OK, I’ll come right out and say it: TimeWarner’s Road Runner broadband Internet connection is the worst I have ever used. Here I’m paying around $100 each and every month for cable TV and an Internet connection, yet as soon as I launch Transmission on my iMac my Internet connection slows to a crawl. If this doesn’t resolve itself, I may have to consider switching providers, not even a month after signing up.
I won’t bother discussing how my cable cuts out every now and then since that’s not exactly gadgety-techy.
Here’s the deal: I recently moved from Middle of Nowhere in Upstate New York to Queens. Back upstate, I had Cablevision’s OptimumOnline. Besides the fact that OOL caps its Usenet download speed, the service was great. I could have Transmission or Azureus open and seed a couple of torrents, building up my ratio on any number of private BitTorrent trackers. I’m not talking hundreds of torrents or anything, but maybe six or seven at a time. Then I move and find my connection melts down faster than Chernobyl once I open Transmission. Here, the pics to prove it.
Um, yeah, TimeWarner. Hi, how are you? You see, you advertise your service, such as it is, with fast-sounding phrases like “Blazing Speed” and that “Nobody Runs Like Road Runner.” Actually, George Costanza in the automatic walker goes faster than Road Runner.
Oh, and what the hell is “upload compression” and why are you applying it to my connection? I’m paying for this! Does Toyota tell its customers that they can’t drive faster than XX mph with one of its cars?
Maybe I’m just overreacting, or maybe I was spoiled by my school’s fat pipe. All I know is that TimeWarner has some explaining to do. And if they want me to keep paying for their lousy connection, it needs to shape up.
I’m too lazy to check right now, but I beleive TWC’s Road Runner service has two or three different tiers to select from. Based on your speeds I’d guess you were getting shafted even for the lowest tier.
Anyway, when I first signed up for the road runner service we defaulted for the basic speed and it was a little too laggy for my likings. I then called them up and asked to upgrade to the fastest tier and they obliged. I didn’t really notice a difference but I thought I’d give it a day or two and see if there was any improvement.
I reset the router and cable box but my internet speeds had no improvement. I called them up again and after about 45 minutes on hold I spoke with someone who was able to “reset my signal” and I was on my way to quick downloads!
I’d suggest you give them a call and ask them to “reset your signal” (whatever that means) and make sure you’re setup with the appropriate tier you’re paying for. GL
ok…so the only thing I know how to do on a Mac is use Photoshop and I totally missed that “Transmission” is a mac based bittorrent client. *sigh* So…uh…nevermind…and i dunno…try port forwarding? fjkla;
No, no, Johnal: without port forwarding I wouldn’t even be able to connect to any peers, which is par for the course. After forwarding the ports all of that up there happens. It’s pretty annoying.
sarcasm
Yep – cable tv is so much more reliable than satellite dish.
/sarcasm
I’ve had a DirecTV satellite dish for some 9 years. It cuts out exactly twice a year – usually in March and usually during the two major snow storms we get a year. I go out – play in the snow, go to bed, wake up, throw a snow ball or two at the dish and watch mythbusters. Usually with lots of friends who’s cable has failed.
Other than that I have a dedicated DSL line to a local ISP. But that usually just goes out whenever power gets cut which is usually once every two years.
You should really see what’s available in your area at broadbandreports: http://www.broadbandreports.com/search
In particular, see if there are any good regional ISPs. I’m using a local ISP, and I’ve been very happy.
In my neck of the woods, Time Warner got bought out by Comcast. I’m currently on hold with Comcast right now trying to cancel my cable TV and internet service and after 30 minutes, a girl finally picked up.
I told her I wanted to cancel and her response was, “Uh, yeah. Um, my system is down right now so I can’t cancel your account. I’m sure it’s not a system-wide problem. It’s just that mine’s been acting up. Sooooo…do you want to call back orrrrrrr…do you want me to transfer you to someone ellllllse?”
So now I’m on hold again (she hung up on me).
I too have roadrunner internet and cable. The cable constantly cuts off, atleast once a month, and their customer service is HORRIBLE. “We understand your situation, we’ll be there in a week to fix the problem.”. HORRIBLE. The worst thing is TW is basically the only (well known) cable operator in my area Orange County, CA. How are they not a monopoly?
TW is the only cable provider in my area, thus my only choice, and I’ve also found upload speed very slow and customer service generally abysmal. In 8 years, I have never once had a call rep find my account on the first or even second try. They can’t find me by phone number, they can’t find me by address, they can’t even find me with the account number on the fucking bill I just received from them. I have to pull out the work order number from the original installation receipt before they can figure out who the hell I am. Every. Single. Time. There’s no excuse for this. But there’s also no alternative.
Good luck changing providers. In most areas in NYC where Time Warner provides service, they’re the ONLY provider. I recently set up a commercial account in Brooklyn, and they were the only game in town… I said the magic word “monopoly” on the phone and they got all indignant. So I apologized profusely and corrected myself with “price gouging for crappy service.” Not to mention the borderline retarded technicians… the guy who installed my commercial setup didn’t bring his own tools, and I had to redrill all the holes he made myself. Luckily the account was in a local pub, so I was able to down a few whiskeys afterwards to partially erase the memory.
I have Earthlink via Time Warner Cable but my video services are with DishNetwork. I can not tolerate Time Warner’s crappy video quality.
I agree with you on their customer service. Whenever I call I just get a long wait after going thru their voice mail. I’m from Milwaukee and I know there are other services out there at a more reasonable cost. I intend to drop them too. Wish me luck.
Road Runner’s customer service is particularly poor. Due to Road Runner’s error in not verifying customer email addresses, Earthlink has blocked all Road Runner customer addresses in Central Fla, marking them as spam. When contacted, Road Runner’s Help Desk 1) took forever to answer (literally 30 minutes on one occasion); 2) technicians did not understand the problem and insisted it was not Road Runner’s problem; 3) did not acknowledge the area-wide problem; 4) neglected to escalate the issue to their own fraud and security divisions; 5) refused to assist customers with resolving the issue, and 6) insisted the customer had to resolve the issue with Earthlink. The question is, for what are the customers paying these high prices? Certainly not service. In addition to the connection problems expressed here, Road Runner cannot or will not provide support even when the problem is with their own email servers.
fuck road runner
When RoadRunner is setup and running right it’s fabulous. If there is a problem, you might as well cancel the service because it will take weeks if not months to get it fixed. They have THE WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE possible. If there was ever a good argument for outsourcing, this would be it.
I am fortunate since I live in a town with municipal cable and Internet service and was able to switch services faster then Time Warner could even get out to fix the problem (it was the whole neighborhood that was down but they couldn’t even figure that out and kept insisting it was just us even though we talked daily with our neighbors who were getting the same response from TW customer no-support). When the muni cable installer showed up he said they get 80% of their business from people that are feed up with TW’s customer service.
My brother was so frustrated with TW’s 2-4 week response times when his service went down (always in the same place out on the telephone pole in front of his house) that he switched to satellite Internet service which is painfully slow and more expensive but it was his next best option.
Time Warner’s North East Ohio service is so bad, the next time I move I will make sure that it’s not in an area supported by TW. THEY SUCK…….
Time Warner in San Antonio is outsourcing-in the Philippines.
I agree – Time Warner sales/service people don’t know beans about their products, their products ar unreliable and the attitude of their phone personnel is the worst. I’m off RR by tomorrow morning and will never use or recommend them ever again. Too many better value choices in the market place for TV and Internet – Time Warner is NOT one of those choices.
Time Warner NYC is very bad…I have trying to get them to fix a router problmem…where my Apple Airport Extreme gets kicked off their network anytime I use Azureus..
I live in Queens too and I have the same problems with TWC. My internet if very flaky and drops off all the time. If i try to use BitTorrent on my mac or PC ….it drops in a min or two. I have to reset my router and TWC modem to get it back.
Is there a way to trick TWC by using a different port on your router for the traffic from BitTorrent…I wonder.If I find anything I will spread the info.
Also theres no DSL in my part of the woods in Queens ,so I have to stay with them. Fios would be nice….O well for now,I guess I wait.
Road Runner has been pretty good for me for YEARS without a problem. Only recently have I experienced a problem that MIGHT be related to Road Runner… I’ve lost access to my websites. I’ve done everything I can possibly think of to gain access but notta. Everyone tells me they can see my sites just fine .. and on occassion so have I’ve seen them and even been able to access the control panel then it all just stops working. My host tells me there is no problem on his end. But I’ve learned others have had a similiar problem and it lead back to their ISP. Now, I don’t look forward to telling Time Warner they have a problem because I know it’s going to be like doing the rounds with a bunch of two-year olds … :O/
Reading all the comments about TW has been good threapy for me! I thought I was the only one who was getting yanked around by them! In trying to find out why TW e-mail won’t send my mesages anymoe, although I can receive them. I spent about 20″ looking for help but each time I seemed to begetting close, it reverted into a closed circuit self licking ice cream cone. When I finally got what looked like help, it was in the form of a download program that I had to use to troubleshoot TW’s system myself! Why am I paying TW’s high prices for them to task me with their troubleshooting & maintenance? I will switch as soon as I can find any other service for the same speed & price.
Had TW for 10 now – hate them! My Linkysis loses my connection constantly. I can’t figure a pattern out – signal just goes away whenever it wants. I turn off the router and back on and the signal is back. It might stay for an hour or a 3. I’ll start up some downloads before I head out the door in the AM, everyday when I come home…offline.
I’ve called them – they won’t support me because I use a Linksys router and refuse to acknowledge the problem.
As other have posted – speed dries up like a well in Death Valley when I start tapping News Demon.
OK I’m also stuck with TW/RR the worst Internet I have ever used! I think they try to guess who is using torrents, if your always downloading …must be on a torrent…throttle back! Then if you call
in 45 to 50 minutes later they transfer you to the next tier of support. You end up after 1 1/2 hours on tier 3 where they tell you nothing is WRONG! So then I say all the people around me have the same problem? Then the brain dead person on the phone tells me maybe it’s my modem? (it’s the junk modem from them they make me use!) Then I tell them again …it’s not just me it’s all of us? They tell me again it’s MY MODEM!
Then I say … OK so my DAM MODEM RUNS ALL OF COSTA MESA? YOU BRAIN DEAD J/A! They throttle for gaming?
is it that they are soooooo stupid they think gaming is torrenting? If you can use anyone else DON’T USE TW/RR! …My speeds 100/kbs down 12/kbs up (when they throttle) I pay for 10,000/kbs 1,000/kbs, and it does hit that speed until you try to use it!
hmm….. sorry to hear about your [orig poster] d/l problems, ive always had failed experience when dealing with RR phone techs also, but, im not the average computer user, i have a lot of extensive tech exp, so when its time for me to call them, its not something they can usually fix over the phone and a house visit is usually in order. now, MOST of the time i have internet connectivity issues and they come out to my house, 90% of the time the problem is fixed, and the 1 time it wasnt fixed was because [this is for the other linksys users], my 8 yr old router was weak link. my download speeds would be great, then awful, great, then awful, and since RR does not support Router tech support, and they shouldnt be expected too, the servicemen had replaced all my lines form the road to my PC and still we had problems. i went out and bought a new router and voila, im back in the green again. i bought a netgear router this time, btw.
not getting anywhere with the phone tech support? my advise is get them to open a service ticket and send out a serviceman to check your lines, etc.. always works good for me.
Ditto, double ditto. Things have not improved with tw since ’07’s original comment. I’m also in a cable monopoly situation. I tried to switch to TW business class phone for two months. Such incompetance you would believe knowing TW. I’m convinced the phone service operators are specially trained to obfuscate a simple problem. I’m going to switch cable, internet and phone as soon as I can find a real service.
I have spent the past 8 hours off and on on hold for Roadrunner level 3 tech support. The call center in the Phillipines takes your call and promises someone will be right with you. Your call is then placed on hold. NO ONE EVER ANSWERS. The worst customer service I have ever experienced.
Sorry to resurrect an old thread.. but I just started having packet drops on my line.. went through a couple calls to cust svc (yes, phillipines), and they can’t see any trouble. The only thing level 2 tech did was remotely reset the modem. Then he proceeded to tell me it was my computer/equipment.
It was working okay last night.
And I can see the dropped packets via ping in a dos box.. Just talking to a wall with those guys.
Anyhow, thankfully Windstream is available. I called and they’re installing in 10 days. Hope they’re better. Been wanting to cancel twcohio for years.. finally doing it. Maybe they can pick up some more customers in india or the phillipines.
F-ers.
Switched to Road Runner Lite a few days ago because my DSL service would reset every time the phone rang. The good news is we can now use the phone without inturupting Internet service.
But this is the slowest connection I have seen in years (since the days of dial-up). Time Warner’s Road Runner Lite is good for checking email or light web browing. No good for streaming video (even low quality video) or sharing files.
I regret switching. Losing connection all day was preferable to this.