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 Review by davoice 
Posted: 1.4 years ago
member for 8.3 years, 1999 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Saxapahaw,Alamance,NC
 $48 per month (12 month contract)
 about 9 days
 "Triple play, got good deal from outside sales rep"
 "2 installers - 1 for voice, 1 for cable and internet, pitiful upload"
 "It is what it is. You can do worse."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I'm in the process of moving from Embarq/Charter territory to Bellsouth/Time Warner territory. So... I get to completely change carriers and look at service with a fresh set of eyes.
Package:
I ordered a full meal deal through the Time Warner employee - she is the outside sales rep assigned to our community. For ~$140/mo I get cable w/ everything (digital + HD + all premiums + HD DVR + SD DVR), phone service (TW VoIP) w/ unlimited LD, and Turbo internet. Not a bad deal and actually a little cheaper than what I was paying for Embarq phone + DSL + DirecTV HD w/ DVRs. After a year, it goes up just $10. Still not bad.
Experience:
Truly the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. My sales rep submitted the paperwork and they scheduled me for 2 separate installs. 1 for phone (that Friday) and 1 for cable/internet (the next Wednesday). She couldn't figure out how that happened b/c it usually happens in reverse.
Now why they need 2 people to come do basically the same thing twice, who knows. Since I'm just now in the process of making this move - ~45 minutes away from my current place - I wasn't in the mood to take off 2 afternoons to get it done so we rescheduled both installations for this past Friday (6/8) for 11:30a-1:00p.
The TW Digital Phone installer arrived almost exactly at 11:30a. He was a real Time Warner employee. We had to figure out where my loft apt connected to the Time Warner network. No one had told him how to get the wiring closet key out of a lockbox on-site or where to make the connection to their distribution point. We finally gave up looking and went and asked the building maintenance guys. They pointed the way and luckily we didn't need a key b/c someone had nicely left the door unlocked.
The phone guy proceeded to make all the connections, re-terminate my connection cables, remove channel filters (since I get everything) make the intermediate connections to my space and test the signals.
Then he remembered that I was supposed to pay for the installation while he was there. Which would have been fine, except my direct sales rep failed to tell me you pay for the phone service install while they're there. Since I wasn't expecting to spend anything that day, I didn't have anything other than lunch money and my drivers license on me. Luckily one of the neighbors had setup a nice public hotspot called "Default" (wink wink), so I was able to terminal service into my home PC and get the info needed for them to do a check by phone. The gal in billing was also nice enough to tell me the cable guy would be expecting the same thing for his installation fee so she combined both into one payment along with the first month's bill so I won't have to write them another check this month.
Now I see the combo cable modem/phone adapter and think to myself again... Now why did we need 2 installers on this job? It's one of the Arris Touchstone w/ a built in VoIP ATA and a 4 hour backup battery. Since it's a new install the phone guy had to install the cable modem from scratch instead of just swapping out an existing one. That left only hooking up the TVs. (Later I found out that the contractor responsible for the TV part was also responsible for the cable modem internet configuration. Which really made no sense given that the phone guy had to bring it and install it.)
The phone guy finished the cable modem and phone install by 12:15p. He called in his order and I took their silly survey. He hung around so he could explain the building and that everything was already done to the contractor who was coming to do the cable TV and hand me the DVRs. He also took the opportunity to figure out how to get to his next job and eat lunch.
Contractor for cable/internet finally showed around 1:40pm. His lucky day... a paid by the hour Time Warner employee had already done all his work for him. He made up a few extra drop connection cables for me. Left the DVRs (no one is touching my HDTV that doesn't share my first and last name). And then called in his order. That's when I found out he needed the cable modem info and the IP address that had already been assigned to the wireless router I had configured while we were waiting for him. Funny... I was already surfing before he got there.
Internet Speed:
I ordered the turbo package... so speeds are ~7800kbps on the download side. Upload is ~480kbps. Oh man am I going to miss my 896kbps upload I have on my old house's Embarq DSL.  I did gain 2800kbps in speed over Embarq's 5mbps... still undecided as to if it's a fair trade. I'm leaning towards "no".
The good and bad news is that the download speed is faster than my current 802.11g wireless router on the wireless side. (I get ~6.9-7.2 mbps throughput on it depending on local interference.) Guess it'll be an excuse to buy a new toy later.
Phone Service:
It works. It's VoIP. A blip/burp here there but nothing unusual. My my Vonage, Viatalk and Covad Remote IP PBX extensions also work... though the upload speed is going to be a problem when I'm in full telecommuter mode. I'm also not all that thrilled with moving from POTS + VoIP to VoIP only for my voice. Call me old fashioned but I'll probably be ordering a stripped Bellsouth line and putting DSL on it and load balancing the 2 internet connections. Too bad Bellsouth's 6mbps package is limited to 512Kbps upload just like RR's here.
Overall:
I gained a whole slew of TV channels (all the premiums) and download speed. I lost 1/2 of my upload speed and a "reliable" POTS line. I'd call that about dead even. I'm not thrilled but I'm not unhappy either.
PS... I won't have to worry about tech support telling me to power cycle this Arris modem! B/c it had a battery in it, unplugging it has no effect. And there's no power button on it anywhere. The only way to reset it is a little pinhole reset button.
}Davoice
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