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 Review by vaxvms 
UPDATED: 33 days ago
member for 4.7 years, 1808 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Worcester,Worcester,MA
 $50 per month
 about 7 days
 "Technicians that come to my place have been great."
 "Telephone support. Service outages."
 "I _was_ very happy but that has changed."
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Ordering service was quick and pleasant.
Installation was good. Installer did what I asked without hassle. Arrived when scheduled.
I HAD to get Charter phone service - Verizon service was a big problem. It's been fine.
I have my own modem and router so I don't have any Charter hardware.
I haven't had to use tech support yet.
update April 2008
Phone support is useless. 1) When I had a problem and called support the person wasn't interested in hearing my problem. The operator just wanted my name and address to send a tech. 2) One day my connection dropped. After waiting 2 hours I called support asking if there was a problem. They weren't aware of any problems and told me there must be a large area without service and I happened to be the first to report it. Not the case.
Techs visiting my home have found and fixed problems quickly. These fixes have been simple. I hop not-so-simple problems are resolved quickly.
update: July 2008
Phone support is still useless. Techs sent out to fix hardware problems have been knowledgable and make quick work of diagnosing and replacing broken hardware. The time to get a tech to my home has been very fast. Scheduled a visit on a Saturday morning and tech arrived in 4 hours.
Update January 2009
Things are slacking off. There have been many times where the net connection will drop a few times in a short period. No real pattern to when the connection drops. It doesn't take long to come back but it's more than just annoying when there's 3 or 4 dropped connections in a hour.
I've given up on calling tech support and the standard "There's an outage in your area. We don't know when it'll be fixed." response. Cable service has vanished a few times in the past couple months.
Update April 2009
Outages of all 3 services is becoming more common; at least once a month. Typically service is out for more than 4 hours. Calls to support require I give them my name, phone number, account number, address, and more before they tell me the standard "There's an outage in your area. We don't know when it'll be fixed." response. When service is restored it's back for less than an hour before it goes out again for half an hour. The "new" SA box I got had to be replaced after 3 months.
Update Oct 2009
Service has started dropping out sporatically in rainy weather. When it was happening last(?) year they replaced their box on the utility pole that had become full of water. Literally full of water. Techs were at the neighbor's house this week. Shortly after they arrived my service went out. It's been flickering ever since. Talked to the techs before they left. The techs said the neighbor was having problems with their 'net connection but they could find no problem. Powerboost was introduced a couple days ago.
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Review by eslaracecar
UPDATED: 35 days ago
member for 1.5 years, 52 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Worcester,Worcester,MA
$81 per month
"Upload/Download Speed Bump"
"Only going to be in Worcester County for another few years. Throttling of high bandwidth users? possably"
"Netgear Cable Modem Gateways are Great"
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It's great how Charter decided to double everyone's upload speed and boost download a meg.
The Netgear Cable modem/router gateway is very cheap to rent..($5.00)
I've heard rumors of Charter leaving the Worcester county within 5 years..who to replace them..I do not know!
I've also heard that they throttle speed of high bandwidth users. I have had no problems with this. Should be very easy to tell if this happens seeing as I know the max download speeds(speed tests reads about 6.30mb/s) and the max upload (which is about 1.3mb/s or 130 kb/s for their 6 meg internet).
Overall I am more than happy with Charter HSI's spectacular blazing speeds
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Review by RockinRay
UPDATED: 35 days ago
member for 5.3 years, 190 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Lakeville,Dakota,MN
Contract price not specified.
"Speedy and reliable!"
"Customer service is sometimes hard to understand...."
"Connection is advertised speeds and solid!"
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We have had Charter Pipeline for about 5 years now and while in the beginning their service left something to be desired, it has become rock solid.
Techs are anxious to help resolve problems and are friendly.
We just upgraded to the Moto 6120 Extreme and it has made a nice difference in speeds... Very solid modem.
With the upgrade to this modem, we are now enjoying advertised speeds from Charter.
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 Review by beta user
UPDATED: 37 days ago
member for 1 year, 527 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Ontario,San Bernardino,CA
$100 per month (12 month contract)
about 1 days
"It suits our needs."
"I think we should have more choices."
"It's OK."
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We have been using Charter for close to 2 years now. The experience has been rather uneventful. I just wish we had FiOS.
-- Update --
We have moved and are no longer customers of Charter. Overall it was not a bad experience. I had some billing troubles but they were resolved with one phone call. Unfortunately that phone call was a difficult one - I couldn't understand her as her accent was very thick - but she did resolve my issue.
Charter is not available in my area, now. Verizon and TWC are my choices and I opted to try out Verizon's FiOS. It is nice to have a choice.
Followup comments:  chello_b
join:2009-10-31
Fort Worth, TX |  Charter , Charter ,Charter !!
 always problems with the billing and pushy salesman , and women who really are irratating ! Overall a good deal , but almost not worth all the drama ...chello_b@charter.net | |
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beta user
join:2008-11-10
Ontario, CA
 ·Charter Pipeline
 ·Verizon FIOS
1 edit | Re: Charter , Charter ,Charter !! I did get sales pitches from time to time but I just said "no." If they pushed further I'd again say "no." One salesman, trying to sell me an upgrade to add TV (we don't watch TV), said to me after I said no, "Don't you want to save money?" My answer? No.
I had to straighten some things out with billing a few times but I mostly did that through the local office. I avoid the phone at all costs.
--
Not quite a release candidate. | |
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Review by triz989
Posted: 37 days ago
member for 6.9 years, 43 visits, last login: 33 days ago
Sunnyside,Yakima,WA
$39 per month
"alot better then any other broadband in town."
"none"
"good fast solid conection"
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embarq and clearwire wireless are the only other broadband in town iv used embarq (DSL) for a few years. it was decent tell they "upgraded" there DSL lines after it was done quality of there DSL droped dramatically to the point of paying $59.99 a month wasnt worth it. iv seen clearwire in use a friend had it was much slower and more expensive then what i was paying for. both of them require 2 year contracts as with charter there is none. im paying 39.99 for a 10mg line. they offer 1, 5, 10, and 20 mg lines. when i ordered charter it was installed the next day with free install. the modem im useing is Arris TM602A/110 it dubbles as my voip for my home phone. the few problems iv had were delt with quickly. over all i am happy with what i have now and wont be changeing broadband companys for the foreseeable future.
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Review by Monkson
Posted: 40 days ago
member for 349 days, 75 visits, last login: 12 days ago
Travelers Rest,Greenville,SC
$50 per month
about 5 days
"My 10/2meg pipeline is very fast and works great now. No contract."
"Have to use 3rd party DNS servers. Tech support over the phone or chat is worthless."
"If you can live with the tech support issues, this service is great."
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This is a great service for my area. If you can live with the tech support, this is a must get if you can get it where you live at. I have the 10/2 meg @ $50 a month I believe and don't have a contract. The install was very easy and I have the Motorola cable modem.
The only problem I have with this is Charter's DNS servers which are horrible. I use Open DNS with no issues at all.
Hope this helps!
Followup comments: aim2pls
join:2009-01-22
Pepperell, MA | charter has tech support ????? Damn does it ??????
I always thought they had techLESS support!!!!!!!!! | |
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Review by glangston
UPDATED: 42 days ago
member for 42 days, 0 visits, last login: 42 days ago
Saint Louis,Saint Louis City,MO
Contract price not specified.
"service has relatively few problems in my experience"
"couldn't process a move request correctly. called 7 times to get them to correct"
"service is ok, but don't ask for anything out of normal (why is moving an oddity)"
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Put in a request 2 months ago for a move request. The move process seemed to go fairly smooth. The engineer showed up on time, the process of ACTUALLY moving was fairly straight forward, but WOW did stuff mess up with the billing.
I work in IT support, so I understand the process of when a customer asks for something, and you (the service rep) agree, then you should do it. When I started getting delinquency notices was when I really started getting irritated. What happened was they essentially had both of my accounts (my old address and my new address) still open and the old account was getting credited with my payments instead of the new one. This resulted in me receiving several notices that my balance was overdue/etc.
Numerous attempts to remedy this issue resulted in 6 times having to contact Charter support and all 6 I was promised that it would be resolved and the request for credit had been put in. Meanwhile I was still receiving (increasing in severity/threat) delinquency notices and my payments were still being credited to the old account.
Then the last notice I received, I received a collection notice from their outsourced ERS to request I return a router (I had already returned), and upon contacting support, even after I had let the rep know of my previous problems with support, requested I bring my receipt to the charter office THAT I HAD ALREADY RETURNED THE ROUTER TOO. I'm sorry, but returning equipment should NEVER BE A CUSTOMER ISSUE because once it's turned in, the customer has little recourse to dispute the claim...
On my last call, Beth was very helpful and it appeared was able to help fix this issue finally. (Pending the credit for the returned router) However, the result was 3 weeks worth of hassling with Charter Billing support and basically getting no where. I even spoke with Retention once during this process, which I assumed would've been able to get things fixed in a timely manner, or correctly.
-Greg Langston
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 Review by minglis9031
UPDATED: 44 days ago
member for 6.2 years, 953 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Benton,Saline,AR
$74 per month
"hahah too many to list"
"a company that is built on BS."
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If your in central arkansas and want to get high speed through your local cable company, get in the 3 year waiting list. I have been waiting for 3 years for charter to rollout the high speed, they used to give me a date and always had some excuse as to why thay could not deliver. but anyway good luck.
****UPDATE****
LOL Still waiting.... its like the 7th year now! The new house i moved into, which is less than 2 miles from my old house, is not even serviceable. The sad part is, I live less than 10 miles from the main office. Dissapointing. I can't wait for them to go bankrupt, so Comcast can come in and clean up their mess! Mr. Ceo of Comcast if you read this i beg you, Help out Benton Arkansas.
****UPDATE2****
I now have charter's internet. I dropped the tv service because they could not offer me a DVR or HD Service... Back to the internet, the speed is unbeliveably fast, i got the 20mb package and have not at all been dissapointed with the speed. The only complaint that i have is the latency. IF you are a gammer, you will not like this connection. I ping 90-100ms to dallas all the time. I have reported it, but they say its not an issue with them.. Its my computer... what a crock. So i have eneded my gameing days..... Time to grow up i guess lol. If your looking for an affordable connection in benton ar, charter is it I would recomend unless you are a gamer.
Followup comments: rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO
| They all lie... Since 1998, I've been told by SBC (now ATT) that DSL will be available in my area any day. I live in a solid middle upper class neighborhood but I'm 19,000 feet from the CO that serves me. There are two other COs that are less than 10,000 feet but my wires don't run to them. My house is 30 years old and those COs were added after my subdivision was built. ATT is offering U-Verse service in my town but I don't qualify because I'm too far from the CO.
I have Charter and although I'm not at all happy with the price (almost two Franklins per month), the service, features and quality are good. In my area Charter offers all digital cable, VOD, HSI, Phone service, DVR service and HD channels. They also still carry about 70 analog channels for all the old TVs in my house. | |
| Margolis
Premium
join:2003-11-24
Saint Louis, MO | can't game? if you can't game with 90ms latency, you have issues. and it has nothing to do with charter. | |
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Oldgeek
@tds.net
| Re: can't game? I have been gaming in several MMORPGs with latencies between 100-300ms with NO problems. If 90-130ms latency causes an issue for you, move next to the game servers and pay for a direct gigabit connection--or try defragging your hard drive (slow hard drives cause far more gaming problems than latency). | |
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Review by snowmew
UPDATED: 44 days ago
member for 4.3 years, 1 visits, last login: 44 days ago
Auburn,Lee,AL
$40 per month
"None. They are the only cable ISP in this area. No contract."
"Internet is always down, tech support is very bad and not empowered to handle issues."
"If you are in Auburn/Opelika, go with AT&T FastAccess. Its the better option"
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In Auburn and Opelika, AL, you have three main options: Charter Cable, FastAccess ADSL, and Satellite.
For most people, its a choice between Charter and AT&T. I've been on both services, and for the past three years I've been on Charter. While Charter beats AT&T on the pricepoint and advertised speeds, after three years of being on Charter, in my opinion, AT&T is the better option because they offer reliability.
In the past 2 months, I've been down 20+ times (I've counted), and I've had techs come out to my place on 6 different occasions. Charter constantly has connectivity issues that affect entire neighborhoods and cities. In fact, as I'm writing this (I'm using a Alltel datacard to connect), there is a network outage in my area. Some days I just get speeds that are so slow, its just as bad. Their tech support staff isn't empowered to tell you what the problem is, or when it will be fixed. Furthermore, if powercycling your modem and a review of the modem internals doesn't fix the problem, that's the end of the line as far as tech support goes. At that point, they schedule someone to come out to take a look at the issue. Scheduling a tech is a nightmare, the techs have issues being on time, they don't seem to get the problem fixed right the first time, and the time frames when they can come out are grossly large. Also speaking of service techs, in many cases, the techs don't even work for Charter. Sometimes you get subcontracted techs who don't have a clue about whats going on.
I contacted Charter's corporate office, and while they did put me in touch with a territory manager, the underlying issues are still prevalent. If this ISP would actually empower its tech support staff to fix the problems, and keep open lines of communication with its customers, it would probably be better off.
However, I don't see that happening anytime soon, so at the next available opportunity, I'm going to cancel my Charter service and go to AT&T. During the time I was with AT&T, they were nothing short of remarkable.
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Review by roanoke
UPDATED: 49 days ago
member for 8.4 years, 701 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Roanoke Rapids,Halifax,NC
$32 per month (24 month contract)
"Service is reliable and system has little down time."
"You do not get the level of service as advertised."
"You have to just learn to live with some things."
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I have been with Charter for TV and internet service for more than 8 years. They have provided service at a level as advertised for the last 3 years. Prior to that not so good. Recently, I dumped all of my HD TV service with Charter and went with Dish Network. However, I kept my internet service with them at $32.00 per month for 5000/1000. I could have switched to DSL for $16.00 per month. Charter's HD packages do not provide local area HD and their HD channels quite often experience significant jumping. I do not have this jumping with Dish Network. That, along with recent price increases by Charter as well as more proposed price increases is the main reason for my switch to an Embarq Satellite and telephone package. If prices continue to rise later, I may switch to Embarq for my internet service as well. If I need to contact Charter now, I get in the car and drive about 2 miles to express most service concerns in person at the local office, which usually results in a prompt response from them. Charter has been pretty good service wise lately. Rates are my concern now.
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