 Review by benc 
UPDATED: 285 days ago
member for 2.4 years, 778 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Glen Carbon,Madison,IL
 $120 per month (month by month)
 about 8 days
 "They have service in my area. Read below."
 "No one else does. Read below. Low tiers are PRICEY"
 "It's OK. You should look into alternatives before signing up."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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NOTE: Updates are at the bottom.
The other choices were seriously unsuitable, so basically this is the only choice.
The only other choices were:
- Cellular Internet, via Sprint EVDO or Cingular 3G with a USB adapter (or you can add a PC Card Slot to your desktop). Verizon EVDO is no good because of the 5GB monthly data transfer limit. Plus it's a bit silly to pay for the wireless capability when your computer itself isn't portable.
- IDSL via Covad. It would've been reliable, but the cost was quite high. If you're willing to do this, then you may as well use T1.
- T1. This would be ideal, but the cost is quite high, and it was out of my budget. Plus I'm not sure if it would require modifications to the building. If so, it may not be an option for apartment dwellers.
- Dial-Up. Cheap, but it's SLOW. It also means what while it's being used, you can't use your phone. I ended up using it in conjunction with Charter, as I'll detail below.
- DSL was NOT an option, as both Covad and AT&T told me. Here, SBC, or now AT&T I suppose, is the phone company. This really burned me because I was planning on using DSL. Have used both Cable and DSL before, I've had better experiences with DSL.
Before anyone asks "Why did you move there, if they don't have DSL?" I wanted to live in this particular region (St. Louis region), but unfortunately the apartment I managed to locate does NOT have DSL available. I only took this apartment because it was the first decent choice I found, and I only had a couple days to get an apartment. At the time, I lived too far away to shop around very much. I'm not renewing this lease, and my next apartment is going to have DSL available. I'm going to make sure of it. Thankfully I live near enough that I can shop around a LOT.
I seriously wanted to use DSL. Any time I've used cable Internet in the past, my experience is that the Internet connection cuts out intermittently. Unfortunately, I can't DSL in this apartment, so I begrudgingly called up Charter Business to set up service. I just had a feeling that since they use Cable, I'm going to be dissatisfied. I wasn't wrong.
So I signed up. I had the Sales Rep. fax me the contract since I didn't want to wait for it in the mail. At that point I was going crazy with nothing but slow, slow dial-up. When I got it I had the apartment for nearly two weeks already. She got the contract back, and said that someone from the Installation department would call me. Well, they did call, but I missed the call. I figured...no big deal, I'll call them back right away. I did, but couldn't get through. I had to call up TECH SUPPORT to get the order process started AGAIN, which I believe made me wait longer than I needed to (why can't I just call back directly?).
The low upload speed makes it barely usable for Remote Desktop, and unsuitable for servers. However, the next higher package meant giving the cable company too much money, which I didn't want, since I didn't believe that the service will be good enough.
Net Result:
I have the Charter Business Cable Internet service, with this package:
1.5M down, 256k Up, Static IP at $67/mo.
AT&T Business DSL has a similar service level, which is:
1.5M down, 384k Up, 5 Static IPs at $65/mo. + taxes ($50 + taxes with year-long contract)
With Charter the service cuts out intermittently, and too often. I hope that no one runs a serious server on any of those connections. Plus they only offer service with a contract, unless you go residential-grade, which means service will be even worse (DHCP issues). As a back-up connection, I use dial-up when the cable Internet connection quits on me, which unfortunately I've had to do several times already.
My next apartment needs to have DSL available, so at least I have a choice. Cable is just....no good.
October 21st, 2007 UPDATE: I know numerous negative reviews of Charter, and I know it's the company, since to compare apples to apples, some Cable companies get very good reviews even with the same technology.
Despite this, my experience hasn't been too bad. There's intermittent connection breaks that have no pattern (so you can't plan around it), but it's not as bad as it's been with other cable connections I've had. I suspect this has to do with the fact that there's a static IP, so there aren't any DHCP lease issues.
The connection breaks mean that I am quite unwilling to do anything that involves a real-time connection that requires a constant transfer of data, since the connection may be lost. Then again, anything like that will require more bandwidth than i have.
Given certain things that other people here have said, some may think that $67 for 1.5Mbps/256k is too high. However, it's worth it since it means there are no server restrictions, and I can truly do whatever I want with the connection (provided it doesn't break any laws, of course). The static IP also keeps things simpler. It's also almost price competitive with offerings from other companies, although at the same price I can get static IP DSL on a month-to-month basis without a contract.
Plus 1.5Mbps down, at the moment, is good enough 95%+ of the time. Occasionally I want to start a massive download, and at those times I wish I had a faster connection. However, that doesn't happen too often, especially if I consider the fact that the next higher package (3.0Mbps down) cost $104, or $37 more. It's hard to justify paying over 50% more when I'd experience the benefit less than 5% of the time.
The tech support is also supposed to be better for "Business" customers, but since I haven't needed to call them I can't comment on that.
Speeds: I have always gotten at least 95% of the speed I pay for, whenever I've performed tests.
Billing: Some people have complained about Billing. So far I haven't had a single problem. The bill has always been what it should be. Also there are no unfees. The price I was quoted when I ordered was the price I ended up paying. No surprises.
Overall: So far, I'm pleasantly surprised. It's cable, which has shortcomings. But for a company that gets a lot of horrible reviews my experience hasn't been that bad. I'd still prefer DSL though, if I could get it.
Update July 29th, 2008:
Okay, so I'm still using Charter. Not everything is bad about them. But believe me I'm no fan boy.
Connection reliability seems a little better, although if you can't get DSL you'd still want to have dial-up backup. However, the reliability is good enough that you don't need a second POTS line just for dial-up. So far I've only rarely had to use the dial-up. It's a good thing too, since Charter Business isn't cheap.
Support: Well, there haven't been enough problems for me to call them up to complain. However, I once called them to get my reverse DNS changed. The fellow I talked to (first person I talked to!) actually knew what reverse DNS was, and changed it within 15 minutes. He did tell me it'd take time to propagate throughout the Internet, but I already knew that.
However, keep in mind that I have Charter Business service. I've never used Charter Residential, but I wouldn't be surprised if the first support worker reads off a script and says stuff like "power-cycle your modem" and "reboot your PC." Now me, I don't ever call support unless I'm totally sure that all my ducks are in a row and it's their problem.
As for pricing, it's better than it was. Perhaps they figured out that their previous pricing was outrageous. Most recently, I learned that I could get 10/1 for $110 (1-yr. contract), or $120 with month-to-month. It's a good thing too, because I was ready to ditch them due to high pricing for what I was getting. However, I can justify $120 if it means I get 10/1, static IP, and month-to-month. This is definitely much better than the old pricing I was subject to.
This is also a good thing since my current connection (1.5M/256k) now seems anemic.
I still plan to relocate to a place with DSL available, so I will have a choice. At a minimum it means I can ditch the dial-up and use DSL as a back-up.
If you want to use Charter Business, be prepared to spend at least $110/mo. Otherwise, you will probably be disappointed by the performance.
Update: August 5th, 2008
Okay, so I just put in an order to switch to 10/1, 1 Static IP, mo-to-mo for $120. I could have saved $10/mo. if I had a one-year contract, but I want the option to ditch them later if quality suffers. Hopefully they'll process this quickly. 1.5M/256k is just way too slow.
Update: August 14th, 2008
They finally got my speed up to 10/1. Having taken nine days was a little annoying. However, to be fair I didn't push very hard. I actually waited a week (until the 12th) for them to send me a new contract. Yes I know, it's funny but even with month to month there's a contract. However it's for only one month.
If I was less patient I probably could have gotten them to upgrade the speed sooner.
Since I got this speed tier, I increased the "Value for Money" metric up a point, since for less than double the cost I'm getting over four times the previous speed.
Update: February 8th, 2009
I'm still using the 10/1 tier for $120/mo. So far, it's still going great.
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Charter Cable unreliable?