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 Review by sleddie 
Posted: 1 days ago
member for 6.3 years, 1881 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Sheboygan,Sheboygan,WI
 $53 per month
 about 4 days
 "High speed, Reliable connection"
 "Tech support (Phone), Power Boost"
 "Faster than AT&T DSL for my area, Decent price with promotion"
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Ordered Charter's 10mb HSI on Oct 24th and was live on Oct 28th. This connection replaced 3mb DSL from AT&T. So far the speed has been consistent and the connection has remained solid with no drops or other anomalies, however, Power Boost makes it difficult to gauge the HSI with speed tests. Installation was a breeze. Less than an hour to replace my drop and setup the hardware. I was surprised however when the tech hooked up the ancient Motorola SB4200 modem.
I have to rate services worst for the time being because Charter refuses to give me my account number and I cannot use any of them. I thought this was something that would be provided to me at installation, but the third party tech informed me I would have to contact Charter for the account number. Talking to Charter's phone support is one step above useless (I fired AT&T for this very reason). I have been told I must wait for my first statement to post before getting my account number. Little good that does me since I cannot setup email accounts without it, nor use any of there other services. Also makes it difficult to provision my Linksys modem.
If the HSI remains as solid as it has been since installation, I may remain with Charter after the promotion ends. Hopefully the Charter Direct techs will be more helpful than their phone techs (at least the AT&T direct techs were).
Followup comments:  Halfpint
join:2002-06-24
Lone Rock, WI
| Charter went bankrupt for a reason! My experience with Charter over the last 4 years has been less than acceptable. Speeds are always less than advertised even though usually stable. I had an issue with my cable modem dropping me every day. Turned out that a flash update wasn't received by my modem. Took a week and 2 trips for them to figure it out (even after replacing 3 modems). Because Charter is the only choice here, I'm stuck! | |
| 
happyuser
@charter.com
| Charter HSI I have been using Charter HSI since 1999 and have always been very satisfied with their service, internet speed and uptime.
The only time we ever had a problem was when a third party contractor upgraded the junction boxes on the power poles with the wrong connector types. Charter worked two days in miserable weather to correct this issue. This was about 8 years ago and we have not had any issues since. | |
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 Review by wiCKid
UPDATED: 1 days ago
member for 9 years, 2228 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Pomfret Center,Windham,CT
$40 per month
about 1 days
"very reliable speed and uptime"
"costs more than local DSL"
"reliable Cable modem service"
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My service is 2mb/10mb with powerboost and a monthly payment is 39.95. Connection has been very good for the last couple of years.
Speed Test #81364754 by dslreports.com
Run: 2009-11-06 19:37:08 EST
Download: 12486 (Kbps)
Upload: 2045 (Kbps)
In kilobytes per second: 1524.2 down 249.7 up
Tested by server: 190 java
User: 236108 @ dslreports.com
User's DNS: charter.com
Compared to the average of 557 tests from charter.com:
* download is 63% better, upload is 31% better
Followup comments: zed260
join:2007-09-30
Cleveland, TN | cost in most area you can get 5 meg for 35 dollars if you call and ask for or threaten to cancel you may have to do this several times | |
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Review by slmetcalf
UPDATED: 2 days ago
member for 7.9 years, 920 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Athens,Limestone,AL
$55 per month
about 10 days
"Umatter2Charter Guys"
"Reliability, Customer Service, Supervisors for Customer Service"
"It is beyond horrible and customer service is useless"
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We signed up for charter in 2006. Nothing else was considered as there are no other options in our area. We did have the cable and internet but dropped the cable due to horrible reception that charter could never correct. We have kept the internet as their are no other hsi options where we live. We have the 5mg package. Over the course of the last year our connection has become a problem. The product is sub standard. Problems are so bad that our internet drops at least once a day for 10 minutes. Just as mysteriously as the connection drops it comes back up. Problems still exist even after changing out modem. We own our modem. If I had an alternative to them I would drop them in a heart beat.
Update problems thought to be corrected 2 weeks ago are happening again. In the last week my connection has dropped 4 times three of them were for more than 20 minutes and the last one today was for more than an hour with 100% packet loss. What these people refer to as broadband barely passes for usable internet anymore. Have contacted charter yet again and waiting to hear back from the tech today. Well the rep that I talked to today told me incorrectly. I had them verify that it would be today that a tech would be coming out. I was assured that my connection would be fixed today. Customer service is useless. If I could tell them where to go I would but I have no alternative for internet here.
Update was told yesterday that someone would be coming today between 3pm and 5pm no one has called and no one has showed up and it is 4:45. Guess I will be calling again in 15 minutes to find out what excuse they have for not calling or showing up yet again.
Well the tech did not show up to my house they claim to have called me. Phone never rang and I was home all day. The last supervisor that I spoke with claims they called yesterday also but said I was not home again untrue. Explained that this was an ongoing issue but they refuse to dispatch a tech on the grounds that we did not answer the phone. Can't believe that customer service is so horrendous. Out of all of the broadband providers I have dealt with Charter's Customer Service is the worst. Price was the one thing that I could say is good about charter but not even that is true anymore for the product quality that I get.
Update 10/12/2009
My appointment that should have been Friday got pushed until 7:45 tonight not happy about that but the Umatter2charter guys have been great and are doing everything they can to help me with my problems. Customer service however continues to be the worst that I have ever dealt with. Although a handful of the reps I have spoken with have attempted to help and even fewer have actually worked with me regarding my issue
Update 10/13/09
Technician finally showed last night at 7:45 which was bumped twice in one day. Connection dropped last night just before the tech arrived and very briefly did this morning around 11:30am. Was told that a supervisor would be coming today still have yet to hear from them if or when he will show. Umatter to charter guys are still working with me and that is greatly appreciated.
Update 11/5/09
I was informed yesterday by the local office that I have been dealing with since my problem was escalated a month ago that my problem is corrected. My better judgement tells me otherwise. Still experiencing packet loss as much as 39% just this morning. If the connection were fixed the packet loss would not be there.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Charter Pipeline |
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 Review by vaxvms
UPDATED: 7 days ago
member for 4.6 years, 1769 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Worcester,Worcester,MA
$50 per month
about 7 days
"Technicians that come to my place have been great."
"Telephone support. Service outages."
"I _was_ very happy but that has changed."
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Ordering service was quick and pleasant.
Installation was good. Installer did what I asked without hassle. Arrived when scheduled.
I HAD to get Charter phone service - Verizon service was a big problem. It's been fine.
I have my own modem and router so I don't have any Charter hardware.
I haven't had to use tech support yet.
update April 2008
Phone support is useless. 1) When I had a problem and called support the person wasn't interested in hearing my problem. The operator just wanted my name and address to send a tech. 2) One day my connection dropped. After waiting 2 hours I called support asking if there was a problem. They weren't aware of any problems and told me there must be a large area without service and I happened to be the first to report it. Not the case.
Techs visiting my home have found and fixed problems quickly. These fixes have been simple. I hop not-so-simple problems are resolved quickly.
update: July 2008
Phone support is still useless. Techs sent out to fix hardware problems have been knowledgable and make quick work of diagnosing and replacing broken hardware. The time to get a tech to my home has been very fast. Scheduled a visit on a Saturday morning and tech arrived in 4 hours.
Update January 2009
Things are slacking off. There have been many times where the net connection will drop a few times in a short period. No real pattern to when the connection drops. It doesn't take long to come back but it's more than just annoying when there's 3 or 4 dropped connections in a hour.
I've given up on calling tech support and the standard "There's an outage in your area. We don't know when it'll be fixed." response. Cable service has vanished a few times in the past couple months.
Update April 2009
Outages of all 3 services is becoming more common; at least once a month. Typically service is out for more than 4 hours. Calls to support require I give them my name, phone number, account number, address, and more before they tell me the standard "There's an outage in your area. We don't know when it'll be fixed." response. When service is restored it's back for less than an hour before it goes out again for half an hour. The "new" SA box I got had to be replaced after 3 months.
Update Oct 2009
Service has started dropping out sporatically in rainy weather. When it was happening last(?) year they replaced their box on the utility pole that had become full of water. Literally full of water. Techs were at the neighbor's house this week. Shortly after they arrived my service went out. It's been flickering ever since. Talked to the techs before they left. The techs said the neighbor was having problems with their 'net connection but they could find no problem. Powerboost was introduced a couple days ago.
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Review by eslaracecar
UPDATED: 8 days ago
member for 1.4 years, 48 visits, last login: 8 days ago
Worcester,Worcester,MA
$81 per month
"Upload/Download Speed Bump"
"Only going to be in Worcester County for another few years. Throttling of high bandwidth users? possably"
"Netgear Cable Modem Gateways are Great"
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It's great how Charter decided to double everyone's upload speed and boost download a meg.
The Netgear Cable modem/router gateway is very cheap to rent..($5.00)
I've heard rumors of Charter leaving the Worcester county within 5 years..who to replace them..I do not know!
I've also heard that they throttle speed of high bandwidth users. I have had no problems with this. Should be very easy to tell if this happens seeing as I know the max download speeds(speed tests reads about 6.30mb/s) and the max upload (which is about 1.3mb/s or 130 kb/s for their 6 meg internet).
Overall I am more than happy with Charter HSI's spectacular blazing speeds
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Review by RockinRay
UPDATED: 9 days ago
member for 5.2 years, 165 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Lakeville,Dakota,MN
Contract price not specified.
"Speedy and reliable!"
"Customer service is sometimes hard to understand...."
"Connection is advertised speeds and solid!"
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We have had Charter Pipeline for about 5 years now and while in the beginning their service left something to be desired, it has become rock solid.
Techs are anxious to help resolve problems and are friendly.
We just upgraded to the Moto 6120 Extreme and it has made a nice difference in speeds... Very solid modem.
With the upgrade to this modem, we are now enjoying advertised speeds from Charter.
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 Review by beta user
UPDATED: 11 days ago
member for 363 days, 486 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Ontario,San Bernardino,CA
$100 per month (12 month contract)
about 1 days
"It suits our needs."
"I think we should have more choices."
"It's OK."
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We have been using Charter for close to 2 years now. The experience has been rather uneventful. I just wish we had FiOS.
-- Update --
We have moved and are no longer customers of Charter. Overall it was not a bad experience. I had some billing troubles but they were resolved with one phone call. Unfortunately that phone call was a difficult one - I couldn't understand her as her accent was very thick - but she did resolve my issue.
Charter is not available in my area, now. Verizon and TWC are my choices and I opted to try out Verizon's FiOS. It is nice to have a choice.
Followup comments: chello_b
join:2009-10-31
Fort Worth, TX |  Charter , Charter ,Charter !!
 always problems with the billing and pushy salesman , and women who really are irratating ! Overall a good deal , but almost not worth all the drama ...chello_b@charter.net | |
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beta user
join:2008-11-10
Ontario, CA
 ·Charter Pipeline
 ·Verizon FIOS
1 edit | Re: Charter , Charter ,Charter !! I did get sales pitches from time to time but I just said "no." If they pushed further I'd again say "no." One salesman, trying to sell me an upgrade to add TV (we don't watch TV), said to me after I said no, "Don't you want to save money?" My answer? No.
I had to straighten some things out with billing a few times but I mostly did that through the local office. I avoid the phone at all costs.
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Not quite a release candidate. | |
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Review by triz989
Posted: 11 days ago
member for 6.9 years, 43 visits, last login: 7 days ago
Sunnyside,Yakima,WA
$39 per month
"alot better then any other broadband in town."
"none"
"good fast solid conection"
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embarq and clearwire wireless are the only other broadband in town iv used embarq (DSL) for a few years. it was decent tell they "upgraded" there DSL lines after it was done quality of there DSL droped dramatically to the point of paying $59.99 a month wasnt worth it. iv seen clearwire in use a friend had it was much slower and more expensive then what i was paying for. both of them require 2 year contracts as with charter there is none. im paying 39.99 for a 10mg line. they offer 1, 5, 10, and 20 mg lines. when i ordered charter it was installed the next day with free install. the modem im useing is Arris TM602A/110 it dubbles as my voip for my home phone. the few problems iv had were delt with quickly. over all i am happy with what i have now and wont be changeing broadband companys for the foreseeable future.
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Review by Monkson
Posted: 14 days ago
member for 322 days, 70 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Travelers Rest,Greenville,SC
$50 per month
about 5 days
"My 10/2meg pipeline is very fast and works great now. No contract."
"Have to use 3rd party DNS servers. Tech support over the phone or chat is worthless."
"If you can live with the tech support issues, this service is great."
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This is a great service for my area. If you can live with the tech support, this is a must get if you can get it where you live at. I have the 10/2 meg @ $50 a month I believe and don't have a contract. The install was very easy and I have the Motorola cable modem.
The only problem I have with this is Charter's DNS servers which are horrible. I use Open DNS with no issues at all.
Hope this helps!
Followup comments: aim2pls
join:2009-01-22
Pepperell, MA | charter has tech support ????? Damn does it ??????
I always thought they had techLESS support!!!!!!!!! | |
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Review by glangston
UPDATED: 16 days ago
member for 16 days, 0 visits, last login: 16 days ago
Saint Louis,Saint Louis City,MO
Contract price not specified.
"service has relatively few problems in my experience"
"couldn't process a move request correctly. called 7 times to get them to correct"
"service is ok, but don't ask for anything out of normal (why is moving an oddity)"
| Pre Sales information:
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Put in a request 2 months ago for a move request. The move process seemed to go fairly smooth. The engineer showed up on time, the process of ACTUALLY moving was fairly straight forward, but WOW did stuff mess up with the billing.
I work in IT support, so I understand the process of when a customer asks for something, and you (the service rep) agree, then you should do it. When I started getting delinquency notices was when I really started getting irritated. What happened was they essentially had both of my accounts (my old address and my new address) still open and the old account was getting credited with my payments instead of the new one. This resulted in me receiving several notices that my balance was overdue/etc.
Numerous attempts to remedy this issue resulted in 6 times having to contact Charter support and all 6 I was promised that it would be resolved and the request for credit had been put in. Meanwhile I was still receiving (increasing in severity/threat) delinquency notices and my payments were still being credited to the old account.
Then the last notice I received, I received a collection notice from their outsourced ERS to request I return a router (I had already returned), and upon contacting support, even after I had let the rep know of my previous problems with support, requested I bring my receipt to the charter office THAT I HAD ALREADY RETURNED THE ROUTER TOO. I'm sorry, but returning equipment should NEVER BE A CUSTOMER ISSUE because once it's turned in, the customer has little recourse to dispute the claim...
On my last call, Beth was very helpful and it appeared was able to help fix this issue finally. (Pending the credit for the returned router) However, the result was 3 weeks worth of hassling with Charter Billing support and basically getting no where. I even spoke with Retention once during this process, which I assumed would've been able to get things fixed in a timely manner, or correctly.
-Greg Langston
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