Time Warner Cable Hates YOU!

Time Warner Cable Hates YOU!

by mwooldri | Published on December 12th, 2008, 8:21 am | Greensboro

Sanjuro wrote:True. The first company that offers channels à la carte will make bank.

Personally I feel we need something like the UK's Freeview system. 30+ channels, over the air (no dish, no cable, just a reasonable antenna), no subscription. True it's not HD but HD's coming there sooner or later, and they have Freesat for that (free satellite TV). Of course in the UK your TV viewing has to be "licensed" (some call it a TV Tax) and that gets you at least 5 full time TV channels commercial free (BBC).

Then that will leave you figuring out your best deal for internet access.

Mark.

Here is my situation. I had Time Warner for years. Buggy in and out network connection. I switched to Verizon Fios. One and 1/2 month later I left for breakfast, returned home and saw a Time Warner truck out front. Now get this, this is a 16 unit building and most every switched to Verizon. So I am thinking "why is a Warner truck doing out front". Got into my room, network was out, attempted to view TV, TV was out, scrambled to my phone, the damn phone was out! Make calls back and forth to Verizon until next day service man came out to see problem. Well I knew that Time Warner has disconnected the main fiber channel but had no proof. Server guy said that my fiber channel was broken inside but the cable insulator was still intact and that it will have to be spliced the next day.

Questions: Did Warner deliberately bend my cable back and forth to cut the fiber inside while making the cable look intact? Answer: I bet they did to cause much back and forth phone calls with me and Verzion.

Question: Did Warner disrupt my service with intent? Answer: The fact that only the inside of the fiber cable was damage and the fact that there was no work order called for my line at all is proof of a YES answer.

Question: Does anyone in my building even have Time Warner? Answer: I will survey and see and ask manager if any work orders where even scheduled that day.

Question: Shall and sew and how much will I win, and shall I get a class action filed because I know that (expletive) has happened to many others before?

Them stupid piece of works got mad that the competitor out serviced them and like a damn bully wanted to make trouble for me. This message was sent of a stolen unsecured wireless connection !

I would like to consider myself a good Christian man however I have to admit that I have despised TWC for many years now. There is probably not a single person working at or for TWC who really truly cares about customer satisfaction or even offering any value to their customers. When I purchased my home in Dec 2007 I had to have a new cable line put underground so that my digital cable and HS internet would work correctly and they destroyed my back yard several times over the course of several weeks trying to get it right. I had fluorescent orange lines spray painted on my grass and yard for months it seems. After they finally got the signal strength to the house corrected the cable TV worked 'OK' but my HS internet still did not work so they had to send out a contractor to install a new line to my upstairs office where my modem was. When the contractor arrived I told him the line needed to be replaced and I showed him the cable outlet on the wall which ran to the modem. I left him to work on things for a while and when I checked back with him a few minutes later I found that he had drilled a 1/2" hole through the interior and exterior wall which was in the middle of the wall you first saw walking into the room and in the middle of the exterior face of the house. He had started to run a new black cable through the hold when I found out what the drilling noise was and yelled at him for not asking before putting a huge hole in my house. I asked him why he did not simply fix the existing cable outlet and he said it would be too hard to run the new wire through the wall. When I showed him that there was a crawlspace which allowed easy access to the cable line in back of the wall outlet and which he could use to easily run the line very close to the wall above the junction box on the outside of the house he just stood there with a puzzled look. I told him my house is light gray and I could not believe he was planning to run a solid black cable line from the middle of my exterior wall (visible from the road by the way) across to the corner and down the corner to the ground. It would have looked absolutely horrible. He said he would not have looked that bad and I was ready to slap him at this point. I have to admit at this point I think my anger got the best of me and I called him an idiot. I told him to gather all his tools together and get out of my house now. He said he could come back to fix the hole and I told him I did not want him in my house ever again. I did have him silicone the hole from the outside to keep the rain from damaging my house but I demanded that TWC send a different person which a brain to fix the inside damage. As you can imagine I prompted canceled all my services with them and have not paid them a dime ever since. If I need a reminder of why I will never do business with TWC again I need only look at the hole in the middle of my exterior wall and remember when... there are also countless times I have had to deal with incompetent morons at TWC's customer service departments but I will spare you the details as I'm sure most of you have had the pleasure of experiencing them for yourself. I guess one could argue that TWC is helping our society by offering employment to people with an IQ only slightly higher than the range for mental retardation, then again they probably could flip burgers at McDonalds and cause less stress for the rest of us.

Apparently Greensboro has been chosen for "metered" broadband. That would explain the new modems apparently.

Web users, the meter is running. In a strategy that's likely to rankle consumers but be copied by competitors, Time Warner Cable (TWC) is pressing ahead with a plan to charge Internet customers based on how much Web data they consume. In Greensboro, N.C., the billing changes will begin sooner. Spun off from Time Warner (TWX) this month. By charging a premium to the heaviest broadband users, much the same way cell-phone providers collect fees from subscribers who exceed their allotted minutes, Time Warner would upend a longstanding pricing strategy among Internet service providers. Typically, phone and cable companies charge flat fees for unlimited access to the Web. "We need a viable model to be able to support the infrastructure of the broadband business," Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt says in an interview. via

Seriously.... Come on!?

Told ya so...

Yeah, but where is the uproar about mobile companies charging ridiculous amounts of money for text messages? Do you have any idea how little bandwidth a text uses?!?

Nothing new here I'm afraid.

Comcast users have a 250Gb/month cap, they probably pay more if they go over.

Generally it's true: a small percentage of the users hog the bandwidth. However with more and more things going online the moment the ISPs put on caps, limits, etc the more we'll have to become savvy and keep on their toes.

It's a shame that there's not a lot of competition. We basically have Time Warner Cable offering a RoadRunner branded service and a similar Earthlink branded service. We have AT&T who still pretty much have a monopoly over local wired phone services (notice the whole bunch of people offering DSL service in Greensboro... or not as the case is). It would be interesting if they did the bandwidth pricing on Road Runner and not Earthlink.

Ironically the trend elsewhere is the other way. People are talking more about fibre rollouts to the home (is AT&T U-Verse coming our way any time soon? Doubt it) with much higher speeds and unlimited usage. Seems like if TWC do roll out this kind of pricing that I will have to strongly negotiate our internet supply contract and yes probably pay more, or failing that, buy two AT&T DSL lines and pair them together.

I called last week to switch to Roadrunner Lite, and they tried to sell me a locked-in price...

The sales pitch was that I could have my same services (cable and RR) for only a few bucks more a month than what the price would be if I switched to Lite.

The first flag went up when the sales associate mentioned a 60 day risk-free trial period. So I asked a few questions, and what it came down to was entering a two-year contract. Break it, and you owe Time Warner $150. Needless to say, I stuck with my plan of switching to Lite.

So then I wondered, why do they want to lock-in customers at a low price?

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Time-Warner-Cable-Using-Fine-Print-To-Foist-Caps-On-Customers-96259

Oh, you reminded me!

I called to "cancel" my TV part of my cable service. The person I spoke to offered a "Price Lock" which I hummed and haa'd about and the initial person stated that there would be a $100 early termination fee. The person stated they needed to connect me with the 3rd party verifier and guess what? That early termination fee went up to $150. Needless I "failed" their verification and didn't call back. I might call AT&T out of spite even though I loathe them.

Then I read on BBC News that Virgin in the UK are rolling out 50Mbit cable service... thought'd Id' look at the pricing. If I was in one of their areas I could get 20Mbit internet, a reasonable TV package and the cheapest phone system for £30 a month. ($45/month). They do make it clear they have traffic shaping though: download too much in "peak time" and they'll kill your speed 75%. Hmmm that's still 5Mbit down for the 20Mbit package, or 12.5Mbit for the 50Mbit package. But 12.5 Mbit is higher than TWC's standard offering in Greensboro.

I found a perfectly good TV antennia still in the box at the Recycling Center: http://www.salvageamerica.us that will pick-up every local station for 65 miles. And Time Warner broadband isn't much faster than dial-up here on my side of town.

Besides, I never watch TV except for the local news. I think I'll be pulling the plug on Time Warner cable and Internet.

I don't download a lot these days. However this could have major consequences for me depending on my broadband phone. Also Netflix, if I were to buy a Roku. I remember this was a huge deal while we were over in London & Cardiff.... because of BBC's I-player sucking up bandwidth....

But shouldn't a cable company whose fought to stay in business be trying to retain it's current market share than lose it to a competitor who will spring up? I'm quite certain the purpose isn't to reprimand users, it's to prevent services like Hulu from infringing on their monopoly....

Liv wrote:I'm quite certain the purpose isn't to reprimand users, it's to prevent services like Hulu from infringing on their monopoly....

I think you may be on to something there Liv. That would make a LOT of sense.

Time Warner is gearing up to charge for internet access based on metered usage. I'd have to totally reconsider having them provide my access if they told me I'd used too much internet... :evil:

What alternatives do we have?

From my feeble understanding, when this was implemented in other places it only affected new sign-ups to internet service. I wonder if that will be the case here as well.

BecauseHeLives wrote:From my feeble understanding, when this was implemented in other places it only affected new sign-ups to internet service. I wonder if that will be the case here as well.

Mine too, and maybe that was the case from a test market perspective. But from the way the article reads, they're going to monitor everyone's usage this next term.

Sanjuro wrote:
BecauseHeLives wrote:From my feeble understanding, when this was implemented in other places it only affected new sign-ups to internet service. I wonder if that will be the case here as well.

Mine too, and maybe that was the case from a test market perspective. But from the way the article reads, they're going to monitor everyone's usage this next term.

I'm very happy that my work pays for my home internet. But, if they did this I would certainly consider switching to something else. I'd even go back to BellSouth if necessary.

Wow, the comments on the related articles at the "News and Record" and "Business Week" websites are fantastic and keep growing!!

I do want to add that we need to do more than complain to Time Warner. What we need to do is engage the local Congressman and start looking at the anti-monopoly laws. This has the flavor of Ma Bell all over it. You think overcharges on phones are bad? Wait until a family of four has a dollar a gig slapped on them! The internet is not a novelty like it was in the early 90's. This is simple extortion by a company that knows there is no competition. It might be Capitalism in its truest form, but it will hurt people and is wrong.

Sanjuro wrote:Wow, the comments on the related articles at the "News and Record" and "Business Week" websites are fantastic and keep growing!!

Yeah. Looks like the responses run the full gamut between finely-reasoned disgust to screaming, cussing outrage. I wonder if TWC execs will pay any attention before the customers start leaving?

CEO of Time Warner Cable - Glenn Britt ([email protected]), 203-328-0670
TWC Executive Customer Service - ([email protected]), 203-328-0600 (option 2)
Leader of Office of the President team: James Abott ======
Time Warner General Counsel Marc Lawrence Apfelbaum ([email protected]) 203-328-0631

Forget TW. They won't help us. We need to be on the horn to our local government. This would be a HUGE publicity gain for one of them to go after TW and prevent them legally from charging more to Greensboro residents than they do the rest of the country. That person would be hughly considered in the next election.

BecauseHeLives wrote:Forget TW. They won't help us. We need to be on the horn to our local government. This would be a HUGE publicity gain for one of them to go after TW and prevent them legally from charging more to Greensboro residents than they do the rest of the country. That person would be hughly considered in the next election.

I say we start with Howard Coble since Time Warner is a national company. He is someone who has a history of fighting for the welfare of the people and doesn't seem afraid of anything. If he is unwilling to help, THEN we ask local govt? Naturally it wouldn't hurt to do both.

I'm curious if this will effect those of us who are using Earthlink who is renting the Roadrunner service?

Liv wrote:I'm curious if this will effect those of us who are using Earthlink who is renting the Roadrunner service?

It's TWC that is going to be charging for internet bandwidth. The difference between RR and Earthlink should have no bearing on the matter.

http://stopthecap.com/ April 3rd, 2009, 7:29 am Reply with quote

http://stopthecap.com/