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Review by BMD 
UPDATED: 151 days ago
member for 2.2 years, 2 visits, last login: 151 days ago
 Elgin,Kane,IL
 $110 per month
 about 5 days
 "I can get online"
 "So far no provider can deliver what they advertise"
 "It works"
| Pre Sales information:
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Tech Support:
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Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
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Update at bottom of page...
After between 5 & 6 years of Comcast we made the change to WOW. Comcast was never stable enough to go with TV and Internet service so we suffered through with just the Internet where we were getting Approx 30% performance of what they advertised.
Once again with WOW service after approx 1 week of service have not hit advertised performance once. Very disappointing but on the bright side there tech support did get in touch with me right away via email "as I requested" and not only offered to look over any results from software I was using but also gave me links to other sites / utilities.
Another odd thing is the DVR delivered for the Cable TV had obviously been used elsewhere as there were pre recorded shows sucking up 70% of the hardrive and no manual left with us. As with other Cable TV providers has some of the worst user interface out there. If anyone has seen the difference between Satellite and Cable as far as menu's etc. the difference is amazing!. But back to the Internet....I hope we can get this all worked out & up and running high speed consistantantly instead of only getting close once every other day or so...
UPDATE: I was reading some of the other post's and I just wanted to say that the phone service I received from WOW works just fine, Way better than the srvice "I received" from Comcast.
Also I would recommend to try some other Speed related utilities, I cant help but feel that some of the one's I have tried that have the Cable providers name on the same page may be slightly skewed if you know what I mean...
Dan Ewell's »www.broadbandspeedtest.net/
www.tcpiq.com
UPDATE:
Well we have been with WOW awhile now and the service has been solid, no outages or interruptions and the phone service is great.
Once again the speeds are never as advertised, We were just getting ready to try ATT Uverse till I asked the tech some questions prior to install.
They use your existing cable for the TV and run the Internet over the phone lines "HUH?" as you can tell i'm a little anal about my Internet speeds as I view allot of online video's and do alot of online gaming and I'm sorry but there's no way I can see the speeds advertised happening on a phone line and ATT's documentation even states they only guarantee the speeds "to your modem"
When they offer a ps3 integrated with a modem then maybe I'll try it.
I would still prefer satellite for my TV but at this point it's to pricey to have 2 separate services.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of WOW Internet and Cable |
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Review by caldeju
UPDATED: 242 days ago
member for 5.5 years, 20 visits, last login: 217 days ago
Chicago,Cook,IL
$149 per month (month by month)
"Inter net goes down alot"
"I would not tell anyone to get"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings well below consensus)
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I have had WOW for over a year here and They can not keep the internet up to speed. They bought a bankrupt cable company hard lines and have not replace or fixed cable, repeaters or old not work amps. Every time any weather wind ( 3.5+ miles per Hour), rain and or snow the system goes down and will stay down till they get fed up with calls they will go and remove couplings on their lines and hope to get thing back up. Do they replace amps, NO they just spray the pots turn them up then down and forget them till next time. I have even set the CEO an email and they did come out but still they did not replace the amps or replace the repeaters that "they say are in bad need to be replaced" but don’t have the money to do such a thing.
If you are also having a problem send email to ceo@wowway.net .
Well here is a update They call this 15mg down 1.5 up loads I dont see that and I have been running Their speed test.
..Speed Test #69018204 by dslreports.com
Run: 2009-03-24 23:20:20 EST
Download: 10270 (Kbps)
Upload: 1084 (Kbps)
In kilobytes per second: 1253.6 down 132.4 up
Tested by server: 12 java
User: 1011262 @ dslreports.com
User's DNS: wideopenwest.com
Compared to the average of 86 tests from wideopenwest.com:
* download is 97% better, upload is 10% better
Followup comments:  MCRoberts
join:2005-09-27
Royal Oak, MI | Rehash Review Do you honestly feel the need to update the same review with the latest speed metrics, just to make sure your review stays on the most recent review list?
We get it. You're getting sucky service. | |
| | 
imrf
Premium
join:2002-06-06
Utica, MI
 ·WOW Internet and C..
| Re: Rehash Review I love how he makes up a story to make WOW look bad. He doesn't even know the history. Or that they would tell him all field gear needs to be replaced desperately. I don't think so. His area was never bought from a bankrupt company, it was owned by SBC. And the WOW e-mail addresses are @wowway.com. | |
| 
WOW customer
@wideopenwest.com
| WOW is great WOW service is great. After being a WOW customer for a few years, they offered to give me a faster internet speed for free. I get the speed they say it is, exactly, no less. The service has gone done due to bad weather occasionally, but only as much as Google mail. Plus, the price of my service is a lot cheaper than other service providers, especially since its bundled with my cable and phone.
P.S. I've never touched the wow mail web client so i can't say anything on that. | |
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 Review by CCat
UPDATED: 295 days ago
member for 3.9 years, 2224 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Berea,Cuyahoga,OH
$57 per month
about 5 days
"Fairly consistent, support OK"
"Falling behind with speed increases."
"Still good but competition is overtaking them."
| Pre Sales information:
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Initially ordered 4000/500 at $49/mo. Increased this to the Ultra 6000/500 for $59. (WOW later increased this to 6000/650 for rented modems) Dynamic IP. The install was good, took about 5 days from order to install.
When I first got WOW it was great. Fast speeds consistently. As time went on it seemed that they just added more customers but did nothing to improve their system. Now they are no better or no worse than their competition. If they do not start increasing their service I believe they will start loosing their customers. As far as their support it remains the same, pretty good. The price could be better but its still competitive. So far nothing else has a lot more to offer, so I will stick with them for the time being.
5/3/06 - For the last few months Ive only been averaging 2.5mb - 3.0mb for download speed everything checks out OK (inside). WOW says it doesn't have any problems on their end. Have to set up an appointment with a specialist to have my setup checked. Hope this gets resolved its driving me crazy.
11/3/06 - Resolved the issue with my speed. Seems it was my anti-virus resident scanner. I uninstalled that AV and installed a different one. Now my speeds are 6300-6500 down and 650 up. Would still like to see WOW get their ultra package to 10/2, but I guess that wont happen for a while.
5/6/07 - Nothing has changed since the last time. One thing I will say is that I have not had an outage or a single issue with the service. I guess that's a plus considering some problems others have had with different ISP's.
12/15/07 - Speeds are about the same (as advertised) 6300-6500 down and 650 up. No issues or outages, so in that respect they are doing good. The competition has upped their speed to 15000/768 for their turbo tier. Will have to do some checking on that, but for now all is good.
Mar 2008 - Switched to Roadrunner. They came up with a much better offer.
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 Review by skyhook
UPDATED: 309 days ago
member for 5.3 years, 1660 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Columbus,Franklin,OH
$67 per month
about 6 days
"They answer the phone."
"Very rude support people."
"Stay away if you require a reliable internet connection."
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(ratings well below consensus)
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I've been with WoW since they bought the assets of Americast. They used to offer more and better service for the money spent but sadly that is no longer the case. You rarely get the internet speed you are paying for and network congestion is always a big problem. Not a good thing if you play online games.
----------------
01-16-2009
I canceled the service. They couldn't (or wouldn't) provide on internet connection that supports real time protocols like VOIP or video streaming. Jitter and lost packets made voice communications impossible about half the time.
Maybe WOW can work through these problem in time, but avoid them until they do.
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Review by robwow24
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 5.3 years, 12 visits, last login: 364 days ago
Columbus,Franklin,OH
$59 per month (12 month contract)
"Modest pricing for low-incomers on cable/Internet/phone package"
"Up and down Internet connections too much... no consistency even at 6 MBps"
"Should have been more consistent on speed connection and servicing"
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I've been happy with the 8 Mbps Internet connection so far but my real concern is the price package for a 8 or 15 Mbps connection, which is much higher than an average $70 for 20 or 40 Mbps in some broadband-wired countries. Now I'm wondering why WOW goes only 2 Mbps AND 8 Mbsp and not with a 4 or 6 Mbps option in between? It's puzzling.
Cable servicing have been really good to me so far, except for an occasional video pixilation during broadcasting, whether a TV show or a sport game, every once in a while. That would be a normal interference from other sources beyond WOW's controls.
I don't use WOW's digital phone service.
WOW's tech support: let me say this - not always helpful in most cases but seldom helpful in the easy cases. The last one - about three weeks ago - was pretty rude and curt to me, even though I politely inquired why I am having a stalling connection for two days, with speed going from 2 to 4 MBps instead of the usual 6 MBps. There is no need for some WOW tech support to be rude and curt with me. Not every customer is very tech-savvy or IT-savvy.
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Review by CrimsonChaos
UPDATED: 1.3 years ago
member for 7.3 years, 73 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago
North Royalton,Cuyahoga,OH
$99 per month
"Well, they installed quickly..."
"The Internet was slow, the DVR didn't work, and the phone wouldn't accept incoming calls..."
"DO NOT GET WOW *PERIOD*"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings well below consensus)
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Frankly, I'd rather NO ONE get WOW, due to their false advertising practices. But I realize some regions may have fared better than I have with this company. Plus, I guess everyone falsely advertises these days.
I was going to switch to WOW (from Time Warner) because of the $99/month deal they were offering for Cable, Phone, and Internet with free DVR - NO RISK, MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. At the time I was paying Time Warner about $110/month for just Cable and Internet.
They came out and installed the equipment without a hitch. They said the phone would be activated the next day, and something about letting the Internet run a day if it seems slow at first.
Well a few days went by, and while I was able to place outgoing calls on my phone, but I was not able to receive incoming calls. Fortunately, I discovered this only because we bought a new phone and I wanted to hear how loud the ringer was. So I called myself from my cellphone, just to find it was not working.
Additionally, the Internet speeds were VERY inconsistent. It could range anywhere between LESS THAN 1 Mbps to about 5Mbps. Now, I realizes that when a company advertises "up to 6Mbps" that you might not expect it to always be 6Mbps. But many times, especially in the evenings, the speed fell drastically and even under 1 Mbps. My wife could even tell how slow the Internet was compared to Time Warner.
And lastly, the DVR would lock up quite often. I had to reboot it (and sometimes call WOW to have them reset something), which was a major inconvenience. Other than that the DVR was fine. The PIP worked nicely, and the recording features were great.
So I called Tech Support. Their message said "due to increased volume from the $99/mo promotion, wait times may be longer than normal". So in other words you launched a promotion but didn't hire enough support to accomodate? Brilliant. Of course, as they predicted, my wait was rather lengthy - over 1/2 hour! The good news is when someone answered, they spoke English and were helpful. They said they would have the phone fixed by tomorrow, and that they would send out a technician to check my Internet.
Well the phone never did work, but a Technician did come out two days later. He told me that the reason the Internet was slow was because WOW's "taps" are not as large as Time Warner's. He then proceeded to tell me that I would likely never have the speed that Time Warner gave me because of their smaller "taps". Ok, I admit I have no idea what a "tap" is, but is this really what you tell a paying customer? Like, do you have any plans on increasing the size of your "taps" (if this is really even the problem)? Do you think something might be done so you can deliver speeds that are competitive with Time Warner?? The good thing is at least he got my phone working.
So after some e-mails back and forth with WOW's tech support about the Internet speed, basically they said nothing could be done about it. So I cancelled the service, after just about 1.5 weeks of having it. Do you know they sent me a bill for $99? And do you know I've sent letters to them explaining their advertisement said NO RISK, MONEY BACK GUARANTEE? Basically they are trying to charge me $99 for 1.5 weeks of service that never worked properly. And get this, THEY WILL NOT CREDIT MY ACCOUNT.
So I called Time Warner, who was able to offer me something called "Triple Play", which was also $99/month for Cable, Internet, and Phone (though no DVR). And hey, guess what - everything worked perfectly as soon as it was installed! Seriously, when Time Warner is beating you in every facet of providing service and customer support, you have some MAJOR ISSUES. Not that I think any WOW people are reading this as they're too busy sending out false advertisements, but GET A CLUE, WOW. I will be telling every single person I know NOT to get your service, or to switch off if they already have it.
Followup comments:
jmr
@wideopenwest.com | I disagree I have WOW and pretty much the exact opposite thing happened to me. I was getting inconsistent speeds with Time Warner and now I have higher than advertised speeds with WOW. | |
| | CrimsonChaos
join:2002-07-28
North Royalton, OH
·WOW Internet and C..
·RoadRunner Cable
1 edit | Re: I disagree That's fine. If you read the 1st paragraph I said other people may have fared better.
I guess I just have a bitter taste in my mouth about the whole experience because they are trying to charge me $99 for what amounted to crappy service for 1.5 weeks.
Like I said - if you're going to make a money-back guarantee, stick to it. The customer shouldn't have to fight you to keep your word. | |
| | |
jmr
@wideopenwest.com | Re: I disagree I agree that they should honor the money back guarantee. It just surprises me that their service quality varies by so much... I am in the Cleveland area, too. Not disagreeing with you. | |
| |
Ispeedster
| I disagree as well. WOW has been a wonderful service provider with the best service of any cable/ internet/ phone provider I have experienced in the last 24 years.
Obviously, the person registering the complaint is an isolated case, which I am sure WOW would be happy to have the opportunity to make amends. WOW has ranked number one in the annual JD Powers Survey for customer satisfaction among all cable providers for the last three years. | |
| doncaruana
join:2008-05-01
Northville, MI
1 edit | Not so isolated WOW has been abysmal (metro Detroit). Their network can't handle VOIP, the DVR frequently - and inexplicably - just skips recording shows. This evening, I specifically deleted some shows so the stuff I had set for recording would have room. I come back later - it skipped 3 shows. Of the other 3, one only recorded 6 minutes of a half hour show (no clue why) and one wouldn't actually play back. So I got to watch one hour of four and a half.
Why wouldn't one playback? Because the cable signal is so bad here (it's up and down - works fine for a week, sucks for a week, etc).
Customer service? Yeah, right. Haven't done jack so far... | |
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Review by TopKat
UPDATED: 1.5 years ago
member for 1.6 years, 16 visits, last login: 12 days ago
Clinton Township,Macomb,MI
Contract price not specified.
"I can get to the internet occasionally"
"Every weekend for the last 2 months, the connection goes down without fail. Also intermittently during the week."
"I'm dumping this soon."
| Pre Sales information:
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I have called WOW 3 times to fix the slow and/or non-existent internet connection. I realize networks go down, but this is ridiculous. I previously had comcast and I think the internet went down 3 times in 2 years.
Update: This internet service that is shakier than an 80 year old with Alzheimer's is GONE this Friday. I cannot take the completely unreliable connection so it's back to Comcast even though I have issues with them, at least the internet stays on.
Update: This is why (in addition to the above) I am dropping them:
2.3m/591 Wide Open West
I pay for 6 and this is what I consistently get.
Update: Now with comcast I get:
11.5m/1.1m
I will NEVER subscribe to WOW ever again.
Followup comments: | | TopKat
join:2008-03-23
Clinton Township, MI
·Comcast
·WOW Internet and C..
1 edit | Re: Good thing you aren't a doctor. said by imrf : quote:
This internet service that is shakier than an 80 year old with Alzheimer's is GONE this Friday.
As the title says, good thing you aren't a doctor because you would have killed a lot of people. Alzheimer's does not cause people to shake, that's Parkinson's disease.  Alzheimer's disease is a form of dementia, causing memory lapses, inability to speak properly, confusion and loss of mental ability. As for your Comcast speeds, big deal, that's just PowerBoost fooling you. PowerBoost doubles your internet speeds for the first 20megabytes of the download, then slows back down to Comcast's standard 6Mbps/384Kbps. Alzheimer's and Parkinson's are not mutually exclusive Dr. Kildare
Regardless, WOW service blows. | |
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 Review by detfan
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 6.9 years, 3083 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Garden City,Wayne,MI
$67 per month
about 4 days
"Internet (all I use) consistent speeds always at or above advertised Speeds"
"Need to speed up."
"Very good Internet Provider as far as consistancy, never down."
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(ratings match consensus)
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Would recoomend to anyone for internet service, I only wish they would puch up the dload speed. I am at 1100 up on a consistant basis, but pay for it.
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Review by reddog888
Posted: 2.1 years ago
member for 2.1 years, 2 visits, last login: 2 years ago
Glendale Heights,Dupage,IL
$105 per month (12 month contract)
about 14 days
"good connectivity"
"poorly informed customer service, bad service, on hold for 1 hr 23 min and counting right now"
"not the same company they started out as. treated the same as comcast would"
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This is definitely not the company that started business here a five years ago! I've been trying to rectify a mistake by a customer service rep whose information does not match either my bill or their website pricing package.
I've been on hold for 1 hour and 30 minutes right now after being told it would be 10-20 minutes. I can''t believe it!!
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Review by oneacn
UPDATED: 2.2 years ago
member for 8.5 years, 754 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Fraser,Macomb,MI
$34 per month
about 1 days
"Tech 7332 Excellent Technician"
"Installation Technician Snooping Through Computer to get serial numbers"
"Kevin Perry is an awesome WOW Technical Support Agent"
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(ratings well below consensus)
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WOW Cable and Internet is a shady company with horrible management and lack of commuication. The management is downright patethic and undesirable to work with.
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Good thing you aren't a doctor.
all's well that ends well...
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