Review by aub1971 
member for 290 days, 8 visits, last login: 238 days ago
updated 290 days ago
 Birmingham,Jefferson,AL
 $170 per month "Nothing" "Everything"
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We've had Charter Internet/Cable for several years now.
Generally the cable has been reliable, though there have been issues with pixelization on HD channels and some random DVR issues (a DVR was replaced twice).
Until about a month ago the Internet service was fairly reliable, then we started experiencing packet loss. Since the packet loss started, there have been about half a dozen technicians out to look at things, at least 10 calls to customer service, and I have also chatted with Charter's "umatter" team on Facebook. Here we are a month later and we still have a range of 3% to 70% packets loss on any given hour of any given day. The sad thing is, absolutely nobody at Charter seems to know why.
They started by blaming my wireless router - or trying to, until I informed them the problem occurred even when the router was removed from the equation. Next it was the cable modem, which they changed but that had no effect whatsoever. After that it was the drop to the house, which they replaced but that also had no effect. Now they tell me there are "line issues". Really Charter?
The technicians that have come out to look at the problem are beyond incompetent. One the first visit the tech brought the "wrong" modem, or so he said. Two hours later he is back with an identical modem (Cisco 3010). I asked him what the difference was between the first one he brought and the next one and his response to me was "this one is faster". On another visit a different tech told me that my computer was too far away from the wireless router and the signal was weak - and he even made a point of moving the router around while a ping was going and telling me how much my packet loss had improved. I then I pointed out that the PC was connected to the router via a patch cable and not a wireless adapter. Yet another tech said having more than 1 computer connected to the Internet would cause the packet loss. The next to last guy that came out said we would have to live with the problem for several more months until Charter completed a "digital upgrade" in our area. I asked that guy what a "digital upgrade" was, and he told me the wires would be digital instead of copper.
Beside the fact that the Internet is basically unusable and that the people trying to fix it are utterly clueless, my other complaint with this experience is that NOBODY at Charter appears to communicate with one another. Each call or each visit by a technician meant basically starting over from scratch and explaining to them what the problem was, what troubleshooting had already been done, etc.
It looked like we would be stuck with this problem indefinitely as Charter was the only broadband provider to our street address. Then a couple of weeks ago I got a flier in the mail from ATT saying that Uverse was available. I know ATT has their own issues, but after this fiasco with Charter, we are willing to try anything.
Comments:
 stridr69
join:2003-05-19
San Luis Obispo, CA | Bad Node You're going thru the same experience I went thru last year. You have a bad local node. It's over subscribed. Keep esclating this issue, and make darn sure you get credit every month you have problems. Have you tried the Charter Direct Forum?. Charter George was a big help on my end. However I switched to AT&T dsl as my local area won't upgrade my local node for the foreseeable future. Very poor business practice IMHO. Good Luck | |
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