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simonduz
join:2012-05-15
Columbus, OH

1 recommendation

simonduz

Member

My Beef with WOW Ultra TV internet

I have had Ultra TV for 5 days now. We signed up based on a few key answers from a sales person that was sent to our doorstep after a web inquiry.
1) Can I use my own network hardware? Answer = Yes
2) Are you sure because I have 12 wireless devices, and 9 wired GB connections? I have rules, static IP, time slots, and it is critical that I be able to use my internal network for my photography workflow and 2GB files (Photoshop stuff). Answer = Yes

3 hours into the install and I see there is finally power to the Media Center so I ask can I plug in my router now?
Answer = No, sorry we don't support that.
Frustration level HIGH.
Question: What is the speed of the ports on the Media Center box?
Answer = Sorry I don't know.
Question: Is there a book available that will give me some information on the setup used for the internal router?
Answer = Not that I am aware of.
Quickly flip through the book given to us on the use of UltraTV. Sure enough not a single setting, or configuration example.
Frustration level VERY HIGH.

Install is done, I asked for the Admin ID and password. LMAO the ID was admin and the password was WOW. You have to be kidding! There should be some kind of lawsuit for this if there had been a security breach.
WEP security was the default, BTW.
So lets see.. I have a broadcast network with the name of WOW_something using WEP and a default admin password of WOW. **sigh**

So I have spent the last 3 days configuring, tweaking, etc. The nice installer (truly he was very nice) dropped off a switch that he said I could use I assume provided by WOW. Disappointing, it was only a 10/100 switch.

What frustrates me the most is this is treated as a one size fits all network install. I have friends and colleagues with homes specifically wired for network access, IP video, etc and WOW's solution simply will not work out of the box and there is very little support, close to NIL from WOW. My nice installer (who shall remain nameless) I have seen 3 times now is in total agreement and shared a couple other horror stories with me.
They have removed my options to use or upgrade to a network configuration of my choice.

Oh, and BTW the WOW internal router is sub par IMHO.
I completely lost Dual Band control.
Removing remote access to the admin console via wireless connections is not possible
Email support for log files will only work with an SMTP server that does not require authentication.
No backup for the router configuration. Just an error saying you have to backup to local network?
And the log file, why do I only see one day of history, and can't choose to see any more?
Rebooting the router evidently reboots the entire Media Center? I noticed we lost video and recording time when this happens.
Rebooting the router removes the IP's assigned to the MAC address for static DHCP.

I am done. Sorry for the rant. I have 60 days satisfaction guarantee. Maybe if enough people are willing to speak up we can get some corrections made.

Brassowl
@wideopenwest.com

Brassowl

Anon

Yet another reason, I've so far, told WOW! forget it when they try to "upsale" me to UltraTV. I find it a joke that they "tested" this for a year, allegedly. Apparently, they know very little about their educated, computer using, network knowledgable and tech savvy customers.

If I were you, I'd get rid of UltraTV and go back to what you had. Maybe one day, in the next few years, WOW! will work out the kinks and learn their own technology so that it will make sense to upgrade for those of us who know about technology and networking.

Good luck.
hudiat
join:2011-10-13

hudiat to simonduz

Member

to simonduz
And again I say wow is sacrificing customer service and connection reliability to catch up with the big players with their tech. Worst part is they truely don't even realize it. You know who else thought they were going to be ok and didn't realize customers slowly turning against them over several years? Best buy, circuit city, dell.

Circuit city closed, best buy almost there, dell leaving the home consumer market.

Buying knology will just increase the customer count, but how will customer service be effected?

BM
@wideopenwest.com

BM to Brassowl

Anon

to Brassowl
This is why, on the day I found out that I wouldn't be able to use my own networking equipment, was the day I stopped having any interest at all in Ultra TV.
hudiat
join:2011-10-13

hudiat

Member

The tech savvy customers have a huge impact. The same people that hate ultra tv are the ones that friends go to for advice. Most people get their connection and are fine, as we educate friends and help them they are going to see that we (normally early adopters) don't have it. They will question why, and no matter what wow tries to tell them, they will stick with the advice of the friend that is usually right.

We are the ones that educate others about tech, we suggest service and equipment. Alienating the tech savy first is what starts the slow avalanche of lost customers. Best buy years ago was a spot for the tech savvy to go, they changed to catering to the masses instead, the knowledgeable stopped going, and stopped suggesting them, then we started suggesting against them.

The tech industry is one of the few where catering to the minority slowly builds business.

Wow needs to actually look at other businesses in the tech industry, starting to say "good enough for most" is a negative in the tech world. It may bring short term income but in the long run once the tech savvy leave, their friends slowly follow.

smunro622
Premium Member
join:2006-02-15
united state

smunro622 to simonduz

Premium Member

to simonduz
I agree with most of the posts here, as big as the box is there should be more features, or leave them off for conumers and allow prosumers to turn them on... I use the builtin wireless as a guest netowrk and still use my apple airport extreme for wireless. I have placed my router in the dmz ip address and see what i can ge out of it... the att uverse box has better features... I think wow missed the boat on this, I will not be giving it up as my wife loves it...

I would of like to seen a modem that has a lower end core 2 duo and 4 gigs of memory. hardware like this cheap but owuld take this system far especially with a cf card for the os and the 2tb for the dvr... I personally like the option of pointing the dvr to a pc or storage device and play thur a piece of software or quicktime perhaps. If WOW or Dan would like to contactt me i have some serious suggestions on upgrades not the usual ones i have seen...

Big Jimmy
@wideopenwest.com

Big Jimmy to simonduz

Anon

to simonduz
You complain that WOW treats this as a one-size-fits-all network install, but I'd flip that around and say you've got an unusual network that doesn't fit their install. The WOW guy ONLY gave you a 10/100 network switch? I would expect him to have given you ANYTHING!

My point is that you've got a pretty standard out fo the box solution that will work for 90% of the people out there, and those 10% that use things like static IPs and timeslots should know better than to have expectations about a product like this. I don't expect a stock car audio system to have time alignment, the same as I wouldn't expect a cableco router to have 802.11N, let alone dual-band 802.11N.
hudiat
join:2011-10-13

hudiat

Member

My point was being good enough for 90% isn't good in the tech industry. The 10% is where people get advice, who they ask for suggestions. Accordingly I have talked 2 potential customers out of switching. Being unhappy with their provider, they came to me for a suggestion, I told them I was just as unhappy with wow. Several standard users told them they like wow, but as I am their general tech contact they still listened to me. I can see and tolerate minor shortcomings, but wows "major" changes over the past year have absolutely alienated the tech savvy crowd.

Digital transition had not only enough people complain about the DTA's that they unscrambled basic cable, but it happened right away. How can they release a product with flaws that even a typical end user notices instantly. The issue didn't come up in testing? Docsis 3.0 came along and those arris combo units are junk. Another move with mass appeal and budget in mind. And now ultra tv is fine for most, but the techies and the ones that spend the most in tech don't like it.

Mass appeal and crappy hardware is what every big cableco does. You can't do that and have the service quality wow thinks it has.
If they are changing fine, but don't keep flooding me with ads about how great the service is, when it clearly isn't.

I would be happy to go back to 8mbps Internet with half the HD I have now, if it meant I got the service and reliability I had 4 years ago.
geohry
Premium Member
join:2012-04-04
Roseville, MI

geohry to simonduz

Premium Member

to simonduz
I, too switched to Ultra. Had some problems with the internet like not getting anywhere near my supposed speeds (50/5). even on their internal speed test I was getting (most of the time) 13/5. Called them to get this fixed. They sent a tech out and he ended up replacing all three boxes. It is working much better now.

As to your internal network:Plug a computer into your personal router; Log into your router; if the internal router address is 192.168.0.1, change it to 192.168.1.1; plug your router into a port on the media unit.

Log into 192.168.0.1 (the Ultra's base address) using whatever password the tech told you to use, and change it. also change the wireless name if you want, then promptly turn off the wireless and let your now connected personal router handle the wireless. Inside your network, the speeds should be just as you had them. Also note that if you had to change your personal router's IP address, and you fixed IPs instead of DHCP, you may have to reset all the fixed IPs to new values.

I think they tell everybody that this is not supported because they cannot resolve issues that are internal to your personal network. You will have to do that yourself. If you are using their media player network, they can attempt to resolve network issues.

The Ultra setup still has problems, but has been steadily improving over the last month.

I have had good service from WOW over the last 6 or 7 years and am willing to give them some time to "get up to speed" on this new equipment.
hudiat
join:2011-10-13

hudiat

Member

By get up to speed do you mean fully test a product before releasing it? Are you getting a beta tester discount? No, you have to lose your existing discounts to get a beta product.

End of the day, would you suggest an elderly neighbor to get it? That's the issue from the business side. You can't have early adopters giving time to work it out, they need to suggest it even though it may have minor flaws. Im just sick of wow advertising like crazy how great they are, when it is obvious they are starting the slow decline. If they want to be just another big cable company do it. But they are having some sort of identity crisis as they expand. Buying knology is just expanding them too big to be this company with amazing service etc. They started the path to being another time Warner, comcast, etc. Just stop pretending to still be amazing. In the past year I went from really liking them and suggesting them, to being neutral, to not suggesting them. The only advantage they have is no caps. Are they going to be the lone holdout? Or will there be caps in 2 years? It may take years for them to realize, but they are very slowly going downhill service wise and just want them to realize and go back to what they were, or admit it and stop shoving it down our faces how great they are. In the newspaper,males flyers, tv ads, it's everywhere.
alan92rttt
join:2012-02-27

alan92rttt to simonduz

Member

to simonduz
I have ultra installed.

My internal network in unchanged. So they don't "support" plugging your router into the gateway. This does not mean it won't work. My internal network in zipping along without a hiccup. I still use my wifi.

Are the people here so new to this that you don't recall the first broadband connections where the IPS's did not support you having an internal router at all? One of my early DSL connections was married to my systems MAC. I had to ghost the mac onto the router so that the router could connect and share the connection. If I had a tech issue the 1st thing I had to do was pull the router to get them to support me.

If you are an advanced user you have to expect that their solution is not going to be a plug and play fit. Do some research and experimenting to get it to play with your system.
hudiat
join:2011-10-13

hudiat

Member

Exactly. It's not an all size fits one, but that's how they train techs, anything beyond that isn't "supported". The problem is as a cable company wow can't do both, take that approach, and claim far superior service and going the extra mile for customers.
simonduz
join:2012-05-15
Columbus, OH

simonduz to alan92rttt

Member

to alan92rttt
@alan92rttt I agree with your statement.
I guess my point is that with technology advancing at such a rapid pace, wireless is in transition again, and homes are being built with this technology in mind it just makes sense that any service would want to be as transparent as possible so that users can make an educated decision BEFORE they commit to any long term agreements.

I want to be able to make a decision based on the features and expected life cycle of the existing equipment and what I expect will be available in the next year or 2 for the consumer market (thinking computers, networking, media distribution, and VOIP).
Expand your moderator at work
mogamer
join:2011-04-20
Royal Oak, MI

mogamer to hudiat

Member

to hudiat

Re: My Beef with WOW Ultra TV internet

hudiat, WOW! doesn't make people sign contracts. If you're so pissed off at them, why are you still with them? Switch to another provider. I use WOW! for internet/phone and while I hate the fact I have to use their modem, they do take that $5 off per month for me. And I recently had that discount extended for another 12 months with no problems or questions asked. They really do have the best customer service of any service provider I've used.
hudiat
join:2011-10-13

hudiat

Member

Being the "best" is arbitrary. If your a 600lb guy that can hardly walk,your still the best football player among a group of 1-2 year olds. That doesn't mean you are good at football. They tweeted the other day about pc mag rating them great, pc mag also rated geek squad great.

I would switch in a heart beat with options, except my only other choice is ATT.

And my points in this thread have nothing to do with me being pissed off. I am really trying to get people to realize they just aren't this great amazing company. The fanboyism level here is insane.

If they fixed my issues I wouldnt just keep complaining to complain. But I still have issues and they don't care/don't believe me.
mogamer
join:2011-04-20
Royal Oak, MI

mogamer

Member

said by hudiat:

Being the "best" is arbitrary. If your a 600lb guy that can hardly walk,your still the best football player among a group of 1-2 year olds. That doesn't mean you are good at football. They tweeted the other day about pc mag rating them great, pc mag also rated geek squad great.

I would switch in a heart beat with options, except my only other choice is ATT.

And my points in this thread have nothing to do with me being pissed off. I am really trying to get people to realize they just aren't this great amazing company. The fanboyism level here is insane.

If they fixed my issues I wouldnt just keep complaining to complain. But I still have issues and they don't care/don't believe me.

You have no idea what my situation is or what service providers I have delt with. So when I say they have the best customer service that I have worked with, it comes from dealing with plenty of providers from living in multiple areas and not because they're the only guy around.

I'm certainly not a fanboy, but if something works for me, then I will praise it. If it doesn't, then I move on and not worry about it. That's why I left U-Verse for WOW!.

You do have plenty of options. You can do what I do and use a satellite operator for tv and then just have WOW! or ATT for internet/phone. Dish and Direct both have plenty of packages that would probably work for you.

To be honest, if I were you, I would drop Ultra TV and either go back to the standard dvr or go with a Tivo/HTPC solution (probably the best option).
hudiat
join:2011-10-13

hudiat

Member

I don't have ultra tv. And my issues are Internet related. My tv through wow has been great for the most part.

So having wow Internet and another TV provider does not help.

I just don't know how my modem signal can be -5 one time, a few hours later -10, half an hour later -8, and they just don't believe me or think I a, crying wolf. If you have good service, good for you. But understand my service hasn't only been bad, but unacceptable. I am referring to customer service here. At one point I was just told "there is nothing else we can do at this point", that quote from one of the higher ups in the Cleveland area, not a tech or phone support. BS!, you call that good service. If AT&T didn't have caps I would leave right now.

As the higher ups are so focused on the knology deal, I bet with less supervision trickling down the chain, phone support is going to take a hit.
mogamer
join:2011-04-20
Royal Oak, MI

mogamer

Member

said by hudiat:

I don't have ultra tv. And my issues are Internet related. My tv through wow has been great for the most part.

Sorry, my mistake. I could have sworn that your problems were related to the Ultra TV box.
hudiat
join:2011-10-13

hudiat

Member

I did spend complaining about the arris combo unit they give as a modem for docsis 3.0. So I can see the confusion. Which on a separate note, my connection improved dramatically, from a F to a C just by replacing with a SB6121. That arris combo unit is just junk, and a prime example of wow not putting customer service first. If they went with just a modem, it would be a plug and play swap for people upgrading from docsis 2.0. Now the tech has to setup the router portion and then it is a crapshoot if any advanced features (VPN, port forwarding,etc) work at all. It's just junk, and makes things more difficult for the end user, as opposed to a plug and play modem swap.

OSUGoose
join:2007-12-27
Columbus, OH

OSUGoose to simonduz

Member

to simonduz
Could be worse, it could be Insight's half assed MultiRoom DVR, why or why cant TWC swap this garbage out now, you own us, do something!

Big Jimmy
@wideopenwest.com

Big Jimmy to hudiat

Anon

to hudiat
Sorry for all that, I mistook you for the other guy whining about the Ultra TV, where in fact you're just piggy-backing and whining in general. You might want to start a new thread instead of hyjacking this one.

In related news, getting upset because a magazine said someone is good? How is it WOW's fault that a magazine said they did a good job? Call for service every day until they fix your problem, and if it's REALLY an issue, have Dan take a look at it. If there's a problem, he's proven himself time and time again to fix any problem that's within his power.
hudiat
join:2011-10-13

hudiat

Member

You misunderstand my magazine point. The point is the wow advertising of how good they are, is so overpowering, that they even quote bad sources.

The ego over there is so big they brag about that, and are blinded to issues. There is someone else on these forums also having regular issues in my area. When I brought that up they told me he is crying wolf, they checked and checked and found no issues. And now they think the same of me. 2 people in the same city, same issues, and they are just dismissing us as compulsive complainers. There is obviously a localized issue.

I have said before phone support has generally been good for me. It is specific to the Cleveland area that is horrible. Even more so the berea office, the one useful tech I had was based out of independence, I don't think it is coincidence.

So it's great you have good service, can anyone in the general berea area say they have had exceptional service? I'm not talking fixing your issue, but the tech doing something amazing to stand out. Like they advertise.

People I know in the Columbus area say they always have great service, but in the Cleveland area, specific to the berea office, me, and people I know don't experience that same quality.

There have been a few comments in /r/Cleveland over the past few months of people saying they were disappointed in WOW!, meanwhile in the discussion of the knology buy, most people said great things. Not just this forum, another discussion place, and people I know, the general feeling is the Cleveland market is less satisfied than everywhere else.

RootWyrm
join:2011-05-09

1 edit

RootWyrm

Member

said by hudiat:

You misunderstand my magazine point. The point is the wow advertising of how good they are, is so overpowering, that they even quote bad sources.

The ego over there is so big they brag about that, and are blinded to issues. There is someone else on these forums also having regular issues in my area. When I brought that up they told me he is crying wolf, they checked and checked and found no issues. And now they think the same of me. 2 people in the same city, same issues, and they are just dismissing us as compulsive complainers. There is obviously a localized issue.

Yeah. What's extra hilarious?

I can tell them exactly what is wrong in their configuration, and I have gone to great lengths to ensure I am NOT crying wolf. I happen to know a thing or twenty about DOCSIS, as I used to work for an MSO that was 20 times larger than WOW. I've gone so far as to contact the only person there with half a clue and asking him to check RF flap on my port at the CMTS.
Result: no flap. Determination: defective modem firmware shipped by WOW causing lockups on DPC2100r2. Cisco response: known defect, provider needs to upgrade firmware. WOW response: one count of "we don't have a support contract with Cisco," one count of "upgraded firmware failed in testing."
They refuse to respond to my questions about why ICMP is being blocked and why they have yet to implement basic security functionality, otherwise known as BPI+. A friend who is in engineering at a much larger MSO is in disbelief that anyone would even consider the things WOW claims are "normal."

And I will be speaking with them about their slanderous accusations and statements about me. When Mister Lawrence D Walden (LW463-ARIN) has staff that knows how to remove the Arris specific strings from the DPC2100 configuration file and how to NOT send 10net traffic out the L3 and XO interfaces, they can attempt to talk down to me.

The WORST part is that they're saddling their installers, who are [u]generally some of the best I've ever seen[/u] - a point I cannot emphasize enough - with operations and management that would be embarrassing for a tiny regional ISP. I mean seriously. You give me three guys who understand the difference between RG11 and RG6 from the junction and can explain signal loss competently, yet you can't find a single network engineer that knows how pointless and counterproductive blocking ICMP is?

EDIT:
By the way, if you're having network problems and support is being unhelpful?
Try this number. No guarantee on validity, since WOW apparently can't even be bothered to maintain their required POC information with ARIN.
hudiat
join:2011-10-13

hudiat

Member

Not to mention anyone on wow can acces their whole neighboorhoods modems. Including the router portion of combo units. Good security!

RootWyrm
join:2011-05-09

RootWyrm

Member

said by hudiat:

Not to mention anyone on wow can acces their whole neighboorhoods modems. Including the router portion of combo units. Good security!

Yes. WOW was notified privately, due to the severe risk associated with this, in December of 2011. They not only declined to address it, they denied that this was a security issue in a network with BPI+ actively disabled. I found it during troubleshooting. It's much, much worse than just that.

They were also notified in no uncertain terms that full access to a customer's modem could be obtained by attackers using known exploits and methods which are in the wild, as well as the fact that the Cisco DPC2100's were running a firmware version with a known security problem - specifically, CVE-2010-2025 and CVE-2010-2026. Contrary to WOW's claims, customer DPC2100's remain vulnerable. Go ahead. Test it.

I identified and privately informed them of no less than five major security or safety issues associated with their network and configurations, all of which have the potential to expose customer data and information. A NOC primate by the name of Mike who doesn't even know what a "DSL Access Module" is yet lists being an 'expert' with "D slam" on his resume basically replied that MITRE and Cisco and six CCIEs all had no clue.

To this day, a rogue modem can STILL take out or take over an entire region accidentally, to say nothing of intentionally. And no, you do not want to know just how dangerously vulnerable the UltraTV boxes are. Arris refuses to participate in the normal security community - including reporting to CERT or MITRE CVE - after being embarrassed by a vulnerability that let attackers take out the C3 at will, so there are vulnerabilities in the wild that you don't know about but attackers do. (Which frankly, is true of most anything.) ProTip: HMAC-MD5 does NOT protect sufficiently against orange Motos and bored kids with Google.

Suffice to say, anybody with actual malicious intent would have NO trouble taking over WOW's equipment and networks, and WOW would have absolutely no idea it was going on. Any customer on the network can access infrastructure gear in a number of extremely dangerous ways, because it's configured with insecure and unsafe defaults.

Yeah. I'm really crying wolf and complaining about dangerous security problems that they refuse to acknowledge despite having exact attack profiles explained is "chronic complaining."
richkut
join:2012-02-10
Cleveland, OH

richkut to hudiat

Member

to hudiat
I, too, am in the Greater Cleveland area (east side, serviced by the Valley View Office). I am sorry to hear that you are having such problems, but have you even tried to talk to local management about this? They always have been very receptive to me, so if the Techs are not living up to your expectations why don't you work your way up the chain of command? If this fails, perhaps you might consider the alternative carriers in town (AT&T, other cable providers, satellite providers or just over-the-air + web channels). Good luck, and please let us know if this works for you.
baess
join:2011-01-28

baess to RootWyrm

Member

to RootWyrm
said by RootWyrm:

Yes. WOW was notified privately, due to the severe risk associated with this, in December of 2011. They not only declined to address it, they denied that this was a security issue in a network with BPI+ actively disabled. I found it during troubleshooting. It's much, much worse than just that.

They were also notified in no uncertain terms that full access to a customer's modem could be obtained by attackers using known exploits and methods which are in the wild, as well as the fact that the Cisco DPC2100's were running a firmware version with a known security problem - specifically, CVE-2010-2025 and CVE-2010-2026. Contrary to WOW's claims, customer DPC2100's remain vulnerable. Go ahead. Test it.

Hackers are usually aware of such things. And if not, if they read this they certainly will be now. Maybe you could have been a little more discrete.

RootWyrm
join:2011-05-09

RootWyrm

Member

said by baess:

Hackers are usually aware of such things. And if not, if they read this they certainly will be now. Maybe you could have been a little more discrete.

You might want to check the dates on things. It was reported to Cisco in January 2010, and Cisco delivered a fix in May of 2010, at which point it was publicly disclosed because a fix was available from the vendor and had been delivered.

The firmware delivered by WOW to the DPC2100r2's is from March 2006. It's so old, it still says Scientific Atlanta. Customers cannot update the firmware, as WOW overwrites with v2.0.2r1256-060303. WOW has been aware of this since before December 2011, and variously claims that they "do not have access" to fixed firmware and that the fixed firmware "failed validation."

Irie
@comcastbusiness.net

Irie to simonduz

Anon

to simonduz
Tell them to disable your router (which they can do on the phone). Use your Ultra as your cable modem and hard drive only. Once they disable it from "broadcasting" you should be able to plug your own router into it and re-assemble your own wireless network.

I did this last night and all seems ok (I am using an airport extreme as my router and 3 airport expresses to extend my network range). I have a lot of stuff working off it that would not work when the Ultra was my router.