Tell Me About Charter Cable

[Godsend1]

So, I'm moving to ATL next month and the provider in the division I'm buying in will be Charter. I'm looking for the horror stories and the sucesses. This will be for both internet and HDTV.

 

[DingDingDao]

I live in Pasadena, CA, but I have basically everything Charter has to offer out here. Digital Cable + Movie Tier + HD Tier + Tivo-thing + 3Mb/s Pipeline. I've had this setup for around a year now--no problems (knock on wood). If you get the same cable box as me (Scientific Atlanta 8000HD), the box is pretty good--recording is easy to set up, and it has about 20 hours of recording time (at HD quality, longer for SD channels).

 

[phreaqe]

i have charter internet. works great. i have had it for about 3-4 years. i have only once had the cable go out, and that was because of a storm and i live on a penisula so they ony have one way to get the cable to us so i do not blame them for it. i have been very happy with the service. it is vary fast.

 

[Feldenak]

If I could swtich to another cable provider I would. I've grown to detest Charter. When I had their digital cable package, the TV picture would freeze and just sit there sometimes for 30 minutes, random internet outages, etc... I hate Charter Communications.

 

[yhelothar]

I use charter cable TV with verizon dsl. Both works great.

 

[FoBoT]

Charter Communications, A Wired World Company(TM), is among the nation's largest broadband communications companies, currently serving more than 6.8 million customers in 40 states. Charter provides a full range of advanced broadband services to the home, including cable television on an advanced digital video programming platform marketed under the Charter Digital Cable(R) brand and high-speed Internet access via Charter Pipeline(R). Commercial high-speed data, video and Internet solutions are provided under the Charter Business NetworksTM brand. Advertising sales and production services are sold under the Charter Media brand.

A Fortune 500 and Nasdaq 100 Company, Charter was the 2001 recipient of the Outstanding Corporate Growth Award from the Association for Corporate Growth, the 2001 R.E. "Ted" Turner Innovator of the Year Award from the Southern Cable Telecommunications Association, and the 2001 Fast 50 Award for Growth from the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association.

 

[tm37]

Had charter @ home and then PIPELINE.

It was aweful.

I switched to a local DSL provider and I am loving it!

 

[RaistlinZ]

I had Charter. For cable TV they are good. For cable internet service they were awful. Max download speed of ~55KB/Sec and frequent link deads, which really sucked for online gaming.

DSL is better if you have access to it.

 

[DaveJ]

Whether Charter sucks or not depends on where you live... some places seem to be better than others. I'm in DFW and have had Charter for over 3 years, and haven't had a single problem. Their cable services suck, but I've got a dish so I don't care... Rumor has it they're rolling out a 5Mb down/512Kb up service sometime this year...

Dave

 

[brtspears2]

Great service in Riverside, CA.

 

[midwestfisherman]

I live in S.E. Michigan and have had Charter cable for TV and internet for many years now. I've not had one problem with them. I very rarely ever have an outage. The customer service people have alsways been very good and pleasent to deal with when I have had occasion to call them.

 

[Demo24]

live above Atl and im happy with it The digital cable is fine. The internet is nice and fast No real major problems wiht them so far

 

[FleshLight]

Super service here in Alhambra, CA.

Only bad thing is that they switched to digital and I err, lost some channels.

 

[psiu]

It really depends on the individual service areas and their local management. This really applies to all the cable co.'s. Most of their services are similar, but when there is a problem on the line or questions on the account is where the difference will show up.

 

[FritzTheCat]

Cable and digital TV and internet, Central Wisconsin. Cable and digital TV are great. Internet has periods of loss, have to reboot cable modum. Works great for three, four months, then reboot modum two, three times a day for a couple of weeks, then back to no problems.

 

[Godsend1]

Thanks for the replies guys. It looks like it depends on the location. Ill be in Mcdonough.

 

[TitanDiddly]

I've got it, it's not bad. Not many outages, and they recently upgraded speed for free. Service sucks, but that's standard.

 

[StageLeft]

Charter's customer service is far and away the worst in the world. It's worse than having to deal with the social security administration. Incompetency runs amok throughout the entire customer service chain and dealing with them is exquisitely painful. I have had their cable internet for about 12 months and it's worked well, though every several days or couple of weeks it seems to just "stop" and I have to unplug my modem and plug it back in.

 

[Jadow]

meh, I've had Charter forever, the ultra digital package and internet. The tv is fine, their HDTV is pretty good. The internet works. Goes down every once in awhile, but never for more than an hour or so. It does the job.

 

[DaveJ]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Charter's customer service is far and away the worst in the world. It's worse than having to deal with the social security administration. Incompetency runs amok throughout the entire customer service chain and dealing with them is exquisitely painful. I have had their cable internet for about 12 months and it's worked well, though every several days or couple of weeks it seems to just "stop" and I have to unplug my modem and plug it back in.

That's funny... the one time I had to call Charter CS (setting up my parents' modem at their new place) I got a tech within 2 minutes, and the guy didn't BS me at all... he even offered to check some things on their end, and took my number to call me back. 5 minutes later I get a call from the guy and the modem was working. Can't get much better CS than that.

PSA: If you're in the DFW area, one of their techs has a site set up here with a bunch of tools and a message board to report any problems and check on system status...

Dave

 

[duragezic]

Charter cable internet here. They sent us out a notice that they were raising prices and downgrading us. So instead of $32.95/mo for 3mbps service, it would cost us like $50 to keep the 3mbps service, or $40 to get WAY downgraded. Yet, Jan 1st past and I'm still getting download speeds of 200-300k/sec max, so they probably forgot to downgrade us or are schiesting us in some other way. All in all, I think it's a ripoff for the speeds you get, but that could be because of the area I am in.

 

[cmv]

Originally posted by: duragezic
Charter cable internet here. They sent us out a notice that they were raising prices and downgrading us. So instead of $32.95/mo for 3mbps service, it would cost us like $50 to keep the 3mbps service, or $40 to get WAY downgraded. Yet, Jan 1st past and I'm still getting download speeds of 200-300k/sec max, so they probably forgot to downgrade us or are schiesting us in some other way. All in all, I think it's a ripoff for the speeds you get, but that could be because of the area I am in.

My brother got that letter and took the cheaper option. They dropped the speed. Stll okay but man, such a rip. The just know most people will hand over $10 more per month for about 6x the speed.

But otherwise, they've been great here. Fast speeds, decent pings, etc.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: DaveJ

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Charter's customer service is far and away the worst in the world. It's worse than having to deal with the social security administration. Incompetency runs amok throughout the entire customer service chain and dealing with them is exquisitely painful. I have had their cable internet for about 12 months and it's worked well, though every several days or couple of weeks it seems to just "stop" and I have to unplug my modem and plug it back in.

That's funny... the one time I had to call Charter CS (setting up my parents' modem at their new place) I got a tech within 2 minutes, and the guy didn't BS me at all... he even offered to check some things on their end, and took my number to call me back. 5 minutes later I get a call from the guy and the modem was working. Can't get much better CS than that.

PSA: If you're in the DFW area, one of their techs has a site set up here with a bunch of tools and a message board to report any problems and check on system status...

Dave

You got lucky. I spoke to 4-5 people on the same (easy) issue. My problems echo my neighbour's problems. Their customer service really is the horse's ass. You must have gotten very lucky!

 

[SithSolo1]

I live in Athens about 1hr NE of Atl. Had Charter internet/cable since it was @home oh say '99ish. Back then I had 6MBits/s, had gone down to 2 but now back up to 3.5 so its plenty fast. Rarely have trouble with the interent unless they are "upgrading" for 7hrs without notice or there is a major outage. The cable on the other hand locks up sometimes, picture pixelates, video cuts out, channels are out, or the guide doesn't work. I'd say one of those happens every two weeks or so for 5mins to an hour.