|
Home | Reviews | Speed Test | Tools | News | Forums | Info | About | Join |
I ordered RCN cable about a week or so ago, forget actualy date, i put 7 days on order from live, im really not sure, could have been 6 or 8 about a week. Anyway I ordered the gamer cable package, which is 5000/800 for 80$ a month. My ex isp, craplink, i mean earthlink was 1000/100 for 66$ a month plus i had to have a basic phone which was another 15 so about same price. The earthlink was horrible, I did a review about it, just search. But anyway, the RCN guy came while i was at work, when i got home everything was hooked up, and running great! I did a speed test first thing here using the speakeasy ca test link. I got 3200/755, download was nowhere near 5000, but then i went and downloaded sven coop3.0 form fileshack.com and it never dipped below 480, fluctuated from that to 510. DAMN FAST! Anyway my craplink contract expried and i was looking for isps, i was gonna go comcrap then i read a review of rcn from someone in my area and hopped onboard. Lets see comcrap 3000(maybe)/384?or256? for 52.95 or RCN standard 3000/800 for 44.95, or comcrap ultra 5000/384?256? or rcn gamer 5000/800? and RCN doesnt disconnect people for going over non existant invisible limits! The choice was easy, and im glad i made it! Ive had comcrap before what a nightmare.. anyone else out there doing a isp switch and considering comcrap, see if u can get rcn! ps. couldnt rate tech support, havent used it! member for 22 years, 16 visits, last login: 12.7 years ago lodged 20.2 years ago
Eight months ago I switched to RCN's bundled service for phone, cable TV and internet in San Mateo, California. The phone service is adequate (although the voicemail is substandard), the cable TV is really good, and the internet access is awesome. I consistently get over 5 MB/sec downloads and the upload is just fine. In the past I had high speed internet access through DSL through multiple providers and cable through AT&T, subsequently Comcast. Reliability problems with DSL drove me away (multiple-day outages with endless efforts to contact someone who could fix it). The AT&T/Comcast connection was a big improvement but still had regular outages (which fortunately were normally fixed within a half day or so). RCN has been rock steady and the download speed is amazing. The only thing I don't like is calling their customer service people on the phone -- they are difficult and sometimes rude. But the service guys who have come to my house (once for the initial installation and once to upgrade me to an HDTV set top box) have been great. member for 24.3 years, 33 visits, last login: 20.1 years ago lodged 20.2 years ago
DHCP dynamic address assignment, but changes very infrequently. Any computer can connect to the cable modem and get an IP address from the DHCP server. The DHCP server does not require a particular MAC address (no swapping NICs when if your PC dies, etc). Lots of bandwidth, 5Mb both ways. Great tech support in-so-far as I've had to call them. Only had some minor setup problems with the cable box, quicly and easily resolved. I'm exteremely happy with the Internet connectivity. No packet loss, no excessive latency, good peer connectivity. No complaints. Would recommend. Cable TV/Digital Cable, Cable Internet and local/long distance phone service can be bundled. member for 20.3 years, 7 visits, last login: 20 years ago lodged 20.3 years ago
I just had RCN installed today, part of the cable/internet/phone package. Not only am I saving about $50 a month using RCN for all their services with no contract, the promised 5 Mbps down/8kbps up is indeed a reality. Way faster that any DSL I've ever had. I had a static IP address added to the account. Which didn't work at first, a call to tech support (about a 2 minute wait on the phone) and the modem was re-provisioned in flash. The tech actually knew what he was talking about and was not reading from a script. Dealing with the tech support on the cable TV side (bunk remote) was a pleasant experience too. Quick response, again a knowledgeable tech. Pre-sales the guy was ultra friendly, did not try and sell me a bunch of stuff I didn't need. So far so good...I'd give RCN my highest recommendation and a breathe of fresh air from Earthlink and Comcast. (review was emailed from domain mac.com) lodged 20.3 years ago
[updates below] Well its been 3months since I got service figured I had enough to review..... Ordering the service was quite smooth with one exception, when talking speeds I was talking and thinking Kbits and sales was talking and thinking Kbytes so there was a little confusion. The installation occurred when they said it would... but they they gave me a 6 hour window (am of the day). My initial problems were related to forgotten tweaking I had done for my 56K conn long ago, however, trouble shooting with tech support did not help -- I eventually realized what was happenning and remembered the tweaks. At the time, all tech support did was point me to »speedguide.net -ironically DNS crashed everytime I tried to go there.. some tech support people had the same problem. (however, now that that issue is resolved, I, like them, refer people there as a great site for learning/adjusting/tweaking/testing broadband - if I could have gotten there earlier my problems would have been realized and fixed immediately (I also refer people here to DSLR)) Since that time I have had/still have certain issues like when my dialup dials the call doesn't go through. The problem is (I can't complain about a busy signal like AOL users) the call just doesn't go through. I have two local numbers; unlike my previous ISP (Superlink), when one won't go through, the other won't either. When I do get a connection, speed can be a crap shoot at any time of day -- peak or off-peak) I get not-infrequent "pauses" in my throughput but when it works ....those downloads fly - uploads are still at least 2x faster in pure 56K dialup to the same dialup number. As to tech support, I have read some things positive, and some negative..... my personal experience is negative. Personally, I have had long wait times, 50% of my calls where I am put on hold after finally talking with someone has resulted in a disconnect. The best call I had was as the result of being tranferred to the wrong department.. Corporate Accounts -- that guy was knowledgable and helpful , even listened to my rant on Support employeee's knowledge on how to work a hold button, then stayed on the line while transfering me to the correct dept.... course it went downhill from there. I have never had problems with RCN support for CATV - they are always knowledgable and helpful - not to mention the wait time is ALWAYS less than 5 (usually instantanious). I have two options now that Northpoint is dead - RCN or 56K; at this time.. the download speed outweighs everything else. [update] 1 year later: Tech support has improved immensly since my review. About 5mos ago I started have problems where I kept losing my downstream connection. The 3-Com CMX modem I was provided has been replaced twice and finally replaced with a SB3100. Since the SB3100, the problem has gone away. My upload speeds also went from 9K to 24K when the SB3100 was installed (may not seem like much but a VAST improvement - one-way cable still sucks). I no longer have any illusions about receiving 2-way service from RCN - the people on the phone won't even quote the old and tired "6mo - 1yr" from the scripts and both an installer and an RF tech have told me that I will see 2-way "when I move to an area that has it" ::sigh:: [/update] [update 2003-04-22] Well its been a while - If the website hadn't reminded me I'd of forgotten to update this. Anyway, after following advice here and a few places linked from here I managed to tweak my connection to achieve roughly 6mb down from decent ftp servers (also the OOL ftp speed test) needless to say - though my pings still sucked (24k up still sux) the speeds were very nice especially when getting patches. Now Patriot Communtications has bought my service area.... around that time there were some DNS issues but those are gone - but now I experience roughly 800-900 kbps downloads from the same tests -- no changes made to any of the settings - since there have been a few post regarding tis issue it appears that a cap has been introduced though there is no "official" word on this. According to the build out map at rcn (which as part of the terms of sale imposed by the state require to be met) I should be seeing 2-way before the end of 2004. Last month I got tempting news from Verizon - MY phone line was eligible for 1.5 DSL service now for roughly the same cost that my cable costs... but because its MY line and not the primary line to the house (which is still ineligible for any grade of DSL) the cost of maintaining the line + DSL service puts it beyond the price point. I could use the higher upload speed but its not worth that price..... and for those out there who wonder why I want the higher upload.. realize that a 1-way cable connection even with a 6mbit download still pings quake/hl/rtcw servers like a 56k (and in my case since I connect at 33.6k, somewhere between a 33.6k and 56k - but unlike a dial-up, its rock steady connection wise. [/Update 2003-04-22] [update 2003-05-01][RANT] Well its May 1,2003.... the conversion from RCN to Patriot has begun.... and not very successfully from my stand point. I got home from work and the modem was out - not a biggie because I lost downstream a lot under RCN.... I reset it and promptly got a receive signal - but wouldn't logon - so I called support (RCN... I forgot) was told by a nice newly added prompt that Patriot Media was my contact point now... called there and fortunately a recording said they knew that no one had modem service and that they were working on it -- fine, I've done enough conversions to know that there is a good reason you start it 5pm Friday night - because no one will be on it while you work out the kinks and hopefully have it working by 9am Monday (but sometimes even that doesn't happen) but these guys had to do it on a live network that is up 24/7 - so I can give them a little slack. I hung out on hold for about 40min because I needed to know the ip range for their DNS servers so that I could preconfigure the ol'firewall, but then I had to go to dinner...Big Mistake... got back called again... busy signal from 8:30 to 11pm then surprise surprise it started ringing, here is why: said by patmedia.net: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hours: M-F 7am-11pm, Sat. 8am-8pm, Sun. 8am-6pm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I never thought I was spoiled with 24/7 support - heck even my old LOCAL DIAL-UP ISP had 24/7 support years ago (though they contracted it out) Well starting at about 9pm I could connect to the net. I was still hardcoded into using RCN DNS servers but I could only access microsoft.com, msn.com and patmedia.net - everything else INCLUDING dslreports.com was a DNS error. So I followed the advice the have on their page and switched to automatic DNS so they could assign their own servers (turned off my firewall for testing) and also followed this advisory they posted on their front page: said by »www.patmedia.net/patriot/index.html: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Attention Modem Customers If you are still experiencing a connection problem, please take the following steps: 1. Shut down your PC. 2. Unplug the modem’s power cord from the wall outlet. 3. Wait 30 seconds. 4. Plug the cable modem’s power cord back in the wall outlet. 5. Wait until you see 4 green lights appear on the modem. 6. Restart your computer. If you're still having trouble after following these steps, please call 1-(866)-PAT-1776. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well a lot of good that phone number does... it was constantly busy and its now after 11. Anyway using the DNS servers they assigned me, I couldn't even access WWW.PATMEDIA.NET!!! So I switched back to my old DNS servers and voila there it is... with my limited browsing. Now you might be saying that its fixed because I am posting here... but you'd be wrong.... I never got around to ditching the AOL account on my machine because I have family that only uses it and they call asking for help - so I need to see what they are talking about...anyway I had a thought and remembered the days about 10yrs ago that gave me the reason to get another ISP in the first place, frequently when I wanted to go to a web site, I couldn't and would get a message like: all connections were in use and I should try again later -- AOL (even the BYOconnection model) connects to the web using its own connections. Anyway, I thought "hmmm, connecting to AOL doesn't need DNS.... lemme give it a try" - and lo and behold - it worked! Then on to my next experiment: can I connect from there to dslreports for 1)my fix 2)to post this rant. AND I CAN!!! Sadly I can... I am in an AOL window looking at Dslreports - but at least it works. As most of you here in the RCN Forum (er..now RCN/Patriot) know... RCN's DNS servers weren't the best at least as far as routing went... but unlike Patriot's, they WORKED! [/RANT] [PLEA for Help] Does anyone have some good (heck, working) DNS server IPs they can post for me to try? If there are any Patriot Media employees reading this willing to tell me - and the others - that there WILL be an automatic credit for the month of May for the loss of service - even if it is prorated? [/PLEA for Help] At the very least Patriot Media could have kept the call center up overnight for the first few days of the conversion and staffed it up - its not like RCN where they have to service NJ AND the rest of the eastern seaboard DC to Boston plus Chicago and San Fran.[/update 2003-05-01] [update 2003-11-24] Well, things have smoothed out conciderably since before. Finally got upgraded to 2-way digital service about a month ago. My connections have stablilized and I have noticed no problems. One of my splitters wasn't replaced with a new "digital" splitter, but I don't have the modem or a converter box after that one so it fine for now (but it is the main splitter in the attic that all the rooms except the basement are split from). -- As far as customer service goes, NJ law now requires that I get to speak to someone within 30sec - but I haven't had to call yet so that remains untested, [/update 2003-11-24] member for 23 years, 1129 visits, last login: 15.8 years ago updated 20.3 years ago
Installation: - Coordinated with 3 others who helped with the installation. - Took less than 1 hour (new wiring b/c RCN uses different cables) - Installer came early, which was a good thing. Speed: - 3 Mbps down - 100 KB up member for 22.4 years, 2143 visits, last login: 182 days ago lodged 20.3 years ago
I first had a one way modem, the telephone part would disconnect after being connected for a while (running Napster) I would modem support, they would have me change things pull up my MAC address delete temp files reboot the computer. I was calling about 4 or 5 times a week, for 2 months. Later I found out searching Google that this is normal for that brand of modem, gee I wished tech support would have told me this in the first place. After 3 months having a one way now the system is up graded and I can get a 2 way. 2 way was installed in 2 days! Now a year later I wan to own my own modem, I check RCN's webpage to see which one is compatable. Bought a Motorola on Ebay about $40.00. Connected it called tech support, 40 minute hold time ( I'm using a speaker phone thankfully) To my suprise no go only in Chicago and Mass. What had happened when I checked RCN's site there site search took me to the modem page bypassing the can or cannot own one page. I told tech support that I need to take out the nic card in my computer I need a USB modem. He told me that RCN will swap out the modem for on thats USB $50.00 service fee would be charged. I was able to get that changed to zero. OK Saturday I have a service call to swap the modem all day. By 7PM no one, called told told the time frame is 7AM to 9PM OK 10PM no show no call. I called Sunday morning and was told that I was wrong and my service call was set up for Monday all day. I told them that I was told Saturday. Tech support checked the CSR's notes and yes it was listed as Saturday. Sorry here's a $20.00 credit. OK Monday all day no show no call. Tuesday I went to the Ave. "A" office and spoke to the head of the office. He hads no idea why both no shows. This gentleman was very unhappy with his "people" over this. My account was credited another $20.00 and my new USB modem was installed 40 minutes later. I now lost no money over the Motorola modem Power outages: had a few while file sharing using winmx. Everything is backed up with UPS computer moniter modem router coffee maker. My connecton continued to run untill the power returns. Higher speeds: I'm now 3 Megs at extra cost. I just had the fastest download sofar. A driver file for my ATI card 25.3 Megs took 1minute 33 seconds. All in all RCN's 2-way cable modem is the best for me and should be for you. member for 20.4 years, driveby review (so far) lodged 20.4 years ago
Got service within 3 days of order, two techs came in one for drilling and running new line, the other for cable modem setup. Bought my own modem, they let people do that in my area, so no more rental fees. Had RoadRunner for almost two years before that, all sorts of problems including dropped connection and very slow speed after 8pm. RCN has new Fibre in my neighborhood, low user count per router, so my speed maybe drops 10k during evening time. Very low ping, online games and streaming video are never a problem. Speed 3mbps/800kbps, recently upgraded to 5Mbps FREE!!! Excellent service, low maintenance, Extremely Fast! --- Don't wait switch to RCN if you can! member for 20.4 years, 15 visits, last login: 14.9 years ago lodged 20.4 years ago
75$/mon for the first year, then $88 after that. The pre-sales service was good, installation took only 30min, everything went good, TV has lot of channels, more than comcast(previous ISP), speed was really fast. 48xx/6xx, with free upgrade to the MEGAMODEM, but after a little while, service stability is horrible. It would drop off line for a while, sometimes 1hr-2hr is the usual duration. But once was as long as 13hrs. Since I am getting pretty clear picture, I am not sure what the problem is...today a tech was supposed to come out and check, but never showed up, never gave me a call either. Sometimes the service is up, but it would have 80~ish% packet loss. It's really weird, these downtimes and huge packet loss pretty much kills my gaming. I am thinking I need to go back to comcast or go DSL or something, because comcast was not as fast, but it IS however, better in the stablity department. Help I like starpower, I dont wanna go back to comcast, I wish they can fix this little issue and I'll be RCN customer forever. member for 21.2 years, 111 visits, last login: 13.7 years ago lodged 20.4 years ago
I was originally very happy with RCN/STARPOWER. They offered better quality service than the competition (COMCAST). With their modem I got a DHCP connection with good downlad speeds and the $40/month was not to unreasonable. Service was largely consistent and even in or after storms (not electrical storms) I could stay connected. Each time I called custoemrservice was prompt and answered questions intelligently. However, something changed during the summer of 2003 something changed. RCN went BAD! In late August the nightmare began when the modem went out. After a three hour telephone call (most of it on hold) I was told that customer service would come out and replace my defective modem for free IN A MONTH! Or, I could buy my own modem, pay $50 and they'd be out in THREE DAYS. Oh, and if I waited the month I might have to pay for service even though I could not cnnect--what a deal. Since I cannot be without Internet I accepted their not so subtle coercion to pay them. When the tech came out, he made one telephone call -- read the modem's serial number and MAC address, and left. Total time in house about 5 minutes (or $10 per minute -- but hey, who's counting?!). This was customer service? At this time I'd already been on the telephone with them for about 3 hours (and 8 hours of hold time -- I logged every call). As of the present time, RCN has clearly grown beyond its capability to support its customers. Wait times are at least 30 minutes except at 3 AM. Wait times of 90 minutes have not, in my experience, been uncommon. The only reason I remain with them is that the competition, according to neighbors who have it, is even worse. This is a case of the lesser of two evils. I for one am waiting for decent wirelessinto the neighborhood -- then we'll switch to satellite for the TV's and go wireless in the house. member for 20.4 years, driveby review (so far) lodged 20.4 years ago
|