Residential Internet in Park Slope! Tell YOUR Story.

comfortably smug · July 2008

So I am deciding on what kind of internet package I would like to get and from whom.

I am willing to sign a year contract, already have a router, and do not currently get home phone service.

How is Time Warner around here? The plan they offered me is 10mb downstream, 512kbps upstream for 29.95 a month if I sign up at a payment office. Is Time Warner reliable? Does anyone currently get that tier of their residential service? (They offer 3 levels, 10mbps down 512 kbps up/ 1.5mb down 256k up/ and a 786k down 128kbps up). How is their customer service?

Verizon High Speed is available in my area of Park Slope, but not their top two levels of speed. The level that is available is 3mb downstream, 768k upstream. They are offering a bunch of incentives: first month free, $5 off a month for being a verizon wireless customer, $75 dollar credit for switching from another internet provider.

Time Warner- 29.95 for 10mb down/ 512kbps up
Verizon- 23 a month for 3mb down/ 768kbps up (averaged after discounts and 19.99 initial shipping/setup fee).

So, help me decide. I always heard upstream was more important than downstream, but does that mitigate having 3x as much download speed with Time Warner? Your input and relevant anecdotes will be greatly appreciated.

theoryofpractice · July 2008

When I had DSL in the north Slope, I liked cloud9.net.

khasteh · July 2008

Had DSL first because cable wasn't available yet (moved here in '97). DSL was a huge improvement over cable, but once I got cable, I thought DSL was super slow by comparison.

I live close to the CO, which determines how fast your DSL will be, and it still stunk compared to cable.

I ended up going with Time Warner, but i hate their service department, prices, etc.

The very second that FIOS comes here, I'm jumping ship.

booklaw · July 2008

I've been very happy with Time Warner... both its connection speed and its customer service.

brooklynpotter · July 2008

we have verizon dsl and it sucks--and we're a block and a half from the verizon building where the connection is.

i don't have time warner because i believe they are purveyors of satan.

i'm waiting for fios... and it's getting closer, but not here yet.

booklaw · July 2008

"purveyors of satan"??

brooklynpotter · July 2008

lol

mantic · July 2008

My 1.2¢ ...

I use Acecape DSL service since DSL was available in BK (before verizon offered it) and have been nothing but happy. I enjoy no blocked ports what so ever (run my own mail, web, ftp, voip, vpn servers etc) no bandwidth caps, no bandwidth sharing, no filtering etc. I beleive i am 3000/768. I can't say what I pay, as I have a special rate. In 9 years (is it) of service, I only had one outage and one speed issue. Both Verizon's fault and both of which were fixed within 24 hours. The speed issue I was not aware of until Ace called me to set up an appointment to have Verizon come check the lines.

If you are a casual user, cable is ok. If your a heavy lifter or do mission critical stuff, your gonna want DSL from who ever you choose.

Personally, I hate cable internet or cable TV. (If the storm is bad enough it doesn't matter cable or satellite, TV's going down - cable gets their feeds from satellite)

longtimesloper · July 2008

I had Verizon DSL for many years and if the wind blew the wrong way or if there was one drop of rain, it would go out. Customer service was never really helpful either, I would call them to ask if there was an outage and they would always insist that everything was fine and try to convince me there was something wrong with my particular house. they would then make a service appointment for me and of course, as soon as the weather got better, my service would come back.

I switched to cable about 4 months ago and so far am much happier.

opossumqueen · July 2008

do a search for Time Warner--there are several recent discussions of their service. I can't compare it to others as this is all we've had.

On TWC customer service, it sucks. Just remember that if you want to talk to a person when you call, the quickest way is to yell "fuck" into the phone very loudly. I am not kidding. I, like many others, found this out by chance and it works.

wally · July 2008

Seconding the F bomb to get a real person on the line....

As for the service - it's alright. We get periodic drop-outs in both cable and internet for a half hour or so at a time.

Having said that, it's better than the Verizon DSL we used to have.

I would take TW as the lesser of 2 evils.

drunken revival · July 2008

All I have to say is I had a service call this weekend... and the guy was the most pleasant man I've encountered in some time. And he fixed my internet.

And he was a black stud... but, that's just my 2.2 cents.

duffyssis · July 2008

My Time Warner cable is acting up today. Just in time for this posting.

witch-king · July 2008

i've had only good experiences with TWC, including customer service.

livetotravel · July 2008

witch-king wrote: i've had only good experiences with TWC, including customer service.

Ditto -ditto -ditto. I have everything through TWC and simply do not have any problems. Have had Road Runner high speed since it's inception - faster than a speeding bullet - no complaints.

dw438 · July 2008

Livetotravel wrote: [quote=witch-king]i've had only good experiences with TWC, including customer service.

Ditto -ditto -ditto. I have everything through TWC and simply do not have any problems. Have had Road Runner high speed since it's inception - faster than a speeding bullet - no complaints.

TW's fine by me. Had a problem once and it was settled through the city department that does those things - 2 months of free service was the result.

brooklynjack · July 2008

I got Verizon DSL when we moved out from the city, switching from TW cable

I have and will keep on using POTS (plain old telephone) for my phone. it works with no power which I like.

I pay 29.95 for the 3mbps service no contract. My mother in law has the stripped down el cheapo 768 k service and honestly for just surfing most pages do not load noticeably slower though big file downloads are. Probably not good for VoIP at 768 either

My CO is on 355 14 ST and I'm on PPSW and Terrace

Check you CO here http://www.sandman.com/colookup.asp though it is probably the same

Verizon tech support has been excellent the few times I used them. They win big points for knowing when they don't know and escalating to 2nd and 3rd level support.

On the other hand to get TW installed in Manhattan it took me 2 calls to the General Council's office in Stamford and multiple calls to the VP and Real Estate and the VP of Construction.

For those with TW VoIP will it work on battery back up?

gooner · July 2008

We have Time Warner, and we use it for everything. Cable, DVR, VoIP, Broadband. We love it. Customer service has always been great. They have even reimbursed me a month's service for the smallest things that might go wrong. I have been with them for a long time, so I don't know if they have put me in some "special person" tier or whatever, but I have always had great customer service.

The internet is fast, and outages are very rare.

jahverson · July 2008

I have Verizon, the same 3mbps service mentioned above. I hated TimeWarner, we had the internet go down for hours at time every month and while sometimes TW was blazing fast (10mbps) many times it was around 2.5 mbps. In the end though, it was the incompetence of the guys who came out to fix problems which made me switch. My upstairs neighbors wanted to get cable installed, the installer came out, cut my cable and threw it off the roof, and then told the neighbors they weren't able to get cable. When I called to complain the first person they sent out failed to show up (he lied and said no one was home, when in fact we were).

I have had no problems at all with Verizon. Not a single outage in 9 months, the speed stays the same no matter what.

comfortably smug · August 2008

So I went with Time Warner because I could walk down to their pay center on 27th street and 5th ave and switch out my cable box for a free upgrade and free modem to install myself. I also sweet talked my way into a few free months of HBO and DVR without having to renew a contract. So far so good...

melanarchy · August 2008

Time warner definitely has its issues, but for the time i've been in the area they've been pretty reliable. I was recently having trouble with my service cutting out, they offered to send a tech, but I was able to more quickly able to make it to their service centre and swap out the bad cable modem I had. and haven't had a problem since. In terms of speed it can't really be beat, and they let you choose which backbone provider you want (earthlink, rr, ny1connect and another I think). I haven't noticed variable speeds either. So long as you don't flood your upstream bandwidth with bit torrent traffic you shouldn't have a problem.

Residential Internet in Park Slope! Tell YOUR Story.

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