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one horror story i know if was a business line person, they paid 600$ a month for 70/5 where the only advantage was when you call and have a business line, you get real customer service.
once google came into the area, they suddenly offered 300/20 for the same price, which is a pittance compared to google.
really hope we get someone in office who is willing to allow municipal internet, the few places in america that have it cant price it at cost, they have to charge "competitive market value" but they are in the top 5 world wide for speed.
once google came into the area, they suddenly offered 300/20 for the same price, which is a pittance compared to google.
really hope we get someone in office who is willing to allow municipal internet, the few places in america that have it cant price it at cost, they have to charge "competitive market value" but they are in the top 5 world wide for speed.
holyneo
Honorable
- Feb 4, 2013
- 23
- 0
- 10,510
I remember paying $15 dollars a month for 56k, I tend not to bitch about internet ISP. You think you got problems now, you should have tried dialing in to get a 33k-56k from back in the day, then to get disconnected and waiting another minute to connect again. So I appreciate the speeds we get now. I would have handed my wallet over back then to get what we have today.
Timer Warner are deceptive crooks that first chart shows $35 for 50mb and lists ME in reality they are offer 15mb for the same price and of course the tacked on hidden modem rental service fee as well for a old outdated cable modem mind you.
https://www.timewarnercable.com/en/plans-packages/internet/internet-service-plans.html?iid=hpplans:1:1:internet
https://www.timewarnercable.com/en/plans-packages/internet/internet-service-plans.html?iid=hpplans:1:1:internet
TWC pricing sucks because most people forget to renegotiate the price. Renegotiating is a long a painful process. You will get offered a bunch of shit you don't want during this process. They will act like they can't do it at first. Some years you get a great deal some you don't pain in the ass is what it always is.
The performance and price got a low score because barely any citys have time Warner cable max. Everywhere with out max pays the same for lower speeds i pay for 35 Mbps internet in buffalo newyork with twc the same price the 100 or 200 mbps offer cost in NY. Till around 5 months ago that speed was 25 mbps till TWC upped the speed ten megs. Are cable companies paying this article to sound less harsh and do little research this seems like a bad article for Toms.
The complaints about the pricing are because if you want your prices to remain reasonable you have to call every 12 months and threaten to cancel you service. This is terrible customer service. If anything customers who have been with you longer should get better rates, they certainly shouldn't have to spend several hours on the phone every year negotiating with their ISP.
atheus
Distinguished
- Aug 2, 2010
- 669
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Pretty amusing how the author spends the whole pricing paragraph puzzling over the fact that the two data sets don't seem to match, and somehow it never clicks that he sampled rates from a location with abnormally low pricing and high availability. Unfortunately it basically means the commentary in the article becomes a waste of time. Hopefully the next article will receive a little more research.
cgeorgescu
Distinguished
- Jan 30, 2012
- 4
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- 18,510
Guys, something is terribly wrong with ISPs in US. Really. What I hear here about 50Mbps, 100Mbps... Really? And $50? For what?
You see, Romania is a poor Eastern Europe country, at the border of the European Union with Rusia, to get an idea. Here, really, people grow pigs in the backyard, imagine that. Some people have cows (not like a farm but one-two cows they're milking and, then, killing to eat). I mean it, it's a very poor country. Damn, they filmed Borat here.
But Romanians have 100Mbps+ for nothing. I don't even know if you can get lower than 100-150Mbps, I never heard of lower speeds. My ISP has nothing below 250Mbps but young people tend to subscribe to the faster ones, like 500Mbps or 1Gbps. Yeah, 1Gbps.
And no, that's not for corporate but for home. Damn, 1Gbps is $11 per month and offers 1Gbps download, 200Mbps upload, 50GB storage in their cloud, unlimited traffic, dynamic DNS... plus a complimentary 3G stick for you to use on your laptop. Unlimited. Really.
And no, do not think that $11 means a lot here, no. Here, a BigMac is $2, the BigMac menu is about $3.2, so 1Gbps for a month is 5 BigMacs.
So something is terribly wrong with your ISPs, you shouldn't pay that kind of prices.
You see, Romania is a poor Eastern Europe country, at the border of the European Union with Rusia, to get an idea. Here, really, people grow pigs in the backyard, imagine that. Some people have cows (not like a farm but one-two cows they're milking and, then, killing to eat). I mean it, it's a very poor country. Damn, they filmed Borat here.
But Romanians have 100Mbps+ for nothing. I don't even know if you can get lower than 100-150Mbps, I never heard of lower speeds. My ISP has nothing below 250Mbps but young people tend to subscribe to the faster ones, like 500Mbps or 1Gbps. Yeah, 1Gbps.
And no, that's not for corporate but for home. Damn, 1Gbps is $11 per month and offers 1Gbps download, 200Mbps upload, 50GB storage in their cloud, unlimited traffic, dynamic DNS... plus a complimentary 3G stick for you to use on your laptop. Unlimited. Really.
And no, do not think that $11 means a lot here, no. Here, a BigMac is $2, the BigMac menu is about $3.2, so 1Gbps for a month is 5 BigMacs.
So something is terribly wrong with your ISPs, you shouldn't pay that kind of prices.
I know timewarner has a bit of a reputation of being a horrible company, but in the two homes i've lived in with their service, its been excellent for me. I guess some areas have issues but i never have outages more than maybe once a year for a few hours at most. I'm paying $65 a month for 300mb/20mb and that actual speeds I get are anywhere from 300-380mb down and 20-25mb up. Latency is always in the 8-12ms range for local servers, obviously if i connect halfway around the world it can shoot up, but usually stays reasonable. I'd definately not rate their customer service too highly, they are pretty typical of service providers. there are hold times, sometimes long, tier 1 support is useless beyond asking you to reset your modem and bypass your router, but the once or twice i've had to talk to upper tier support, if/when you can get ahold of someone they are usually pretty good. Maybe i'm just lucky to have a solid connection.(los angeles area)
larkspur
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- Mar 10, 2011
- 2,252
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cgeorgescu - You're right, it is sad that broadband services are so expensive in the US. A couple years ago I heard about Romania's extremely low price/speed ratio and their excellent speeds. I wanted to answer the question: How is this possible? My research immediately showed that Romania has a huge number of ISPs many of which are resellers. How did they get so many ISPs and so much competition? Answer: Deregulation of telecoms and ISPs in the early 00s.
In the US if an ISP wants run new cable or fiber it must navigate a labyrinthine mess of federal, state, and local codes and application processes in order to obtain approval for their construction project. Each state has different requirements, even each locality may have different requirements. Approval for such expansions at the state and local level can take years and usually requires the approval of all three federal, state and local authorities. Many of these authorities are 'in the pocket' of the giant ISPs (I would even go so far as to say "most" of these authorities). While the FCC's recent policy amendments now prohibit States from banning municipal-run ISPs, those states (and municipalities) still retain control over any and all non-municipal-run ISPs and their activities within their jurisdiction. This means that a city (or state) can reject a new ISP that wants to bring their service there (and they do all the time). As I said, many of these regulators are 'in the pocket' of the large incumbent ISP(s) thus making it very difficult to bring in new competition.
In Romania, there is very little regulation of ISPs. This is why there are so many. If an ISP wants to bring service to a city or area, the barriers to do so are minimal. Basically they just need to notify the city of their construction plans and then lay cable/fiber and start selling their service. This is why many cities in Romania have dozens of different companies' cable/fiber running down the same street.
Another thing about Romania - broadband resellers. In Romania it is perfectly legal for a small company (or individual) to purchase a high-speed connection from an ISP and then setup a LAN (they call these Neighborhood Block ISPs). Basically these companies buy some number of high-speed connections and then distribute them out via a fancy router and wifi and/or ethernet cables to connect the homes in a neighborhood. Since it is a LAN, it has a very limited area in which it can serve, but these small companies will setup another LAN in a different neighborhood and so on and so on... They purchase the connection from an ISP and then distribute that connection to multiple individual homes. This allows dozens of households to share a single (or multiple) connection(s) thus lowering the cost even further. Many of them actually purchase multiple connections from different ISPs in order to provide redundancy in the case of a single ISP having an outage. While I can't seem to find a definitive answer (it may vary from state-to-state or municipality-to-municipality, I'm not sure) it appears that this would be illegal in the USA. It's also worth mentioning that in many neighborhoods in the US houses are spread out more than in many neighborhoods in Romania, thus making a neighborhood LAN less practical in US neighborhoods.
So while you see a lot of people in the US complaining about their gigantic conglomerate ISP - it is not just the ISP who is limiting competition, it is both the ISP and the regulators themselves. It's the regulators who have the legal authority to deny service expansion and start-ups by other ISPs. It's the regulators who make it nearly impossible for a 'little guy' to start-up a new ISP. By removing the authority to limit competition by federal, state and local regulators, the US would see a lot more ISP competition and a lot more ISPs. All you really have to do is to have a good look at who the regulators themselves are - the FCC is run by former gigantic-conglomerate-ISP executives. And it is the same at the lower levels. The problem is that most US citizens don't understand this and actually think that the regulators are there to promote competition. The FCC themselves have done a fantastic job in making people think they are the good guy, while the gigantic-conglomerate ISPs are laughing all the way to the bank. I think that the present state of internet access and lousy competition in the USA proves my point. This corruption among gigantic-conglomerate ISPs and said regulators will continue unless the people demand deregulation thus stripping the regulators of the ability to deny service expansions and small ISP start-ups. Until then, US citizens will continue to have one or two choices for an ISP, rather than the dozens of choices that many Romanians have.
While this guy is just a blogger, and his post is a little older, he sums things up in Romania pretty nicely: http://foxnomad.com/2012/03/15/why-is-the-internet-in-romania-so-damn-fast/
In the US if an ISP wants run new cable or fiber it must navigate a labyrinthine mess of federal, state, and local codes and application processes in order to obtain approval for their construction project. Each state has different requirements, even each locality may have different requirements. Approval for such expansions at the state and local level can take years and usually requires the approval of all three federal, state and local authorities. Many of these authorities are 'in the pocket' of the giant ISPs (I would even go so far as to say "most" of these authorities). While the FCC's recent policy amendments now prohibit States from banning municipal-run ISPs, those states (and municipalities) still retain control over any and all non-municipal-run ISPs and their activities within their jurisdiction. This means that a city (or state) can reject a new ISP that wants to bring their service there (and they do all the time). As I said, many of these regulators are 'in the pocket' of the large incumbent ISP(s) thus making it very difficult to bring in new competition.
In Romania, there is very little regulation of ISPs. This is why there are so many. If an ISP wants to bring service to a city or area, the barriers to do so are minimal. Basically they just need to notify the city of their construction plans and then lay cable/fiber and start selling their service. This is why many cities in Romania have dozens of different companies' cable/fiber running down the same street.
Another thing about Romania - broadband resellers. In Romania it is perfectly legal for a small company (or individual) to purchase a high-speed connection from an ISP and then setup a LAN (they call these Neighborhood Block ISPs). Basically these companies buy some number of high-speed connections and then distribute them out via a fancy router and wifi and/or ethernet cables to connect the homes in a neighborhood. Since it is a LAN, it has a very limited area in which it can serve, but these small companies will setup another LAN in a different neighborhood and so on and so on... They purchase the connection from an ISP and then distribute that connection to multiple individual homes. This allows dozens of households to share a single (or multiple) connection(s) thus lowering the cost even further. Many of them actually purchase multiple connections from different ISPs in order to provide redundancy in the case of a single ISP having an outage. While I can't seem to find a definitive answer (it may vary from state-to-state or municipality-to-municipality, I'm not sure) it appears that this would be illegal in the USA. It's also worth mentioning that in many neighborhoods in the US houses are spread out more than in many neighborhoods in Romania, thus making a neighborhood LAN less practical in US neighborhoods.
So while you see a lot of people in the US complaining about their gigantic conglomerate ISP - it is not just the ISP who is limiting competition, it is both the ISP and the regulators themselves. It's the regulators who have the legal authority to deny service expansion and start-ups by other ISPs. It's the regulators who make it nearly impossible for a 'little guy' to start-up a new ISP. By removing the authority to limit competition by federal, state and local regulators, the US would see a lot more ISP competition and a lot more ISPs. All you really have to do is to have a good look at who the regulators themselves are - the FCC is run by former gigantic-conglomerate-ISP executives. And it is the same at the lower levels. The problem is that most US citizens don't understand this and actually think that the regulators are there to promote competition. The FCC themselves have done a fantastic job in making people think they are the good guy, while the gigantic-conglomerate ISPs are laughing all the way to the bank. I think that the present state of internet access and lousy competition in the USA proves my point. This corruption among gigantic-conglomerate ISPs and said regulators will continue unless the people demand deregulation thus stripping the regulators of the ability to deny service expansions and small ISP start-ups. Until then, US citizens will continue to have one or two choices for an ISP, rather than the dozens of choices that many Romanians have.
While this guy is just a blogger, and his post is a little older, he sums things up in Romania pretty nicely: http://foxnomad.com/2012/03/15/why-is-the-internet-in-romania-so-damn-fast/
Brian_R170
Honorable
- Jun 24, 2014
- 288
- 2
- 10,785
I participated in that survey when it was launched. Where can I see the full survey results? I didn't see a link here or on the original survey page.
wiyosaya
Distinguished
- Apr 12, 2006
- 915
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- 18,990
It is interesting just how many people have posted regarding pricing. I wish 300 service was available in my area for $65/mo. I might consider staying with them when the local non-TWC fiber service hits my neighborhood. But the max in my area is 50/5 for $65/mo.
This is does not surprise me.
I don't remember seeing the survey, but I would have given them 0 stars for customer service if I could have. I know several people who are not as technically astute as I am including someone who wanted an ISP for streaming to only 1 TV. TWC tried to sell that person 50/5 service. Just got to be kidding me.
In addition, they slammed my elderly mother onto their telephone service by taking advantage of her. Then, when I called up to complain about it, they tried to sell me additional service. I mean, just how bad is customer service that when you have a complaint about bad service tries to sell you even more bad service. TWC is pure trash IMHO. Also, I saw a post from a former employee of TWC on another site. That person said that their initial training consisted of 3-hours of training on how to provide the worst possible customer service.
When I called about my mother's slammed service and told them you guys f'd up, the managerial rep told me "we don't make mistakes." And finally after getting more PO'd at the guy, he told me "everything I am telling you is supposed to make you less angry, but you're getting more angry." Reading from a script that FR was.
When the local fiber service hits my neighborhood, I am saying goodbye to complete trash.
This is does not surprise me.
I don't remember seeing the survey, but I would have given them 0 stars for customer service if I could have. I know several people who are not as technically astute as I am including someone who wanted an ISP for streaming to only 1 TV. TWC tried to sell that person 50/5 service. Just got to be kidding me.
In addition, they slammed my elderly mother onto their telephone service by taking advantage of her. Then, when I called up to complain about it, they tried to sell me additional service. I mean, just how bad is customer service that when you have a complaint about bad service tries to sell you even more bad service. TWC is pure trash IMHO. Also, I saw a post from a former employee of TWC on another site. That person said that their initial training consisted of 3-hours of training on how to provide the worst possible customer service.
When I called about my mother's slammed service and told them you guys f'd up, the managerial rep told me "we don't make mistakes." And finally after getting more PO'd at the guy, he told me "everything I am telling you is supposed to make you less angry, but you're getting more angry." Reading from a script that FR was.
When the local fiber service hits my neighborhood, I am saying goodbye to complete trash.
Taintedskittles
Honorable
- Jun 18, 2013
- 27
- 0
- 10,530
TWC is the worst where I live, had the misfortune of having it for 4 years. Their monopoly gave me no choice. Service down 6 hours a day because of old lines. Tech support from hell. Finally had enough & dropped them as my ISP. Went with AT&T , may be DSL 6mb, but it's more reliable than 20mb with random daily crashes.
- Jul 15, 2014
- 22,627
- 8
- 60,960
utroz :
Yeah well all know how Time Warner is.. They have faulty lines that they refuse to fix in my area causing both internet and cable tv to have outages at least 1-2 times a day for 5 min or so.. Really annoying when watching netflix and stuff.. One good thing is no data caps for me which is good as we pull around 20TB a month download ( not even close to what I could if I was pulling data 24/7 at max bandwidth). All it takes is a few people watching neflix, hulu, youtube, downloading updates, online gaming,ect.. Comcast's 300GB limit is a total joke.. I could pee 300GB of data.. 
I just checked my usage. My family of 4 is using a consistent 550GB or so a month.
I am a bit frustrated that this article supports the fallacy that cable speeds are affected by neighborhood use where DSL is not. DSL customers connect directly to a nearby CO or standalone DSLAM, which is by definition a device that aggregates a bunch of user connections. On one end, you have a series of t-spans or fiber runs and on the other end a series of "pins" upon which user lines are connected. The maximum (sold) bandwidth via the pins generally exceeds the bandwidth delivered by the fiber or t-spans by a factor of thirty or more. As a result, service suffers dramatically as the DSLAM reaches capacity. The exact symptoms of the congestion depend on the total bandwidth available and the sharing algorithms being used, but on my $70/mo 1mb/s DSL it manifests as pings in the 300-400ms range and often packet loss of 2-20% at the best of times and a complete loss of connectivity at the worst of times (5 nights of 6+ hour outages in the last 10 days).
The continued spread of misinformation regarding DSL being a dedicated connection, unaffected by congestion, are especially frustrating because ISPs are loathe to explain that connection issues are often caused by oversubsciption. They would much prefer to dissemble and have users fret over their inside wiring, interference sources, hardware failures, unauthorized devices, etc. Who among you, even on a tech. site, really have the knowledge and means to troubleshoot a flagging DSL connection without help from the ISP? I would guess very few. Meanwhile, the DSL/Wireless ISP is continuing to advertise "high speed internet" that is in fact a fractional share on a few 1.5mb/s T1 lines.
The continued spread of misinformation regarding DSL being a dedicated connection, unaffected by congestion, are especially frustrating because ISPs are loathe to explain that connection issues are often caused by oversubsciption. They would much prefer to dissemble and have users fret over their inside wiring, interference sources, hardware failures, unauthorized devices, etc. Who among you, even on a tech. site, really have the knowledge and means to troubleshoot a flagging DSL connection without help from the ISP? I would guess very few. Meanwhile, the DSL/Wireless ISP is continuing to advertise "high speed internet" that is in fact a fractional share on a few 1.5mb/s T1 lines.
I've been a Cable Tech for about 2 years. In my experience, with TWC its their backend, with Cox its the customers wiring. Amazed how many times I fixed data issues by changing splitters, connectors, wires, and grounds. With Cox, when the problem is on their side, they come out and replace the lines or add more infrastructure. It was actually pretty amazing working for them compared to TWC. TWC will do something like release 300 mb/s service without actually upgrading their equipment to support the increase consumption.
I have TWC and I have the same issues with the ISP as the others who commented above. Make me wonder who Tom's actually surveyed/interviewed to get the ratings in this article. Atleast it does not reflect many users who have commented thus far. My service gets interrupted for hours at a time without prior notice every month and I live in the Los Angeles area, not out in the boonies.
Funny thing is Tom's have not commented on this yet. They are usually active when people challenge the information in their articles.
Funny thing is Tom's have not commented on this yet. They are usually active when people challenge the information in their articles.
My Internet frequently performs worse than my trusty old 28.8 modem. As I write this, I am seeing 300ms average pings to Google on my $70/mo 1mb/s Windstream DSL at 10AM on a Tuesday. The packet loss is much worse than dial-up, as well. When I pointed this out to my ISP and asked them how bad they were willing to let things get, they replied (in writing) that they would not ever be improving unless the government gave them money and that they had no plans to make improvements before the end of 2017 under any circumstances. Nevermind that they clearly are not providing the service they advertise. Given this information, I hope you can see why your post is insensitive, inflammatory, and patronizing.
JonnyDough
Distinguished
- Feb 24, 2007
- 2,235
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- 19,865
So in other words, they're average for a big ISP with a monopoly on an area...which is still crap.
mikeyj9292
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- Feb 4, 2016
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