This week, I’m going to take a seat while the other eight gazillion people on the Web complain about Comcast. See, back in New Jersey and Philadelphia, I never had problems with Comcast. Maybe once a year something would happen where I needed to call and bitch at them for an hour before something was done. But overall, it was a fine experience and I’d have no problem going back to them.
Then I moved to New York and things changed.
Moving to Astoria, my roommates and I were greeted with the options of RCN and Time Warner Cable for our Internet and TV needs. RCN had trouble finding our address, so we called Time Warner and had them come out. The previous tenants of our apartment never canceled their service and the guy happened to work for Time Warner. This made canceling their service a real pain in my ass. I had to fax a copy of the lease over three times before we got our account setup.
Finally, about five or six days later, the cable guy came out and set up our HD digital cable box and cable modem. It was quick and easy with no problems. I hooked up my NETGEAR wireless router and we soon all had a ‘net connection. Unfortunately, despite our 6mbps connection, our Internet to this day is usually slow as piss. Opening Facebook can take anywhere from a half-second to 30 seconds. How will I ever be able to update my status so my friends know I’m busy cooking dinner?!
So I called Time Warner after a few weeks, determined to get our Internet up to speed. However, when I called, I was greeted with a dude with a thick accent who was reading right off a script. Great. Outsourced call centers. Thanks Time Warner for making my life a living hell. After five minutes, we got into an argument and he flipped out at me. I told him to shut up and hung up the phone.
Time Warner says they don’t throttle traffic, but I’m convinced these bastards do. Every time I open my BitTorrent client, the speed of our network goes to hell in under 10 seconds. Same goes for my roommates. Even if we limit the upload and download speeds, it’s still crawling along at the pace of John in the NYC ING Marathon. World of Warcraft has become virtually unplayable at times, BitTorrent client or not.
So in conclusion, Time Warner has crappy Internet. Big surprise there. But I’m not done. See, Time Warner sucks at offering up cable as well. The on-screen programming guide is slow like molasses and the picture on the TV crackles and distorts every hour for a bit.
I’d call Time Warner to get it fixed, but, you know.
I was trying to watch a ton of football last Sunday because I’m as American as you get. Unfortunately, I was under attack by Time Warner Abduhljah, who’s cyber-attack left me missing out on Eli Manning tearing the Miami Dolphins a new one. Did he get the first down? Interception? How can I tell when I am constantly subjected to pixels that turn Plaxico Burress into a guy that looks like he’s from Battletoads.
Time Warner, listen up. I’m mad and I can’t even begin to wonder why I even signed up with you. Oh yeah! That’s because RCN couldn’t even find me. You cable companies need to start paying more attention to service instead of dollars. A happy customer will keep your cash flowing like a pitcher of Kool-Aid into a cultist’s mouth.
Maybe that’s why I’m going to cancel my cable today and just pirate everything via BitTorrent. Suckers!