I am one of those people who hate Time Warner (because of the crappy and recently unreliable service) that can’t wait for Verizon FOIS or AT&T U-verse or anything faster to show up in my neighborhood. My dream Internet provider for home would be what people in Europe have – 50Mbps connections but I’ll settle for Verizon’s Faster Plus services that claims to provide 15 Mbps download and 15 Mbps upload. But Verizon is slowly rolling this out and I am not going to get this for a couple of years. AT&T U-verse is my only salvation as they are slowly offering service in my neighborhood and their Max plan would work for me. U-verse Max offers 10 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload and that would just rock but Time Warner has been upping their game in terms of broadband speed (not service or reliability, mind you) and I am currently getting 15Mbsp download and 1Mbps upload.
I just did a bandwidth test and discovered that I am truly getting close to 1 Mbps upstream and that’s pretty awesome as I use Mozy for my remote backup and I also use Rsync and Subversion to backup my code and other essentials files to my remote (Linux) server. My current thought is to get the AT&T U-verse service and run it side-by-side with my Road Runner connection for a while and see which one is consistently reliable and faster. I sure hope its AT&T as I would like nothing better than to dump Time Warner.
If you’re not using Mozy (or another online backup provider), you should consider getting one!
Vinny Carpenter's blog 
Hey Vinny, I was just looking at Uverse. According to their website, it isn’t available at my address yet. I loathe Time Warner and their terrible service, so I’m looking to upgrade. I’m considering TW biz class. The only thing I don’t like is the 1-year agreement required. Are you using biz class to get those speeds? My speeds have been decreasing the last few months, and it gets really bogged down at times.
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Hi Matt. Uverse is slowly rolling out in our area but they’re being selective about where they’re starting. It’s a weird matrix if you see their current map of coverage, but they should hopefully have the complete Milwaukee area covered by end of the year.
I don’t have biz class – Instead, it’s something called Road Runner Turbo and they promise 15Mbps down and 1 Mbps upstream and that’s what I am getting. Hopefully Uverse will match that and more 🙂
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Hey Vinny,
I just got U-Verse installed today and it is hand over fist faster than Time Warners Road Runner service. I don’t have my results from my Time Warner (never plugging that in again) but here is what I’m getting with U-Verse.
Hope all works out for you…
Cheers,
Ben
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I never trust phone companies like AT&T, Verizon, and MCI. They always have several extra charges in small print that are more than half of what you are suppose to pay for. I was an MCI customer for a few years my bill was suppose to be $30 per month but I am charged $56 a month with line access charges and what not. I recently switched over to AT&T they charged me $76 including tax. This plan included unlimited long distance and basic internet which is $20 but it was suppose to be discounted when bundling with phone service which was $40. I asked about DSL Elite and they said it was not available in my area but on the site is showed it was and another friend also looked into it in a different area but he lives in a big city and even he got the same reply. RoadRunner is not as bad as everyone says it is I have 2 TimeWarner accounts in 2 different areas. In one account I am suppose to get 15mbps by 768 kbps and I am getting 14990kbps by 700 kbps and on the other account I am suppose to get 10mbps by 1mbps and I am getting 9900kbps by 990kbps. I get thes speeds 24/7 and it rarely goes down. Unlike the phone companies there are no hidden charges. I am quite pleased with their service. I am saving nearly $10-20 using their phone service including tax.
PS I use the speakeasy speed test Chicago server the speeds i noted above came from that server.
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hey Vinnie, twc user here think about a switch to u-verse. here the thing i like to record tv and watch it later due to my job. right now o have twc dvr and a tivo on two different tv s worked fine till the tivo died . but service at time warner sucks . and their on demand it horrid…. U verse promises all thing greater but cant run two dvrs or hook up to my tuner rigged computer. they also promised fast internet but have read i will be disappointed….. we are set to swithc on wednesday but now i am having second thoughts. i am wondering if i want to sta with an eveil i know or switch to the new unknown evil….and hope for better service….. can you be of any help
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Just some feedback,
I have used Time-Warner, Comcast, and Charter for tv and internet. By far the best is what I use now, Time Warner Turbo (15down, 1.5up) , with digital tv, DVR, phone w/ unlimited long dis., voice messaging and caller id. About $150.00 pm, way less than the 3 apart. POT through ATT was over $65.00 pm by itself! So the package deal is great for us. And being disabled and in bed much of the time makes me sensitive to slow surfing or dow/up loading. Unless there is a problem with the server I'm connected to, pages load very fast, almost instantly. We're talking ms here. I ping a few places occasionally, it's always <45ms, and 42 usually. I agree about not trusting phone companies, just about everyone I know has been screwed by them at least once. The evil that is TW is at least known. One thing- I have heard of TW trying to put a limit on internet use out west. They were shot down by lawmakers. I hope Obama keeps his promise of a fast, affordable internet connection for all Americans!
John N.
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I moved to Uverse thinking that nothing could be as bad as comcast but I ws mistaken. I should have known better after decades of trying to leave AT&T only to be one of the returning customers they adveritse on TV because they keep buying th phone company I moved to. Yep, their last acquisition was my beloved Southwestern Bell and my phones are once again AT&T.
Okay…Uverse, without the adjectives to express my true feelings. I've been on the phone with them for 2 hours today. Reboot this, reboot that, then they apparently didn't believe me and rebooted from their office. 5, or was it 6, reboots later they finally agreed to send a tech out in a few days to be here sometime between 4 and 9.
This isn't the only problem. I have had Uverse for about a month and rebooted the system at least 10 times. The picture just hangs up occasionally. Sometimes the settop box just goes off while I'm watching TV. It occasionally hangs up when I try to erase a recorded program. Occasionally is once or twice every 10 attempts. This system is not yet ready for prime time.
Is it better than the competition. No. It's not even in the same league as Direct TV, Comcast or Time Warner. When it works, well, it's okay. But try dealing with AT&T. Funny thing is that while I was on the phone with them about my TV, my AT&T land line phone suddenly started getting so much static that I couldn't hear them and they couldn't hear me.
Congress should not allow AT&T to acquire anymore customers or companies until they reach a consumer rating that is acceptable.
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I had some salespeople roaming around my neighborhood trying to sell U-Verse. I admit I was really interested in it. I have my complaints about Time Warner's Road Runner…well mainly when it has gone down (very rarely in my area) for a couple of hours. This is annoying but like I said…this is extremely rare in my area…but has happened.
The problem was when the sales person brought their manager with them to discuss pricing. I currently have Standard with Powerboot through time warner. I am pulling on average approximately 10Mbps or more downstream for the price that AT&T is offering thier 3Mbps package. I brought this up to the manager and they tried to argue how the speed via cable being a shared network fluctuates. I agree…but not down to 3Mbps with the package I have…I haven't seen that…google offers a tester to see how your speed is doing via streaming video and during the video it shows you what you are downloading at the whole time…it does change but never below 6Mbps.
When I told her that when I first looked at the package I was thinking "MBps (Mega BYTES) instead of Mbps (Mega BITS). She stated that they are calculating MBps but I showed her in the brochure they had given me that it is bits and she was wrong. She then instead of talking about the price just began to bash Time Warner. I do not typically stand up for them…however…the points she made were wrong and she was very rude. She tried to argue that Time Warner uses static IP…I know that they use dynamic…I had to laugh as you do have to pay EXTRA for Static addresses through time warner and they do use dynamic IP addressing…I tried to explain to her what makes an IP static and how leases work….I wasn't arguing that Time Warner doesn't renew the IP often especially not as often as U-Verse who renews evertime you restart the connection…she preferred arguing about the situation instead of selling the product…
I think the best part was how they are "Unhackable" lol…there is no such thing….otherwise you would never have to upgrade ever :-P.
I think what turns me off about U-Verse is the fact that it is AT&T. The salesperson (manager) is a typical example of what to expect from their employees. The comment by Paul and Bo show this as well.
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They were trying to use a static IP as a reason to not get TW, even though TW doesn't? I know some people who would love having a static IP.. 🙂
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I was a Time Warner Cable Customer. They were way too expensive. AT&T offers High Speed DSL for 14.95. Higher speed for 19.95, so I signed up. AT&T had me pay 100.00 up front because of my credit. I also had to pay 100.00 for a wireless modem, up front. My service was supposed to begin on Dec. 22, 2010. It took until today, December 31, 2010, for me to get Internet Service. Here's what happened…
1) I called AT&T Customer Service
2) I called and called and called
3) Finally, AT&T told me that I'd have to pay an additional 159.00 for their "remote technical department" to troubleshoot and get me connected to the internet, because of a "software issue" with my computer. They told me not to despair because they could break it up into "monthly payments" of an additional 15.00 per month. I could put all of this on a credit card.
4) I kept calling and calling. Nobody at AT&T in America, could help me.
5) Finally, I got someone in the Phillipines, who could talk me through the so called "software issue" and get me connected to the internet through AT&T. I had to go through a lot of invasive, questioning, and registration, to connect to AT&T's high speed, DSL Internet.
6) I hate Yahoo!
7) It looks like AT&T's main search engine is Yahoo. I hate that! I've never liked Yahoo, or the name, Yahoo. It just sounds funny, that's all.
8) Time Warner Cable has better service, and seems to be a lot more technically savvy. So, if you can afford it, you might just want to stick with Time Warner Cable if you're lucky enought to already have it. It's expensive, but you get what you pay for, and the service is a whole lot better, with much easier access!!!!!!
9) When I had Time Warner, I made a phone call, got right to a Customer Service or Technical Support Agent, without a lot of stupid prompts, like AT&T. With AT&T, it takes FOREVER to get to a Customer Service Representative.
10) When I FINALLY got someone at AT&T's Tech Support Department to adtually help me, without a bunch of stupid stuff, it was someone in a Foreign Country, NOT AMERICA!!!!!, who could and did help me!
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