Review by rradina 
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 8.3 years, 2619 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Chesterfield,Saint Louis,MO
 $30 per month
 about 7 days
 "Good throughput, Good Pings, Reliable"
 "None at this time"
 "Good Service"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I've been around DSLR/BBR for nearly three years and the system periodically bugs me to do a review. So I decided to comply.
For Charter's sake, it's probably good that I waited a couple of years to do a review. Over the past year, things couldn't be better. Every now and then DNS queries time out and browsing gets rough but switching from Charter’s DNS server to a different DNS server easily circumvents this. Granted, this could be a problem for users who don't know how to do this. Therefore I have to consider it a wart on an otherwise perfect year.
I have Charter's gold package and I consistently get 1.6 - 1.7Mbps down. Speeds are always consistent and with little or no packet loss regardless of "peak" or "off peak".
Don't use this to evaluate the current service but here's my history:
Install went a bit rough because I had cable but I dumped it for satellite TV. It felt good to yank the cable out of my house and coil it up behind the bushes. In retrospect, that was a mistake. Being outside, the end corroded and the "PipeLine" installer wasn't allowed to mess with the cable. I asked him to turn his back while I cut the end off, installed a new end and shoved it back inside the house. Nothing doing. He left and I had to reschedule the install. This really pissed me off. I was really itching to have broadband!
The reschedule actually involved two installs. Luckily a week later I was able to get a Saturday. The first guy (the lineman) was to show up somewhere between 8AM and Noon. He showed up at 1:00PM and ran a completely new drop. He didn't put a new end on the existing line. I don't know why and I didn't ask. Since the PipeLine guy and the lineman can't be the same guy (union rules?), the lineman didn't want to have to come back if the existing line didn't work. I can understand that for both his sake and mine but it seemed wasteful.
The next guy (PipeLine) was to show up between 1:00PM and 6:00PM. He showed up at about 6:30 after calling at 5:00PM to say he was running late. Prior to this, I had installed a jack right next to the computer and even made a drop with a 90 degree end that laid nicely behind the furniture. I used the good coax but he promptly removed it and made a new cable. It worked right away but only at the 256Kbps level. I had ordered the then 512Kbps level. (I have since ugraded to the highest speed plan due to Charter changing it's prices to be more competitive with DSL.)
After a few days and a couple calls to tech support, I finally received full speed for my package. I also disconnected the installer's cable and put my 90 degree cable back. Still worked fine. No loss of signal levels or S/N ratio. Again, I understand that the guy wants to leave with the least possible variables causing problems but it seems so wasteful. Perhaps for the average user who doesn't understand enough about signals and connections, this is the best policy.
The modem is one of 3Com’s “Shark Fin” models. It's never given me any grief.
It was the Summer of 2000 and I had broadband! Things were flawless for six months but around Thanksgiving 2000, things got ugly. Massive packet loss, poor throughput, countless calls, nothing was done. After 3, 4, or 5 months (seemed like forever), the problems cleared. Then again in the fall of 2001 (about the time Charter swapped all of AT&T's customers to their infrastructure), things got ugly again. They were particularly deplorable until the first part of Feb 2002. Since then, the service has been almost flawless. I haven't had to call technical support for the entire time.
I have since come to learn that some of these problems were caused by Charter's choice of using DBN/Intira as their ISP. They have since switched to AT&T. Overall, AT&T seems better but there have still been a few rough moments when Charter overcommitted their backbone connection.
In the ends, I have zero complaints about the last year. Kudos Charter.
If this level of service continues, there's no reason at all why anyone in St. Louis shouldn't try Charter.
Oh -- I do feel compelled to add that if you don't also subscribe to Charter's television service, you'll be charged an extra fee. I believe this is because they cannot prevent you from getting the basic TV signals that are carried on the same cable as your broadband service. I'd love to go back to satellite TV but Charter has also made strides vs. satellite. I have Charter's digital package with Music Choice, multi-channel HBO/Max/Sho/TMC/Starz, PPV and Video-OnDemand. It's a good package and with various bundling discounts, there's no strong justification to go back to satellite. Satellite does have a better picture, fewer pixelization events (believe it or not!) and ALL the channels are digital. Charter is still a hybrid of analog and digital. This does have a plus in that other TVs in the house also have extended basic service. But -- this I don't intend this to be a cable vs. satellite TV review. In case you're wondering, I've had both Dish and DirecTV for comparison to Charter's digital TV service.
Update: 10-23-2006
Still using Charter. Very happy with the service. Very stable. Perfect match for Vonage VOIP service. I have the 3MB/256K package which is all the bandwidth I need. The price with digital cable package is $30/month. I own my own cable modem.
Update: 11-14-2007
I received a message from "system" bugging me to do a review. The messages was worded in a way that gave me a big laugh so I decided to comply.
UNFORTUNATELY for Charter, tonight is NOT a good night for them. I had a day trip to Minnesota yesterday and tried to call my wife on the airport shuttle after I landed. It took three times to get through. I thought it was my cell phone but now realize the problem was on the other end. Although I have not connected the dots until tonight, this problem has been going on for several days. Something is wrong with Charter's network. Response time from most Internet addresses are > 500ms. Curiously, it's not accompanied by packet loss but nevertheless, it has wiped out my VOIP service. No Vonage tonight. Just fast busy signals. No way VOIP will work with this kind of latency.
So -- many good years of quality service have now ended. Sure, there's been the night here or there where some problem occurred but until recently, it's never lasted and Charter has always been quick to fix problems. I can only hope this situation does not extend many more nights.
On a positive note, I did have some signal issues several weeks ago. I called around 10:30 and I was floored when a technician arrived about 12:00. He ran a new line from the pedestal, replaced the two-way pedestal tap with a four way (it was a two-way for three houses and unfortunately, my line was split at the tap) and rewired some of my splitters in the basement. Even after all that, my cable modem upstream was still pushing at 52db. He called in a ticket and on Monday, they tuned the line because now my upstream has been 45db. I was extremely impressed with the knowledge of the technician, his demeanor, appearance and total quality approach. They should have made a training video of my incident. It was really that good. The guy even put on rubber "booties" before coming in my hosue to make sure his muddy boots didn't make tracks on my carpet! Kudos for great service, Charter.
Now if you can only fix this HOPEFULLY temporary poor response time and slow performance problem!
Followup comments:  
MercSoCo
@charter.com | Packet Loss my upload/download speed is fine but gaming is another story, sometimes my ping will be fine about 30-70ms but i will have a whole lot of packet loss and choke and other times my ping will skyrocket through the roof | |
| zed260
join:2007-09-30
Cleveland, TN | phone you should try there phone service to adding it gets a discount on all other services | |
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