Spectrum aka Charter Internet Question~~~

[Member 52301]

Do any of you have this company and have you been able to talk to a real human being with any email issues today, Tuesday?

The recording says that I should try to call them LATER ON THIS WEEK! I kid you not.

I have been on hold for about 30 minutes so far.

I really, really want to LEAVE this provider but Blackfoot does not service my area in this newer subdivision. Been there - done that! My husband will not go without internet in our home.

Cate

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[westcoastal]

yes i do and no i haven't lol

 

[bentoncity]

Do any of you have this company.....
I really, really want to LEAVE this provider but Blackfoot does not service my area in this newer subdivision. Been there - done that! My husband will not go without internet in our home.

Cate

Yes I have them... Other options are available but cost more. Can't say I like the $ but it's a free market and I don't have to use them.

Dan

 

[bbbass]

Do any of you have this company and have you been able to talk to a real human being with any email issues today, Tuesday?

The recording says that I should try to call them LATER ON THIS WEEK! I kid you not.

I have been on hold for about 30 minutes so far.

I really, really want to LEAVE this provider but Blackfoot does not service my area in this newer subdivision. Been there - done that! My husband will not go without internet in our home.

Cate

They have a local office?... Ours does, and it features real humans!!!

 

[Member 52301]

They have a local office?... Ours does, and it features real humans!!!

Yes, and we use a LOCAL OFFICE to pay our bill in person. My husband may go over there for me, NO local telephone number any longer, if he can't help me when he gets home.

Ever since Charter (Ugh.) moved to a new office, they have worse customer service even to pay a bill. Longer wait lines and he did not see any of the long time, older people working there. It is not a bill issue - it is something pretty simple.

I miss Blackfoot which I had for my telephone and computer in the tiny log cabin way up in the Sapphire Mountains. It was a dial up service which IS/WAS slower but it was RELIABLE and you actually could talk to a REAL human being if you needed one. Grin. NOT an automated voice!

The JOKE to ME about the real human being goes to my late 'Aunt C', my late family's lawyer and my late Mom's best friend. 'Aunt' Catherine, not a blood relative, wrote a letter to the IRS and asked if a REAL HUMAN BEING WOULD READ IT off of her law firm's stationary. She finally got a response! She was right, they were wrong and the letter was FRAMED by one of her old law firm partner's! LOL

Take care.

Cate

 

[bbbass]

Yes, and we use a LOCAL OFFICE to pay our bill in person. My husband may go over there for me, NO local telephone number any longer, if he can't help me when he gets home.

Ever since Charter (Ugh.) moved to a new office, they have worse customer service even to pay a bill. Longer wait lines and he did not see any of the long time, older people working there. It is not a bill issue - it is something pretty simple.

I miss Blackfoot which I had for my telephone and computer in the tiny log cabin way up in the Sapphire Mountains. It was a dial up service which IS/WAS slower but it was RELIABLE and you actually could talk to a REAL human being if you needed one. Grin. NOT an automated voice!

The JOKE to ME about the real human being goes to my late 'Aunt C', my late family's lawyer and my late Mom's best friend. 'Aunt' Catherine, not a blood relative, wrote a letter to the IRS and asked if a REAL HUMAN BEING WOULD READ IT off of her law firm's stationary. She finally got a response! She was right, they were wrong and the letter was FRAMED by one of her old law firm partner's! LOL

Take care.

Cate

My wife and I have a good friend that is elderly and often needs 'puter help. She gets confused easily and tries to fix the problem but just makes it worse. Does her banking online and has Spectrum. I used to have Charter and yep, they were a pain, even in person. I cancelled due to the high cost and the lady down there when I turned my modem in said "well if you had just told us, we would have continued your discount!"... yeah thanx. Anyway, the last mixup our ladyfriend had, I was obliged to tell her that if she messed it up again I was not going to go thru all the guessing to figure out what she had done to it, and she would have to return to checks, stamps, and paper ledgers!!! I'm mean, but I'm frustrated.

 

[Member 52301]

Does your old lady friend wear black rimmed/black framed eyeglasses?!

That is MOI in hiding! LOL

I don't do online banking or that sort of thing.

OUR internet goes on and off for NO reason at all even when it is NICE outside!

I know people who were doing their taxes online and in the MIDDLE OF THEIR WORK, boom, NO Charter internet connection. In the middle of a banking transaction - boom - no internet!

I can relate to your old friend.

I do my taxes the OLD FASHIONED WAY with their forms once you can get them, LOL, hand write it all in black ink, make a copy of it and mail it to them insured/tracked.

I do that with all of my important paper financial statements. Have a back up plan.

I don't trust not being HACKED even with good computer protection.

I should trust it all but I do not. Not when I was younger and not now at 69 years old.

Cate

 

[bbbass]

OUR internet goes on and off for NO reason at all even when it is NICE outside!

Ours did too. Lots of outages compared to DSL. No explanation ever of the causes. Call them up, they'd eventually come out, look around, tell us they didn't find any problems. Meanwhile, when everybody got home from their day, the internet slowed down enough that we couldn't even stream movies. They eventually bumped up the system speed, it didn't help with the slowdown but if fixed the streaming problems.

Our DSL just got bought out, again, by an outfit that wants to put in fiberoptic.... yours have that?

 

[Member 52301]

Ours did too. Lots of outages compared to DSL. No explanation ever of the causes. Call them up, they'd eventually come out, look around, tell us they didn't find any problems. Meanwhile, when everybody got home from their day, the internet slowed down enough that we couldn't even stream movies. They eventually bumped up the system speed, it didn't help with the slowdown but if fixed the streaming problems.

Our DSL just got bought out, again, by an outfit that wants to put in fiberoptic.... yours have that?

No, I do not have that.

Take care.

Cate

 

[bbbass]

No, I do not have that.

Take care.

Cate

Not sure if I want it at an extra cost, but that much broadband would be kinda cool.

 

[Member 52301]

My Century Link does not offer DSL with my land line - home telephone ON this side of town.

We do not have cellular telephones.

I have tried to get CL to tell me when they will put in DSL and they said that they do not offer it even though I live in a newer built, small subdivision!

The telephone, electric and gas lines are ALL UNDERGROUND when they planned this tiny subdivision.

CENTURY LINK tried to SELL IT TO ME with their ADS in my home telephone bills but when they check my location on this side of this college town - they just plain do NOT offer it unfortunately. They stopped sending me those ADS too. Maybe I called them too much! LOL

Plus CL had a LOT of complaints about their DSL service from what I was told in other parts of the country.

So has Spectrum and I would NEVER use them (Spectrum) where I live for a HOME TELEPHONE or in a package deal since most of the MT people that I know around here said it rarely works well and you can't TRUST it for a home telephone. You still need a CELL phone because if IT is down - you have NO telephone service at all! I have witnessed this with friends who TRIED THEIR S. TELEPHONE with their isp and boob tube package deals.

Plus BLACKFOOT, which I loved having in the Sapphire Mountains (MT) even for a DIAL UP isp for my computer and home telephone - land line in the tiny log cabin, is NOT even compatible with CL here in this PART OF TOWN. We tried it AFTER I first moved into this house that I built. BOTH companies BLAMED ONE ANOTHER, they did not physically work together, I had office people, technicians, to you name it and BLACKFOOT gave up and gave me ALL of my money back since they could NOT get their system to work with CL even for their DIAL UP. NO kidding.

ONE side of this college town has Blackfoot and the other side has Century Link. They have 2 electric companies in this town too. NOT that far apart either. (And I am not even talking about outside of town or in other parts of MT now!)

My old friend who moved away tried using some sat. company for an ISP and that went belly up plus she had TONS OF PROBLEMS with it all of the time and so did other people.

Some COMPANIES will NO longer even put in land line - home telephones in some parts of the country too. ALL across this nation and some people can't get their CELLULAR telephones to work well where they live too.

Oh well.

Thanks again!

Cate who has NO DSL anything, NO cellular telephone, NO sat. dish or cable boob tube connection - ONLY OTA free tv BY choice and has an old fashioned land line - home telephone.

 

[bbbass]

Wow!

Yes, DSL is old tech and was not reliable in many places because of the old lines that couldn't support the signal/bandwidth. They put in repeaters which helped some, but I couldn't even get DSL on my block until they replaced the neighborhood wires. Many companies just don't want to mess with it anymore, as they have gone fiberoptic and it's not compatible with DSL.

Cable = lots of outages. And slowdowns.

Had sat too - thru directv... It would bomb off whenever the weather got a little skunky. Just like sat tv does. I miss the old C band 7-10' dishes. They were slo to change sats but there was a lot of free stuff and direct news feeds w.o commercial breaks.

Magic Jack ISP based home tel.... goes out whenever the ISP is down.

Cellphone - uses the telco trunk lines... same as internet, goes down when everything elso goes down. We had a service interuption during the Feb flooding (we got a heavy snow, 2' worth overnight, and then heavy rain), The freeway washed away and took the underground lines with it... everything was down, phone, internet, and cell. Fun stuff!

 

[Member 52301]

Thanks again for the information on your end.

My husband said that if I want a PAY boob tube connection of any type or from any company that HE would pay for it but there are only about 3 to 5 things that might interest me so I told him NO. He does not want it at all!

Spectrum does OFFER us OUR cable connection for our ISP which we have NOW as I mentioned in my original post and elsewhere, they offer us their !!! telephone (?!) connection which we would NEVER ever have or want, and they offer us their PAY boob tube connection which I most likely will NEVER get.

My husband's breathing machine place/medical office in town and the medical owner of that BUSINESS had horrific issues and CLIENT/PATIENT issues when she tried to USE Spectrum telephone with her S. ISP computer package deal too! IT was screwed up for 2 WEEKS and they told her that it would take longer to get fixed AND they told her that it was HER PROBLEM AT FIRST for a time frame too!

PATIENTS, her office and SHE could NOT even communicate well IF at ALL, I know since we TRIED TO CONTACT HER FOR OVER ONE WEEK TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT, others tried to call one another and so forth and she is in the MIDDLE OF THIS COLLEGE TOWN too! That is how ! UP that S. telephone system works in THIS college town and even over by Clinton, Lolo and other parts of MT that OFFER Spectrum telephone.

What a JOKE! Plus they TELL the new S. customer that they are all hooked up with their S. telephone but some things were/are not pushed or activated at some main office so the caller can't CONTACT the NEW S. telephone customer and the S. customers have NO IDEA that it is not working on their end since they MAY BE ABLE TO CALL OUT but nothing is ringing in to them. But they don't know that and that happened to 2 elderly people and other people that we know and it was ALL DUE TO SOME SIMPLE THING and when their cable is out - they are screwed even more. NO 911 or jack squat! So even S. telephone TELLS THEM THAT and that they would NEED A CELL PHONE if their system goes down for emergencies and so forth! LOL IT says it right on their information sheet and SALES PITCH!

Sorry for my long explanation! Been there - done that with elderly and other people who used or got S. telephone with their PACKAGE DEALS! Ugh.

Cate