TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question


Re: Time Warner Digital Phone Question


Jax (jack.zaldivar@gmail.com)
Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:14:56 -0000

On Jun 1, 9:19 pm, Curtis R Anderson <gle...@gleepy.net> wrote:

> Jax wrote:

>> Also, in our division at least, the service goes out A LOT. It is not
>> the most reliable to say the least ... You'd be amazed at how much we,
>> as a culture, have come to assume that when you pick up the phone
>> there will always be a dialtone. If you have gotten Digital Phone,
>> please leave that notion at the door ... and try not to get too
>> frustrated with Tech Support -- they're there to help ... If the service
>> goes out too much for you to handle, then cancel it. No harm, no foul.

> In our Buffalo, NY radio market, I hear numerous ads for Verizon
> plugging "it's always on when you need it." At another point in the
> hour on the same (Citadel Broadcasting owned) station, listeners were
> treated to an ad from Time Warner Cable plugging their services.

> While on my lunch break at work, the television station we watch had
> an ad for satellite televison services. In clear earshot of our
> service manager and IT person, I mutter "I'll be impressed enough with
> satellite when I can get high speed, low latency internet service!" I
> got a good chuckle out of her!

> A coworker of mine groused about Time Warner's high download but low
> upload speed of his cable internet service. He lives too far away from
> one of the Niagara Falls central offices to have Verizon for DSL.

> DSL works for us at home. It works flawlessly for our landlord living
> below us in the flat. I like getting these services from a phone
> company who understands the concept of having a duty to continuously
> provide service.

EXACTLY!!!!!

TWC continues to increase the download capability, but refuses to
expand it's upload speeds ... WTF?!?!?! Ok, so I can download faster
from my friend ... but it doesn't really matter because he can't upload
any faster!!!!

Again, this is from a former employee ... in San Antonio, at least,
most of the people I came in contact with HATED working where they
were because of the horrible business practice, but couldn't walk away
due to the free cable bill ... sad really ...

I'm seriously considering DSL, my father has worked for SBC, now AT&T
for about 30 years now and has always tried to get me to go that
route ... I think it may be about time ...

On Jun 1, 7:16 pm, John Mayson <j...@mayson.us> wrote:

> On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, Jax wrote:

>> As a former Time-Warner Technical Support employee, I will have to say
>> no, this can't be done with just the eMTA (that's the phone modem.) It
>> is possible to get this working with additional hardware/software that
>> others have suggested, but beware - Time-Warner will not troubleshoot
>> this connection, since it is not an ordinary phone jack and therefor
>> beyond their scope of work. If you had any problems getting this to
>> work, or keeping it working ... the only place you could go for help
>> is a forum - assuming others have tried this and succeeded.

> I'm not all that interested in a "hard" solution. :-)

> As a consumer, I think offering the ability to make calls on my home
> number from my home phone, computer, or wifi phone would rock!!

>> Also, in our division at least, the service goes out A LOT. It is not
>> the most reliable to say the least ... You'd be amazed at how much we,
>> as a culture, have come to assume that when you pick up the phone
>> there will always be a dialtone. If you have gotten Digital Phone,
>> please leave that notion at the door ... and try not to get too
>> frustrated with Tech Support -- they're there to help ... If the service
>> goes out too much for you to handle, then cancel it. No harm, no foul.

> Which is exactly why I refused to drop Southwestern Bell/SBC/at&t for so
> many years.

****I'M NOT SURE WHAT YOUR DISCLOSURES WERE WHEN YOU SIGNED UP!!!!!
But they were supposed to tell you not to cancel your "normal, analog-
land line" (because it is more reliable, honestly). Keep a few things
in mind ... consider this:

You're in Austin, so I'll assume you may have a home security system.
If your CABLE goes out -- FOR WHATEVER REASON!!!! EVEN A DRUNK ON 6th
STREET HITTING A POLE!!!! Your phone has no dial tone ... until that
pole is repaired ... so this means that the police are on their way,
thinking there is a problem, due to your alarm being offline. *ADT has
a program with our division to upgrade for a "low price" but it's
still unnecessary considering all technology up until now has worked
with the "current phone system", and ADT is the only company offering
this, that I know of.....additionally, if someone tried to put a
splitter (a normal frickin' splitter!!!) on your coax cable line that
goes to your modem, you could lose dial tone ... also, you can't move
the modem to a new room, this is also the same with Road Runner
though ...

The batter back up is a joke, because ... I know this isn't a
reasonable question but: How many times do you think your power goes
out and your cable still works? It's a difficult thing to check, since
your TV won't work without power ... but ... think about it ...

I tried to buy into the whole Time-Warner mindset ... thinking that
this was the company of the future, but it's a little ahead of it's
time, due to the fact that they don't test their systems, equipment or
databases nearly enough to make them effective in a live CONSUMER
environment. To prove this point even further, the past MULTIPLE Pay
Per View events have had problems ... the IT department was aware of
these problems and never did anything to FIX them (I know because I
was in direct contact with many individuals who worked in IT)... they
simply "wished for the best" ... until the worst happened ... then the
phone reps, and customers paid the price ...

Sadly, the motto of Time Warner Cable is not to be on the CUTTING
EDGE, but to be on the BLEEDING EDGE, defined by the President of our
division to be: Always ahead of technology ... so much so, that our
technology is out BEFORE IT'S PERFECTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This
makes the employees take a huge hit when all this crap doesn't work,
and frustrates consumers who expect a dial tone that's been there for
countless decades ... or a HD picture that doesn't suck more than
analog TV.

I think my point is that TWC is a horrible company and should not be
supported ... Call DirecTV or Dish, whoever is in your area and tell
them you're a "Winback customer", this means that you're THINKING
about coming from another provider and will prompt them to give you
the VERY BEST DEALS you can get ... quite honestly.

> When I lived in Florida we had a hurricane that took out our
> electricity and cable TV (the power came back on days before CATV, that's
> how I knew CATV went out) but good ole BellSouth kept our phones going.
> My decision is strictly financial. Right now we have at&t telephone,
> rabbit ears, and Road Runner. For LESS money we can have digital phone,
> digital cable TV, and Road Runner. Even after the introductory pricing
> it's still a small savings. I have called/emailed at&t practically
> begging them to get DSL out this way. They have service literally three
> streets over. I understand the technical barriers of DSL, but given we're
> a somewhat affluent neighborhood, it seems like it'd be worth their while
> to install the necessary equipment to get this section online. But 5
> years have gone by ...

> Since we all have cell phones, our home phone has become somewhat
> superfluous.

Then cancel digital phone, call, and ask for the RETENTION department,
they're the ones who give you the world for only pennies a day ... you
can get Road Runner for $29.95 for a year in some cases, without
getting a trio "package", if internet is all you're concerned
with ... I canceled my Digital Phone for the same reason you cite
though ... I have a cell phone.

Again, my father has worked for SBC for over 20-30 years and just got
DSL 2 years ago in his neighborhood ... up until then, he had Road
Runner for internet, Dish for TV and SBC for phone.

> No it's not. I can think of a lot of projects I'd love to tackle, but
> these days it can't be done (or the cost is too prohibitive).

> John Mayson <j...@mayson.us>
> Austin, Texas, USA

Indeed, I must agree with that.

~Jax

PS, don't know if I mentioned before, but I'm in the San Antonio
division, so we're not that far away as far as technology
goes ... actually, I think both divisions work out of Austin.

PPS, sorry for the lengthy response. heh ...

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