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Review by mets18 See Profile

  • Location: New York, New York, NY, USA
  • Cost: $130 per month
  • Install: about 5 days
Good value, reliable service, like the DVR software
Missing some HD channels available elsewhere
Good bang for the buck, willing to negotiate
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Had TWC as an option initially and now have FIOS option as well. Have the 3mb+premier cable package. Install was easy and have Motorola DCX3400 dvr.

Update: Just got a mailer from FIOS with a very attractive package. $64.99 triple play for a year. Considering switching after the Knicks season is over b/c they still don't have MSG HD. If FIOS doesn't get MSG by the end of the year though might switch back.

Update: Now that FIOS has MSGHD I have decided to switch over. I wasn't really that upset with RCN but they do have some holes in their offerings like the Big Ten Network and the WLIW subchannels. I will not rule out coming back at some point.

member for 15.4 years, 5973 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 12.2 years ago


Review by FrankBlack7 See Profile

  • Location: Waltham, Middlesex, MA, USA
  • Cost: $52 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 6 days
Service is very reliable. I get the speeds I pay for. Only one slow down in thirteen months.
None that I can think of.
If this company services your geographic area, consider becoming a customer.
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I've had RCN internet service for a little more than a year now. It suits my needs just fine indeed. I decided to go with cable modem service, after two unpleasant experiences with DSL providers. Speeds, ( 5 Mps download, 384 Kps up ) are consistently where they should be, whether I use the company's speed testing sight, or speakeasy's speed tester.

The Tech who came by was prompt, courteous, and had excellent work habits. As my building was already cabled up for RCN service, he was finished in about 20 minutes. I'm not certain if he was an RCN employee, or one of the contractors.

I should point out that I am only a broadband internet service customer. I have no cable TV, phone service.

For interested parties, my modem is a Motorola SB5120, which I supplied myself. You can usually buy these at any of the big box stores, frequently on sale.

The only real problem is that they don't service all areas. If your area is not listed as having service available, call the company and double check.

Update, 10/11/09: I just upgraded to 10 Mbps (down) / 800 Kbps (up) for ten dollars more per month. All is well, speeds are where they should be. It didn't even take 24 hours for the speed bump to take effect, after I called.

FIOS is available to my apartment building, but I see no advantage to it for my purposes at this time.

Update, 11/19/11: I recently received a phone call from an RCN representative,
informing me that my service had been upgraded to 20 Mbps (down) and 1.8 Mbps (up) at no additional cost. I ran speeds tests at speedtest.net and speakeasy.net and indeed, the speeds are as advertised and consistent.

Likes:

-The fact that with RCN, you can use your own Modem. No proprietary modem required.

-RCN makes broadband internet service available as a stand-alone product. You do not need a "package deal", common with other providers.



member for 18.2 years, 54 visits, last login: 8 years ago
updated 12.3 years ago


Gagan
@rcn.com

Gagan

Anon

RCN Internet at LV

I moved to RCN last week and took the speed of 10MBPS...

I have not received speed of 5 MBPS continuously for an hour... I called them up 2-3 times but no success... Now looks like I have to move back to Service Electric which is expensive but reliable...

Review by bcole72 See Profile

  • Location: Washington, District Of Columbia, DC, USA
  • Cost: $50 per month
Fast, no caps
recurring access problem recently
if the issue is solved quickly, will get a great review.
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For the most part, service has been good. Consistently getting over 10Mbps download and 2Mbps upload. Recently, i noticed a really slow connection. Basically fails the upload test. Called and they confirmed it was a problem in the area affecting many users. Seems like i was the first to tell them. Will see how quickly they fix this.

member for 22.1 years, 58 visits, last login: 12.2 years ago
lodged 12.6 years ago







Review by Raz3000 See Profile

  • Location: Chicago, Cook, IL, USA
  • Cost: $70 per month
  • Install: about 5 days
Excellent, reliable service in Chicago (20/2)
None so far
After three months of service, I could not be more satisfied
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I jumped to RCN after 10 years of DSL, branded first as MSN then SBC Yahoo! then AT&T. I was always pleased with the rock solid reliability of my DSL service, and afraid to jump to cable. The need for high speeds forced my hand and I could not be more pleased!

RCN is an amazing provider, and should be your FIRST CHOICE in Chicago if you are fortunate enough to be served by them.

I have 20/2 service as well as unlimited phone, and I save 30% off the phone/internet bundle from AT&T!

member for 17.9 years, 304 visits, last login: 12.4 years ago
updated 12.7 years ago


Review by gvd See Profile

  • Location: Skokie, Cook, IL, USA
  • Cost: $42 per month
  • Install: about 45 days
Once I got them to address the problem, no problems whatsoever.
It took a month and a half to get them to fix the REAL problem.
If it works, it's great! ...if.
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This review is for RCN cable internet service only.

Used to be an AT&T DSL customer, but with the new caps there's NO WAY I'm giving them a single dime. Since comcast has a similar cap, decided to go with RCN.

At first, RCN was a complete nightmare. I have VOIP service *not* through RCN, and they were constantly dropping packets. I still had my AT&T DSL line, and would switch between them to demonstrate the problem... AT&T DSL -- voip worked flawlessly. RCN DSL -- voip sort-of worked, but call quality was terrible and lots of breakups on OUTBOUND (my voice) side only.

It took a total of 45 days from first install and seven technician visits before RCN was able to resolve the problem. They replaced the aerial drop to the alley, replaced the modem, replaced the modem again, replaced the splitter, etc.etc.etc.

None of it helped. Turned out the root cause of the problem was the neighborhood switch. The techs mumbled something about switching from a motorola neighborhood switch (wrong term but I can't think of the correct one) to cisco gear.

So I kept my AT&T DSL line for over a month, because I need VOIP service to work. Once RCN changed the neighborhood equipment, all problems have magically VANISHED!

(...that's a good thing!)

It's been smooth sailing since that point. Once early saturday morning (4AM) I couldn't get an IP address, and around 6 or so I was able to again. (No, rebooting the modem didn't help.) RCN india tech support was absolutely clueless, but considering the times involved it sure looked like planned downtime / maintenance. RCN india decided to schedule a tech visit. Duh.

10 meg down, 800kbps up. Originally they gave me some no-name cable modem, but they replaced it with a motorola when I was having problems.

So I'd say plan on having two connections until the RCN problems get worked out. Once they do it's smooth sailing, but it was a rough go until that time.

member for 13.2 years, 25 visits, last login: 11.6 years ago
lodged 12.8 years ago


Review by driv22 See Profile

  • Location: 60642
  • Cost: $155 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 3 days
Quality of digital programming
Service interruptions
Good value for the services, would hope that the service disconnections would lessen, but still a good product.
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Service is great when it works. Seems like when the weather is bad, I lose my Cable TV. Isn't that the reason to go away from Directv/Dish? Have not had any complaints about the Internet. Speeds are what was promised and that has only gone out once in 6 months. The hardware provided is top notch and like the features/options that RCN provides.

member for 13.3 years, 51 visits, last login: 10 years ago
lodged 12.9 years ago







Review by Keith Baker See Profile

  • Location: Somerville, Middlesex, MA, USA
  • Cost: $90 per month
  • Install: about 10 days
Very reliable once its setup correctly
Customer service is very nice, but bad for getting things done. Not particularly good about giving you $/feature matrix
Suck slightly less than most other providers I've used.
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For 4 years I had 20mbps, Premier, Phone and a Static IP (not at this price). I wanted BYOM and I had my own TIVO.

1) RCN can't do BYOM and Phone yet they still charge you a modem rental - LAME

2) At the time RCN had some home networking deal (IE they provide the linksys) - it was in the package deal... in that case they DID provide two modems. However I wanted a static IP on MY equiptment which meant the linksys was not usable so I sent that back. They wouldn't do BYOM at this point, they'd only put the connection on the phone adapter (note, it was the linksys before this) - WTF guys?

At some point I noticed that HBO and Showtime were a line item on my bill. I called up and VERY specifically asked 'can I remove that without effecting my contract'. They removed it and then said 'by the way there is an ETF'... I said wait a minute, never mind, put it back. They were unable to do so. Once they hit that keystroke to put it in it was like there was no going back. They couldn't get me back in the contract, get the term length right etc. It took writing the better business bureau to get a very very nice RCN rep to call and straighten everything out. She got me back in the plan but couldn't reset the contract length, she did however note the end date in some notes and said to write her if there was every a problem with this.

Cable card install was pretty good although they only had single stream cards at the time which means I got charged for two cards (one m stream costs the same as two s cards - they should waive that if they are with the same host id).

At some point I had some cable card issues where they kept bringing up the diagnostics screen. Some reading at tivo's site told me that the cards were not paired correctly which only effects encrypted channels. I think the had just not bothered to encrypt before and now that they had turn it on some fluke of they initial setup wasn't right and my pairing was broken. It took a long time to convince the rep this was the issue and when I did it took almost a week to get it fixed because they couldn't change some field in their database for some unknown reason. They finally decided they needed a truck roll to fix it (WTF, its a database issue you idiots?). I posted on their facebook wall and someone in their social media group must have alerted the right people who fixed it without any truck roll.

-----------------------------------------------Recent Changes-----------------------------------------

We weren't using the phone line nearly enough to make it worth while and the bill seemed way too high. Plus they now have m cards. If I drop the phone I could go to BYOM and save even more.

Calling them up to figure out what your options are REALLY SUCKS. I kept getting agents that would tell me 'but your bundle is so great, you are 'SAVING' so much money'. By saving they really meant 'getting such a big number of dollars off the stupidly high price you'd be paying otherwise'... I tried to explain that paying less each month is my idea of saving money... they didn't get it.

I finally figured that I wanted to port the number to a VoIP provider that is purely minute based so I can still have the line but not pay except when I use it. I called RCN and even though my contract time has expired I would still loose the bundle deal when my phone ported away. However I was unable to pre-pick what packages I wanted and have it noted as 'what to change to when this ports'... and if I did the change to early the port might fail and I might loose the number. I had to call the day the port completed. Fortunately my new VoIP provider had a fantastic email system to let me know the port progress (RCN never called when the account changed).

I dropped down to the following (saving $50/month):

Premier Cable (on my own TiVO - mcard now)

10Mbps Internet (on my BYOM)

Static IP

(Phone is now on voip.ms)

The process... ugh. I got voip.ms up no problem, no human interaction, awesome! However RCN was much more work.

1) I bought a new Motorola Surfboard 6xxx series modem because I didn't want to be out of date in a few years. Turns out this did not work on RCN. It looked like their config was missing a parameter the modem needed. I swapped that out with a customer on Comcast who owned and older SB 51xx modem and we are both now happy. Besides all of the swapping around this was ok. Comcast modem change over was much easier though. Just plug it in, launch a browser and type in some account details - RCN you have to talk with people (who far too often screw up)

2) I tried to get them to swap the scards for an mcard (its an extra $1.50/month, but its the fact that they do it that pisses me off - they are in the same host, its the same thing, and all they end up doing is buying extra cards) - ugh. So the real problem was that they wouldn't just send me the cards in the mail or pick them up. They wanted to do a truck roll and the normal 4 hour window junk. I decided to wait until August when the FCCs 'you must allow CC self installs rule' to go into effect. However when I was returning my modem I asked for the hell of it and they told me I could walk in and swap them out - which is exactly what I was told I couldn't do over the phone. I traded them out and now I'm back to the pairing problem but I don't have HBO anymore so its just the annoying popup if I happen to click to that channel.

Suggestions when dealing with RCN (probably any cable company):

* Record ALL phone calls (in some states this is illegal without consent, aks for consent)

* Call between 9am and 8pm M-F to get local support people, they are much more capable than the Indian help desk.

* Tivo's website has good troubleshooting tips, you can get them to do the right thing sometimes.

* don't always believe the first person you talk to

I Wish:

* They would discount existing s card customers in one device - fixing this cost them and myself much more than it saved either of us in the end.

* They had an online support portal that you could put in all of your own equipment details - there is NO rocket science here. They can provision how many hosts & tuners, cable modems, phone ports you get and you could type in the id codes (though you should be able to add/remove things with a confirmation of cost changes). Thats really all of the info you need (and they still screw it up!)

* I want a web interface that I can set which services I get. Give me a list of channels, internet options and phone options. Let me click checkboxes next to what I want and tell me the lowest total cost for those things and show me what 'extras' I get in that price. If you want to show me two or three other deals within that range, please do... Don't make it a 50 questions game over the phone.

member for 13 years, 5 visits, last login: 10.7 years ago
lodged 13 years ago


Review by confusedcabl See Profile

  • Location: Waltham, Middlesex, MA, USA
  • Cost: $155 per month (24 month contract)
SPEEEEEED.
...DUMB USERS.
SPEED>DUMB USERS.
Value for money:

hd dvr+signature + 60/6 =]

1) MUST...MUST optimize OS TCP settings regardless what OS you use, even you wannabe linux noobs.
2) MUST use gigabit all the way. dont throw in some peice of crap wireless router with a 10/100 connection and say "oh but 60 is less than 100 so its ok." its not ok. grow up.
3) Dont do stupid things like dl's of "fishy" content and say later on " oh my connection is slow", guess what, those servers and peers you dl from keep trying to connect to you regardless if your p2p/dl manager is running or not. [get a real firewall {hardware} and you would know this] it will bottleneck your modem docsis 1,2,3 whatever. GOT IT EINSTEIN?

those of you with rcn, do a speed test and look up rcn speed test results on this site. the one on top with 59 down... that's me son.

member for 13.7 years, 16 visits, last login: 11.7 years ago
lodged 13.4 years ago


gschwendtner
@rcn.com

gschwendtner

Anon

too funny

This is just too funny, but a typical representation of the issues that people have here.

Review by Amadauss See Profile

  • Location: Coopersburg, Lehigh, PA, USA
  • Cost: $61 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 2 days
Speed is fantastic, Service tech's that come to house are very good
Phone Tech service could be better when reaching another country, in states is very good
No one is perfect and although it did get frustrating from time to time, still one of the best
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Service Electric and Directv were considered. Have 20 mb's and even on a router get close to those speeds. Order and Install were fine. You have to consider, any equipment for anything today will go bad or break down over time. Its the getting there to fix it that impresses me with RCN. Very quick to respond.

Was house sitting for a relative who has Service Electric. They switched to a new service with them and cable went out Saturday. Guy was great on the line when I called but could not get anyone out there until the following Thursday. Was not happy about that having no tv. Sad part was they were getting internet but could not get the TV working. Tech was great and ran a bunch of tests but never thought to have me go check the cable coming in. Seems because of the many connections, the one controlling the connection for the TV's had tripped the breaker on it. All it needed was to be turned back on. Not my house so never thought that the case but should have been considered or suggested.

member for 17.3 years, 38 visits, last login: 5.2 years ago
lodged 13.5 years ago


Review by midtownwest See Profile

  • Location: New York, New York, NY, USA
  • Cost: $134 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 7 days
Reliable, fast, consistant, no dropouts or loss of signal
UI is clunky, customer support only available during business hours.
A good value, with more reliable delivery than larger providers.
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I've been a NYC subscriber to TWC and RCN over the years. TWC offers some feature perks, PiP, better VOD. But I experienced constant dropouts and signal problems. After switching to RCN all these problems went away. I gave up a few channels, but also gained a few, like Encore and NFL as part of my package. Recently, I switched to the RCN Tivo, which has really added a lot of functionality.

The internet is consistently fast, at the speed I'm paying for. I've only had 1 major outage in 6 months. Phone service is excellent and inexpensive.

Overall, this is a good value because it is cheaper than the competition and has better service. It's not perfect, but I'm glad I switched.

member for 13.6 years, 8 visits, last login: 13.2 years ago
lodged 13.6 years ago