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Charter Revamps Portal
For those that care...
by Karl Bode Wednesday 18-Jul-2007 tags: cable · content · Charter
Yesterday we mentioned that Charter's CEO was slumming it with tech support to try to find out why his company consistently ranks dead last in customer satisfaction. Today, the company has announced that they've launched a new, redesigned home page and 1GB webmail:
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ComScore, an Internet audience measurement service, tracked more than four million unique visitors logging onto charter.net monthly, which makes it the fastest growing ISP portal service today. "With the newly redesigned charter.net website, customers will find something new and different with each visit, along with the convenience of being able to access their email, the most popular entertainment content, and news from one location," said Himesh Bhise, Vice President & General Manager of High-Speed® Internet for Charter.

Traditionally, our readers, who can apparently find plenty of content on their own, have said they couldn't care less about ISP portals. Low prices, customer service and increased speed are customer priorities, though debt-ridden Charter currently struggles with all three.

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ronpin
Imagine Reality

join:2002-12-06
Nirvana

FiOS made Charter snap-to

FiOS forced Charter to configure my modem at 17.8/2.8 mbs!!! -- and I usually get 17/2mbs. I hated Charter 'til FiOS moved-in -- just across the street. No matter who your ISP is -- FiOS competition will serve you well (thanks Charter -- for competing -- your mileage may vary)
--
Instant bugging and GPS location info -- thanks to your cell phone and Bush's warrantless NSA! »news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-6140191.html

phattieg

join:2001-04-29
Winter Park, FL
Reviews:
·Bright House

Re: FiOS made Charter snap-to

Wow! Call me crazy, but that looks like a cheap rip-off of comcast.net. They even have the "My Account" button on the bottom. All they are missing is the Mail, Security, etc, icons at the top. Heh, I wonder if they hired the same firm...
--
SIPPhone/Gizmo # 17476200648 / PIMPNET Chatline / Ran by Asterisk & Slackware 10.1.

DrModem
Premium
join:2006-10-19
USA
kudos:1

wow

I hope they don't think that's the soulution to all their customer service problems.

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4

Re: wow

Charter how about putting those resources to better use such as service issues that keep you as the bottomfeeder of providers.
Don't you remember the @home fiasco? people just want a dumb pipe, not some stupid portal.
--
You can never be too rich, too thin or have too much Bandwidth
ender7074

join:2006-11-21
Saint Louis, MO

Whoooopieeee

BFD. Yet another brilliant idea from the peanut gallery that is Charter execs. The last sentence of the article above sums it all up and defines what the Charter execs will be determined to ignore.

whatevrzclvr

join:2005-11-16
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Reviews:
·Virgin Mobile Br..

Re: Charter Revamps Portal

Great, now that he's jumped that important hurdle, Charter can start focusing on those "little nagging" problems like terrible customer support, poor internet reliability, and inconsistent pricing.

I'm sure we can read all about those fixes on their fancy new portal!
CSU

join:2002-10-21
Lagrange, GA

Who Gives a S**t?

Why do I care that they revamped the site? All I care about is low prices, high service, and high speeds.
Chek

join:2006-09-25
Mcdonough, GA

ha ha ha oh wow

Yea, this will help their service

jarablue
Always be true to yourself

join:2001-06-11
Boxborough, MA

1 edit

What a joke

Does Charter think they can band aid their image by offering a cheezy ass portal? How about offering speeds in areas that DONT have competition from FIOS? I am getting raped here for 10meg service while others get 17/2???? I find it funny that in some Charter markets users are getting 3meg but in the affluent FIOS competitive areas they are getting 17/2??? That is such a poalar extreme in network management it isn't even funny.

How about this. Make progress in areas which customers acutally give a damn. Stop the useless crap. Here it is simple:

1. Offer higher speeds, don't follow others be a leader.
2. Customer service. Please stop sending me to mexico
3. Have everyone and your stinking availability website all on par. It so annoying calling up 1 rep then talking to another that has no idea. Please update your website with current accurate info. In some areas that have had service, data, dvr for 7 years it still says there is no service avail. It told me I could get 10meg 1 year before it was even available.
4. And I have to tell this mini story...it took me 6 hours one night to get a hold of a rep who actually could help me. After that it took me 3 min to be up and running. Do yo know how sad it is when a customer has to spend 6 hours bouncing around from TSR in mexico to god knows where? I finally spoke to a knowledgeable CSR and it took 3 min.

Anyways yay for lowering the debt. How about improving your offerings next.

good_internet

@umich.edu

SWEET

Maybe you can fix the awful speeds and 200+ pings, oh wait you don't have to... this AMAZING NEW PORTAL makes me forget about my problems with your horrid ISP, thanks CHARTER !

PolarBear03
The bear formerly known as aaron8301
Premium
join:2005-01-03

Key words


For those that care...

Kohana

@hge.net

Speeds aren't bad

I have Charter, and technically I've had them all my life... except for about a 1.5 year bit away, and I'm not impressed with most of what they have. Their customer service people know nothing (TELL THEM THINGS!). That is, by FAR, my biggest complaint.

But one thing I'm not complaining about is speed, and I'm rather happy there, actually.

A few weeks ago, just before I started visiting here daily, my 3 meg down/256 up service suddenly jumped to 5 meg down/512up.

...that explains why I was sending my files so quickly suddenly...

The 3meg service fell to just about $20 a month, and they kept me at my current price point of just over $40 a month instead of lowering my price and keeping the same service. I don't mind, I would have considered the 5 meg service in the first place, but I wasn't up for paying that much for Internet, so this works out, just as I was starting to think about it.

But then there's the customer service hook, in that nothing I read told me they were doing this.

I could write a book about the problems I've had with their service, but who would publish it? ^_^

(I'm at work now, so it says I'm from somewhere else... Now I know who my work gets Internet from ^_^)

Mashimaro
Problematic

join:2003-09-25
Alexander City, AL

1 edit

Just what I didn't need.

I love how the customer support website (»www.charter.com/Visitors/Home.aspx) is still just as bad as it ever was. People have been complaining about it for years. I'm moving soon, and I hope it will be a charter free area.
yay_son

join:2005-04-16
Monterey Park, CA

impressive

wow +10 to your ranking charter .. +10!!

DadCooks
Premium
join:2005-02-28
Kennewick, WA

Charter Suits Don't Have A Clue

The "suits" at Charter need to follow the Charter Forum and see what is really wrong. They are soooo out of touch.

Let's see, yesterday a total Internet outage in our area--but Customer noService did not have a clue why or that it was even out. Maybe it was because I was talking to a call center in Nova Scotia (no kidding) and I am in Washington State!

Ten days after the MOXI 4.1 update and there are still problems (4 calls to Customer noService, all went to Nova Scotia).
kd6cae
P2p Shouldn't Be A Crime

join:2001-08-27
Palmdale, CA
Reviews:
·Vitelity VOIP
·AT&T U-Verse

why is Charter in so much debt?

Here in the Riverside Charter service area, the connection is rock solid, and is always up. Slow downs in the evenings are normal but nothing I can't accept. Until last summer though, in fact until exactly 1 year ago, Charter's best offering was just 3m/256k! I got DSL because I wanted better upstream, and as soon as Charter unvailed 10/1, I got it. Now I believe FIOS is available in parts of corona, but I don't think Charter competes with that, someone correct me if I'm wrong. I hope Charter offers even greater speeds and better customer service soon, as that's the only way they'll be able to get out of debt I'd think. Since they were the last too offer real high speed, that's probably why they're now in so much debt?

Varlik
Without Honor You Will Never Be Free
Premium
join:2002-01-06
Anderson, SC

2 edits

Re: why is Charter in so much debt?

That debt was largely grown by buying up to many cable operations in the mid to late nineties. A lot of which happened to be in areas having low population density. Not being responsive in the early days to HSI customers speed needs didn't help either. Their debt isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The majority of what they managed to shave off of it came from selling off so call non-profitable franchises and markets. They've had several large volume sell offs. It's been a while since I've actually looked to see what their debt is at, a few years ago it was around 21 Billion.
--
"Sir SIR! We don't use DHCP servers. We only use IBM & Microsoft servers." From there my call to tech support went steadily downhill.

--Don't bother telling us that we're too loud. Cause there ain't no way that we'll ever turn down.

cork1958
Cork
Premium
join:2000-02-26

what a waste

What a waste of webspace. Always wondered what ISP's were really thinking when they were offering "portals".

Basically, what do you think ANY page on the net is? Sure don't need to use their usually very inaccurate site as a launching point.

ghostpainter
I Write for the Apocalypse
Premium,MVM
join:2002-05-25
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
kudos:3

Instead of....

Instead of making there web page look nice and spending money on ISP Portals, how about bringing back customer service to the US from India, The Philippines and Jamaica.

That might improve the bottom line, er the red line don't ya think.

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