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Review by malbiniak 
Posted: 5 days ago
Fair warning: reviewer joined this week
 Chicago,Cook,IL
 $55 per month (12 month contract)
 about 1 days
 "Very fast installation."
 "Unacceptable internet service. > 50% packet loss. Poor tech support."
 "Avoid."
| Pre Sales information:
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Moved to Chicago from Minneapolis. Really surprised that Comcast didn't service the building I was moving into (Edgewater neighborhood). Building management said cable service was provided by RCN, a company I haven't heard of before. I looked into it, the website made it sound like a new company with a new (more reliable network), and I qualified for $55/mo for 20mb down, 3mb up + HD cable TV, but had to sign a 12 month contract. Sounded like a good deal, so why not.
Yikes. At best, I'm getting 10mbps down, and about 1.2mbps up....midweek. On the weekends, I'm lucky to see 5mbps down. In addition, I'm showing anywhere between 30-50% packet loss...on a regular basis.
Tech support is useless. They'll ask you to power cycle, they'll reset the modem, and then they'll send a tech out. The tech will find line noise, they'll send a network engineer to the node, discover line noise through the neighborhood, mark the issue resolved, and so repeats the cycle. I've escalated through different channels, but can't seem to find permanent resolution.
I'm hardly ever able to connect to the VPN in our Minneapolis office, and the connection is entirely unreliable during the day.
I just finished switching from RCN to AT&T DSL. Not stoked about the $45/mo for 6mbps ADSL, but at this point, I need a reliable connection, no matter the cost.
Bottom line? Avoid RCN...at least in Edgewater, Chicago.
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Review by Flyersfan72
Posted: 102 days ago
member for 3.3 years, 37 visits, last login: 10 days ago
Coplay,Lehigh,PA
$130 per month
"reliable"
"still one way cable, price"
"I'd be such a HUGE fan IF I could just get two way cable"
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I've been an RCN customer for over 10 years. I've had cable modem access the entire time. Back when I first got it in the house, one-way cable was not necessarily cutting edge but not many people had cable modems. As time went on, more and more of my friends were getting cable modems AND they were two way. Along with two way came many other features including the ability to order pay per view events and video on demand. Today, I'm paying so much for a fraction of the services others have available. I'm so frustrated with RCN and the fact that I have not been upgraded and quite possibly never will be. A few weeks ago there was a Service Electric truck at the pole outside my house. According to him, Service Electric was going to be running lines down my road and would be providing two way cable services by the end of summer.
To this day no word from RCN....no word from SECTV. Come on guys ..... who wants my money???
Followup comments:  
bender
Bite my shiny metal ass
Premium
join:2005-03-19
Evanston, IL
clubs: | . what do you mean one way cable? | |
| | 
CBL B0X
@rcn.com
| Re: . said by bender :what do you mean one way cable? One way cable means that the cable modem receives information over the cable line, but sends out through a telephone line. The fastest speed you can get with one way is 1500k/56k. Also with one way you don't get things like VOD. | |
| | |
bender
Bite my shiny metal ass
Premium
join:2005-03-19
Evanston, IL
clubs: | Re: . wow. just wow. i would take that modem and shove it up their ass. | |
| | Flyersfan72
join:2006-07-11
Coplay, PA
 ·RCN CABLE
| said by bender :what do you mean one way cable? That's pretty funny. It's like me telling my boys I have a rotary phone up in the attic I guess.
said by rcnman :Please PM me your account # or address and I'll see where we stand with regards to upgrade of your plant. Thanks, Jason thanks Jason - I look forward to some good news! | |
| 
rcnman
Jason Nealis
Premium,VIP
join:2003-05-02
Herndon, VA | RCN LHV Please PM me your account # or address and I'll see where we stand with regards to upgrade of your plant.
Thanks,
Jason
--
Jason Nealis,
Sr. Director, Video Product and Video Operations | |
| | Flyersfan72
join:2006-07-11
Coplay, PA | Re: RCN LHV Hi again Jason. Any updates? I have not heard from RCN. | |
| 
fatness
subtle
Janitor
join:2000-11-17
fishing |  (topic move) update - one way/crush in Lehigh Valley
Moderator Action
This topic was moved to the forum RCN
stated reason was: This was intended as a post in the public RCN forum. | |
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Review by syborg1404
UPDATED: 207 days ago
member for 8.7 years, 888 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Easton,Northampton,PA
$160 per month
about 3 days
"Fast, mostly reliable, and packages make service more affordable"
"Expensive without a package - Packages don't insulate you from big price increases"
"For internet and phone: outstanding. TV: HD outlook is poor with no improvement in sight"
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Switched over 10 years ago from local provider dialup to RCN's 1 way service. Now using Mach 20 - extremely fast with downloads in real world approaching 75% of rated bandwidth. One issue required replacement of modem and router and rewiring - tech was prompt, professional and courteous.
Significant problems with HD and HDDVR that took 5 weeks to resolve...broken boxes, missed techs (who came at 1:15 instead of 5- 8). Issues with billing last year were finally straightened out and I am satisfied with the package - HDTV quality is good, but selection of channels is poor.
I am strongly considering satellite TV even though I have to pay a bit more money. RCN raised rates and dropped included services from my "package" of features starting with May 2009 billing. Bottom line was my bill went up $20 a month and it will go up another $80 when my package expires. I'm tired of having to renegotiate every year. DirecTV offers almost 3 times more HD channels than RCN in the Lehigh Valley and there's no likelihood that will change for a year.
Followup comments: 
furlonium
Computer Over? Virus equals Very Yes?
join:2002-05-08
Bethlehem, PA | Speed issues Maybe it's the site where you're testing speeds? I find the best way for me to test my speeds, if I need to, is to do so through Newsgroups. I've never not hit my full 20mbps through there, so if it's ever lower, I know something will be up. | |
|
Grumble
@rcn.com
| Cable Service I agree with you Syborg. I've been an RCN customer for years and am getting really disgusted. I've had no problems with my phone or internet service, but is seems like the price keeps going up and the cable channel options and customer service keep going down (unless, of course, you want to upgrade and pay even more). At this point, I am seriously considering Service Electric...I never thought I would utter those words! Very disappointing! | |
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Review by johnp292
UPDATED: 214 days ago
member for 255 days, 53 visits, last login: 179 days ago
Easton,Northampton,PA
$40 per month
about 3 days
"Quick installation, pleasant reps, internet service best I've ever used"
"Poor selection of HD channels, expensive, very limited VOD offering in the Lehigh Valley"
"If you are in the Lehigh Valley PA area consider other options if you can"
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RCN apparently is neglecting its customers in the Lehigh Valley area. Very limited selection of HD channels, the Video on Demand is very very limited. They are also expensive especially considering how little they offer. We're so disappointed with the TV service we are switching to satellite. However the Internet service has been very good, totally reliable and fast. We plan to keep RCN for Internet only.
UPDATE: Switched to DirecTV, kept RCN for Internet. Still happy with the Internet service, and don't miss their TV service one bit.
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Review by Goliath
Posted: 222 days ago
member for 2.8 years, 142 visits, last login: 58 days ago
Easton,Northampton,PA
$220 per month
"great phone service! - is that even a good point?"
"20 HD channels! High SPEED that doesnt work unless its 2AM."
"AVOID RCN! get VERIZON FIOS! if verizon is reading this, you will make a killing in the Lehigh Valley. Get here fast..."
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im planning on getting direct TV/DSL until verizon FiOS gets into the Easton area. you try and ask RCN employees like joe and rcnman to comment on the LHV area to atleast give you an insight as to whats going on & and they just avoid your comments/posts. that goes to show you they dont have a immediate plan for the area. ALSO NOTE! we here in the lehigh valley pay the same amount as markets that get 100+ HD channels while we get about 25.. how pathetic.
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Review by topping
Posted: 224 days ago
member for 7.7 years, 20 visits, last login: 62 days ago
Long Island City,Queens,NY
$30 per month
"Low price, consistent service"
"Consistently slow uploads. It's really awful."
"Thinking about exercising my 30-day money back."
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It seems to me that the service is pretty strongly slanted toward casual users. For regular surfing, it's pretty reasonable. But if you have to so anything with an upload, which I occasionally have to do for business, it's a real dog. I called them and the rep spent a lot of time dissing FIOS, which I guess just means it rocks. Too bad it's in the building next door and not in mine.
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 Review by RomanTribune
UPDATED: 252 days ago
member for 7.8 years, 420 visits, last login: 3 days ago
undisclosed location
$50 per month
about 7 days
"When everything works its okay"
"Service is terrible. When service to one part of the package goes down, all three services crash-i.e. phone, cable, and Internet"
"I would switch to Verizon FOIS if I could, but its not offered in my area YET!"
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Tuesday, February 3, 2008
I dropped RCN's cable today. The last straw was the two weeks I was without HD channels. I had to make an appointment for a tech to come over and fix the cable, but the earliest appointment was a week away.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Over the last few weeks, telephone calls made and received, have been disconnected amidst conversations. Yesterday was the final straw. I contacted Verizon and made the switch. RCN's phone service is abysmal. I am now contemplating dropping cable from them all together. I still have the internet service which has been working okay over the last week.
After switching to Verizon phone service, an RCN customer service rep called me and "promised" me to fix whatever problems I had in a voicemail. Typical! I called her back the same day and obviously could not reach her. I left her a very long and tersed message explaining all the problems I have had with the lousy tech support from RCN that is farmed out of the United States to the Philippines. Then she called me back and left another message while I was out. And I called her again. AMAZINGLY, I STILL COULD NOT REACH HER! The lunch breaks must be very long at RCN. I left another message.
Then I decided to call customer support, amazingly, there was another person on the line. It only took 40 minutes to get to a human being instead of 1 hour. I spoke to him for at least 45 minutes explaining the problems I have had with their phone service, internet service, and cable service.
I continue to have problems receiving my cable channels since RCN changed its cable channel lineup and failed to notify me via email, phone, or mail. This screwed up all my cable and HD channels, not to mention the other services I have. Even after I fixed the channel lineup I continued to have problems with the HD channels. The customer service rep admitted that there are problems and apologized for the service interruptions and actually gave me a refund on the phone and cable bills. However, I had enough and decided to change my cable lineup and dropped the HD channels. I can't wait for FIOS! I am thinking of dropping cable all together.
_______________________________________________________________
Sunday, January 11, 2009
My service package changed unknown to me. I didn't know I was going to lose several HD channels, that I had already paid for. But RCN said there was nothing I could do.
Amazing!
My internet speeds have declined to the point, I had to call a technician, and while explaining the situation to him, the phone disconnected. Another Amazing happening.
He never called back! That was great customer service.
___________________________________________________________________
October, 2008
When I moved to Maryland from the Middle East, I was told by my manager about RCN's package deal of cable, phone, and Internet. So I thought I would give this a try. The service was good for 1 month and then it began to crash frequently. And when one service went down, all three services usually followed.
The customer service is horrible! When you call them you can wait for up to 1 and 1/2 hour to speak to someone. The worst thing about this is that you have to call each individual department- cable, phone, and Internet and you get put on hold for quite a while, usually 1 hour or more. There is no one telephone number that you call. This is pathetic and a big waste of money!
You can get through if you are off from work and home during the work week. They seem to be free then.
Their prices are outrageous.
A few months ago, I was charged over $400.00 dollars for a bill. This mistake came from a customer care representative who &*% my bill by forgetting to make the correct changes to my cable (discount), phone (discount), and Internet (discount). I had to call customer service twice because the first person, put me on hold for 40 minutes, and then hung up on me. I had to call a 2nd time and finally got through and spent 2 hours fixing my bill. It dropped more than $250.00. And after getting that done, RCN still would not give me a free day or week of cable, phone or Internet service. They really dropped the ball here.
Unfortunately, I can't get Verizon FIOS yet. But I am seriously considering Comcast Cable for everything.
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Review by dslrep0990
UPDATED: 270 days ago
member for 271 days, 1 visits, last login: 270 days ago
Brighton,Suffolk,MA
$53 per month (month by month)
about 30 days
"Month-to-month service contract"
"Lousy help desk, connectivity problems, RCN does not deliver what it sells"
"RCN STINKS!!! AVOID AT ALL COSTS"
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Service ordered: high-speed (10 Mbps) Internet cable access only (no TV or telephony).
RCN charges too much for a service that does not deliver what they promise (I bought 10 Mbps service, but I never get more than 5 Mbps download and 368 Kbps upload).
Appalling customer "service", nobody mans the help desk & when you finally get someone (after many many minutes waiting on hold), they are inept and clueless...
Erratic connectivity. Occasional disconnections that can last hours, sometimes days. No information is ever provided to users before or after.
Bottom line: RCN service is a rip-off. Run in the other direction!
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Review by Clodas
Posted: 295 days ago
member for 312 days, 36 visits, last login: 43 days ago
Boston,Suffolk,MA
$136 per month (12 month contract)
"Great HD Lineup and good Cable Packages"
"Internet is slower than DSL even with the 20Mbps service"
"Great for HD Cable, but Terrible internet speeds"
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In theory it all sounds amazing, great price for a ton of HD Channels and 20Mbps Internet Service. I am very disappointed with the internet speeds I get at peak times. I get near 20 Mbps during the day when everyone is out at work, but then drops to less than 1Mbps from 7pm to 1am. I am extremely aggravated by the fact that I am paying for 20Mbps and only receiving 5% of it. I am getting robbed!!! If they fix their Internet situation, then I would give their service 5 stars from me. I am not the only one complaining about their speed either, they currently have a serious problem at hand.
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Review by abrody
UPDATED: 307 days ago
member for 9.3 years, 270 visits, last login: 22 days ago
Silver Spring,Montgomery,MD
$96 per month (month by month)
about 4 days
"High speed even during peak holiday times. Relatively good reliability"
"Joint phone/cable/cable internet service all over electric lines. Customer service loses points for no weekend hours."
"Customer service still needs improvement but overall a good price, and a good competition"
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January 17, 2009 after numerous letters and calls, I finally managed to get my rate decreased by $10 a month without their telling me they would do that. So in the end, they made the right choice.
December 15, 2008 while I have temporarily managed to stave off the higher fees due to the digital switchover , they have also also managed to not offer me any
good way of regaining the HD stations I lost due to the digital switchover. I have a QAM tuner HDTV, but I can't receive the HD stations I was able to receive before the digital switchover. Now they require you to either rent an HD box by going to their inconvenient service center, or spend $50 to have someone come out with the box, and then rent the box to get the same stations, and wait for them to come out
and they may not even show up. I've repeatedly ask their support department to consider FEDexing or UPSing it, but to no effect. They won't budge on that. Unfortunately the only other options, Comcast require service installation that might not show on time, or Verizon that costs $150 for installation and potential damage to my walls because other wires would have to be installed. Not exactly an appealing situation. Anyway, if a choice did come that actually had a "customer service" I'd pick it up in a jiffy. Unfortunately I'm in a place that doesn't receive satellite either.
September 19, 2008 After about dozens of e-mails they finally confirm the digital switchover is happening October 1st. And no mail regarding this at all.
Secondly, I'm going to be forced to remove my wall mounted TV to reconnect it to a digital box. Third I'm going to have to get two digital boxes, renting one so I can have TV in my bedroom. Fourth I'm going to be forced to use multiple remotes since RCN's box is not possible to program to work with universal remotes.
This is a real pain.
July 2, 2008: After e-mailing RCN I discovered that come March 2009, all stations on their cable service will be digital, necessitating a digital box on their end to receive any stations on their service. That just blows. I'm sure Comcast and Fios are going to be the same.
March 23, 2007: RCN has a major outage. Initially when I called and checked
their automated system to find out if there was an issue in my area, they said there was none. So I asked to be transferred to tech support. Upon being transferred to the tech support hold system, they mention the major outage, and expecting it to be out for 8 hours. Called a bit later, they changed it till midnight. Within an hour I was getting 10% of my DNSes were resolving, but slow as 56k. Finally by 11 PM everything started going lickety split. They need to get their announcements of service outages in sync on all their phone systems, and not just one.
April 2, 2006: that 7 Mbps upgrade was only a temporary thing. Turns out they introduced a 10 Mbps service, and in order to get the same rate as I was getting before I had to drop to 5 Mbps. Not bad, but still holding out for FIOS. Currently monthly cost listed includes both Cable TV and Internet.
February 7, 2006, service still going strong. Calling them a month ago, I got 7 Mbps upgrade for free. Very nice.
June 15, 2005: First outage since returned. I called, and their tape recording immediately notified me of the problems. They said hold times to speak were over 10 minutes, but I got to speak to someone in two minutes! They told me the problem was even so evident that the people in their own support office weren't able to get on the internet. 2 hours later everything was up and running. An interesting side note is that within half an hour I had temporary service restored in being able to instant message, but not send e-mail or browse the web! Troublesome they weren't able to give me an ETA on when the service would be restored, but it looks like it was something minor since it only lasted two hours.
March 20th, 2005: Found that customer support is not available on weekends, only technical support is. However after much haggling I got through to a manager who was able to notate on my account that the billing was in error. I am on autopay with them, and they failed to process my March bill because my credit card's expiration date update was not notated to the right place. By Tuesday all should be cleared. But honestly, billing issues with a national company should not have to require calling back only during bankers hours on internet service providers. I'm glad I finally did get through to a manager and he provided me with his extension if I should have further difficulty. Hopefully RCN/Starpower will take my feedback and make improvements in their customer service line.
March 11th, 2005: Starpower upgrades my modem speed for 4300/600 according to Megapath in New Jersey. Was only 1200/400 before. Wasn't told of the upgrade, but should see what happens to the bill shortly. Very nice speed.
February 19th, 2005, returned to Starpower after my DSL provider kept on dropping my connection speed to the point they told me they couldn't offer me a higher speed. Starpower's re-emergence from bankruptcy has given me new hope that I can use them for internet. Intriguingly, customer service did not do their job today when the installation happened, as they never called me to tell me the installer would be late. I called twice, once at 1 PM, and once at 2 PM, when my install window was 11 AM to 2 PM. Apparently the installer knew he was going to be late, and had called the office to tell them at 11:30 AM that he would be. He finally did show up at 2:30, but the fact that they weren't able to tell me anything about his being late when I called at 1 PM shows they have a communication problem in the customer service office which needs to be resolved. I did log a complaint, but I'm glad I waited, and the install went relatively smoothly. The installer found that his first modem was bad, and the second one worked great. This time, I'm actually not going to use them for phone access as I get more services with my phone carrier I switched to back in July, Cavalier Telephone. Price in review includes cable internet and TV.
July 2004 I left RCN internet and phone after hearing about their Chapter 11 bankruptcy. What amazes me is that they still offer 6 months of free membership to new members even under bankruptcy protection. How do you think they will reorganize if they don't charge for their services? This is like deficit spending. No wonder they are bankrupt!
»RCN Bankruptcy Protection
I only wish they could have offered what they did and still manage to stay healthy financially. As it is, I have switched to Cavalier phone and DSL.
February 1st 2003 I ordered the service to be installed on February 8th, and the service technician never came during the entire 4 hour window. February 15th the service technician finally did come, albeit 2.5 hours late into the 3 hour window even though I was told my request for the first service call was made. The technician told me that he had to get equipment even though he was only 10 miles away in Burtonsville. In anycase, for the most part the service has been solid. There have been a few occasions where I had to pull the power to the modem as customer service does not recommend using the on/off or reset switch to reset the modem. Even so, the service speeds have been more than Comcast ever was, and if anything have improved over the past several months. One case I was 3 hours without service due to some outage, and of course during Hurricane Isabel without electricity I couldn't get my Cable modem working. What surprised me though was that the phone line which supposedly went over the electric lines with Starpower went out 6 hours after the electric. Thus I suspect they have different nodes for cable, internet and phone. Still I was not informed when I signed up that the service was over the electric lines, I was told it was over the same cable lines as Comcast, and that RCN owned the lines and leased them to Comcast, hence the higher cost for Comcast. Later a neighbor told me it was the electric lines, and I verified this was the case with several posts here at DSL Reports. Local phone service area also differs from Verizon. Some 703 area code numbers are not reachable with the free local calling that are with Verizon, what's worse they charged me long distance on those calls even though I didn't dial a one first, and I had to complain about that. The good thing is, I don't have to make that many phonecalls, so the overall service doesn't cost more than if I paid Verizon separately from Starpower, and costs probably about $10 less. And $20 less than if I did Comcast and Verizon.
Tech support doesn't always know when there is an outage, but on occasion they have known and put a message on the hold tape recording so I didn't have to wait to find out why my service was out. Most outages last less than half an hour, and there has been maybe one every month and a half. The only time the phone service went out was during Isabel, though at times the phone line has been noisy. I have had the service continuously since February, and added the phone service in June. Like they said, you keep your same phonenumber.
The good thing is their service has never denied my sent e-mail, unlike Comcast which did that numerous times.
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