I hate Verizon, would I love Time Warner?

April 1, 2008 9:44 AM

Thinking of moving my landline and DSL service from Verizon to Time Warner in New York City. I'd be interested to hear about other experiences, as well as any other suggestions people might have.

I am sick of Verizon. Really, really, very very sick of calling them and having no one be able to help me with simple stuff like paying my bill. I cannot deal with them anymore. And I'm not locked in with them, so I want to cancel my landline and DSL and move my service elsewhere. I called Time Warner, and here's the deal I can get:

Cable: $29.95 for 6 months, 44.95 after
Digital Phone: $39.95 forever, and I can move my phone number (although I don't really care about that)

Right now I pay around $95- $30 for internet and $65 for phone. The phone is a home office line and is paid for by my company, so I need it. I do not want cable TV. Any reason I shouldn't switch to Time Warner? How is the customer service over there? Is it worse than Verizon? If it's any better AT ALL, it would be worth it. Are there any other options for phone and internet service? I have tried Vonage for my phone line and was not happy with it.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero to technology (26 comments total)

I can't speak to DSL service in NYC, but here in Chicago AT&T offers DSL via a "dry loop" line. This means you don't need the landline phone service (dial tone.) This saves me about $15 a month or so.

Sorry, on preview I see that you need a phone line for work...
posted by wfrgms at 9:56 AM on April 1

Yes. Time Warner is worse than Verizon. It is possible!

I'm sorry to be the bearer of this bad news. A lot of us are in the same boat.
posted by ROTFL at 9:58 AM on April 1

Yeah, I am just waiting for Verizon to roll out the FIOS in my area (DSL is too slow!) and then I am out of Time Warner ASAP. And Verizon is the only cell phone provider that works well where ever I go (in North America, at least). Sigh.
posted by Grither at 10:03 AM on April 1

Yes. Time Warner is worse than Verizon. It is possible!

How is it worse? My main complaint with Verizon is that I call and call and nobody can fix my very simple problems and I get transferred round and round to lots of different people, none of whom can help me.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:05 AM on April 1 [1 favorite]

Verizon is shit, it's true. Be aware that cable companies' "phone" service is actually a VOIP line on top of their cable system so if the power goes out (generally) *poof* no phone service.

RCN is pretty good, I have internet through then and my mother has phone and cabletv through them, they seem to be pretty sane quality wise so I don't have any idea if their customer service is any good.

The best trick for dealing with Verizon is to set up automatic bill pay and never call them again and demanding to cancel right off the bat to get retentions when things are broken. Its how we survive using their DSL at work anyway.
posted by Skorgu at 10:11 AM on April 1

I moved from Verizon DSL to Verizon FIOS and have never been happier. And here's the reason: Their DSL service relies on their phone lines but the two groups responsible for those (the phone line and the DSL) don't talk with each other. I had DSL telling me it was my phone line (and, by extension, not their problem). I replied: "But aren't you the same company?!" Well, yes and no. It's a silo mentality there.

The first question I asked when I talked to a FIOS rep was "If I have a problem like [this] will my experience be the same as when I had DSL?" She immediately replied no because their FIOS internet, phone, and television divisions are all within the same corporate structure. "I could get all three on the phone right now if I had to!," she said. I trusted that and I have to say that FIOS' customer service has been the best I have every encountered in this sector."

If you can get FIOS where you are I'd do it.
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 10:17 AM on April 1

I just realized a typo in my main post:

Cable INTERNET: $29.95 for 6 months, 44.95 after
Digital Phone: $39.95 forever, and I can move my phone number (although I don't really care about that)
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:18 AM on April 1 [1 favorite]

I'm looking at RCN now- it appears they offer the services I would be interested in. Would love to hear any additional thoughts on them.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:21 AM on April 1 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I'm pretty sick of Time Warner right now. We're waiting patiently for FIOS to get here and then we're switching. I'm happy to see positive reports about it here.

The Time Warner people here really don't try very hard to fix the stuff when it stops working. We had this problem with our digital cable internet and after four or five different guys came out to "fix" it, over the course of a year, we finally got the one guy who had a brain. He found the problem and fixed it, permanently, in about a half hour.

We ordered an On Demand movie once and got about 10 minutes in and it went all pixel-ly and never got better (we didn't watch the whole thing, just FF and checked it every couple minutes to see if it got better). I called customer service and had to really push for the charge to be removed. Like, really push.

I always wait at least 20-30 minutes on hold before I ever get to a human, and then I get transfered all over the place for another 15 before someone finally "helps" me.
posted by cooker girl at 10:33 AM on April 1

I had a problem with my Time Warner billing. I set up automatic billing but it got screwed up somehow. Their website is useless and the phone people sent me to a Kafkaesque place where the billing company said I had to talk to Time Warner and Time Warner said I had to talk to the billing company. Finally I demanded a Time Warner customer service manager. When I finally got him, after a half hour on hold, he was fantastic and fixed everything.

I guess the point of all that is everyone pretty much sucks.
posted by CunningLinguist at 10:46 AM on April 1

I'm not usually one to side with the megacorporations but I've generally had good experiences with Time Warner Cable in Manhattan. I've had them do cable+phone+data both at my home and then later at my office and both times they showed up on time, quickly and correctly did the installs, and helped add extra features (voicemail, more channels) pretty seamlessly. Also when I got a Tivo which uses cablecards they sent a technician to do the install within a week and that went very well too. Their hold time for calls has never been a problem and most of the CSR types I've talked to were pretty on the ball.

The only problems I've had are 1) movies on demand don't always work so well, and 2) they can't do forward on busy signal so you can't do multiple lines with ring-over on their phone service.

Contrastingly, Verizon has always been a problem for me. Before I used Time Warner for data and phone I used Verizon DSL + phone. They averaged about 1 DSL outage a month, and about 2-5 DSL modems restarts required. No tech was able to really fix anything. Additionally when they came once they (mistakenly) thought it was a bad phone junction box on my phone line so they replaced my (working) 2 line junction box with two one-line junction boxes, one with a pair miswired. While not fixing my DSL problem it did prevent me from calling them to complain, so I suppose one could argue that it did solve the problem from their end. Having just moved to a new building which offers Fios I ordered that. And while so far the service works well, the tech showed up to the 8-12 appointment at 2:30.

Admittedly every company has its horror stories, but I've had much better luck with Time Warner. One thing I would do in order to assess your potential problems is ask your neighbors in your building which they use and what works for them. A lot of building have shitty telco wiring or shitty cable wiring (or both).
posted by frieze at 10:47 AM on April 1

I used RCN when I was in NYC. I was fairly happy with it. Their internet service had a couple outages, but nothing major. I didn't have phone service in my apartment though, so I can't comment on that. Their customer service was good. They had a customer service rep assigned to my building and he was awesome. But before I realized he existed I called the general customer service line and it was fine.
posted by mullacc at 11:02 AM on April 1

How is it worse? My main complaint with Verizon is that I call and call and nobody can fix my very simple problems and I get transferred round and round to lots of different people, none of whom can help me.

I have not used Verizon, but this is exactly my problem with TWNYC. Except that each person gives me conflicting information each time in addition to the above. Plus, I wait forever for someone to even answer my call. I dread it each time there's a problem since I know it will take at least an hour to get some semblance of an answer. Which is pretty much what the people above me have said.

I will say that their service guys are nice, knowledgeable and try very hard to get the job done. Unfortunately they are so crippled by TW that they're not that effective (i.e. TW assures you they will not send the same model to replace the broken hardware, yet they give the service guy the same model and all he can do is say, "Well, if this one also breaks we'll come back. But they'll give you the same model again, even if they promise not to, since they only give us one model and there's no information to distinguish who gets what even if we received different models.")
posted by ml98tu at 11:05 AM on April 1

Time Warner screwed up when I moved apartments and that turned into a major billing problem which took probably a total of eight months to fix. I'd call, they'd say they'd have someone call me back within x days, that wouldn't happen, I'd call back, rinse, repeat. Meanwhile, they sicced a collection agency on us and cut off our service a couple of times. Eventually it did get worked out--it was just a ridiculous headache before it did.

One big tip with their customer service: even though it's technically "24-hour," call between 9 and 5. That's when real managers are on duty, in case you either want to talk to one or the rep you're talking to needs higher authorization to do something for you.

I must say though, I've rarely had trouble with their internet service. The TV on-demand isn't the most reliable, but otherwise I'm satisfied with the service itself, just not the support.
posted by lampoil at 11:08 AM on April 1

I originally had Verizon phone and DSL and Time Warner Cable. I had no problems until about last year where something in my pre-war building kept on disconnecting my phone and DSL. I had to keep on calling Verizon to have a tech come over. They'd do something that would allow me to have a connection for a while and then I'd get disconnected again.

I finally decided to drop Verizon and go strictly with Time Warner and I've been happy since. There has been only one instance of my cable modem going down, but I just waited and it came back on the morning after. This may not be best because you say you use your phone for business use, but sadly it's a choice of the lesser of 2 evils and I ended up picking Time Warner.

Plus I like the fact that I can physically go to the brick and mortar store near Madison Square Park. I feel like going in person will help resolve any issue I may have faster.
posted by spec80 at 11:12 AM on April 1

Except that each person gives me conflicting information each time in addition to the above.

Yes! It's been long enough that I'd blissfully forgotten, but that was another thing. You wouldn't believe how many different possible responses representatives from the same company could have to the same problem! It was a totally different story every single time I called.
posted by lampoil at 11:12 AM on April 1

I've had the same billing problems as both CunningLinguist (autobill not working) and lampoli (billing problems when moving which resulted in them turning us off).

When FIOS hits my neighborhood, I'm looking forward to dumping TWC.
posted by mkultra at 11:16 AM on April 1

Let me refer you to my friend Marshall (hi Marshall!)'s account of Time Warner's services in Queens, NY.

I've had three, possibly four, service appointments with Time Warner since signing up for RoadRunner and cable TV, and all of them have been Internet-related. This doesn't even count the tech-support calls that were handled by phone. Each time I was told a different story about what wasn't working. First, the cable was too long and the signal was degrading over the extra distance. Then it was a splitter that was installed for no reason outside the apartment -- with nothing connected to it, so I can't even say somebody was stealing my cable. Next, my modem was bad.

This last time, I got two different stories on the same call. When I'd had enough of no Internet, I called and explained my situation. I was told, despite massive evidence to the contrary, that my router was conflicting with RoadRunner, causing some sort of mystical IP loop that left me unable to connect. I was worn down at this point, and agreed to let them bring me their own hardware which I would rent the same way I do the cable box. That was before they got to the apartment. This time, they told me (actually, they told Meaghan's sister Emily, who arrived today from North Carolina and was immediately put to work waiting for the repair truck) that I had a weak signal and I'd have to move my book cases before they could fix it.

Weak signal. AFTER cutting out 10m of extra cable. AFTER removing a pointless splitter. AFTER telling me their hardware and whatnot wasn't compatible with my Linksys router -- probably the most popular brand in the United States if not the world. AFTER walking into the apartment and discovering that the connection was, in fact, working. (It came back to life shortly after I called for service. Convenient, no?)

I crashed in his (and my sister's) apartment for a month when I came up to New York, and I can attest that the internet went out frequently and for long periods of time.

Not. Recommended.
posted by Jeanne at 11:23 AM on April 1 [1 favorite]

In my experience, a NYC building is either a Time Warner cable building or an RCN cable building -- the choice isn't yours.

Personally I've used both Verizon and Time Warner. Neither has anything close to what I'd call decent customer service.

Currently I am very happy with the small guy: New York Connect, which provides excellent, reliable cable or DSL, and has real human customer service.
posted by Eater at 11:27 AM on April 1

I've had both (in the Greenpoint area) and prefer Time Warner to Verizon, but that's not saying much. I think since I've had it (2003 or 2004) Verizon has gotten faster. My Time Warner drops quite a bit, but is faster generally.

It might also depend on neighborhood?
posted by apetpsychic at 11:57 AM on April 1

On reading further, don't switch to Time Warner for better service.
posted by apetpsychic at 11:57 AM on April 1

Be aware that cable companies' "phone" service is actually a VOIP line on top of their cable system so if the power goes out (generally) *poof* no phone service.

Not true. The VOIP bridges the cable companies provide have built-in battery back-up. Of course, you could add this feature to any company's VOIP service for $20-$30 by buying a small UPS.

At $39.95, the phone service costs approximately 2-3 times what it should. I currently use ViaTalk, which frequently runs a two-years-for-$199 deal. This works out to about $13 a month with the various fees they add on.

One advantage of getting the cable company's VOIP is that it probably doesn't share bandwidth with the Internet service, which will basically guarantee that you won't have phone dropouts because you're downloading. With a VOIP service that runs over your Internet, you can usually achieve the same effect by putting the VOIP box before your router, but this may slow your Internet or cause difficulties with some applications. You could also use a router that has quality-of-service (QoS) features to prioritize the VOIP traffic if you're nerd enough.
posted by kindall at 11:59 AM on April 1

The VOIP bridges the cable companies provide have built-in battery back-up.

This may be true, but for last year's ConEd debacle either a) RCN doesn't/didn't, b) they don't last very long or c) the cable office was blacked out too. My Verizon landline worked fine throughout so I'm a bit skeptical of non-traditional landlines.

I strongly suspect that phone company COs are better equipped with battery backups etc than cable company offices, and I recall there being legislation/regulation to that effect but I can't find anything to back up that memory.
posted by Skorgu at 12:39 PM on April 1

I'm looking at RCN now- it appears they offer the services I would be interested in. Would love to hear any additional thoughts on them.

I had RCN—by way of their sibling company in the DC area, Starpower—for a few years and do not recall having any major issue with them.

Verizon, I avoid like the plague. But not sure Fairpoint will be any better either.

Good luck!
posted by terrapin at 4:24 PM on April 1

Thank you all for your input on this subject. I appreciate it. I am currently weighing my options.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:20 AM on April 2 [1 favorite]

Yes. Time Warner is worse than Verizon. It is possible!

How is it worse? My main complaint with Verizon is that I call and call and nobody can fix my very simple problems and I get transferred round and round to lots of different people, none of whom can help me.

This was my experience with Verizon DSL in NYC (in the several years since that happened, my DSL has worked flawlessly and I have not had any customer service issues).

I also have T-W HD cable, and although there have been some glitches getting it to work, now it works and i found their customer service to be very responsive.
posted by JimN2TAW at 1:34 PM on April 7