What did you have before RCN, DSL or Dial up? And with whom?

You must be loving cable now. Don't know how you did without it internet wise before?

I was in the same boat about 4 years ago now, MSN dial up. Then in 2004, I got cable and haven't looked back since.

Good luck with RCN!

Had dial-up, then DSL (never again) and now RCN.

Indeed. I went from AOL to MSN Dial-up and had DU for a total of 4 years. At that time, I switched to cable and have been there ever since. Almost 4 years now. I will never go back to anything slower.

After seeing what cable net does, my family considers it a utility.

I hope you continue to have a good experience with RCN. I've never had them (I'm on Comcast in an area not even served by RCN.) I would love to get my hands on that Mach 20/2 package.

Still, in a few months, I'll be upgraded to Comcast's 16/2 Blast! package.

You take care and enjoy that net the way it should be.

Before everything was merged into Astound, I had Wave. More specifically, the "Wave G" Gigabit service given to certain apartment buildings. The service was crap. Astound still owned them then, however.

I could get Gigabit to speedtest.net, but if I downloaded a file from a server, I usually got 200 Mbps from a CDN, or 10 Mbps from a server on the east coast. Most other ISPs in Seattle give full Gigabit from a CDN and 200 Mbps from the east coast, as was the case with Google Fiber Webpass and CenturyLink, even both had more overhead from wireless radios and PPPoE respectively.

What's worse is the landlord only allowed Wave or Comcast, favoring the latter. Wave only got in because they bribed the landlord. The landlord blocked Ziply Fiber (bought Frontier) and Atlas Networks because neither wanted to pay up.

Astound takes great ISPs and turns them into trash. I wish I took the POTS route with Ziply when I lived there, exclusivity arrangements still legally can't deny access to a "public utility" like POTS, even when landlines are dead.

It's difficult if they're the only game in town. I was lucky enough to have another cable company available to me.

RCN (and wave for that matter) was owned by said investment group long before the name change. The investment group just decided to "unify branding"

In Chicago, I'd always just cancel for a day then re-sign up to get the 2yr promo when mine ran out. It was far easier than arguing with someone on the phone about it.

The problem is when these investment companies get involved - they only worry about "shareholder" return, and the performance of said service suffers. If you have any other option and *need* reliability then go to the other cable ISP in your town (Spectrum or Comcast likely)

Just make sure you account $13 in below the line fees into that price... and hope nothing goes wrong with that connection signal wise, as it'll literally take an FCC complaint to get them to properly fix it.

Not much has changed after RCN became Astound - except my bill... from 244.00 to 291.00 in three months... that's just not right. I expect a bump from time to time but almost $50.00 ?? I had to call AGAIN (I was hoping that would stop) to get my bill back down to earth. Service has been great (I have all three services). I own my own Tivos so I just rent cable cards and the modem from them.

Wave Broadband (the original company) did allow us to reup the contract a few times.. but last time I was told no by Wave.. Now Astound wants us to re-sign.. but we now have decided to look elsewhere due to some other issues with them.

Grande wasn't ever anything to write home about, especially since a "600mbps connection" has a capped *outbound* bandwidth of about 300kbps! SMH But now, since changing names, I get about 29kbps. I had better service with *dialup* in the 1980s. Not only this, but they keep changing my IP around, which is "fair" based on my contract, but Grande would leave my IP alone for YEARS. Now it seems capricious, just to mess with my services.

I AM ASTOUNDINGLY NOT HAPPY

So far, I agree. It has been a painful transition.

Down at nights without them notifying you they will be down all night (If you call, they say they are doing network maintenance). I know this because I start work (Remote) at 0300-0400.

I noticed a couple of days ago my Google results were showing for locations in Michigan and that CBS Live on Paramount + was giving me Channel 6 (MI) instead of channel 2.

As I figured, I had a Michigan IP. I called them up and they said it was because of the merger and that it would resolve after a couple of weeks.

the best is when RCN customer service said I could get VoD and SVoD in a one way area. love it.

Also am on RCN in Forest Hills. They are lousy.

RCN treats you like crap, uses substandard coaxial specifications, cable boxes, and I can go on. RCN is not up to the high standards needed to maintain a network appropriately.

What bothered me more than anything is that if you call RCN, they will check your connection for 2 seconds, and tell you everything is fine rather than doing the appropriate diagnostic procedures. RCN's attitude is that everything is fine, or they blame your hardware when the real issue is with them.

When RCN came out and sent a tech, he tells me they checked the headend and found no problems and he says in this nasty voice, YOUR SIGNAL LEVELS ARE FINE. The tech was a young kid, and he also claimed to have someone checking the headend which he contacted on his phone. Also he ran a speed test which showed up as normal. I cant deal with a company like that. I have a strong feeling its not even the in building wiring, but rather the headend itself and an RF issue. He also carried this box device with a coax tap with him. He was in my apartment maybe 1 minute thats it and wanted to leave.

With Cablevision, my previous provider before I moved, I would have gotten seasoned technicians with lots of experience.

Now I agree with lower rates and higher speeds and for now Im staying with RCN for the time being because Time Warner is too agressive and Time Warner tried to tell me it was $25 installation when in fact all standard installs are free so I filed a complaint with multiple agencies.

If you have lots of money to burn, then Time Warner is the premium product for DTV. For cablemodem, you get higher speed caps, but then have to put up with loads of problems with the company/network and if your on an oversold node, you may see slower than dialup speeds as some have reported.

You get what you pay for.

Very True.

It is not true that RCN is VERY bad. It is bad if you are not the average Joe Moe user.
Regular customers look for a good price without any knowledge of the subject or a product that they buy.
In case of RCN the price is very good. For one year I have a deal: $80 per month for telephone, cable modem, and 90 channels cable TV. This beats Time Warner and Verizon.

When it comes to quality, I have some complaints:
1. Cable modem speed sucks and there is no news service.
2. E-mail setup sucks and their is no hope.
3. HDTV is encrypted and they want me to rent a cable box from them for FREE channels but I use QAM antenna with UHF amplifier. I do not have a cable box.
4. They use to charge me $5 per month for a modem but now I have my own, so this is $5 less per month.

Do not think that Time Warner is better when it comes to cable TV or Verizon DSL is better.

RCN is THE BEST for the money

I would love for RCN to charge a decent price for premium speeds and service. I would pay more if the service quality was better. Which is why I may actually wind up with Time Warner or Verizon if they roll out FIOS here when my promotion with RCN is over.

RCN is in bankruptcy but does have more fiber than any other carrier which accounts for its higher speeds. We shall see what happens to RCN as bankruptcy decision will occur soon and the creditors will decide to sell assets or to try to let RCN become profitable.

Earthlink Cable and Roadrunner do get alot higher marks than RCN though for quality of service. But you do see complaints due to overselling of nodes with Time Warner as well with Roadrunner. So it all depends.

I am in Forest Hills. Had the same last year. It took them two months to accept that they are guilty.

This year I signed up for what they call Mach 7. After that my speed went down by the factor of 2.

They oversold my node. I did IP scan and found over 130 users connected. Called RCN on that. They told me that IP scan is ILLEGAL??? I asked them to get me somebody who can comprehend. They turned on the music for 20 minutes and never got me anybody else.

I filled out RCN online form. They replied:

Thank you for writing RCN Email Support. We are here to assist you.

We apologize for the inconvenience you\'ve experienced with our new Mach 7 service. I took a look at the signal level of your cable modem and it\'s high enough it could effect the speed. Please contact technical support to set up a time and day to meet a technician so they can come out and optimize the signal level.

I have found that following this procedure can restore acceptable levels of service in a limited number of situations. See the steps below:
( The coaxial cable is the thick cable coming from the wall outlet, the same that is used for cable TV.)

1. Unscrew the coaxial cable from your cable modem with the modem's power on. Allow it to sit like this for about 1 minute.

2. Unplug the power from the modem. Again, let the modem sit with no power for about one minute.

3. Screw the coaxial cable back into the modem- with the power still out. Once the coaxial cable is screwed in TIGHT and the connection with the wall (very important- these cables are not very flexible and moving the cable itself often tends to unscrew it), plug the power back in.

The key word here is SCREW

Use a diffrent routing when downloading from newshosting...I believe they have like 3 diffrent ones. Just need to change the port you connect to. Check their site.....and pick the one you get the faster speed with. I constantly get 9+mbps from them.

I would love to use Verizon DSL -- unavailable in my area, Bronx, NY!!! Is the Bronx not part of the great NYC?

my in laws have RCN in the lehigh valley, PA area. im hoping to god they sell to shitcast, atleast they get better TV and modem support

my in laws have RCN in the lehigh valley, PA area. im hoping to god they sell to shitcast, atleast they get better TV and modem support

Next time your there run a speed test using speedtest.net That will tell you what speed your grandparents are getting. As for off the shelf equipment, every cable co uses it. Modems and routers are standardized equipment. DOCIS does have poor upload and that's why are moving to a standard which will allow equal download and upload speeds on cable. Fiber allows this. I miss the gigabit fiber I had with Verizon in Boston.

You can run ethernet over COCSIS. Also the latency can be shit on fiber just as well as any other technology/service.

Don't test the speed over wifi, and make sure your device is plugged directly into the modem. Don't test with the router in between.

It will take a few more years for symmetrical cable broadband to be available. By 2024 or so it should come out. Lots of plant work to make that happen need to occur and the new modems have to be mass produced. RCN might move to fiber instead of waiting. They have done this in parts of Chicago already. FIOS is a better choice if you need higher uploads now. I had FIOS in Boston. I miss it here in Florida. Spectrum is only 100/10 here waiting our 200/10 upgrade.