I recently discovered that downgrading your internet service with TWC is a major chore. I was transferred twice and was given a sales pitch at every step of the way.

I originally called in saying I wanted to downgrade from 'standard' to the 14.99 package. The guy was like hold on, let me research your account (i wonder what that means). Then he tells me that after his research he has determined that what I really need is Turbo package.


Long story short, i got it downgraded. I have to say, I haven't noticed a whole lot of difference. What I hated was the sales pitch. He asked, "do you do a lot of gaming?" ,"Do you stream alot of music or videos?", to which i answered "No" knowing full well he was trying to upsell. Still he says i need 20mbps??

I don't know any online gaming that needs 20mbps down. I don't know any streaming movies that need 20mbps down. Maybe if you had a house where everyone was doing everything all at once, you may need that speed but how many of us have that?

Has anyone else gone down to the 14.99er? What are your experiences?

8/7/2014 2:43:58 PM

My parents downgraded to the 2mbps and it was tolerable. Netflix chokes and downloading anything involves putting it out of your mind and finding something else to do away from the computer while it downloads. I myself would never tolerate it, but for them I think it is acceptable.

8/8/2014 9:55:55 AM

Unless you have multiple users or do some stupidly intensive stuff you might not notice crap. Latency is king

8/8/2014 9:58:23 AM

I /need/ 20 down and can get away with 3 up. It is well worth the money I pay for 50 down/10 up, as I work from home on a platform streaming 3d video often with multiple streams going and/or youtube playing. I also have to upload and download large builds and artifacts and the time savings is absolutely worth it.

8/8/2014 11:08:45 AM

Quote :

"I recently discovered that downgrading your internet service with TWC is a major chore. I was transferred twice and was given a sales pitch at every step of the way. "

You can't make those changes on a website?

8/8/2014 11:17:20 AM

I use close to a Terabyte of data per month according to Time Warner.

why would anyone want to tolerate slow speeds if there are other options.

8/8/2014 11:50:14 AM

Yeah I'm not sitting around waiting on my 30GB steam game to download all day!! Not to mention I get around 12Mbps upload which is glorious for streaming media and remote/server stuff.

8/8/2014 12:55:20 PM

^THIS

8/8/2014 12:57:07 PM

I do some downloading, but its never intensive. I don't have a *need* for something like 50. If I could get lower latency with it, sure.

For example, my parents have 10/10 symmetrical fiber. Low latency, downloads are way faster than any other provider I've used.

8/8/2014 1:13:46 PM

Quote :

"You can't make those changes on a website?"

absolutely not. (See my rant in the TWC thread in CC)

The website has all the provisions to UP your services, but none for downgrading

As well, you cannot downgrade via the online chat feature.

8/8/2014 2:23:55 PM

Quote :

"For example, my parents have 10/10 symmetrical fiber. Low latency, downloads are way faster than any other provider I've used."

Yeah but if I'm downloading a 30GB game then 10 would take 5 times longer than 50. That could be the difference between an hour and 5 hours. Huge difference.

-Also CenturyLink 1Gbps Fiber is coming to my area. Can't wait.

[Edited on August 8, 2014 at 3:40 PM. Reason : s]

8/8/2014 3:39:30 PM

[Edited on August 8, 2014 at 3:54 PM. Reason : nevermind didnt read]

8/8/2014 3:54:40 PM

Quote :

"I don't know any online gaming that needs 20mbps down. I don't know any streaming movies that need 20mbps down. Maybe if you had a house where everyone was doing everything all at once, you may need that speed but how many of us have that?"

it's kind of an indirect admission of guilt with respect to the fact that whatever you receive never actually reaches what's advertised.

you don't need 20 down to game unless the "10 down" package only ever reaches 2 on average

8/11/2014 11:41:02 PM

From my years of Time Warner and Comcast I've never gotten anything other than advertised except for rare occasions (maybe like once a month). One time they set it up and it wasn't as advertised and they boosted the signal in the area (or node or whatever) and that was that. I'm not paying for internet unless it's what they're advertising.

8/12/2014 10:39:34 AM

^
I think you are missing the entire point.

Quote :

"I originally called in saying I wanted to downgrade from 'standard' to the 14.99 package. The guy was like hold on, let me research your account (i wonder what that means). Then he tells me that after his research he has determined that what I really need is Turbo package. "

TWC of course provides 20Gbps, 50Gbps and whatever else down, but its the fact that I called in asking for a downgrade and they do research and "recommend' a package that is even higher than the 15Gbps that I was wanting to downgrade from.

8/12/2014 10:49:38 AM

Quote :

"TWC of course provides 20Gbps, 50Gbps"

Damn I wish that were true. You mean Mbps.

I was replying to Cherokee's comment:

Quote :

"it's kind of an indirect admission of guilt with respect to the fact that whatever you receive never actually reaches what's advertised."

Simply saying I've never had this issue before.

8/12/2014 12:32:13 PM

gotcha, i misunderstood you then

sorry, i have a severe anger at telecom. it's quite apparent that telecom is a utility at this point in history. you can't reasonably do anything without it. as such it should be regulated like a utility. and the irony is that you wouldn't have to regulate it like a utility if they would knock off the nickel and diming. you have to regulate power and water because of the strain on the environment with regards to remaining supply. data is infinite. you can't run out of data.

if it's about maintaining infrastructure, then why aren't they charging based on a formula that accounts for the number of pieces of hardware and employees required to maintain and expand service?

8/12/2014 2:28:26 PM

I was about to downgrade my Internets because a promo deal I had was running out

Then I got talked into an even better promo deal, paying a little less than I had been, but for higher downstream bandwidth

even so, I'd consider downgrading to the everyday low price package if I run out of promos at "Account Solutions"

[Edited on August 12, 2014 at 11:49 PM. Reason : ^also this guy wins the Internet

8/12/2014 11:49:08 PM

Dude, post the promo.

8/13/2014 9:41:51 AM

Quote :

"if it's about maintaining infrastructure, then why aren't they charging based on a formula that accounts for the number of pieces of hardware and employees required to maintain and expand service?"

Because they make money off the assumption that the majority of their customers don't use what they're paying for.

Nice thing about Denver is I can threaten to cancel and switch to CenturyLink. Rumors they're getting gigabit soon. My $35/month for 50/10 is not going to go up.

8/13/2014 12:03:55 PM

I have 50Mbps now, and while I wouldn't say it's "necessary", it's nice to be able to pull down torrents of TV show episodes in about the time it takes me to walk back upstairs and turn on my media device. That's the main thing I'd miss over speeds of 20Mbps or less. For gaming or using actual streaming services, it's way overkill, and it's still too slow for work. I do a lot of large file transfers to servers at work, and doing that over the VPN from home is a pain.

8/13/2014 1:10:47 PM

For me the upload speed is HUGE.

8/13/2014 1:20:54 PM

I've been rocking .5 Mbps tethering from my phone for the last ~2 months or so.

It's pretty awesome.

8/13/2014 4:16:25 PM

What are you on like 3G? I get 25-30 Mbps on my phone.

8/13/2014 4:46:08 PM

It's AT&T's "unlimited" plan. It gets throttled down after 5GB of usage.

8/13/2014 5:11:55 PM

Ah I have that too but I never go over 2-3 GB per month. I have wifi at work and at home. How do you use that much?

8/13/2014 10:15:28 PM

Quote :

"How Much Bandwidth Do you need?"

All of it.

8/14/2014 10:15:23 AM

Quote :

"How do you use that much?"

It's my only source of internet so...

8/14/2014 4:37:41 PM

Ah - Don't pay for internet?

8/14/2014 4:51:15 PM

I just moved back to my old house (was out west for a while) and haven't bothered hooking up service yet. Not really a priority right now.

As a side note, I think I may have accidentally found a way to get around the throttling, at least temporarily. I did something to my phone last night and ended up with about an hour of ~700KBps download speeds. Tonight, I did the same thing and am currently downloading at ~500KBps, which may not be impressive to anyone, but that's a lot better than the 60KBps that I've been dealing with for the last 2 months. I do wonder if I can repeat this and keep the speeds up or if it's a fluke though. If this is the case, I may never get home internet again, as the fastest I can get around here anyway is only 3Mbps DSL. This is still almost twice that fast.

8/14/2014 9:35:53 PM

So what's it like living in Eritrea?

8/15/2014 12:59:00 AM