Review by elefante72 
member for 2.3 years, 246 visits, last login: 9 days ago
updated 107 days ago
 East Amherst,Erie,NY
 $94 per month about 5 days "It connected internet" "Thats all they could get working" "The Bestbuy 3-play signup was a nightmare"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Update December 2012
Well, two happy years w/ FIOS and verizon wanted to jack my bill 35%, and I wasn't happy. So I see the BB $99 3-play w/ xbox & $150 gift card. This is where the fun began. Go into BB, they have absolutely no idea how to sign up, and all I really need is a cablecard (huge issue). They couldn't figure out how to add it.
OK. 1 hour wasted
Then you have to call TWC 800 number to actually set up appointment. TWC rep had no idea how to provision the cablecard and I wanted updated 20/2 (meaning give more money). I was going to do 30, however they wanted to charge me $50 to install wifi which I didn't need, so they lose that and I go for 20/2. This whole process takes another hour. (The 3 play package is 15/1)
I see my confirmation email, no cablecard. I get a bad feeling so I cancel the entire install, and I decide to port my Verizon FIOS phone to anveo over VOIP so that switching providers is easier just in case it's a problem. I simply don't trust TWC from prior bad acts.
So I call TWC up again and sign up for cable/20/2 and ONLY a cablecard. This takes an hour, and they tell me no installs for 2 weeks. Well my FIOS is busted in 2 weeks. So they tell me this package is $110, while online it's $90.
So I go online (I'm waiting a hour again so I have time) and see the package at $90 and install in 2 days. I sign up online in 5 minutes while the other guy is still struggling to figure it out and tell me $110 is the best deal.
Install day: No lines need to be run because they were already there prior to my 2-year FIOS hiatus. Installer shows up, and tells me they have no cablecard, and will I accept a HD box? I say no and go away. I see the order and on it says digital cable and cablecard. They ruminate, and 1 hour later they show up w/ a 3 year old cablecard and that is where the fun begins. Took another 1.5 hours to get the CC activated.
OK. So 2 hours after they leave, CC unpairs, so another 1 hour on the phone to get reactivated. Then I tell them I can only see the clearQAM and analog channels on the list. They say they will check. This call another hour.
Call back after they say all channels are there, I get phone treed to Internet, and then to cablecard after 40 minutes of bouncing back and forth. CC tech gets on, they check, and then she asks me about my SDV box. WTF, no SDV box.
So now she tells me I need to go to TWC office and pick up one to get essentially all the hidef digital channels. I plug in this monstrosity from Cisco (like waferboard circa 1985) which takes up 11 watts, plug it in...and of course it was never provisioned.
At this point, I'm done. I call up TWC, cancel service and return items back to the office.
So I go back to Verizon and show them my TWC bill, they immediately lower the price ($10 more than TWC), but it works. In fact once my CC was de-provisioned (when you put TWC CC in there it looses activation), I went on the web and told it to re-activate and 15 minutes later it was running. Oh, with Verizon there is a menu item to choose cablecard, so you don't have to wait 20 minutes to talk to a level1 to wait another 20 minutes to talk to a level 2.
The moral of the story is that Time Warner's systems are so out of sync and their field people aren't trained on cablecard that the customer experience is just horrendous.
So yes I will pay the $10/month more for much faster internet (now 50/25) and the much more knowledgeable Verizon staff.
It's too bad the product isn't that bad (other than SDV box needed), but man the customer experience and field training are sub-par at best.
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TW has been great to me and the speed and reliability have been great. In a few instances link would drop (due to inadequate terminations outside) - hey its buffalo, and was fixed in a few days. My kids use netflix streaming all the time, and TW hasn't complained so I have no idea how much bandwidth I'm using, however it must be a few hundred gig.
The link is 15/2, and it gets it (especially since FIOS has been here). My biggest prob is that I use cloud storage (mozy), and upload needs to speed up. Every 2GB home movie I upload takes hours.
TW has this turbo package (docsis 3 methinks), but its $100/month. So its a no brainer to go to FIOS at 25/25 for $70.
I sort of hate Verizon (they have never lost an opportunity to screw me out of $), but there is no contract, and I'm not bundling so my loss is limited there.
So thank you TWC, you have been great but you have lost the competitive edge.
Comments:
 | | Upload to Mozy In the Seattle area we have Comcast Cable with a speed of 25/8 as you wrote it but only get a sustained avg upload of about 2.1 over any 10 min. I get 8 Mbit bursts but if uploading more than a few small files I stay just about 2.
Like you, we stream Netflix and even watching 15-20 movies per month and Skype 20 min- 2 hours per day AND normal Internet activity I've only ever managed to reach 115 GB of Comcast's 250 GB monthly limit and that was a month I uploaded a lot through mozy. My avg outside that is about 50 | |
| | | It's Hard To Feel Your Pain Guys, how would you like to have THIS upload speed? And I'm paying for TURBO. 512K is Turbo in Raleigh, NC. I'm not kidding.
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| Reviews:
 ·Time Warner Cable
 ·Verizon FiOS
 ·voip.ms
| Update on FIOS Well I called Verizon and they made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
$104 + tax -> FIOS ultimate TV (250+ chan), 25/25 Internet, FIOS Dig phone, 1 HD box, 1 Multiroom DVR 1 year, NO Contract
My wife will be happy for having cable for first time in 2 years (i could care less), however 25/25 is my siren song. Looking forward to the install in 2 weeks.
8 years w/ Adelphia/TWC and they actually raised my bill $3 when I called to ask them if they had any similar packages. We have docsis 3 here, but man its expensive and it is capped at 5Mbit uploads - CRAP. The rep was from Rochester (close to me) and she said that the people downstate get the better deals, which is essentially admitting that TWC uses discriminatory pricing, which pi$$ed me off even more. So I know my peeps in NYC don't have FIOS on their doorstep but I do, so that seems even more arrogant and foolish.
Jokingly TWC sent me a package about signature home which is from what I can gather a few DVRs, wideband (50/5), and phone w/ some features, and customer service that installs without you having to be there all day for the economy price of $199.
It was sort of funny because part of the marketing pitch is "priority reservations made according to your schedule" meaning that for the other 99% of the people is that tough luck we will get there when we want. Paramount in customer service.
On my block only myself and my next door neighbor still have TWC (all the rest have FIOS) and in 2 weeks it will be one. I told my neighbor the deal I got and they couldn't believe it but maybe I can pitch the block as TWC free in 2011. I guess thats why my link never has any issues 
Seriously I don't dislike TWC, however their CS didn't even try to keep me after being a customer for 8 years. If that's the relationship they want to have with their customers, they are going to keep hemorrhaging customers until they start feeling it. I mean I know they love content, but without nobody to pipe it too,,, thats a problem. | |
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