Quote :

" Tracing route to google.com [209.85.171.100] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 15 ms 16 ms 22 ms 10.204.64.1 2 17 ms 25 ms 57 ms gig2-3.gnboncash-rtr1.triad.rr.com [24.28.229.25 3] 3 * 14 ms * srp14-0.gnboncsg-rtr2.triad.rr.com [24.28.224.19 4] 4 17 ms 24 ms * ge-3-1-0.chrlncpop-rtr1.southeast.rr.com [24.93. 64.162] 5 20 ms 38 ms 19 ms ae-3-0.cr0.atl20.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.82] 6 40 ms * 119 ms ae-0-0.pr0.atl20.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.171] 7 35 ms 30 ms 31 ms 66.109.9.90 8 * 36 ms 26 ms 72.14.239.100 9 108 ms 147 ms 139 ms 209.85.242.254 10 145 ms 121 ms 143 ms 216.239.48.34 11 128 ms 141 ms 118 ms 64.233.174.103 12 114 ms 103 ms 117 ms 209.85.251.133 13 106 ms 106 ms 134 ms 74.125.31.134 14 110 ms * 144 ms cg-in-f100.google.com [209.85.171.100] Trace complete."

[Edited on April 3, 2009 at 1:50 PM. Reason : That's from Asheboro]

4/3/2009 1:50:12 PM

I did misunderstand you meaning Shaggy, thanks for explaining it. In that sense yes you are correct. I dont know how long its been since you used RR here, but it's been quite crap for the last few years, and seems to get worse as time goes by. That's why I finally dropped them. I just really couldn't handle being on hold for 3 hours, just to get to the level one guy who doesn't even know what ping or tracert is. Only to be forwarded 2 or 3 times and have to re-explain everything everytime. I just got tired of it.

It's so bad now my friends call me before they call TWC because it saves them time. Now they are losing customers left and right from recession, competition, and just plain bad business practices. Telling people that you are going to stop them from accessing the internet as much as they want, for as long as they want, when your previous business model was to do just that not only upsets all those people who use your service, it shows many of them that maybe you didn't know what you were doing in the first place, and shouldn't be trusted to work it out in their favor now.

4/3/2009 1:56:31 PM

^^ so yea thats straight to google via rr.

^I agree that in that situation it makes total sense to pick one of their better competitors, but i dont think that that experience is common outside a few bad areas. My experience has been pretty much the opposite. With my residential service the longest i've been on hold with a rep is probably 15 minutes. For business service I can get ahold of the NOC in 2-3 minutes.

4/3/2009 2:06:49 PM

Hah yeah I would have loved that kind of wait time, The only time my wait was less than 30 minutes was when I told them I was dropping all their service and they tried so badly to kiss up and keep me on . I actually called from work the last few times, cause I didnt want to have to pay for the calls to sit on wait, or let my battery die in the process (I only use a cell).

4/3/2009 2:20:17 PM

Quote :

"fairly certain it's only on air cards - not on phones that are tethering"

tethering is a different beast all together. they don't really care unless you start using it extensively, in which case they'll charge you $0.01/KB and not tell you about it until you get your massive bill in the mail.



also, as far as the other stuff in this thread goes:
TWC isn't suddenly instating caps because they need more money to build out their infrastructure. They're doing it because things like Hulu and Netflix Instant Watch are becoming more and more ubiquitous/accessible to the average consumer, therefore making them more of a viable replacement for traditional cable service. TWC is desperately trying to keep you from doing that, as their highest profit margin is that of their revenues from catv services. Carriers also hate just being dumb pipes (at least, on the consumer end).

4/3/2009 3:44:59 PM

Quote :

""I'll just add tethering to my Sprint service and say fuck TWC."

Quote :

"sprint has a 5GB cap on their "unlimited" plans."

Quote :

"fairly certain it's only on air cards - not on phones that are tethering"

Quote :

"tethering is a different beast all together. they don't really care unless you start using it extensively, in which case they'll charge you $0.01/KB and not tell you about it until you get your massive bill in the mail."

how can you say tethering is a different beast all together - you said it has a 5gb cap - it doesn't...what else is there to talk about?

4/3/2009 3:51:11 PM

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10211311-1.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

4/3/2009 3:51:38 PM

Quote :

"In that sense yes you are correct. I dont know how long its been since you used RR here, but it's been quite crap for the last few years, and seems to get worse as time goes by."

Again, not for me. I did have one period of about a month where I thought my connection was getting flaky (disconnecting randomly, etc) but when I swapped out my modem, it was rock solid again. The problem was with the modem (4 years old at that point), not with TWC.

4/3/2009 4:01:00 PM

i had problems with twc at the first place i lived off-campus (moved out of there about 4 years ago now). since then i've had very little problem with my road runner. an outage maybe once every 9 months or so.

their dvr is an entirely different story. that thing is a piece of shit.

4/3/2009 4:02:40 PM

solinari, that's great for you. but the last time i had an issue i got a new modem when mine was less than a year old and it did nothing. the issue was on their end, and the support people were so dense they did not understand that. Many people I know have had similar issues with their modem's and dvr's (I dont even want to get into that).

sarijoul, you call an outage every 9mths normal? I have been with another company for over a year with no outages.

4/3/2009 4:14:47 PM

I would speculate that most of the dissatisfaction with TWC is coming from people who live in apartment complexes. I'm sure somebody living in a single family home is gonna flame me for saying that, though.... If that's the case and you're still having a problem with your connection, then you should accept nothing less than a contractor to come out and re-run a dedicated line from their big distributor box straight to your home if thats what it takes to clean up your signal. If you're letting them get away with less than that, well, that's your weak-willed problem and not theirs.

Quote :

"sarijoul, you call an outage every 9mths normal?"

I would die if I couldn't play WoW for 20 minutes every 9 mo... I ain't CNN over here. If the internet goes down once or twice a year for an evening... WHO CARES? that just gives me an excuse to go on a walk or something.

Quote :

"I have been with another company for over a year with no outages."

You have been with a company for over a year with no outages while you were sitting at your computer or had something downloading.



[Edited on April 3, 2009 at 4:25 PM. Reason : s]

4/3/2009 4:16:46 PM

^^yes i am. and i haven't had an outage in probably more than a year myself. but i remember a couple times that i've had outages (usually no more than 45 minutes or so) in the past few years. so i just guessed at the nine months figure.

4/3/2009 4:19:19 PM

just because you haven't had an outage in over a year doesn't mean it's "unacceptable" for some company to have a couple outages a year

4/3/2009 4:23:23 PM

Quote :

"how can you say tethering is a different beast all together - you said it has a 5gb cap - it doesn't...what else is there to talk about?"

are you really that ignorant? sheesh. i think you're just desperate to find things to troll me with, honestly.

their actual, sanctioned data plans have a 5GB cap.

yes, tethering technically doesn't have a cap, but if you used 5GB of data in a month over a tethered connection, i'm quite certain sprint would have something to say about that (most likely in the form of a large bill).

4/3/2009 5:05:27 PM

once TWCs switched-digital infrastructure is in place in this area - they will have MASSIVE last mile bandwidth available.

TWC is a 100% fiber core network, and once switching is in place, they'll free up 400%+ of used traffic - giving them PLENTY to spare. From the look of it, they are desperate for cash to finish out their switched network, which is a huge massive costly upgrade

4/3/2009 6:43:19 PM

Quote :

"You guys are missing the point.... TWC really wants you guys to go away and stop using them. You are not typical users, but you are right that your usage habits are becoming much more mainstream with the advent of Hulu and Netflix. And that is THE EXACT reason why TWC is instituting these metered policies now, before that usage model becomes fully mainstream, so that they can stay ahead of the tidal wave of bandwidth consumption that is heading towards them."

Part of this is true, but part of it is not--or should not be. You're correct in saying that TWC is putting in metered policies now in order to be ahead of the curve on pricing schemes as HD video and other large-bandwidth data streams become more and more common. Price discrimination is a desirable and effective way to improve efficiency of markets. That's fine, and I have no problem with it.

But the issue with TWC's plan is not the principle of metering usage and charging accordingly; it's the ridiculously low caps they are starting out with. You keep saying that TWC wants high-bandwidth users to go away to someone else, but then you acknowledge that those levels of usage are becoming more common and will continue to do so. The point there is that higher usage for the average customer is going way up whether they like it or not and will continue to do so no matter how they price; they will have to invest in infrastructure or other content deals upstream as Shaggy mentioned in order to stay competitive in the level of service they can offer. The fact that average users in the very near future will start to look more like the high-end users of today (regardless of whether it's legal or illegal content) means that it's still bad business for them to push away customers now.

Doing so makes sense now but is very short-sighted; they'll lose those customers for life because they're giving other providers the opportunity to undercut them now, and in the long run business models will trend back towards unlimited access plans once new-generation infrastructure is able to handle the load. I think it's clear that setting such low caps on their plans (5GB--seriously, when they KNOW what the trend in data growth has been and will be?) is dumbfoundingly stupid and can only be interpreted as a blatant attempt to stifle growth of online content providers and maintain the viability of their cable offerings. That attempt will fail.

Price discrimination is well and good, but the prudent move would have been to put a higher cap on the plans that are priced at the same cost as their current plans--say, put the 40GB cap on the $29.99 plan. Then tier your caps up to 250GB per month accordingly. Maybe tier your speed along with the caps. That way it seems much less threatening, and people will grow into the model more gradually. As it stands, they will lose a not insignificant number of customers over this in the short term that they should not want to unload, and will have a harder time luring them back later.

This smacks of being a reactionary and desperate attempt to stay competitive without actually having to do much. It can work in the short-term, but in the long-term this plan is doomed; TWC needs to suck it up and acknowledge that they need a more radical change in their business model than just playing with pricing structures.

The only way to salvage this without abandoning it would be to make big marketing pushes trumpeting the inevitable increases in the caps that will have to happen pretty often in order to avoid getting undercut severely by other companies in large areas where competition exists. I would imagine the first run would be at least doubling the caps, and some good PR spin can be put on that. Quietly roll out this policy, then save the big ad campaigns for when you can tell everyone you're doubling everyone's plan FOR FREEEEEEE.

[Edited on April 3, 2009 at 11:15 PM. Reason : ]

4/3/2009 11:12:02 PM

Quote :

"their actual, sanctioned data plans have a 5GB cap. yes, tethering technically doesn't have a cap, but if you used 5GB of data in a month over a tethered connection, i'm quite certain sprint would have something to say about that (most likely in the form of a large bill)."

only the aircards have the cap - tethering has no cap - there have been reports of heavy usage users having their contracts terminated but in every instance they were above 5gb by a lot

i've been above 5gb a few months and my usage has never once been reflected on a bill

4/4/2009 12:39:55 AM

^^ well at least you see my point and understand the business sense of such a strategy. I definitely agree that 5GB does seem kind of small to me, but presumably they have looked at all of their network statistics and maybe they've found that 5GB is actually much more mainstream than either of us would think. Or maybe they're just idiots and really are shooting themselves in the foot by leaving the cap at 5GB.... Only time will tell. Circuit City was stupid and now they're out of business.

4/4/2009 9:18:57 AM

Quote :

"Yes - they have a website you can go to and see your usage. It will be linked to your account login with http://www.selfcare.rr.com"

I can log in, but I can't find any usage information. Is this for Triad users only?

4/4/2009 9:56:02 AM

Probably just for areas where they're rolling out the metering.

4/4/2009 10:27:10 AM

Once the Triangle TWC area is notified of the new limits - in your monthly statement it will explain how to access the usage website and when it will start and the fees and so on.

4/4/2009 8:28:37 PM

assuming the triangle area will get capped

4/5/2009 12:33:03 AM

It is

4/5/2009 7:43:43 AM

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6001]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\dakotahawkins>tracert google.com

Tracing route to google.com [209.85.171.100]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms wrt350n [192.168.0.1]
2 8 ms 9 ms 12 ms 10.124.224.1
3 7 ms 7 ms 7 ms 24.25.0.125
4 10 ms 11 ms 13 ms srp0-0.rlghncj-rtr5.nc.rr.com [24.25.2.156]
5 12 ms 10 ms 16 ms pos1-3.rlghnca-rtr1.nc.rr.com [24.25.0.92]
6 24 ms 15 ms 21 ms ge-5-3-0.chrlncpop-rtr1.southeast.rr.com [24.93.64.2]
7 28 ms 27 ms 27 ms ae-3-0.cr0.atl20.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.82]
8 22 ms 22 ms 20 ms ae-0-0.pr0.atl20.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.171]
9 20 ms 19 ms 19 ms 66.109.9.90
10 23 ms 35 ms 23 ms 72.14.239.100
11 106 ms 105 ms 96 ms 209.85.242.254
12 100 ms 99 ms 100 ms 209.85.250.144
13 101 ms 99 ms 104 ms 64.233.174.127
14 99 ms 100 ms 104 ms 209.85.251.125
15 111 ms 96 ms 102 ms 74.125.31.2
16 100 ms 97 ms 101 ms cg-in-f100.google.com [209.85.171.100]

Trace complete.

C:\Users\dakotahawkins>tracert http://www.google.com

Tracing route to http://www.l.google.com [74.125.65.103]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms wrt350n [192.168.0.1]
2 7 ms 10 ms 8 ms 10.124.224.1
3 8 ms 22 ms 11 ms 24.25.0.125
4 10 ms 10 ms 8 ms srp5-0.rlghncg-rtr2.nc.rr.com [24.25.2.147]
5 11 ms 16 ms 14 ms pos1-0.rlghnca-rtr2.nc.rr.com [24.25.20.21]
6 28 ms 28 ms 25 ms ge-2-3-0.chrlncpop-rtr1.southeast.rr.com [24.93.64.176]
7 31 ms 30 ms 27 ms ae-3-0.cr0.atl20.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.82]
8 87 ms 27 ms 27 ms ae-0-0.pr0.atl20.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.171]
9 24 ms 25 ms 25 ms 66.109.9.90
10 32 ms 30 ms 29 ms 64.233.174.2
11 25 ms 25 ms 28 ms 209.85.254.247
12 29 ms 32 ms 36 ms 209.85.253.221
13 28 ms 30 ms 31 ms gx-in-f103.google.com [74.125.65.103]

Trace complete.

4/5/2009 12:03:45 PM

Quote :

"yes, tethering technically doesn't have a cap, but if you used 5GB of data in a month over a tethered connection, i'm quite certain sprint would have something to say about that (most likely in the form of a large bill)."

I tethered my instinct with sprint, downloaded a dvd9 (7gb) back in February, my bill never changed. Same price as i've always been paying.

4/5/2009 12:22:10 PM

Keep doing it. You'll get the bill sooner or later

4/5/2009 1:01:03 PM

So, for those of us that aren't very informed anymore, what are other options in Greensboro if gaming and hulu/HD shows online are typical internet uses?

4/6/2009 9:39:07 AM

Make use of your additional free time. I expect the people of Greensboro to lead the revolt against metered internet. Save the internet... for the planet!

4/6/2009 10:26:10 AM

hack teh planet

4/6/2009 10:37:14 AM

Fight. Revolt. Defend. Just remember this warning: When and if TWC (or other major telecom company) fails, our high and mighty government will probably just bail them out. Congress supercedes the laws of supply and demand.

4/6/2009 11:18:46 AM

Hopefully Verizon will jump on the opportunity to snatch up the pissed off TWC customers.

Dear FIOS,

plz2 Raleigh

Luv,
Kyle

4/7/2009 12:06:42 AM

^lol? I guess you don't read much in tech talk. FIOS will never come to Raleigh. Raleigh has U-Verse and Durham has FIOS.

4/7/2009 12:32:12 AM

Yeah, I defnitely didn't read a bunch on this, I just immediately hit the panic button @ the thought of a bandwidth cap 4 months after I've discovered Newsgroups, hurts my soul. I'm still hitting the motherfucking panic button since the metered usage is in greensboro.

4/7/2009 1:33:04 AM

Per a friend's conversation with TWC customer service, this will begin in Greensboro this "fall" and there will be a 2-3 months period where they monitor your usage but do not charge fees for overages so you can adjust your browsing habits/prepare to spend more/whatever.

I'm still switching to AT&T this week because of this crap (I live in Winston-Salem). I know that AT&T is testing out BW caps as well, but their tests are at 150GB per month, a much more reasonable number. I'm against caps in general, but if I'm going to be capped, at least it can be at a rate that I'm comfortable with.

I'd been toying with the idea of abandoning TWC for a while now and this was just as good of a reason as any to finally pull the trigger.

4/7/2009 9:08:50 AM

Quote :

"Durham has FIOS."

Durham does not have FIOS. Durham has Verizon, but sadly, they are not rolling out FIOS in durham...

4/7/2009 9:17:57 AM

http://techdirt.com/articles/20090406/2208334415.shtml

This guy does have a totally slanted look at things, but the article itself does show that other companies are willing to forgo caps (at least for the moment) to gain customers where TWC is doing this. They probably will just go to caps later, I would hope by that time another company would be willing to move in and do the same thing to them at that point.

4/7/2009 9:36:31 AM

^^well I was under the impression parts of durham had it already since before u-verse rolled out in parts of Raleigh.

4/7/2009 10:01:09 AM

yeah i had heard these rumors too, and i called verizon several time when I was in the market for a house in durham, wanting to move to one of these areas, and they always insisted that there was no availability in NC. This also corroborates with what i've found trolling through various forums (dslreports, city-data, etc.)

so either it doesn't exist, or verizon does not want anyone to know that it exists in nc.

4/7/2009 10:06:39 AM

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/07/a-look-at-time-warners-broadband-pricing-structure/

Quote :

"The price structure: * 5GB: $29.99/month * 10GB: $39.99/month * 20GB: $49.99/month * 40GB: $54.90/month * 100GB: No information yet"

4/7/2009 7:45:51 PM

the sad thing about this is that after moving away and being glad to get rid of Time Warner, I somehow ended up with a cable provider MUCH MUCH worse than TW and now I am jealous of the cable service I had in Raleigh

4/7/2009 8:20:49 PM

lol, yea. twc is actually pretty good. its easy to take something for granted when its all you've ever known

On the other hand, you can just read the horror stories from comcast and other service providers to get a sense of how lucky we are to have twc

4/7/2009 9:23:43 PM

I don't think Durham is anywhere near large enough to get FIOS for a long time.

4/7/2009 9:58:23 PM

As many techies would pay for, and are here due to RTP, im surprised they dont roll out FIOS in the Triangle. Theres enough density. I know verizon isnt in Raleigh but where ever else it is...

4/7/2009 10:06:31 PM

who would pay for the 10 or 20 GB/month service?

let's do a little math:

5GB service @$29.99 + 5GB*$1/GB = $34.99
5GB service @$29.99 + 15GB*$1/GB = $44.99

maybe they tier the speed as well.

4/7/2009 11:55:35 PM

I have seen the numbers pertaining to usage like x pages = ___ GB or y movies = ___ GB but how does online gaming factor into this? Between playing WoW about 12 hours a week, streaming music, watching an occasional video on youtube, and surfing the net it makes me curious as to how or if I am going to be screwed over.

4/8/2009 12:48:28 AM

you could try asking your router

4/8/2009 12:55:51 AM

4/8/2009 3:24:31 AM

Quote :

"lol, yea. twc is actually pretty good. its easy to take something for granted when its all you've ever known "

I know you're just being a trolling dick kisser with that comment but TWC has been on slow ride to Suckville (you probably live there?) for a couple years.

I was a TWC tv/internet user for probably 10 years. The standard tv service was fine and the internet was always reliable. We picked up an HD TV last fall and there were two people in there returning the 8300HDC box saying it was the worst piece of engineering man has ever invented. I thought they were just disgruntled people and we'd have no problems. Nope. To make a long story short, pixelation was a daily sometimes hourly thing.

We switched to dsl/satellite and aside from AT&T giving me the runaround on billing, the only regret I have is we didn't switch sooner. As shitty as the HD service was, I always assume the internet was fairly solid...until I got DSL and realized that my downloads much more consistently hit the max than in the past year or so of cable.

But, you were just trolling anyway. I bet a guy like you doesn't even watch TV...it's too...social.

[Edited on April 8, 2009 at 8:32 AM. Reason : .]

4/8/2009 8:32:20 AM

Quote :

"I don't think Durham is anywhere near large enough to get FIOS for a long time."

you're kidding?

4/8/2009 9:39:52 AM

^^ well yea, I agree that TWC tv service is crappy. I actually use directv

4/8/2009 11:21:15 AM