I've never been under contract and live in a high-rise (Chicago - Edgewater, lakefront) with a bulk extended basic cable. Intrestingly, my association simply bundled in the price but then started itemizing showing RCN's charge. I think either early RCN's price after the acquisition of now defunct 21st Century; the main reason RCN went through tough growing pains here and we were the last city AFAIK to get MACH 10, was much lower. The best at the time was "MACH 7.5". sorta... Anyway, what originally was around $7/mo, is now $25 or so just for cable. But admittedly, the programming has probably quadrupled after the digital switchover. The DCT-700 sucks, comcr, er, Comcast uses the same box. No decent audio and composite video. Good incentive to upgrade to HD I guess.

Long story short, I was paying $45 for MACH 10, on top of cable which is much higher people pay in the East. And that's a "negotiated price". Then my bill suddenly was $60 just for data. I said NFW and RCN instantly switched me back down, but was "promotional" and good for a year. No contract ever, but 12 months later, back up to $60. Again I said NFW and this time the "code" was no longer in the system. But the CSR put some effort into it and was able to throw two discounts in there. "Preferred customer" and something like "Promo discount" bringing the total down to $47. Still high, but I grabbed it. I figure as competition heats up, and if RCN can hold on, either I'll negotiate the price down each time, or maybe they'll upgrade me to MACH 20 as they introduce faster tiers, for the same price.

So yeah, keep records, read the bills!

To RCN's credit, I can pull a 10Mbps+ for the first time ever. u/l has always been reliably 750kbps or so.

Regards,

-=Dave=-

RCN is a monopoly here for speeds over 5meg, and in my particular section, theres no alternative aside from dial up. I get the high speed now without significant slowdowns. But it is overpriced and the service is not that great. I had an ip conflicting issue on rcn's end and it was intermediate, I would have my internet die every 30min, and their tech support refused to do anything until it died during one of their checks, i had to call them and wait on hold for over an hour 3 times before it was finally resolved with a little 45 second fix.

Verizon if you are reading this PLEASE GET FIOS INTO THE LEHIGH VALLEY AREA, A VERY LARGE NUMBER OF US ARE FED UP WITH RCN, AND WILL GOTO ANY ALTERNATIVE!

We have been with RCN since we moved to Chicago. It has been nothing but a nightmare. We pay for 20 Mbs and most of the time get 2 or 3. We have the bundle and have had to constantly call tech support to see about getting this issue resolved. When they had to install another modem to get us the 20 Mbs we are paying for they totally messed up the account and charged us for the modem and almost quadrupled our bill. They still have not got it straight yet and we still don't have the 20 Mbs download.

You can get a Docsis 3.0 modem at a decent price! Motorola and Zoom sell them. Don't rent a modem, its a pure old cash cow. They rent out old models.

I had RCN too and had problems with them sometimes too, especially Internet.

The best you can do to relieve this situation is to get a back up connection (ATT DSL - which is cheap now) or 4G (Wimax) from Clear.

Just make sure you get a dual wan router or if you get another wireless router for wi-fi connection make sure they do not overlap on the same channel. The non-overlaping channels are 1,6,11m (talking about g standard, dunno about n).

You can always go with a long twisted pair Ethernet cable

Thanks for the reply to my review. RCN has told me that I must use
their VOIP modem. Is this true? Thanks

You probably don't have too if they have a voip adapter . The way it works is this:

cable modem--> voip adapter + phone --> gateway (router)--> pcs

you must likely use gateway with built-in voip, modem and router.

I only use cell phone and never used VOIP so I have no exact idea. Where I lived and live now coverage has been always good both inside and outside. Now with 3G microcells less people depend on voip or pots (traditional)

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

What is your down/up load speed?

Download speed varies of course, but generally ranges from 560-1082 kbps. Upload is about 312-544kbps. This is all without a router, which I know would probably speed things up a bit. I haven't bought one yet and probably will soon.

You should find out what your "advertised speed" is. 560-1082kbps dn/312-544kbps up is ok depending on what you paid for. Regardless, you should tweak your settings to receive the maximum performance.

Click this for DrTCP (for tweaking your system) » ··· tcp.html
Click this for tools offered here for your connection »/tools

After you download DrTCP follow the directions to get faster connection speeds. Afterwards, do a speed test from the tools section to see if anything has improved. I'm guessing it will.

Thanks for the info; I'll check it out. As far as I know, RCN doesn't really make claims as to the speeds of the service. THey have a comparison chart on their web site that shows 800/1500 upload/download, but of course, that's under ideal, perfect conditions, and I would never take it literally, knowing that so many factors affect your actual speed in the real world. As long as I can listen to streaming radio and download files quickly, I'm happy.

All I know is Verizon sucks. They promise something and come up with something else on your bill. Email me at molina0331@rcn.com and let you know what it is about Verizon that bothers me.
As of now, I can get speed of 3000kbps and up 800 upload with RCN cable. and no problems so far If you qualify with RCN check their bundle prices. I'v e been with them since April this year. And before my area qualify for two way modem I had their telephone service for 5 years. Cancelled because did not have the two way cable modem and regreted I did go to Verizon.

I would prefer RCN over Verizon too but, RCN is not offered to me at my present address in Brooklyn (11231).

Yes, I know, but check with www.optonline.com and check if you qualify with their cable modem which is 4 times faster than verizon dsl, then. It is more than 3000 kbps download. They offer service in Brooklyn, I know because my uncle got it and it's excellent. Same as mine.

My address is currently served by TWC only. I live in Cobble Hill and Cablevision and RCN does not provide service for this area. The only cable provided through TWC is RR, EL, AOL, and NY One... I think. Regardless, they all provide 2000/384 and some have monthly caps, newsgroup caps, bad email, costly for service, etc, etc. I don't want OOL, but I will jump on the RCN offer!

That is why I have Verizon DSL and why I am interested in RCN reviews.

rcn cable invternet is awsome 3450 down and 770 up now thats service for there mega modem which states 3mb/800 so thats now bad at all keep it up guys......

I can get sustained downloads at over 4.5Mb - even from servers in London.
Upstream can be shakey sometimes (which is wierd) - can fluctuate between 300 and 800Kbps

sometimes their connection was unavailable and had to use att-wifi across the street or wimax on clearwire.

Their service was slow for few months and then later it improved. But they really lag behind other cable operators (Comcast, Time Warner, etc). They have been bought by a new new capital investment firm which will probably sell it to someone. We'll see in future to whom.

Yeah, Wikipedia reports RCN is in the process of being acquired by a Boston-based private equity firm. The problem is that private equity firms generally have zero interest in running a business for the long-term; after acquisition, they'll make a few token management changes and maybe dump some assets or restructure some debt and then sell the company as having been somehow "reorganized," and improved (for a tidy profit, of course), but the customer will still be stuck with the same sub-par service.

My parents have FIOS Internet -- it's far superior to Time-Warner, their previous ISP. There is no doubt in my mind that FIOS is the best Internet service out there. Verizon spent $23 billion building their fiber network and running it to the home. No other company had the deep pockets to make this investment (or the balls to take the risk). The cable companies are too cheap to make substantial investments in their network infrastructure, so the customer gets the shaft with superficial, cosmetic "upgrades."

that's vey true for time warner cable. but other providers like Comcast, Cablevision, Cox do upgrade to fast Docsis 3.0 in many areas

quote:

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Verizon spent $23 billion building their fiber network and running it to the home.

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Believe it or not, RCN actually pioneered this, back in the late'90s. But, the costs were way, way more substantial then than now to run the fiber, etc. So RCN never moved forward with the plans of having fiber run directly to the house.

However, in many neighborhoods (mine included), there is actually RCN fiber running through neighborhoods -- just not directly to the homes.

All cable providers use HFC (Hybrid Fiber Copper) in most areas, otherwise they would never be able to offer VOD and cable modem services would still use the telephone line (dial-up) or DSL for upstream data.