Time Warner Bricked my Modem

[03_SONIC_BLUR]

So, awhile back I upgraded to Ultimate Internet, but wasn't getting anywhere close to the advertised speed. And then, it got worse. Long call with Time Warner Customer No Service revealed that even though they guaranteed on their site that they would supply the modem the upgrade required, they did not. It being a holiday weekend, the only way to resolve the issue was to buy my own modem. Went to Frys, called TQC, provided the Mac Address of the modem and all was good

Fast forward to last week, Speed is 50% of what it should be. Saturday morning, I have the hours to spend on the phone with them. They can't fix it and can't tell me why not. The schedule a Tech for Sunday morning

Tech arrives, he calls a Network Engineer, and after much back and forth (90 minutes worth) it turns out that Time Warner has pushed a firmware update to my modem in some effort to smooth implementation of IPv6. At least they admitted it was their fault. The tech went and got a modem from his truck to loan me until they fix the issue with the Netgear F/W update

What I don't understand is why they are pushing updates to equipment they don't own? Anywho, during the prior incident about speed, I found the e-mail address of the Chief Operating Office for TWC and e-mailed him. His Exec Admin called me and I have her number now. If they try to charge me for their modem, she will get another phone call and a small claims suit

The really sad thing is, they and Comcast have done this in other areas in the past. Google Comcast netgear cmd31t firmware upgrade and you'll see all kinds of posts about modems shutting down after a cable company f/w upgrade

Rant over. Corporate America still doesn't understand the customer relationship

[Tetge]

Big corporate entities never seem to really care at all about small clients. They say they do, and they even make promises, especially in their ads and at the time of sale, but, in truth, they only go so far to provide any real useful customer service or satisfaction. And, even when they have competition, such as GM vs. Ford, vs. others, or DirectTV vs. Dish vs. cable, they do not seem to care too much. I expect that since none of them seem very good at times to people unfortunate enough to encounter issues, they lose dissatisfied people to their competitors and gain similar people back from them as well. And, none of them care at all about how much of your time you might have to invest in trying to get things to work as advertised. Wait for hours to talk to tech in India and have to listen to them read a script in poor English, and then ultimately tell you that they have no clue. Then be told that a field service call is necessary and then wait for hours for a field tech, who sometimes has no clue and then they have to escalate to a better field rep who you once again have to wait for. And, of course they always initially try to blame your hardware and/or your configuration, and they seldom admit that your problem was all on their end. How much would they bill you for all those hours that you spend trying to get what you contracted with them to receive? But, to them, your time has zero value. And, the worst part is that having TV and phone service and an internet connection is almost mandatory these days, so it is hard to avoid dealing with them. They also win when people just give up and accept shitty service rather than dance with them any longer in an attempt to get what they paid for. And, things do not seem to be improving.

[jhwalker]

We, the humble people of Mexico, are happy to get signal, and speed is not an issue. Actually, I am getting 1 meg down and .5 meg up. That seems to be fine if it is steady and consistent. What kills Skype are these micro-outages which cause Skype to do the "w-w-w-w-wah" sounds as I talk.

Good job on getting the admin's number.

[SonicVenum]

Sorry to hear about the troubles, John. I was recently forced to come back to TW for my internet needs. After much research on modem/router combos, and reading about all the issues people had running their own, I went ahead and just got the Arris unit provided by TW. I've been very fortunate to have no issues and get a consistent 85MB/s down, 5-6 MB/s up. I have the top-tier service, which is advertised at 75/5. I'll just keep knocking on wood. I've been working from home quite a bit, and can't afford an outage.

[jhwalker]

Sorry to hear about the troubles, John. I was recently forced to come back to TW for my internet needs. After much research on modem/router combos, and reading about all the issues people had running their own, I went ahead and just got the Arris unit provided by TW. I've been very fortunate to have no issues and get a consistent 85MB/s down, 5-6 MB/s up. I have the top-tier service, which is advertised at 75/5. I'll just keep knocking on wood. I've been working from home quite a bit, and can't afford an outage.

Just curious, what do you do with 85mb down and 6 mb up? ???? That you can't do with, let's say, 10 down, 1 up. I'm thinking that I am missing out on some fun...

[SonicVenum]

Having "suffered" through somewhat spotty 25/5 at my previous residence, I've noticed some improvements in streaming videos, loading of websites, loading of larger images (GIFs), and very fast downloads of large files (think ARRRR, matey! ). I also occasionally game online and use Netflix regularly. Faster speeds helps with both of those. I'm not sure if I'll keep the top-tier speed. I'm waiting to have 3 months of service under my belt so I can get my free Samsung Galaxy Tablet. I may downgrade after that, but with how much I work from home now, I may not.

[jhwalker]

Having "suffered" through somewhat spotty 25/5 at my previous residence, I've noticed some improvements in streaming videos, loading of websites, loading of larger images (GIFs), and very fast downloads of large files (think ARRRR, matey! ). I also occasionally game online and use Netflix regularly. Faster speeds helps with both of those. I'm not sure if I'll keep the top-tier speed. I'm waiting to have 3 months of service under my belt so I can get my free Samsung Galaxy Tablet. I may downgrade after that, but with how much I work from home now, I may not.

I can see if someone is downloading movies or gaming. I don't do either, so no loss for me there. I do have a friend who burns more and more DVDs for me that I never get time to watch, but he feels compelled to do so ???
Websites open instantly at 1 mb down. Or I am so old that I don't notice the delay.

I do not think that I will experience high speed while in Mexico. I understand that it is available 40+ miles away in Queretaro, but I would have to see it to believe it. But I am interested, sort of like an indigenous native seeing a bright bird trailing smoke high in the sky is interested...

[Brakelate]

Being one of the very few real non-techie types in this group of IT fluent brains, I feel a bit left out. What does the term "bricked" mean, just so can throw it out there in conversation some time and throw up some smoke so that people do not realize how little I really know (or care) about this type of thing.

In this day and age, I really am aware that I SHOULD care, and educate myself in such matters. But, I just find that I cannot get energized behind it, as I know it would be an all consuming, mind and money blowing hobby once I got started. You guys all like it, so I figure it would be in my "circle of interest" as well. But, I just dont' feel it. I guess I have enough going on. And trying to play "catch up" is a real bitch. Like showing up to a party two hours late and everyone else is totally shitfaced and having a ball but all I can do is sit at the counter and be annoyed at all the "inside jokes".

Like I've heard said somewhere else before; I guess I don't need to know where or how it manages to happen, just as long as the light comes on when I flip the switch.

[SonicVenum]

I'm not nearly as tech-savvy as these other guys, Jay. So, don't feel too left out. As far as "bricked," it just means a piece of hardware has been ruined by a software problem. In this case, John's modem was ruined by a software update TW forced upon it. So, now his modem is as useful as a brick for connecting him to the internet.

[03_SONIC_BLUR]

I'm not nearly as tech-savvy as these other guys, Jay. So, don't feel too left out. As far as "bricked," it just means a piece of hardware has been ruined by a software problem. In this case, John's modem was ruined by a software update TW forced upon it. So, now his modem is as useful as a brick for connecting him to the internet.

Jay, Juan has it exactly right. Imagine someone pouring epoxy down the spout of your favorite Grock 19 or M4. That would brick it for sure