Charter Bumps 30 Mbps Customers to 100 Mbps, For Free
- Thread starter Poke
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 21
- Views 6K
I am getting faster speeds now getting 104.30 by Charter speedtest and Speedtest.net I am getting 104.35!! 
Very cool, though it looks like it's only available in the St. Louis area for now. In my area our business account got the free bump from 30Mbps to 60Mbps a long time ago. My residential account in the same city didn't get this bump from 30Mbps to 60Mbps until last week. I'm still paying my new customer rate since I moved so it's only $29.99. 60Mbps for that price on an ISP that doesn't seem to be screwing with streaming is already the best value around. I'll be looking forward to the bump to 100Mbps when it finally makes it's way to my area.
Just to clarify. It's not really a bump. If you are an existing Internet only customer, you must switch to the new service plan. No obligations and the new service lowered my cost about $2 monthly. To get 100 meg speed, you need to use Charter's modem which they supply for free. I did a test with my old modem after they upgraded the service and went from 15 meg to 60 meg. I've been waiting for the Charter modem to show up and it got here today.
Looks like easy upgrade. Unplug the old one, plug in the new one and reboot your router if you use one. Modem is a Cisco. They then tell you to go to an Internet site to activate the modem. Didn't work for me and I had to call support. The tech noted that sometimes they have to manually activate. He did and I then did a speed test and got 60 meg. Same as with my old modem. Tech said oh by the way, we don't guarantee you will get 100 meg if you use a router. To test I connected the modem directly to my Mac and tested. I got 100 meg. So bottom line be aware that if you use a router, you may not do any better with the Charter supplied modem. My router is an Apple AirPort Extreme with a 1 gig interface. I'm connected to the Cisco modem with a cat 6e cable but the tech couldn't tell me the speed of the Cisco interface.
So I saved $3 a month and went from 15 meg to 60. Upstream we went from 3 to 4 meg. My old modem is now my backup so that's not bad either. I got a documentation CD with the Cisco modem so I may find some adjustable settings that may allow a better interface with the router.
So realize, Charter's claim of 100 meg speed is only guaranteed with their modem and a modem to PC direct connect. Adding a router will void that guarantee.
Jack
Looks like easy upgrade. Unplug the old one, plug in the new one and reboot your router if you use one. Modem is a Cisco. They then tell you to go to an Internet site to activate the modem. Didn't work for me and I had to call support. The tech noted that sometimes they have to manually activate. He did and I then did a speed test and got 60 meg. Same as with my old modem. Tech said oh by the way, we don't guarantee you will get 100 meg if you use a router. To test I connected the modem directly to my Mac and tested. I got 100 meg. So bottom line be aware that if you use a router, you may not do any better with the Charter supplied modem. My router is an Apple AirPort Extreme with a 1 gig interface. I'm connected to the Cisco modem with a cat 6e cable but the tech couldn't tell me the speed of the Cisco interface.
So I saved $3 a month and went from 15 meg to 60. Upstream we went from 3 to 4 meg. My old modem is now my backup so that's not bad either. I got a documentation CD with the Cisco modem so I may find some adjustable settings that may allow a better interface with the router.
So realize, Charter's claim of 100 meg speed is only guaranteed with their modem and a modem to PC direct connect. Adding a router will void that guarantee.
Jack
It might depend on what plan you originally had. I had the 30Mbps plan and wasn't even aware your 15Mbps plan existed. I did not have to switch my plan at all to get the bump to 60Mbps. All I had to do was unplug my modem to reset it and plug it back in. Once it booted back up my internet was coming through at 60Mbps instead of my old 30Mbps. I am an internet only customer.
I doubt they guarantee 100Mbps when connected directly to a modem either. From what I have seen all internet companies advertise speeds "up to xxMbps." I have never seen guaranteed speeds outside of expensive business connections. You will likely see speeds a little lower when connected to your router through WiFi but I get my full 60Mbps+ when connected to my router by ethernet cable.
Edit: The free upgrade to 100Mbps is only available in the St. Louis area for now. Other areas might have 100Mbps service available but it would be an upgraded, more expensive service. If you aren't in St. Louis your 100Mbps bill will probably be higher than your old plan once the promos wear off.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
king3pj
I did reboot my modem originally since the story I read said that was all I needed. After the reboot I still got 15 meg. I called tech support and they said I needed to change to the 100 meg plan get a new modem. So bottom I did sign up for the new plan. Within 10 minutes of that call, I tested and I got 60 meg with the old modem. The good side as I said is that I'm still month to month and I saved $3 a month over my old plan. My introductory rate expired about 6 months ago so I was paying $52 monthly for the 15 meg service. The interesting thing is that 100 meg is there if I don't go through my router and use their modem. That's not practical in my home since I have a lot of devices. So 60 meg is still a great improvement and if that Cisco they supplied for free goes belly up in the future, I know I can install my old modem back I and still get that 60 meg speed.
Jack
I did reboot my modem originally since the story I read said that was all I needed. After the reboot I still got 15 meg. I called tech support and they said I needed to change to the 100 meg plan get a new modem. So bottom I did sign up for the new plan. Within 10 minutes of that call, I tested and I got 60 meg with the old modem. The good side as I said is that I'm still month to month and I saved $3 a month over my old plan. My introductory rate expired about 6 months ago so I was paying $52 monthly for the 15 meg service. The interesting thing is that 100 meg is there if I don't go through my router and use their modem. That's not practical in my home since I have a lot of devices. So 60 meg is still a great improvement and if that Cisco they supplied for free goes belly up in the future, I know I can install my old modem back I and still get that 60 meg speed.
Jack
Wow, thanks for mentioning resetting the modem! I did that and immediately went to 64 down & 4.5 up! Yahoo!!!
Ed
My experience differs slightly. I am an Internet-only 30meg customer, and have been for about 3 years. After reading some Internet rumblings last week, I reset my modem, and poof - up to 100. No price increase, no new plan, no change in service, no new modem or commitment.
I downgraded from Ultra to the lower tier and price went from $103 to $55. Download speed (105.## Mbps) remained the same. Upload speed reduced from 5.## Mbps to 4.## Mbps. I'll suffer through the 1 Mbps difference for $48 a month. My service comes through Maryville IL. BTW, chat rep did not care about my BYOD modem.
Just be glad you don't live in Montana. Charter is hosing us bad. 15mb is what you get for $65/mo. 30mb is premium service for another $15. And you have no access as a Charter customer should to streaming video sites, i.e. ABC, A&E, ESPN etc. Because you don't really have a Charter account. What is funny is the reps don't even know how bad we get hosed. They insist that 30mb is minimum for Charter everywhere. Then I get them educated on what it's like to be treated as "second rate".
After converting to the new plan from my former, I got my first bill. Higher. When I called I noted that tech support and the customer service person told me that the new plan would cost less than my old which was why I changed to the new plan. The answer was that both people were quoting the bundled rate to me and I've never been bundled. I expected the customer service rep to tell me that since 2 folks quoted me wrong, they would stand by the quote. No way. So I told them to roll me back to my old plan and I returned their modem via the prepaid Fed Ex sticker that came with it. She reversed the up charge so I'm not out of pocket for the first month of the new plan. Quite honestly based on how I use the service, other than the speed test results, 15-18 meg is still plenty fast. Obviously their advertising is misleading regarding what happens to existing customers and both tech support and customer service are not always giving out correct pricing information.
My experience with Charter was pretty good, for about 10 months, then we suddenly began have streaming interruption problems. While in the middle of a streaming program, like Murdock Mysteries (Acorn TV). Same problem occurred on Hist Channel & Netflix movies too, so obviously couldn't be blamed on any one channel source.
Each time the interruption occurred, it would stop and then try to reload, which most of the time did not work. We had to unplug ROKU and wait some minutes. Sometimes that would fix it and could go back to resume watching, but other times we would have to wait for at least a half hour, before streaming would work again.
I finally had Charter send out a tech and he kept claiming that the problem was with my router. He determined that by plugging in directly to the Charter modem and he always got a good, high speed indication. So, I purchased a new, much more (allegedly) powerful router, but that did not stop the continued problems of streaming failures, usually very late at night.
So called him out again. He came up with the same result, using the same method. So, the problems with streaming continued, without Charter finding and fixing the problem.
What was unknown to me, was that they charged me $45 for each "service" call. But, they did not inform me of those charges, nor did they send any bills, itemizing such. I only found out about those charges when I got a "pay or we disconnect" notice, this time sent via snail mail. Even that disconnect notice did not itemize the charges. It only said I owed a specific amount and they would disconnect, if I did not pay.
So, I got on the phone and discussed and that is how I found out they had charged me for those "service" calls that did not find any problem with their signal strength.
Since the service guy claimed there was nothing wrong with the cable service, I did my own investigation. Each time I got a failure in streaming, I noted the exact time it happened. I then went to
http://testmy.net/download
and checked the latest recorded history of Charter's Internet signal strength.
Each time I found that when I plotted the exact time of my streaming failure, it coincided with a low-level Charter signal strength that was less than 10 Mbps and in most cases, closer to zero Mbps than to 10Mbps. That finding was 100% consistent, i.e., EVERY TIME I had a streaming failure, the Charter signal strength just happened to be at their lowest Mbps outputs.
Too much of a coincidence to be caused by my router or any other reason, beyond extremely weak signal strength from Charter. I live in Northern Nevada, BTW, East of Reno.
Each time the interruption occurred, it would stop and then try to reload, which most of the time did not work. We had to unplug ROKU and wait some minutes. Sometimes that would fix it and could go back to resume watching, but other times we would have to wait for at least a half hour, before streaming would work again.
I finally had Charter send out a tech and he kept claiming that the problem was with my router. He determined that by plugging in directly to the Charter modem and he always got a good, high speed indication. So, I purchased a new, much more (allegedly) powerful router, but that did not stop the continued problems of streaming failures, usually very late at night.
So called him out again. He came up with the same result, using the same method. So, the problems with streaming continued, without Charter finding and fixing the problem.
What was unknown to me, was that they charged me $45 for each "service" call. But, they did not inform me of those charges, nor did they send any bills, itemizing such. I only found out about those charges when I got a "pay or we disconnect" notice, this time sent via snail mail. Even that disconnect notice did not itemize the charges. It only said I owed a specific amount and they would disconnect, if I did not pay.
So, I got on the phone and discussed and that is how I found out they had charged me for those "service" calls that did not find any problem with their signal strength.
Since the service guy claimed there was nothing wrong with the cable service, I did my own investigation. Each time I got a failure in streaming, I noted the exact time it happened. I then went to
http://testmy.net/download
and checked the latest recorded history of Charter's Internet signal strength.
Each time I found that when I plotted the exact time of my streaming failure, it coincided with a low-level Charter signal strength that was less than 10 Mbps and in most cases, closer to zero Mbps than to 10Mbps. That finding was 100% consistent, i.e., EVERY TIME I had a streaming failure, the Charter signal strength just happened to be at their lowest Mbps outputs.
Too much of a coincidence to be caused by my router or any other reason, beyond extremely weak signal strength from Charter. I live in Northern Nevada, BTW, East of Reno.
Do you have your router password protected so your neighbors aren't logging into it and sucking down massive amounts of porn, or torrenting?
It's also just possible that a neighbor is sucking down the bandwidth through his account, and it pulls down the whole neighborhood for a short stint.
It's also just possible that a neighbor is sucking down the bandwidth through his account, and it pulls down the whole neighborhood for a short stint.
Nope, fully password protected. And, always have 5 bars showing on my laptop computer, no matter where in the house I am located. Plenty of WiFi available in all areas of the house. The new and (allegedly) more powerful router made no difference, so took it back to Costco for a refund.
Sometimes, when sending out Email on my laptop, it takes a few seconds longer than normal -- enuf to call attention that something is not quite right. That might also be an indication of temporarily reduced Internet signal strength from Charter, but since that function doesn't require consistently high Mbps, like streaming does, it wouldn't raise any red flags, like regular streaming failures do.
Sometimes, when sending out Email on my laptop, it takes a few seconds longer than normal -- enuf to call attention that something is not quite right. That might also be an indication of temporarily reduced Internet signal strength from Charter, but since that function doesn't require consistently high Mbps, like streaming does, it wouldn't raise any red flags, like regular streaming failures do.
I'm not sure how testmy.net can measure your receive levels but you should be able to log into your modem and look at the signal strength, SNR, etc. My SB6141 LAN address is http://192.168.100.1.
Thank you for that link. I looked at it and it displayed a lot of numbers, which I do not understand, I presume from Cisco? That is why I have posted my experience with Charter here, precisely because I am a long way from being any kind of expert. I am hoping that I can find some experts here that can either confirm or refute my reasoning (that downward spikes in Charter's Internet signal strength was the cause of repeated streaming failures in my house).
The folks at
http://testmy.net/download
insist the history of Charter's signal strength that they display, when you test thru their site, is accurate and doesn't smooth it out, like the Charter site does, to make it look like the signal is always very strong. If their presentation is somehow false or inaccurate, it would seem to a layman like me, that might be grounds for a libel suit by Charter, against that site. So, my non-expert reasoning says it must be accurate or they could be shut down on fraud and libel charges.
Does that make any sense to anyone here? If not, I would love to hear any opinions that might explain any holes in my reasoning process.
Again, here are my facts that have led me to the conclusion that low signal output from Charter is the cause of repeated streaming failures:
a) It all worked fine for about 10 months. I did not have streaming or any other kinds of problems with my Charter Internet connection, during that period.
b) Suddenly, after that time period, we began having streaming failures literally every night, while watching a variety of streaming sites (Netflix, Acorn, History Channel, PBS, etc.). The majority of the time, those failures could not correct themselves (they tried to reload but that usually resulted in a freeze-up that did not go away). The only solution seemed to be unplugging the Roku (to reboot it and clear the memory) and then powering it again after waiting for a few minutes. About half of the time that procedure failed too and we had to just wait at least a half-hour or longer, before we could resume watching a specific program.
c) After the Charter tech came out two times, he blamed my router even though there was no evidence of any problems with it. He used the technique of plugging directly into the Charter modem (eliminating wifi) and then going to the Charter signal test website and that always showed a very strong signal, usually above 40 Mbps and often above 50. He then made the inference that the problem must be with my router. But, when I asked why the streaming failures had just started and occurred every night, when we had no such problems with the same router for the first 10 months, he had no explanation.
d) I purchased a new router that allegedly had a more powerful wifi output than my current one, but it didn't change anything. The streaming failures continued to occur each night, just as before.
e) After that, I began noting the precise time that each streaming failure occurred. I then went to various signal test sites to find out what the actual strength was. Problem was, however, with the exception of the testmy.net site, they only showed what the signal strength was at the time I tested. Only testmy.net displayed a recorded history of what the signal strength had actually been at the time of my streaming failure. Additionally, I could slide my mouse pointer over their chart until I found the exact same time as I noted, when I got a streaming failure. EACH TIME I did that, the failure occurrence time precisely coincided with a dip in the Charter Internet signal strength to a point where it was less than 10Mbps or lower (usually closer to zero than to 10).
Here are example screen shots of the Charter signal strength, as measured by testmy.net, at the precise times that I had streaming failures on three different days, June 25, June 26 and June 28. I had many more and they too coincided precisely with the times of very low signal strength:
If anyone can explain how such repeated failures in steaming, coincide EVERY TIME with very low signal strength, without that weak signal being the cause of those failures, I really would appreciate hearing from them. I am far from being any kind of expert, but in the absence of the Charter techs being able to show any evidence that my router is defective, it seems to me my conclusions are logical.
Thanks for listening.
The folks at
http://testmy.net/download
insist the history of Charter's signal strength that they display, when you test thru their site, is accurate and doesn't smooth it out, like the Charter site does, to make it look like the signal is always very strong. If their presentation is somehow false or inaccurate, it would seem to a layman like me, that might be grounds for a libel suit by Charter, against that site. So, my non-expert reasoning says it must be accurate or they could be shut down on fraud and libel charges.
Does that make any sense to anyone here? If not, I would love to hear any opinions that might explain any holes in my reasoning process.
Again, here are my facts that have led me to the conclusion that low signal output from Charter is the cause of repeated streaming failures:
a) It all worked fine for about 10 months. I did not have streaming or any other kinds of problems with my Charter Internet connection, during that period.
b) Suddenly, after that time period, we began having streaming failures literally every night, while watching a variety of streaming sites (Netflix, Acorn, History Channel, PBS, etc.). The majority of the time, those failures could not correct themselves (they tried to reload but that usually resulted in a freeze-up that did not go away). The only solution seemed to be unplugging the Roku (to reboot it and clear the memory) and then powering it again after waiting for a few minutes. About half of the time that procedure failed too and we had to just wait at least a half-hour or longer, before we could resume watching a specific program.
c) After the Charter tech came out two times, he blamed my router even though there was no evidence of any problems with it. He used the technique of plugging directly into the Charter modem (eliminating wifi) and then going to the Charter signal test website and that always showed a very strong signal, usually above 40 Mbps and often above 50. He then made the inference that the problem must be with my router. But, when I asked why the streaming failures had just started and occurred every night, when we had no such problems with the same router for the first 10 months, he had no explanation.
d) I purchased a new router that allegedly had a more powerful wifi output than my current one, but it didn't change anything. The streaming failures continued to occur each night, just as before.
e) After that, I began noting the precise time that each streaming failure occurred. I then went to various signal test sites to find out what the actual strength was. Problem was, however, with the exception of the testmy.net site, they only showed what the signal strength was at the time I tested. Only testmy.net displayed a recorded history of what the signal strength had actually been at the time of my streaming failure. Additionally, I could slide my mouse pointer over their chart until I found the exact same time as I noted, when I got a streaming failure. EACH TIME I did that, the failure occurrence time precisely coincided with a dip in the Charter Internet signal strength to a point where it was less than 10Mbps or lower (usually closer to zero than to 10).
Here are example screen shots of the Charter signal strength, as measured by testmy.net, at the precise times that I had streaming failures on three different days, June 25, June 26 and June 28. I had many more and they too coincided precisely with the times of very low signal strength:
If anyone can explain how such repeated failures in steaming, coincide EVERY TIME with very low signal strength, without that weak signal being the cause of those failures, I really would appreciate hearing from them. I am far from being any kind of expert, but in the absence of the Charter techs being able to show any evidence that my router is defective, it seems to me my conclusions are logical.
Thanks for listening.
"Thank you for that link. I looked at it and it displayed a lot of numbers, which I do not understand, I presume from Cisco?"
The modem itself has diagnostic capability and provides the data. There should be some numbers labeled dBmV which will be your receive signal power levels for the various modem channels (should be 8 channels for 100 Mbps service, 4 channels otherwise). -12 dBmV to +12 dBmV is the recommended receive level window.
The modem itself has diagnostic capability and provides the data. There should be some numbers labeled dBmV which will be your receive signal power levels for the various modem channels (should be 8 channels for 100 Mbps service, 4 channels otherwise). -12 dBmV to +12 dBmV is the recommended receive level window.
Just to set the record straight, many routers do support 100 Mbps and higher. I suggest folks go to smallnetbuilder.com to get WAN to LAN throughput figures for most routers. LAN to WAN figures are available too but are not usually an issue with Charter's low uplink speeds. I use a WD My Net N900 router and according to smallnetbuilder.com its WAN to LAN throughput is 708 Mbps and LAN to WAN is 728 Mbps. This router will definitely not throttle 100 Mbps rates. My speed tests with Charter usually are 110/4.5 with their standard tier (not Ultra) through the router using a Moto SB6141 modem.
Also FYI as of October 1st Charter is allowing customer owned modems again. It is in their newly revised Terms of Service
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
