I have TWC/Roadrunner unfortunately. I have been gettin the crappiest service as of late. My cable modem will just stop working for like 2 minutes..but it happens every 5. So I could be in the middle of downloading something or play on xboxlive and it just loses connectivity for like 2 minutes.... the "ready" light flashes then comes back on and im back in business. I just cant stand this anymore, its really annoying... I have had this happen, and they supposedly came out and "fixed it." The BIGGEST problem is that I cant get DSL in my area.. I am like 20 yards from being able to get it (AT&T told me).. so what now? Fios isnt available, i cant get DSL.. am i just SOL and i have to stay with RR or go to dialup? what am i saying..go to dialup? no way..
Check to see if your modem is on its last legs or if the cable wires need to be replaced. I've had this happened twice and that was the root of the problem. FYI; the home I'm in now was built approx. ten years ago. How the cable wiring went bad is beyond me.
yes there is satellite, but I think it's not good for gaming since the upload speed is truly horrendous. Download wise, its comparable to low end DSL. BTW, Chow's right, you need to doble check your cable modem and whatnot. Wait till the company takes a look at it.
Have TW replace the modem. Have them replace the splitters in your house as well and make sure that the internet line is on the first split. Ofcourse they should check the signal strength as well. If TW and AT&T are not available there is not many other choices. See if Verizon services your area.
I talked to a Verizon rep and their starting to roll out FioS, but only in new neighborhoods If their successful, they'll start to run the lines in older neighborhoods and offer the service. I was told that I might not see it till one to three years
Thanks guys, i guess i gotta call TWC to see WHEN the hell they feel like coming out. They always take forever to come out.
I've had Satellite Broadband (Wildblue) - the latency is frustrating, and as someone else mentioned, the upload speeds are limited to 128K up for work, I have Cingular's EDGE network for my laptop. It sucks too.
If you're in Houston, maybe give Oplink a try. They are also DSL, but there is some difference between them and SBC (I don't know exactly what the difference is).
I agree RR is not as reliable as Comcast was in DFW... If I could get DSL here, I'd "downgrade." We have FiOS, but that costs more than cable... what gives? I may even switch back to dial-up since we have DSL at the office. But I have no home phone line, only cell.
I'm fed up with Time Warner also -- would switch if I could and will switch as soon as an alternative is available. I had the same problem as you bladeage about 6 months ago .... cable modem would "reboot" every 5 minutes. I remember this one lady (phone tech) simply not believing me .... said my cable modem has been up nonstop for X amount of days so there was no way I was having the problem I was describing. I'd be like, "Look, it's rebooting right now." They came out and switched cable modems for me (like 10 days later) and it happened again while the guy was in his truck set to drive away. I caught him, but I don't know what they did to ultimately fix it -- they had to call some different tech who works on the master lines or something and ultimately it went away ... for the most part. But during business hours I will still "drop" twice an hour or so. We use Vonage for phone so we lose a lot of calls.... we're looking to get off it. And then yesterday, our DVR stopped recording shows... we didn't get to see Lost and my wife lost out on American Idol. It showed in the scheduled recordings for these shows to record at random times (when they weren't scheduled to be on). Over the phone we went through a bunch of steps and they diagnosed this as us needing a new box. So we picked one up today ... plugged it in an hour or so ago and we don't get any premium channels or the HD channels (for some reason I get the HBO HD channels, but none of the other HBOs.... hell if I know). Rebooted, sending new signals, etc. -- they tried everything and no dice. (So I can't watch the Rockets game in HD tonight). So they are coming out tomorrow (surprisingly), but in a 12-hour window. Just tired of calling them. I think I've "confirmed" to them my phone number and address 120 times over the last few months.
I've been an Oplink customer for nearly 4 years. The difference between them and SBC is that they don't use PPPoE which is essentially a hack designed to allow them to cram more customers in than their capacity allows. The downside of PPPoE is that it is an extra layer and thus effectively reduces your bandwidth so you're not getting the full speed that your line is capable of. Oplink just uses straight Ethernet so there is no performance loss. They claim to have the best ping times in Houston (which is great if you're an online gamer). They've also historically had much more diverse service options. My service gives me 3mbps down/512k up ... you might get better download speeds with RR but the upstream is definitely better, and it's cheaper to boot.
I just remembered i dont have Home Phone service, everyone in my house uses cell phones. Any recommendations? I tried Bellsouth, but they dont offer service in Texas. which seems strange.
Try Verizon or Sprints EVDO. I don't know how the latency holds up, but with Rev A months away, it could be your answer.
i have dsl and all i can say is, it sucks. line is realy slow, and i moved in two houses in a 3 year span and when the internet starts working at the new house the same problem like you, bladage, happens. all the lights on the modern looks fine so i have to turn off the modern and turn it back. gets pretty annoying. it goes on for 3 months then its fixed. and there is this thing called dsl filter, and i'm supose to plug it in with modern, but it makes it 10 times slower, their telling me to buy it at best buy or somewhere. SCREW THAT. and it has the worst customer care ever. if they comeover it cost like 60 dollars. it takes me at least 30 minutes jsut to call them. i'm switching to roadrunner.
Time Warner sucks everywhere. The cable box at home just randomly goes out sometimes. Its crazy. The internet in my apartment is just as bad. we have an ethernet hookup but the internet goes down for like two hours at least once or twice a week. I don't know why it does that. Can the lines get overloaded or something? I think we have like dish network or something for our cable (which for some reason doesn't include all the basic cable channels, but has 6 or 7 HBO channels) and it always goes out when it rains really hard. I hate college apartments. It's SBC in Texas, but I think they just merged with AT&T. It works pretty well. We have them at home, but we don't have a landline in my apartment so I dunno what's best in DFW.
