Rob's Rants

The other day I wrote that I was abandoning my cable company and switching to Verizon FiOS service.  Since I’ve had relatively unreliable service for years, you might wonder why it’s taken me so long to switch. There’s one main reason which still gives me pause about Verizon service: you must use Verizon’s router. Honestly, this bothers the hell out of me. Verizon gives all kinds of innocent sounding reasons for why you must use their router, but they’re all crap. In fact, one of the reasons they give, is the exact reason customers shouldn’t put up with it:

Your router also contains special diagnostic software that can help us trouble-shoot and correct problems should you experience trouble with your Internet Service. You will need to use the Verizon router with your FiOS Internet service.

Can you believe that – “special diagnostic software?” Inside your network. How can this be legal? Why don’t they just say “special diagnostic software that allows us to monitor traffic inside your network which we can turn over to the US Government like we did with your phone calls after 9/11.” And I get that they already do that with WAN/Internet traffic. But I’m talking about stuff inside my network. That’s unconscionable.

The second, and less conspiratorial reason to avoid the Verizon router is that it leaves you no recourse should it fail. And it inevitably will. At least with Charter I can use any standard hardware – I currently have a Motorola Surfboard cable modem and a Linksys router (without wireless). So, should something die, it takes only a quick trip to Staples and I’m back in business. In fact, several years ago lightning struck a tree right outside the house and fried both the modem and router. On a Saturday. I was running again in under 90 minutes with all new equipment. I don’t suppose Verizon is going to rush out with a new “special” router within 90 minutes of my failure.

So without much recourse, my plan is to build out one of the scenarios on Broadband Reports to put my own router in line. Heck, with a little luck I can get an Ethernet port enabled on the ONT and just use my own router. We’ll see. But you know Charter must be horrible if I’m willing to put up with this just to get away from them.

That's all I can stands ... I can't stands no more!

I’ve been a Charter Cable customer in Worcester County Massachusetts for almost eight years. Today I ordered Verizon FiOS. As Popeye was fond of saying, “That’s all I can stands; I can’t stands no more.” I am currently a Charter Triple Play customer and I am switching everything to FiOS – TV, Internet, and phone.

Charter has never been particularly reliable for me. Soon after I moved into this house and Charter was installed, it started taking forever to connect to websites. For long stretches of time the web was just unresponsive. I was able to hit the gateway, but my browsers just spun while trying to resolve website addresses. So right off the bat, Charter’s DNS servers were a weak link. So I switched my servers to Open DNS and the problem was solved. I’ve had reliable DNS service ever since. But everything else has just sucked.

Speed Problems

First there was the speed. Regardless of the plan I had I was never able to get anything approaching a decent speed. After tweaking my system as much as possible I finally decided that it must be Charter’s problem. They didn’t think so. At least until I got HD TV a few years ago. When the tech (a contractor, not a Charter employee) came to install the service, several channels gave him trouble. They either wouldn’t tune at all or cut in and out. So he went and did some things that didn’t help and said he’d need to return with another tech on the following day. I suggested that the signal strength was weak and he said that it could be boosted on the line to fix the issue. To shorten the story, after a while deliberating, they realized that the signal strength wasn’t getting better because the line from the pole to the house was a wreck. So they finally ran a new cable and I got my channels and a moderate Internet speed boost. The problem is that I’ve been a customer since there was only one Internet speed to pay for. You got 768 Kbps down and 128 Kbps up. But that was eight years ago. Since then they’ve upgraded me whatever then next to the bottom service is, but even with the Triple Play discount I’m paying $39.99 for “up to 8″ Mbps down while FiOS would give me 15 Mbps down for the same price. But at least it delivers what is supposed to now …

Reliability

This is where Charter lost me. Over the last several months my Internet connection has been frequently going out. And it’s always a gateway problem at Charter. At least three times a week for 30 minutes at a time it just stops dead. And my wife and I work all day so we only catch the problems that happen when we’re home. And TV hasn’t been much better. I have a TiVO HD and I use a multi-stream cable card in the TiVO tuner to get my channels. And I cannot count how many times I’ve needed a Charter tech to re-sync the Cable Cards to get them to tune channels. On any given day I have at least two or three black channels until I get around to calling Charter or using the online chat to get them to send a reset signal. A few months ago it seems I was losing whole sections of channels each week. Like 100 to 120, 200 to 220, and 300 to 320, every time.

So I finally gave up. Today I called Verizon and signed up for the Triple Play with the Ultimate TV bundle. So for the same price per month as my current Charter subscription I should be getting Internet speeds up to 35 Mbps up and down as well as about 20 more HD channels plus a ton more sports channels. My install is scheduled for October 1. I’ll write updates along the way.