RoadRunner Alternatives

[nateman99]

My patience with Time Warner Cable has elapsed. As part of a longer range plan, I'm phasing them out. First thing to go, though, has to be Internet service. As I live in NE Raleigh, I'm out of range for DSL and satellite-based Internet is way to expensive. So, at the moment, I am presently testing out Clearwire's fixed wireless service.

So far, I'm very pleased with the service. The morning that Clearwire service was installed, cable had gone down again. I won't miss that. The only downside I can see, Clearwire isn't as fast as RoadRunner CAN be (during non-peak times). But, because it's not shared on a node, the performance stays solid at all times. I test regularly via www.bandwidthplace.com and have been getting between 1.5Mb/s and 1.9Mb/s down.

This is on a network with a vonage box, 4 desktops, 2 notebooks, a Wii, and an Xbox 360. So far, eveything is going very well.

NateMan99

 

[bhawley]

Please continue with your info. What price service did you buy and how long
does that price last?

 

[nateman99]

Premium account is regularly $36.99/mo. with a modem lease of $4.99. So, at a monthly cost of $42/mo, it isn't a $$$ saver over TWC. It's about the same that I pay for RoadRunner. For the first three months, the premium service is $19.99/month (a savings of $17). Any other questions?

Personally, I'm waiting for either Dish or DirecTV to put together exactly what I want so I can finally drop TWC.

 

[Digital Dude]

Is clearwire a legal notepad sized antenna on your roof pointed at a cell phone tower?

 

[nateman99]

The antenna is, I would say, letter sized (8.5x11) and it sits in my window. Nothing needed outside, though. I will mention to anyone in the RDU area, they are putting up more towers in Briar Creek, Wake Forest, and Apex areas in the first half of 2007.

 

[Digital Dude]

It sounds like the service we've had for more than a year.

www.celeritynetworks.com


100% up time for 16 months!

 

[kael]

So why has your patience with TWC gone down? What have they done now except not give us any new HD content,no NFL channel,and a poor excuse for a dvr?

 

[bhawley]

The antenna is, I would say, letter sized (8.5x11) and it sits in my window. Nothing needed outside, though. I will mention to anyone in the RDU area, they are putting up more towers in Briar Creek, Wake Forest, and Apex areas in the first half of 2007.

Thanks for the good info nateman99. Are you using the clearplugs that I see on
Clearwire's web site?

 

[Davey Roa]

I am in a former adelphia area. I was on the phone for over an hour waiting to speak to a representative. When someone finally answered my call, I was offered no troubleshooting other than to unplug and reconnect my modem. After that didn't work, I was offered an appointment during work hours. I told him to forget it. Luckily, the internet service came back on-line the next morning.
As far as HD programming, we have CBSHD,NBCHD, FOXHD, ABCHD, KCETHD, INHD1, INHD2,ESPN, ESPN2, Universal HD, TNT HD, HDNet movies, StarzHD, CinemaxHD, ShowtimeHD, HBO HD, Showtime HD, HDNet, Discovery. No other company in this area has the same selection as far as HD programming is concerned. Time Warner has a competitive advantage and they know it. I am waiting for another company to offer either similar programming, DVR with local channels ,or equivalent internet speeds before I consider leaving.

 

[stevenl]

Davy the only troubleshooting they can really do is have you reboot the modem. If the cable light want lock on the only option is to have a tech go out and fix it. and with TWC that is a free service, and usally can be done next day or at least within a 2day time. They also offer weekends if its better for you, but if you have to wait 4days till the weekend thats your problem not theirs. They offer the soonest availible time if you cant make it how can you blame them? you cant expect them to send a tech the second you have a problem that would be impossible. If you had dish and have a problem expect the same thing, only expect to PAY for the service call unlike with TWC.

Nate, So your telling me you pay the SAME price for 75% less speed? that does not seem like a deal to me. If your haveing problems with your internet dropping in and out then you need to call TWC and make them fix it, i have RoadRunner and have had 0 down time (noticeable) in the 6+years ive had the service. Maybe a small glitch or or their in late evening hours as they upgrade or a bug here or their, but its always fixable. Plus even during peak times around say 6pm i still push 5mbit or more, and im on the 8mbit basic plan for 44.95.

Cable HSD is on "shared nodes" But each node has avg 200 or less modems (most in oralndo ive seen is about 175) and a NODE can handle 500 modems without bogging down, its usally a n+1 (need +1) so it can handle double what it accutly handles so you shouldnt see a bog down at all. Plus at BHN many nodes we even split the upstream and downstream ports so technicly a node is n+2 depends on the area and what kinda bw each node seems to be pushing.

 

[Davey Roa]

if no troubleshooting is involved, then it should not take an hour and 1/2 wait on the phone to schedule an appointment for a technician to come out.

 

[stevenl]

if no troubleshooting is involved, then it should not take an hour and 1/2 wait on the phone to schedule an appointment for a technician to come out.

Agreed, but after the first 10mins i would of hung up and tried again later when they were not busy. Or treid their website which has a feature to schedule an appointment and basic troubleshooting (you get free dialup access with RoadRunner if you ever have an outage so now be sure to set that up for those emergencies where getting online is a life and death situation)

 

[Davey Roa]

Can you provide the link to schedule an appointment with Time Warner Cable?

 

[stevenl]

http://www.timewarnercable.com/Corporate/CustomerService/

 

[bhawley]

So Nateman99 how has Clearwire worked out? Any speed or quality issues so far?

 

[bhawley]

So Nateman99 how has Clearwire worked out? Any speed or quality issues so far?

Bump

 

[nateman99]

Hey, sorry for the delayed response. So, Clearwire worked very well. It had solid performance and no problems with reliability. If you are noting the verbs in past tense, I had to cancel my Clearwire service. The only real problem with Clearwire was the one that I initially feared -- throughput. Large volume downloads (moving DVD sized date blocks) was choked. In general, my large file transfers were about 30% slower. So, in short, if you are looking for something for general web surfing... it's a great service. If you a heavy user, though, it may not be what you need. If you have any specific questions, I'm happy to answer. Otherwise, I'll continue to look for alternatives.

 

[bhawley]

Thanks for the info. Netflix works for me

 

[nateman99]

Thanks for the suggestion... though, just to be clear, I don't move movies, just files in excess of 1GB (averaging around 2GB). And, I also use Netflix.