A really good price

[Delaney]

I'm looking for a cable internet service, so I've been checking out different ones to see what kind of deals they have. Charter is only $19.99 a month for the first 6 months. They give you a free modem, and there is no contract so I assume you can leave their service once it's time for the bill to go up. I see a few states where it isn't available, but is it available in most areas of all the other states? Anyone have this service that can recommend it?

[Squeeker]

You should probably check in to what the price will be once that 6 months is up. Or either just have another plan in mind so you can switch quickly. Once you see their real price, you might not be so impressed.

[Dew]

I'm willing to bet that at the end of that 6 months you'll see an increase of at least $10 a month. Maybe even more than that. But, if they really don't make you sign a contract, you can always just move on at that point.

[Walkdog]

This is a email i sent to charter tech support.

I'm having this certain problem and it occur's about 2-8 time's during a 10min time span. It deals with my ping for which spike's up to over 500 and sometime's even up to 1000 and hang's high for about 5-10 seconds then drops down. I'll do speed test when this occur's and notice my download speed has also dropped.

Now i'm a hard core gamer and this constant fluctuating ping is kicking me out of every server and cannot play one single game through without getting kicked from the server, and most server's i try to play on are in Dallas for which is only 2 1/2 hours west of me.

I've isolated this problem and finally a tech noticed the problem also through a qcr and said he would submit a ticket to get fixed. I later received a email from that same tech saying that it could/would not be done because the problem is on the backbone side and he tried to get it done but other's wouldn't touch that subject therefore leaving me with my problem saying that they guarantee speed but not ping time's. Well it doe's affect my download speed when those pings are high.

I've looked and found a Charter Corporate phone number to take this even further but none of the number's work for me. I myself am starting a petition in my local town and in the city of Marshall on this subject and try to find out how many people have this problem, i'm assuming most everybody doe's because my family and friends here locally all have the same issue's. For whoever i can get to sign the petition i will also have them start calling tech support once a nite every nite till this get's fixed.

Here in my local town it's either charter high speed or dial up, but there is a new company coming in within the next 6 months and if this problem is not fixed i will do everything i can including running newspaper adds and what not to get people to switch to this service for which i have played around with while in there area and they don't have drop offs or fluctuating ping issue's as i have with charter.

I know the tech that recieve's this will probably not be able to help me but please if you can forward this up as far as you can and i will try to do the same when i'm able to find the right person to send it to.

I do like Charter alot and wish to continue service and am looking forward to phone service moving into my area also so i can have my cable, internet and phone all on one bill but as it stands now i can't do what i like to do most on the internet which is gaming and gaming is probably the fastest growing trend and more and more people will start noticing this issue.

Please Please help me here.......

Thank you

Mark Walker




Problem overall is that Charter is paying qwest for service and they are not paying for enough bandwidth for the east Texas area. I live in a small town and only have 2 options............Charter high speed or dial up...........luckily a new service is coming in here soon and i will do everything i can do to get as many people to drop Charter because they will not give more bandwidth to this area.

[ebailey]

I cannot recommend. Frequent outages are inconvenient on a personal basis, and I also can work form home (IF Charter Broadband is available). On a recent 4 day outage I was credited $6.83. Getting the credit was not worth the effort since I had to speak to four different technicians, was on hold between each technician for 23 minutes to 176 minutes. I was forced to give the last four digits of my ssn to 'verify' I was eligible for the credit- and when I offered my account number instead was treated very snottily.

[ZTWY]

In a lot of cases you get what you pay for. Which is sad. The cheaper price for 6 months is a way to suck you in for the most part.

[Ziggy]

In my experience, when something is really really cheap pricewise, it's also really really cheap in other ways, in this case probably servicewise. Like ZTWY said, most of the time you get what you pay for.

[alexis]

Walkdog - been fighting the same thing for the past year off/on. They have replaced the router, and ended up re-laying the line from the box to our house, which is stupid - since 1 we didn't ask for it, 2 being a house of geeks the line was fine to start with (I did not notice he had done this until I heard noise coming from under my house). Then they charged us for it!!!!

My husband about flipped out of his chair when he saw the bill. He called them, it took like 5 reps to get things figured out and 2 supervisors. After they finally realized he was also a business client, the tone on the end of the phone became abit nicer. Still - what a pain. Oversell crap to customers and wonder why they complain!!!