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 Review by jimk 
member for 7.1 years, 2808 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 106 days ago
 Raleigh,Wake,NC
 $110 per month- (24 month contract)
 about 1 days "Reasonable download speeds" "Upload speeds need improvement, slow IPv6 Deployment, support" "Needs improvement. Could be worse, but not great."
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---Update 2-6-2013---
Downgrading connection reliability. While it isn't terrible, there are occasional times where Internet service experiences packet loss, and sometimes even loss of sync. TV service also experiences picture pixelation and audio drop outs when this is happening. A lead technician has verified that this is not an in home issue, but so far the network maintenance team hasn't done anything about it.
Communication between departments needs serious work, especially when a customer has intermittent or uncommon issues.
Also downgrading services due to a lack of DOCSIS 3 upstream channel bonding, and very slow progress on improving the software on the cable boxes.
---Update 1-15-2013---
Dropping support score and connection reliability. If you have an issue, expect to get the run-around until you give up or it fixes itself. It's even more annoying when you know what the problem is and they won't do anything about it
---End of update---
Time Warner Cable Internet has improved over the years. Speeds have seen consistent improvement, and slowdowns at peak usage times have mostly gone away. DOCSIS 3 has made a big difference. Reliability has never been a major issue (but nothing is perfect and this service is no exception).
Recently, TWC introduced a modem rental fee. They do allow customers to provide their own modem, but they have a very short list of modems they allow, and some of those are hard to find, which makes them more expensive than they should be. This is more of an issue for customers who require a DOCSIS 3 modem. Hopefully this will be resolved soon. There's really no good reason for the list of approved modems to be so short. The most ridiculous part is that TWC has a much wider variety of modems from multiple vendors that they provide for rental.
---update---: They have now added several new modems to the approved device list. Some of these retail for under $100 and are easier to find through trusted online stores, as well as through local retailers. ---end update---
Tech support is not good unless you can get escalated to Tier 3. Some reps are good at escalating the case when they can't fix an issue, but others are more stubborn. Tier 3 is very good though... they know what is going on and have been able to save me from wasting my time waiting for a service call when the issue was somewhere else in TWC's network.
Internet speeds aren't a strong point with Time Warner Cable, but they aren't too bad either. TWC isn't as aggressive as other cable companies at upgrading speeds. Right now, the fastest residential offering in the Raleigh/Durham NC market is 30 Mbps down / 5 Mbps up. This isn't bad. It is better than AT&T U-verse in Raleigh and much better than Frontier DSL in Durham. However, other cable companies in other markets do offer faster speeds. On the up side, TWC has no caps for Internet usage at this time, but I imagine it is just a matter of time, especially if they continue to lose video subscribers.
I don't use their "Digital Phone" (VoIP) service, but I know many people that do and they have no complaints. They have an especially attractive international plan available.
The rest of this review is regarding the TV service:
The Cable TV service needs improvement. Their custom OCAP software for their cable boxes ("The Guide" formerly "Navigator") is unreliable and missing features that were available 5 years ago on other cable and satellite providers. Issues include slow cable box response and occasional hangs, missed recordings, a very poor search interface, a remote DVR manager for smartphones and PCs that often can't communicate with the cable box, and numerous other annoying issues.
The previous software they used in this market (Passport) was better. For markets that used to run on the old SARA software, the current software could probably be considered an improvement over what they had. TWC's custom software has been in use for several years now, and it simply should be a lot further along than it is at this time.
In addition, there are still occasional issues with Switched Digital Video (SDV) channels not working. They are most likely capacity issues. It happens a lot less than it used to.
As more TV content becomes available online, it will become harder and harder to justify paying for the TV service, especially if it continues to have some of the issues I have described here.
Comments:
 ernliz
join:2001-11-25
Albemarle, NC Reviews:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| About those cable boxes and DVRs I concur with the above. My DVR is pathetically slow and often just hangs up. Unplugging and having it reboot always "fixes" the hangup, but that shouldn't be necessary that often. Talking with TWC Support or the local offices is pointless -- they hide under their desks when the issue is brought up. Even the TWC Direct Forum here is useless when discussing DVR hangups -- they never provide any relevant help or even acknowledgement. It's going to be Dish Network for me real soon if they can't fix these slow boxes. | |
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 Review by Ray422
member for 11.2 years, 4612 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 107 days ago
- Adger,Jefferson,AL
- $50 per month
- (month by month)
- about 3 days
- "Speed is only fair for cable"
- "Tech support is terrible"
- "Growing more difficult to continue their service"
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-TW/RR installed 1/24/02. This service started out as excellent, but as they add subscribers, the service and customer support continually gets worse. Every outage in the past 9 years has been blamed on my end. Only once was it ever really on my end, when the county tree-trimmer cut the cable line.
-Note: Be warned and advised that this is a Brighthouse networks area; pretty much a monopoly with a monopolistic attitude. In the beginning customer service was great, but has continually deteriorated.
-First level techs are not knowledgeable and will never, ever admit to an outage problem. I suppose this is their way of trying to avoid issuing a credit. Often times they are borderline rude. They always blame your computer, so I say: reckon why all 5 of my computers went bad at the same time? Duh...then they hunt something else to blame on the customer.
Brighthouse has typical standard responses and if you use a router, they will always blame it for any and every problem, count on having to disconnect it and prove it's not the router. Then if you beg an escalation to level 2, count on long hold times and disconnects, phony sympathy and possibly repeating the entire process.
If the line is down, in-house service will never admit that. They merely schedule a 3-5 day later service call. When the tech finally shows up and you tell them that their problem line came back on after a few hours or days last week, you get to sign their service-call ticket anyway. Me thinks they do this to avoid issuing a credit. What a waste of time and money.
My latency has always been high for 9 years now. It used to run around 80-110 average (monitored). But for the past year the latency has been a steady ( 95 ) with frequent connection losses, but of course they say nothing is wrong...grrrrrr.
-Brighthouse "here" always lags the country in speed updates. The national Tlme Warner cap was published at 8000/512 in 2007. In 2012, I still get more like 6,000/384. My Tcp/ip stack receive window is tweaked at 75,920. Now there advertising 21mb for DL speeds, yeah right !! I'm still getting the same old 5 or 6.
- A free month for customer referral is BS, don't fall for it. Played that game twice and they developed amnesia, even after the installer recorded the referee's (my) name and address on the new subscribers signed ticket.
-IP is dynamic, but seems to re-license the same IP for about 3 month periods.
-These people can't even keep their billing straight. How could anyone suddenly screw-up "direct bill pay through the bank" that has existed for several months?? Only Brighthouse could manage that.
-This customer support service compares to the arrogance of AOL during it's glory days of dial-up.
-My only other choice here was satellite, but I understand that AT&T-DSL is available this year. Now that I possibly have an option, that arrogant customer service may push me into switching carriers.
-Update 2-6-13. Well, they finally increased the speed slightly to 8,000/1,000, but I understand they're increasing the price by 5%. Whoopy, diddle.
Comments:
 N9ZNSecurity Is A Community Effort
join:2001-03-29
Tampa, FL | BrightHouse, A winner at what? Constant issues with service delivery including TV, phone, and internet. Their ISP RoadRunner is severely lacking in area of customer respect, and knowledge. Service calls, too often used as a means of avoiding assisting customers, have excessive scheduling delays and most times result in nothing worthwhile until you get a service manager, and lead technician involved.
A few years back we were constantly being disconnected from service by Bright House. This occurred after our county 911 service reassigned street addresses in our neighborhood. 911 made a mistake and issued the same address to several different physical locations. We had 911 contact Bright House to explain the problem, via official E-Mail, and Bright House insisted that they would need their people to verify this information but made no valid attempt to get things moving. After contacting county commissioners, and local media, they changed their tune but continued to insisted on sending people out to verify what government had already told them -> "Addresses were initially assigned incorrectly". This took over 6 months, county commissioners, media involvement, and escalation to the V.P. of field service, to receive resolution. Not a single we are sorry for the interruptions was offered by Bright House.
As time marches on technology will catch up with this bunch and consumers will see more choices available. Choices which are as good and better than what Bright House and Road Runner offers. Many of Bright House services are currently outdated by competition and governments are beginning to re-visit the sole source agreements they have with this company that relies on its monopolistic existance to survive.
Bright House falls into the same classification as Bank of America in our household. A severely greed based company lacking in ethics. Like BOA, Bright House will also pay the piper, in one form or another!
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"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." - Robert Frost | |
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Review by sashier
member for 4.5 years, 35 visits, last login: 108 days ago
updated 108 days ago
- Hollis Center,York,ME
- $35 per month
- about 12 days
- "for the price can't let it go."
- "moved to new Node... there is no issue with streaming, waiting for them to apply the Turbo package I am getting 6 to 7 meg"
- "can't beat it for the price."
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we should be getting 8m but we average about half that. and technical support make you go through the basic tests even when you tell them you have already done it, I know they need to read from the script but come on. still trying to find out how they are saying we are set to 8m when every test is 4.5 or lower. Update 12/10/09 moved to new location so far it is solid 6 to 7 meg.
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Review by Melokarma
member for 1.3 years, 34 visits, last login: 3 days ago
updated 111 days ago
- La Puente,Los Angeles,CA
- $60 per month
- "good when it works and really bad when it slows down"
- "If i had fios i would choose fios over twc anyday of the week"
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Got no choice in my area but dsl or cable, and twc is the only provider here.
Comments:
| | Review Very detailed review, thanks  | |
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Review by mikiejudge
member for 1.2 years, 16 visits, last login: 51 days ago
lodged 117 days ago
- Universal City,Bexar,TX
- $45 per month
- about 4 days
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This is residental service (satx.rr.com) and I was promised 20MB down and 3MB up. Needless to say I NEVER get it.. I average 5-8 down and just under 1MB up. No matter how or whom comes out it never changes, well unless you want to consider getting less a change... Wish I had other options, I think they know there isn't so I am stuck...
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 Review by cmatties
member for 8.2 years, 660 visits, last login: 1 days ago
updated 119 days ago
- Port Clinton,Ottawa,OH
- $127 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 1 days
- "Great bundle pack"
- "signals are a little high"
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Well I have 5Mbits down and 384 up with digtal cable w/DVR and HBO and Cinamax all for 96 a month. not a bad deal. The install only took 1 hour. I got a motorola sb5100. well i still that good sh** but now i phone service and got the normal up grade to 8Mbps/512Kbps. the only thing i have to bitch about is the upload. its sucks they should and can give out more then a mbit. i think we all should get at least 3Mbps uplaod. well that all for now.
No longer have Roadrunner.
back on roadrunner and its sucks. Still only have 8Mbps/512Kbps and TV and Phone. after having Comcast and WOW while in MI, i guess i got spoiled with the great uploads. For the price i pay now i got 15Mbps/2Mbps, TV and Phone with WOW.
well I have moved and upgraded my internet. I'm now on the extreme internet. 30/5 here in NEO division. I also did the self install and had no problems. the only issues i have had since moving is the HDMI cable they gave me was bad but other than that there the same old TWC. there tech support has gotten a little bit better but really nothing to write home about. Also the other issue i have with them is they don't offer a non gateway modem for DOCIS 3.0. i really did want there wireless either but for 3.95 a month i can deal with it until i can buy one.
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 Review by zoom314
member for 7.5 years, 2528 visits, last login: 1 days ago
updated 120 days ago
- Yermo,San Bernardino,CA
- $20 per month
- about 3 days
- "High speed internet that works."
- "None."
- "TWC is less expensive than DSL now."
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I just this month switched from DSL(Extreme) to TWC, it is a dream, it works, at least once TWC and I got past My SB5101 Modems crappy printing of the Mac address that is(sometimes what looks like an 8 is not a 3 under magnification and is an 8, go figure), I still have to send a DSL modem back to DSL Extreme, but I can do that around the 1st when I get My next check.... Plus I'll have saved money by going from DSL(3M/768K) to TWC(3M/1M), $12.84 a month in fact(to Me that's a lot), eventually I'll go to 15/1, but for the moment I'm happy.
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Review by XCore
member for 2.3 years, 18 visits, last login: 123 days ago
lodged 123 days ago
- Irmo,Richland,SC
- $75 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 19 days
- "Fast sometimes"
- "Slower than subscribed to by half most of the time"
- "A just-as-fast and more reliable connection would easily switch me"
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I'm in the "net" business nearly 20 years now. I've owned a data center, several hosting companies and now an end user support company. I'm acutely aware of overselling of bandwidth and the "up to 'x' speeds" claims. However, I believe you should at least hit the subscribers speed at least sometimes and consistently give them close to that speed. I also don't agree that showing your customer how fast the speed tests are using your own servers as the defining measure is being proactive.
Support with this company is poor at best and they are unwilling to admit to any short comings at all such as having a node so over sold and in need of an upgrade that their clients get far less than what's being paid for.
I suppose hat the only saving grace for me is that my neighbors are dropping TWC at a high rate so eventually my speeds will increase on its own.
Comments:
| | Call in and have them fix it. If you aren't hitting 80% of your speeds on a regular basis, there may be something than an oversold node. Oversold nodes have massive slowdowns at peak hours (5-12 or so) but are normal at other "non peak" times. If you're consistently getting slow speeds then it may be something else, bad modem, bad signals, etc. | |
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 Review by juilinsandar
member for 12.8 years, 4427 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 133 days ago
- San Benito,Cameron,TX
- $100 per month
- about 8 days
- "Bundle price was too good to pass up and online chat support is top notch"
- "confusing presales info and phone support is hit or miss"
- "Overall value trumps everything"
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I made the switch to Roadrunner cable's triple play bundle because AT&T DirecTV combo became too expensive for me to handle in this economy.
Road Runner Standard w/ Powerboost 7168/512
HD Digital Cable with 1 year free Showtime
Digital Home Phone unlimited Nationwide
I'll be paying $115.50 per month after tax.
SA 8240HDC HD-DVR
SA 2203C Cable Modem VOIP Brand New in Box
Contract installer was friendly and did an excellent job. He ran new line from the pole to the box on the house and then separate lines for the cable box and modem/phone.
So far, I am very satisfied.
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It's about a month later now, and I'm still satisfied with the service overall, but more so with the internet and phone than with the cable tv part. The time warner cable picture quality especially the HD channels is hit or miss from channel to channel and from day to day. DirecTV's pq, in comparison, was consistently good overall for the whole lineup.
I also added turbo boost and the hd/sports tier thus the price increase which includes taxes.
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I changed over to the Paquetazo with Turbo. TV and especially internet are rock solid. I'm still using the same modem as before but I traded in the 8240 for an Cisco 8640HDC which has a bigger hard drive and runs better.
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I've changed to the Surf n View package with turbo internet(20/2), sports pass & movie pass, and I also started using a TIVo instead of the operator provided DVR.
Internet is as rock solid as ever.
TV is good also. It's just missing The Longhorn Network and The NFL Network.
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I'm back to using a TWC provided DVR.
The picture quality overall has improved ever since the upgrade to extreme in my area.
The speeds are as rock solid as ever.
The phone service is just as good as ever.
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 Review by dwlamborg
member for 12.6 years, 1342 visits, last login: 8 days ago
updated 140 days ago
- Kansas City,Jackson,MO
- $45 per month
- about 3 days
- "Reasonably fast and usually reliable braodband service."
- "Technical support is sub-par (unfortunately consistent with many other service providers.)"
- "An average value for the cost, and serves my particular needs."
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I ordered RoadRunner, via TimeWarner KC, in October, 2000. It was made clear to me that speeds *could* range to 2.0 down / .35 up, and that the cost would be $29.95 monthly ($39.95 for those who have no television cable service through Time Warner). Customary one-time full installation fee was $129.95, although I subscribed during a TW promotion period during which that installation fee was waived.
Installation took place 3 days following my order, was on schedule, and was satisfactorily completed within 45 minutes by 2 TW line personnel, and 1 rep from CompUSA (with which TW KC has contracted to perform the cable modem and software installations.) A 3COM Home Connect modem with related software, an SMC EZ Card ISA 10 Adaptor, and the RoadRunner software with I.E. 5.0 were installed, all of which seem to be functioning properly and without incident over the past 4 months since the initial install.
The few times I have had need to contact KC RR's technical support were predictably frustrating experiences. I had to make numerous attempts via phone in order to even get to the first tier of recorded options. Each time, a recording advised that "due to an unusual heavy demand, all customer service reps were busy with other customers" and to "call back at another time." I eventually got past that hurdle, and was greeted by a never-ending morass of recorded options and selections, none of which addressed my particular issue at the time. Again, after several retries, I discovered that by simply waiting approximately 30 seconds after the last recorded message had finished, the line would come alive again and advise me to "hold for the next available customer support rep."
That in itself is yet another story which I will simply summarize here by indicating that the technical support personnel I spoke with were less knowledgeable regarding RR's service and its software than I was. Suffice it to say that they were not capable of providing any meaningful assistance, leaving me to resolve my issues via other sources.
All in all, I have found RR KC's broadband service and reliability to be most satisfactory, whereas its technical support is marginal at best. The speeds I've experienced have consistently been near the 2.0 up / .35 down "as advertised."
08-22-03 UPDATE
Since the above, a few changes:
1. With Everest becoming competition for TWC/RR here in late 2002, TWC lowered my monthly rate for its complete TV cable & RR package from $129 to $99. ($45 of that full package rate is for RR service)
2. While RR connectivity and speed remains satisfactory, I can no longer keep an IP address longer than 1 day or so. For the past 2 years, I had only 2 IP addresses. Now the IP address changes every time my PC is shut down for any length of time, and also when I release & renew it. Don't know what to attribute that to, but it started approx. 3 months ago.
3. RR service outages have become considerably more frequent, although they are usually of short duration.
All in all, (with the exception of the rate decrease), the quality of RR's service has been gradually diminishing, with its tech support dropping from the former zero rating to minus-zero.
09-18-03 UPDATE:
Since the above, another significant change:
1. Download cap was increased from 2,000 to 3,000 by TWC/RR. I now consistently see 3,000 to 3,200 down using several speakeasy speed test links.
2. The quality of RR's service has remained constant - - no better, no worse.
01-24-04 UPDATE:
1. While TWC/RR's download cap still remains at 3,000, my actual download speeds suddenly dropped from an average of 3,100 to the 2,800 - 2,900 range. This is not peculiar to just my system, as that drop has also been reported by several others in the RR forum as well as to me personally.
That drop, even though somewhat insignificant, has remained constant from 01-24-04 through the present, 07-28-04, with no explanation as to its cause.
11-13-05 UPDATE:
From TWC/RR's download cap increase from 3000 to 5000 (on or about 05-15-05), my good old 3COM Sharkfin modem has been consistently and reliably providing me with 4600 to 4800 down, and approx. 380 up. I recognize that it's a very old and obsolete modem, but I highly doubt that a new replacement would perform any better. I'm definitely keeping it and won't trade it in until such time that it goes "belly up."
I've not had occasion to call on TWC/RR's tech support since sometime last year, so I have no complaints whatsover its service. Hopefully that good streak will continue.
11-15-11 UPDATE:
Since my last update, I've replaced my good old 3COM Sharkfin modem (now mothballed) with a Motorola SB5101.
From TWC/RR's download cap increase from 7000 to 10000, my replacement SB5101 modem has been consistently and reliably providing me with 8600 to 8800 down, and approx. 800 up. I realize that the SB5101 is also now an old and obsolete modem, but I highly doubt that a new replacement would perform any better. I'm definitely keeping it and won't change it out until such time that it goes "belly up."
I've not had occasion to call on TWC/RR's tech support for several years now, so I have no complaints whatsover its service. Hopefully that good streak will continue.
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