they have been a few times
Corporations are always sorry about the inconvenience as they take your problem seriously; I take my problem seriously, so I decided to share it with the world!
Our home internet connection is provided by Time Warner’s Road Runner service. We have subscribed to the Extreme feature, yielding 10 mbps… at least on paper. In reality, we have had an extremely unreliable connection paired with Time Warner’s abysmal support. Dealing with them is such a mind numbing experience words can’t describe the incompetence of their staff. To make matters even worse, we are not talking about a company in business to rip its customers off, like Verizon, but rather a genuine failure at almost every level of support.
Advertising rule #1: Lie
The Extreme Roadrunner service is supposed to let me “move at the cutting edge of today’s technology”; According to Time Warner, the edge is at 10 mbps, which is 20% faster than their equipment. Yes, they are selling a 10mb connection hooked to a server that can deliver up to 8190kb/sec.
They have fulfilled advertising rule number #1: Lie to the customer about what he is going to get; in this case the offer overstates their capability by twenty percent for my area. To their defense, it is probably written somewhere in a half-point font that this is a fantasy rate and we should be thrilled to get 1kb/sec. Usually the rule #2 is to lie about the price, but unlike my experience with Verizon, I found them very honest; As I wrote in the introduction, Time Warner does not really steal from people, but they just hire incompetent clowns.
The Roadrunner experience in numbers
After more than 7 months of service, this is how our experience of the Roadrunner service can be summarized :
| Advertised speed | 10mbps |
| Real speed in dry weather | 1 to 7 mbps |
| Real speed during rain | <1 mbps |
| Average speed | 2.5 mbps |
| Computers tried | 4 |
| Modems tried | 4 |
| Cables laid out | 1 original + 3 new sets |
| Technicians dispatched | 12 |
| Time on the phone | >15 hours |
what is really wrong?
In a nutshell, the speed of the service will vary considerably and randomly. It might bounce from 1mb/s to 6mb/s in a matter of minutes… or hours. It is utterly random. I have performed tests with numerous services, such as speedtest.net, speakeasy.net, broadbandreports.com as well as written my own test and tried it from this server as well as my office (both having connections dwarfing a home service, so they are not a bottleneck).
Basically the only constants are: speed sucks most of the time, and if it rains the service will barely work, or even fail.
So much equipment has been tried (4 PCs, one of them with 2 network cards, 4 modems, 4 sets of cables, etc) that Time Warner should get a clue that the problem doesn’t happen at my house.
In fact, if the connection doesn’t work when it rains, and I swear it doesn’t rain inside our place, they should get a stronger clue that the problem is somewhere outside. Impervious to any facts, support’s best shot usually consists of restarting the modem, followed by sending what they call a technician.
Time Warner’s roster
The structure is divided in four classes; each of them seems to have been bred separately: they are very different from one another, yet every specimen is identical to its peers within its own class.
They are the infantry of support. Their task is to fend off customers that don’t know their PC has to be turned on to use it. The will provide basic troubleshooting, such as: restart everything and see what happens. Any discussion with them is futile as they do not have any real understanding of the technology they are trying to support. They read instructions, ask you to follow them and when your problem is not solved, they pass you on.
Even though I have accumulated a considerable number of hours with Time Warner’s minions, I have never understood the role of this support level 2. I guess they’re here to type note and entertain you until you can reach someone of the next level. They don’t seem to possess any more skills than the previous level.
Ok, to be fair I have to say this is where the smart people reside. You can have a normal discussion about networks and they will understand. The issue I have been calling about being totally intermittent, they have been able to spot some problems sometimes, but not always. Ultimately, they all came up with different explanations (problems at the head, problems in the optic fiber, etc) and none of them yielded any results. I might theorize that they rely too much on the next class.
A very interesting category by itself: They project a ‘no problem, I can handle it’ image combined with the most radical incompetence I have seen. In fact I don’t think most of them would have the skills to work at McDonalds. Short of drilling holes in the walls and stapling cables, they are unequivocally the most clueless people of the whole organization. I have seen some unable to use a computer to even check if the connection was working properly. Usually they show up with no idea why they were sent; all the time spent with people over the phone doesn’t mean anything until the info is passed along. The last one did not know how to test the connection’s speed, but they all managed to humiliate themselves one way or another. I am not sure what criteria Time Warner uses when it comes to hire these numbskulls, but I’m sure you pass if you show you can hold a drill from the right side. English proficiency is definitely not a criteria.
They are pretty typical: deny the problem until proven wrong. At this point, they offer something ridiculous seasoned with one of the few most common lies of the corporate American culture, such as: I am sorry (yeah, right), I can only / cannot do this (suuure), I don’t see anything wrong (as if you even looked). To add insult to injury, they have to repeat these stupid sentences about excellent service or ask you if they can help you with anything else, after they didn’t help you with the first thing, etc. Just typical…
But the list wouldn’t be complete without the phone system: To reach a technician, you will wait over 2 minutes before being transferred to the queue and be told 3 times your modem’s MAC address. This is after calling the local number as the 1-800 refuses to put me through. Why? It claims we are calling from an ‘out of area number’. I guess their phone system cannot get our number… did I mention that the phone service is through Time Warner too?
Quotes
Maybe I should set a hidden camera in our office room; the field technicians can come up with some pretty good lines sometimes:
- Can you sign up my work sheet? My friend is waiting for me to go to lunch
- To have high speed, you need a fixed IP
- 3mbps is fast enough!
- Why don’t you sign up for a slower service? That way you will pay for what you have right now
- I removed the old cable, but I don’t have the right drill to put the new one so I cannot finish today
- This is a free world, there are other internet providers. If we haven’t managed to fix it so far, it will continue
- I see the problem, it is the splitter! (a new splitter later) I have no idea why it doesn’t work
- Do you know a website to check the speed?
- It’s the router causing the problem! (I show the router is not plugged in) I have to call my supervisor to see if he knows
- It doesn’t rain anymore, so your internet will be fine!
- Why do you have a router if you don’t use wireless?
- the wireless signal is slower, that’s why it’s slow (no it’s not slower and I don’t even use it)
and I don’t remember most of them. The phone people were pretty funny too, reciting nonsense, being rude sometimes when you prove them wrong, etc. Not to mention they managed to disconnect my TV service an set up the wrong speed while doing changes on my account.
Good mention
Out of this putrid mess, I had to deal with one person that took the problem seriously, was friendly and smart. His name was Ryan W; unfortunately the troubleshooting didn’t go far enough to prove useful.
He found that there was an issue between a network card I had and the modem; I did more tests after and it turned out to happen with Vista and a specific network driver (long story short: a SYN packet is sent and ignored by the modem, things go out of sync from there). So, yes, there was that issue but the problem was found at a time my connection was also behaving properly and we left it at that (fixed with another network card). Unfortunately the connection started to act up shortly after, which was confirmed by connecting more computers.
At least they have one good employee!
what next
I am not sure I can expect them to do anything else. They have no structure to let competent people handle the problems from begin to end.
The sad thing is that I used to work for Time Warner, back in the Atari days, on video game projects and it was a great company to be with. I am not sure how it has sunk so low nor how they can make it right now.
I guess adjusting the bill is a first step: they sell 10mbps while they can only deliver 8mbps in a perfect case, so that’s 20% stolen right there. But then, I get an average of 2.5mbps, so to be fair I should pay only 25% of my bill…
In an ideal world, I should be able to bill them for the time they wasted from me, until the service works or they officially recognize they are not able to deliver proper service.
In the meantime, I’m just passing the word…
There's also this guy:
http://www.alexfalkenberg.com
who's had issues with his TW cable modem constantly rebooting for most of the last nearly year and a half.
My resume includes over 10 years in the communications industry, including AT&T and Time Warner. I have worked in and around TWC for the last 5 years. I have worked in level 1 and 3 support, Digital phone support and provisioning, and now install telephone, road runner and cable TV.
(all info on structure is based on my area which is Greensboro NC)
1) Set aside a number of hours to sit and get this done, 9-5 is best when supervisors and management teams are in the office.
2) Level 1is local, they are customer service, not techs. They as you say, are only trained to read the script. Generally they want to make sure that your modem is functioning. They want to make sure you don't have a physical connection problem. (cut cable)
3) Level 2 is national and located in Canada. They are good with software (supposedly).
4) Level 3 is local. They are the real techs, all have at least at A+ Cert, some have much more, some don't.
5) at least levels 1 and 3 can "pull levels" which will give them an idea of how good (or bad) your signal level is. It is color coded to be pretty idiot proof. Green, Yellow, Red. (Red is bad) Make them give you these levels and record them each time you call.
6) IF they have bad levels they'll want to send yet another tech. Here is where you have to get lucky, creative, etc. You HAVE to get a supervisor. Bring attention to how many trouble calls you've had. Ask nicely to speak to a supervisor (NOT a lead) assure the tech it is nothing s/he did but the history you have with others.
7) You want a maintenance supervisor to come to your house. Demand a TWC tech supervisor and NOT a contractor. A contractor will replace wire (he is paid with piecework, he replaces something he gets paid, he troubleshoots he wastes his time) Another poster said to make sure that the "drop" is replaced, that is the line from the ped, or pole. If that hasn't been done yet, that is a good thing to do. If that doesn't work you want to get and record the levels the tech reads at the tap.
FOLLOW the tech (and his meter) to the tap, record the levels that he reads at the tap. You want to get + numbers, a +12 through +18 at the tap is OK. +12 at your house is OK. so you want to compare the readings at the tap and your house. (for RR there should be 3 things he checks, upstream, downstream, and SNR.)
OK, at this point if the levels are low at the tap, he should be able to get a line maintenance tech to check the main feed, or if they are low at your house, he should change the drop.
+++++
If it is at the head end, or anywhere upstream further than I have taken things in this entry, everyone in your area (or at least on your block) should have the same problems. If they do, get everyone to call at the same time. Here, 3 trouble calls in teh same area will trigger an "area outage" which gets priority and immediate response.
thanks a lot for all the info! this will be really helpful in the future.
I emailed Time Warner’s CEO today and had someone competent come over a few hours later! All the readings are good, but the speed is inconsistent: I just tested 4.8Mbps ant 6.2Mbps back to back (which is actually very good compared to our average:S)
They are going to monitor the connection on their end. I will post an update in the next couple days!
He confirmed that our area can only deliver 8Mbps, so I still have to sort out the billing as we pay for 10Mbps
Speed will always be inconsistant, they say its fiber and they can get away with it because they use some kind of fiber connector, also watch the wording in the sales pitch, "upto" 10mbps
I feel your pain my friend. I've been there and fought the same war. Last year I moved into a new place and spent 3 months getting them to get my connection strait. I basically had dial-up speeds from my cable modem. I went through a dozen techs, both on the phone and in person. Eventually I decided to deal with it myself. I went throughout the house and removed every single splitter and re-ran all the cable myself, making my office the first stop after the drop on the side of the house. I did more speed tests and new for sure it wasn't inside the house. After that I got an awesome little utility called PingPlotter which gives detailed info about packets and the hops along a give trace route. I used that to ping something I knew was just on the other side of town. One of the first stops at a relay somewhere in my area was giving me 90-95% packet loss. Armed with my new info I called up Comcast and yelled my way as far up the phone tree as I could, eventually getting a Lvl3 tech who told me they saw the same thing on their end and that they hadn't noticed it before. A couple days later, I was up to full speed. I called back just to chat with the same Lvl3 tech and he said it had been some bad lines at a newly built subdivision down the road. They transfered me to billing and credited my account for a month of service. They got it fixed eventually but if I had been an average consumer, they never would have found it. And to think, the government (ie: tax payers) give the big telcos millions of dollars to "improve" their networks and they can't even maintain what they already have. If you're like me, there isn't any alternative in the area, so you're forced to keep fighting with them. Don't give up, you can beat the big C eventually. Just remember to keep pounding their billing department for credits. And never be afraid to talk to/yell at a manager.
*sigh* In home service techs....lazy, lazy, lazy. Something is probably wrong with your physical cable. Most likely, it is the line running from the pole/ped (box in your yard) to your house. I've worked as a System Tech/Telecom. Lineman for Charter, Comcast, and Cox and I'll tell you right away that about 80% of speed issues are related to bad cabling either from the pole/ped to the house or in the home.
Have a them check your forward and reverse levels and noise/ingress. Also, make sure every piece of cable from the pole/ped. to your modem has been replaced. Optimally, there should be no splices or splits in the line feeding your modem. If you haven't yet, you should get a System Tech./Line Tech out.
Tell the supervisor you want your node checked for contention issues and return path issues just to be safe. Ask them what the utilization is at peak hours as well. Even if they fix the issues at your home, it's entirely possible your area just doesn't have enough fiber.