mb/s. On Sunday evenings, it was 2 Mb/s and taking two hours to download the first hour of a movie.

I contact tech support and upgrade to 60 at the same time, but it's got to work. No problem I was told. I guy came out with a new Motorola modem. I tested it at 60+ via Ethernet. Sweet! I can handle it from there and get my wireless online.

I hook up my WD N600 wireless. Nothing. I buy a new Linksys E2700. It worked for two days, then crapped out. I thought it went bad and exchanged it. The new one didn't work either. I test via Ethernet directly to the modem. That's working. And Ethernet through the router is working. Damn. Another bad router. So I go to Staples and pick up a Netgear Nighthawk. This thing has got to work. Same problem. Ethernet fine, wireless crap. (And yes, I know how to set them up. It's not rocket science).

By this time, after about a dozen phone calls and some lady in Bangladesh telling me to reset the modem for the 50th time, like the 3rd or 4th Bright House guy comes to my house. He stays for 5 minutes, it's working on one laptop and he leaves. Wait! It's not working right. Less than 20 Mb/s wireless right in the same room with the needle bouncing all over the place, from 60 to 0, back up to 40, down to 2 and a ping time of close to 100 ms. He doesn't even let me test the other two laptops (Win 8 and Vista) or my iPhone. Five minutes after he's gone, it totally craps out.

The 4th BH guy shows up after a few more phone calls and works on it for three hours. He tried three different modem / wireless routers brand new out of the box, a Motorola and two Arris. Ha, ha! Finally, someone sees what I'm talking about. He can't figure it out. Ethernet working great, but wireless on 3 laptops with 3 different OSs, plus an iPhone and iPad 4G all either not working at all or so intermittently, it's useless.

A few days later, the senior field supervisor shows up with his MacBook and iPhone. He can't get the Mac online, but his iPhone is working perfectly. I said, give it time. Sure enough, 15 minutes later, that crapped out. He's there for three hours trying everything he knows and talking to everyone he can about it. They try all sorts of things, including running a dead-drop line from the curb directly into my bedroom window to the modem. Still running like crap. So it's not the cable to the house or in the house. He eliminates every possibility my side of the tap/splitter at the curb.

Starting week 3, I'm expecting as I was told that a maintenance crew would be out to service the main line from the box in the front corner of my yard upstream. Monday, a guy shows up for a service call. I told him the story and that he's supposed to work out at the box. Not his job. Maintenance has to be called. Two days later, I get a note on my door, "Sorry we missed you". What?! I don't need to be home for you to work in the front of my front yard and upstream from there. I called BH and a 3rd guy shows up for an inside maintenance call. (By this time, I feel like I'm in an old Keystone Cops movie). I tell him the story. He said, OK, he would check the tap and signal levels. SHA-ZAM! The signal levels on the main line coming into the tap are waaaaayy off. He said he would put an order in for maintenance to take care of it. Maybe finally, we are moving the ball down-field.

So, I called BH customer support. I want to know why another solid week of this nonsense and we got no where. I was assured the right person would be out and I was promised a call with an update when it was done. No phone call, but the thing does start working Friday afternoon. OMG, could this be it? Or is it just toying with me again? It would work for a few hours every few days, only to crash and burn again. After about 4 hours, I take down the Ethernet cables snaking through my living room for the last month. (Wife loved that. Great decorating and staging tips, there. She was about to ask if she could pick different colors).

After 4 solid weeks, dozens of phone calls, countless hours on the phone, 9 visits, 3 modems, 4 wireless routers, 3 modem/wireless router combos, it's working! Solid 65 Mb/s on Ethernet and 5.0 GHz. The wife's laptop runs only 2.4 GHz and gets 30 Mb/s consistently, but it's in her office on the other side of the house. So that's fine.

I hated the month of trying to get it fixed. That should have taken a week, tops. Testing the line signal levels coming into the house should be the very first thing. By the way, I had various taps and splitters in a couple places placed there by previous BH technicians. I was told none of that should be there with the right signal levels. So who knows how long this problem has been there and getting worse.

I love the service. Super fast and reliable, no matter what time of the day. I've had Bright House and it's predecessor, Time Warner, for our Road Runner Internet service since it came to our community in 1997 or so. Always reasonably good service, until this time.

And I have to say just about everyone I worked with individually was terrific. There were a couple that should be fired. Like I'm on the phone for 45 minutes and my call drops. Do they call me back? NO! I'm back on the phone, in the queue, and starting at square one with the next person. But mostly really good people.

They are just working in a system that is completely broken. The supervisor or vice-president of tech support needs to be fired and a good industrial engineer hired to streamline the system. It shouldn't be this hard for us customers and their employees to fix sometime like a problem in the main line. I'll bet they easily burned 50 hours of payroll, between phone calls and visits, getting my Internet fixed. It should have been five, tops.

BHNtechXpert The One & Only Premium Member join:2006-02-16 Saint Petersburg, FL BHNtechXpert Premium Member 2015-Jan-25 7:46 pm Thank you... For taking the time to review your recent Bright House Networks experience. While I'm happy that everything is finally working to your satisfaction the experience getting there concerns me. When you have a moment please reach out to me in our direct forums, I would like to review everything from start to finish. Going forward please don't hesitate in reaching out to me directly at the first sign of problems. Gary 2015-Jan-25 7:46 pm: · hey mods ·

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