My Nightmare with Time Warner Cable

Let’s hope they have streamlined their potential alarm response communication for their TimeWarner IntelligentHome service.

It’s much easier to walk into the main office and speak to someone directly; which is not possible with many of their competitors.  Our TWC service center has more bulletproof glass and security than some banks, that alone should be an indicator of their customer service.  FiOS was not available?  You could have used an M-Card and TiVo with FiOS TV service too.

Julie. Sorry to hear but to be honest THEY ALL SUCK. Only a matter of which sucks less and often this comes down to the luck of the draw on who you get as a install tech. I have DirecTV, ATT and Charter at home for my testing with Nirv and in some major way they all suck. I’ve had issues with each one or a tech that didn’t know a thing about what they needed to. I had an argument with the ATT tech before asking him to leave. My complaint was the speed of my U-Verse is no where near what they assured me AND I Pay extra for higher bandwidth. I’ve been performing speed tests for 6 months and the high speed internet has only met the spec I am paying for 20% of the time. I learned that in order for them to achieve those speeds on a regular basis they need fiber to the building. Our building has fiber to the street and then twisted pair to the building.

So all you can do is homework and work with the best of the worst. My prediction is that these service providers are in for a rude awaking because I feel the next big push to find new business and revenue for the networks and studios is to partner with Apple TV, Amazon and others to deliver their content via their pipeline and model. Not perfect either but I believe this is the play and they are all looking at to make happen.

Hang in there and also you are a maverick and gutsy one using cable cards. What a disaster that has been.

Welcome to CA!

TWC in Carlsbad was previously Adelphia.  It’s been the ####### step child since.  The rest of TWC in SD really isn’t that bad.  We’ve recently had several switch from TWC to ATT, then back to TWC after ATT couldn’t get things right.

No Fios here in S.D. County.

Please don’t expect anyone but a “Pro” to clean up that IT panel of yours.  I’m sure you know a few good installers in San Diego.

Dan is correct, in my experience there are no suck-free providers, only varying degrees of suckiness. Here in suburban NY I’ve got two TiVo Series 3 HD DVRs (each with 2 CableCards) hooked up to Cablevision and it’s generally worked pretty well. However, when it doesn’t it’s a nightmare trying to get it corrected. Good luck out there in Kaliphoria.

Julie, welcome to our world…. for all my “big system clients” we go out with the “X-TV service provider” and hold their hands.  We know how to jump through the hoops so we just jump and deal with it…. no they will not fix your box.  For the most part Comcast is the best solution for us. TiVo access (cable card) etc.  For us it’s about hardware and the reliability of that hardware.  The time clock is coming… pretty soon IP devices will loop around all the cable providers… some day.  We have had 2 locations where simply the cable line to the house was the issue… will be checking that everytime now.

UPDATE: Email from TWC

“Your order has been cancelled. ”

Uh oh, methinks TWC is about to have a very unpleasant dissatisfied customer experience and a whole bunch of much deserved bad press.

Bradley, that is a GREAT service! Rob ... ya think?

UPDATE from husband in Calif.:

Subj: Time Warner
I hate them.  I tried to call to reschedule and finally get through all the prompts to receive a message that “your call cannot be completed at this time.  Please try again later.”  When I’m not there tomorrow when they show up it’s their problem.

Pardon my Yiddish but schmucks comes to mind. Might want to check out the availability of local channels on an OTA antenna, get your broadband from another provider and then tell TWC to take their cable and shove it!

I recently (three days ago) wrote this letter to Tivo, so they can send it to their legal team.

“To Whom This May Concern,
I sold a pretty large home-automation system recently.  One of the things in the project included a Tivo.  The project is at an end.  The one thing that is still a problem is the fact that the Tivo doesn’t work. After 5 appointments with Time Warner and myself, this has been a nightmare for my customer and long wasted hours for me.  And this isn’t the first time dealing with Time Warner and cable cards.  This is Time Warner in North Olmsted, OH, by the way.  I wanted to give you a breakdown of all that has happened so far:
•  Told customer to go up to Time Warner and get a cable card.  Customer calls TW office and they told him they don’t carry those.  He has to order one.  He asks to order one, TW tells him the technicians have them and he can schedule appointment.

•  Customer schedules appointment for 3 days later on Thursday.  Thursday arrives and I show up at the house.  Sub-contractor for Time Warner calls customer and says he will not come because we don’t have a tuning adapter.  Without it, it will not work at all.  I call him back and let him know it isn’t entirely necessary from reading this on TW website –
http://www.timewarnercable.com/Midwest/site.faqs/DigitalCab/SwitchedDi/Can-I-continue-to-receive-your.

He still won’t come out.
•  Customer schedules again (without tuning adapter) and same guy…will not even attempt it.

•  Customer calls Time Warner to order tuning adapter.  TW says that they do not carry those and you have to order online.  Customer calls me and I order it online at http://www.timewarnercable.com/Midwest/learn/cable/sdv/default.html

•  Week later, still no tuning adapter, so I go on the website and ordered 4 of them.

•  Tuning Adapter comes three days later.  No other tuning adapter has arrived at all…ever.

•  Customer calls Time Warner.  Tech will come out on Saturday between 1-4.  I arrived at 1:00, TW arrived at 3:00.  He inserts the card, goes through Tivo settings, goes to a channel, and no picture.  He calls the office, going through the various diagnostic menus.  2 hours later, tells me it is a bad cable card.  We will set up appointment for Monday from 12-2. 

•  Monday arrives and I arrive before 12.  12:00 – No show, 1:00 – No show, 2:00 – No show.  Customer calls TW and complains.  They say they will send lead tech out tomorrow.  I call Tivo and we connect with TW on conference call.  They can’t get it working between them.

•  It is Tuesday.  I arrive and a TW technician, a half-hour later.  TW tech puts in supposedly new card.  Calls office and pairs it up with tuning adapter, still no channels.  Take card out, we have standard channels.  Put card in, no channels.  We wait a half-hour for lead tech to come.  Lead tech has more cards.  Says the one we had was old.  This one is new.  Paired it, no channels. I am going through setup and find that the tech on Saturday, went through setup for AT&T Uverse, not Time Warner.  I set it up for Time Warner – West.  Doesn’t work.  Lead tech calls office and still nothing.  Other tech has to go to other appointment.  He leaves.  Lead tech says that it is a bad card.

•  Customer calls again.  Tech is scheduled to come out between 10-12.  He shows up at 12:30.  We put new card in, tech calls TW and we go through the exact same processes as before and it still doesn’t work.  No channels period.  Tech says it is tuning adapter and we need to order another one.

•  So, I went on website and ordered another tuning adapter.  It has been a week and a half and not a single package from Time Warner has arrived.

I have spent almost 30 hours trying to get one Tivo to work.  Customer even bought lifetime service.  I have installed a full home-automation system, including lighting control and AV throughout whole house, and that works fine.  The Tivo doesn’t.”

Oh no! Well, it will be interesting when I try the Ceton tuner with M-card.

Prediction of a world of hurt coming to cable providers. Over the past 6 years I’ve dealt with Time Warner, Comcast, Cox, Charter, Cable Vision and now ATT U-Verse. To some degree they have all failed horribly in support and service. My recent is a fight with ATT U-Verse. I’ve been paying extra each month for their top tier internet bandwidth for testing I do at home. I’ve been complaining for almost 1 year that speed and connectivity isn’t up to what I am being billed for. Sooooooo I set up a widget to perform speed tests every 2 hours. WOW what a joke. They have never reached the speed being paid for a single day. I understand there will be fluctuations but not to this level.

So what I see happening is the streaming content becoming a major element for the future. More and more content will be developed, Products like HuluPlus will pop up and there will be many clients who will be happy to use this as their primary. At that point there will be more offerings from IP providers for internet connection.

Of all of them I have to say DirecTV has been the best for service, support and even working with you to make you happy.

What all this means for the dealer?! Lost revenue if your not billing people hourly for all service calls or fixes. These providers could care less about our industry which is so sad.

Of course nothing overnight but we’re going to see a world of change in the next 12-18 months.

Kimberly might be the best thing TWC has going for them. Helpful and humble about it. Awesome.