Charter High Speed Internet --- Problems or Praise...all are welcome!!!

[acurban]

After installing VONAGE on my system, i encountered BAAAAAD and SLOOOOOWWWW connections. I was stumped. I had at least three different techs out to look. I finally got a great repairman in to look at my system. He saw that somebody (an old cable guy from years before) had previously installed a AC powered signal booster directly into the INTERNET line, (which was originally cable only) He told me that the booster was boosting the signal so fast and hard that it burnt out my cable modem!!
He removed it from the circuit reran my cables to shorten them some and TADA!! I have a cable INTERNET that runs on average 2.88mbs Down and 248.16Kb/s
Here is the results from a test I just ran on website: READ ALL THE WAY TO BOTTOM FOR THE CHARTER CANBLE "MODEM" website also

http://speedtest.charter.com/


TCP/Web100 Network Diagnostic Tool v5.2.1e
DO NOT USE YOUR CONNECTION WHILE TEST IS RUNNING
click START to begin
Preparing Speed test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Done
running 10s outbound test (upload) . . . . . 248.16Kb/s
running 10s inbound test (download) . . . . . . 2.85Mb/s

Your speed is 51.97 times faster than 56Kb dial up

Your PC is connected to a Cable/DSL modem

click START to re-test


If you need to get ALL the data on your cable modem from Charter. here is a great tool as well. You may need to call the company to get the right logins.

http://speedtest.charter.com/

To LOGON:
Try "user"
"User"

AND ALSO TRY:

"root"
"root"


Good luck and let us know how it goes!!
for logion.

[Jncscrapper]

Unfortunately I have to echo the need for a hard slap. We pay alot of money for the Charter Service. The HD Cable snaps and pops, customer service blames everyone except their equipment; but the internet is the most frustrating of all. We have had the 3 Mgb service since it came out years ago, for the past 2 months we have been crawling at just barely 64K. When we unplug the modem and router for a second it goes back to 2.5 ish. This only lasts a few hours at best. We call Charter they tell us to unplug and plug back in, they run a speed test and say your good. The won't send a tech out unless they get a slow speed test. It always works good after the unplug, but we can't operate that way. We have checked and re-checked every setting we can and are at our wits end. My husband is totally losing his temper waiting on hold for more than an hour to be disconnected and start the whole process over again. Sometimes we can convenience them to get us to tier 2. The last one said that a file in the modem properties was corrupt. She fixed it saying that would do it. It did for a few hours, then same old thing.
Years ago a tech came out and said that he felt that the cable needed to be replaced. We have asked Charter several times and they don't answer, or make arrangements to check it out. I'm sorry to hear your are not with Charter anymore, we need someone to help us.

We have a wireless network and have had no trouble before the recent 2 months. 2 PC's are hardwired to the router, 2 are wireless and we have a bridge for the game system also. All are running slow. We've turned some off, still no better.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Are there any magic words to get a tech person to come out here? Sorry this post is so long.

[acurban]

My advice is to just keep on them and make them keep coming out to check. Its your right as customer to get the service you pay (an arm and a leg) for.
I finally got lucky and got a great repair person that actually cared about helping me.
Good luck!!

[Walkdog]

I'm a hardcore gamer and i practicly can't play multiplayer online anymore because of certain things.................PING issue's is the major thing and i've learned that for people in my area which is East Texas that Charter purchases so much bandwidth or whatever from QWest and well they don't purchase enough so therefore your download speed drops alot but it's so fast you don't realize it. Now if your a hardcore gamer like me and depend on ping time's "for which i do" you can't even finish half a game most of the time because your being kicked for high ping. I would not recommend Charter for East Texas if your a gamer but then again most of of east Texan's really don't have much choice. I have recently sent another email to Charter and i'm gonna keep on till another service move's in or they upgrade there service's.


I'm having this certain problem and it occur's about 2-8 time's during a 10min time span. It deals with my ping for which spike's up to over 500 and sometime's even up to 1000 and hang's high for about 5-10 seconds then drops down. I'll do speed test when this occur's and notice my download speed has also dropped.

Now i'm a hard core gamer and this constant fluctuating ping is kicking me out of every server and cannot play one single game through without getting kicked from the server, and most server's i try to play on are in Dallas for which is only 2 1/2 hours west of me.

I've isolated this problem and finally a tech noticed the problem also through a qcr and said he would submit a ticket to get fixed. I later received a email from that same tech saying that it could/would not be done because the problem is on the backbone side and he tried to get it done but other's wouldn't touch that subject therefore leaving me with my problem saying that they guarantee speed but not ping time's. Well it doe's affect my download speed when those pings are high.

I've looked and found a Charter Corporate phone number to take this even further but none of the number's work for me. I myself am starting a petition in my local town and in the city of Marshall on this subject and try to find out how many people have this problem, i'm assuming most everybody doe's because my family and friends here locally all have the same issue's. For whoever i can get to sign the petition i will also have them start calling tech support once a nite every nite till this get's fixed.

Here in my local town it's either charter high speed or dial up, but there is a new company coming in within the next 6 months and if this problem is not fixed i will do everything i can including running newspaper adds and what not to get people to switch to this service for which i have played around with while in there area and they don't have drop offs or fluctuating ping issue's as i have with charter.

I know the tech that recieve's this will probably not be able to help me but please if you can forward this up as far as you can and i will try to do the same when i'm able to find the right person to send it to.

I do like Charter alot and wish to continue service and am looking forward to phone service moving into my area also so i can have my cable, internet and phone all on one bill but as it stands now i can't do what i like to do most on the internet which is gaming and gaming is probably the fastest growing trend and more and more people will start noticing this issue.

Please Please help me here.......

Thank you

Mark Walker

[xadrian]

My wife and I came up for Thanksgiving to visit both our parents. At my parent's house, charter HSI (5Mbit) is super fast, no problems whatsoever. At my wife's parent's house (3Mbit), the connection was crawling (30Kbit or so). When I asked, they mentioned that it had been slow ever since Charter asked them to upgrade to the new phone service and faster internet, which they had declined because they were perfectly happy with their connection speed.

So, being ever curious, I set up an SSH tunnel and proxy to my servers back home. Lo and behold, my connection is suddenly a full 3.0Mb. This seems *really* shady to me, considering they've talked to Charter support multiple times now and they claim the connection is just fine.

Spyware, etc. was not an issue since I brought my own, secure laptop. Besides which, routing network traffic through a proxy wouldn't suddenly make spyware super speedy. I ran some side-by-side comparisons in Firefox (via proxy) and IE (via direct connection). I could query and retrieve 10-11 separate searches on google via the proxied connection before the results came back from the direct connection. DNS doesn't seem to be the issue either, since manual DNS settings don't improve the direct connection at all. The proxy was set up manually by me and does NOT cache data, so it's not providing any speed benefit in and of itself.

Anyway, the big question is... is Charter scamming them to try to get them to upgrade, or are their servers so hideously configured that new outgoing connections are causing over 10x slower speeds?

[waltinvt]

I'll be the first to admit that this is all kind of over my head but I need some help.

I've had Charter for years - mainly because where I live in Vt, there's no other option and I need highspeed for my home office. I was having some problems in September and their tech support talked me into having them come in and do a wireless system and up the speed to 5megs.

They put a Netgear 814WG modem / router in my upstairs office and a Netgear wireless adapter in the downstairs family room. He had a lot of trouble getting a connection and keeping a connection and sure enough after he left it dropped off and wouldn't come back. I ended up hooking the old 3 Com sharkfin back up downstairs and using the wireless adapter on my daughters computer (also upstairs).

Well last week I started having problems with one of my business client's email. He receives mine but I can't receive his. While talking to Charter tech, I explained what happened downstairs and how I solved it.

Now they're saying I should NOT have that hooked up with a separate modem and they will be charging me for a second line ($42 more per mo).

This deal was supposed to entitle me to up to 4 additional hookups and basic cable for $70. I was only paying $87 before the wireless when I was just using 2 sharkfin modems (one was leased).

Anyway, since their wireless hookup won't work in the family room downstairs, should I be able to use my own modem there without an extra charge?

[YARDofSTUF]

Usually you have to pay for the service for each modem, if you were doing that and then they switched you over to a single modem then they may wanna charge you for the 3com as well.

If the netgear modem is theirs Complain that they put in a crappy solution, see if they have another model that may work better.

[Gumarx]

I have a lot of speed issues in my area. I subscribe to the 5mpbs package but I usually get 2.2 - 2.5mbs. Is this a common issue? We also tend to have a lot of outages and I had some pretty horrible customer service when I was trying to subscribe to Charter but it is the only provider of high-speed in my neighborhood.

[pcorr]

I have charter internet 5mbps, there is no problem with the speed of the line but with the connectivity. The internet connection will go down for four hour intervals at times and reseting the modem and router does not seem to fix the problem. We have been given three different modems all with the same effect. Is this a problem with Charters service or the router. When the internet is down I can still log into the router and see that it is not getting an IP address. The router is a netgear WGR614 V.6

[davidwalker]

My son is trying to hook his pc up to a router that already has a desktop hooked to it. it is charter cable internet. the network connection says it is good. he plugs it in, it says cable enabled, but when he opens explorer, it says site not find, no detection. The other pc is working, is there anything special you have to do? i asked him to check the lan settings in the explorer and set them the same as the other, which had nothing checked. no proxy or auto. nothing checked. Don't know. Is there software he must install for that router to work on his pc.

[trogers]

My son is trying to hook his pc up to a router that already has a desktop hooked to it. it is charter cable internet. the network connection says it is good. he plugs it in, it says cable enabled, but when he opens explorer, it says site not find, no detection. The other pc is working, is there anything special you have to do? i asked him to check the lan settings in the explorer and set them the same as the other, which had nothing checked. no proxy or auto. nothing checked. Don't know. Is there software he must install for that router to work on his pc.

Use the desktop to log into the router and ensure that its DHCP function is enabled. If not, set it to enabled and save and reboot the router to take effect.

When DHCP is enabled, the router will issue a local network IP address to any computer connected to it (in the format 192.168.xxx.xxx).

To check, click 'Start' -> 'Run' and in the small box type "cmd" and click ok.

A large DOS Black Box will pop up. After C:\> type "ipconfig /all" and press enter. Info about the connection will be displayed. Look for the IP address.

[mattballew]

Charter Charter Charter... Charter have made mistakes in the past... But they made up for it... Weather they knew it or not...


Bad Support, Hours of Downtime, Channels missing (From TV), Still today get hours of downtime...

Thx to some mistakes they have made in the past, I got a few years free Internet on 10/2 Mbps Connection. So im happy.

[tsojess]

I'm having a serious problem with my charter internet. (I will say that 99% of the time it's trouble free, but when it goes down!!!!!! )

This started last night. 5pm everything is working. I leave for a few hours. 9pm I come home, and can't access the internet. The modem and router lights all say i'm online. I connected the modem directly to the computer and same thing.

I called tech support and the guy tryied to ping the modem and nothing. He ran more tests and came back, "Interesting, this shows 100% of the people on your node online, that's not possible." (this was 11:30pm, 1/2 of those people would be in bed by that time) He has me reset the modem. Nothing. He checks the rx and tx signals - rx was zero.

He said the problem is not likely in the hardware but rather in the lines outside. He scheduled a service call for this morning.

The guy arrived, to his credit, several hours early. He never checked ANYTHING outside, but came in hooked something to the cable and said it was connecting fine. He starts playing with the setting on the computer. It is immediately obvious that his knowedge of computers was next to zero. (he later admitted he is computer illiterate). He loaded explorer and couldn't understand why he was getting a blank page. (ummmm because I have a blank page as home! I see no point in loading msn, or any other page by default, when 99% of the time, it's not going to be the page I want) Ok this shows you where this guy is at when it comes to computers. I'm sure he can fix cable tv, but he should never have been dispatched for this problem.

Finally, he replaces the modem. Again all the lights say I'm online. They try to run a couple tests from the other end. One passes, the other won't run, so they decide that the site was down. Still no internet

He makes a couple phone calls, then announces that the problem must be my computer. Ummmmm I don't think so... Two computers with the same problem, failed at the same time. (Before you think surge, 2nd computer was not connected at the time or even in the room) So I bring it in, I already know he's gonna blame the router next, so I hook the modem to the computer. Same thing, nothing.

Now he's trying everything, new Cat 5 Cables, USB, installing drivers. Everything and anything, obviously guessing.

A few more phone calls. He puts the modem back on the desktop, through the router. Does and ipconfig and gets and ip address (ummm, that's the router's ip, duh) I hook it up direct, and now the address is 0's. Another phone call. And he informs me that it's my computer and to have it checked and if it turned out ok, to call back. (Oh, and he didn't have a laptop to try it himself. Too bad, I'm sure his had the same problem)

By this point, it was useless. I said that I've been a tech for over 20 years, A+ certifed since that became available, and have built more computers than I care to count. I said I'd check it out, but I can tell you, short of a lightning strike or a surge, 2 computers don't have the same failure at the same time. As I said, the laptop wasn't connected and we've had no storms.

He leaves, I put back all the settings he had been playing with, and put the cables back, still nothing about 10 minutes later, for kicks, I tried ipconfig, and got an address. Tried email, it worked. explorer worked. Hooked my router back up and it works. whatever it was either fixed itself or got fixed. still suspect it had to do with it showing 100% of the people online.

At the moment, it basically works, but drops intermittantly. So whatever it is, is still not right. I'm not sure where to turn at this point. I don't really need some guy that has no idea what he's doing, poking around again. But I don't need this cutting out on me either.


2nd quick and unrelated question. Is it advisable for me to buy my own modem? I can get them wholesale so the rent I'd save would pay for it in a year or 2, depending on the brand of course. My concern is this is the 2nd modem I've had replaced (well 3 if you count the 1st one today, which was probably fine, and possiblly the 1st one was too.) Do they fail often. If it won't last 2 yrs, then I'm not saving anything. (I'm looking at the motorola)

Thanks

[YARDofSTUF]

They could have a hardware issue or be doing maintenance, could call back and try and ask for a more skilled person to actually do the line check.

The motorolas are good modems, ISPs are switching to DOCSIS 3 modems now so you may want to hold off until your area gets upgraded, or else you could end up needing to purchase a new modem to reach full speeds(depending on your package).

[KoRnGtL15]

Sounds exactly like my story to a T. I am going through it right now. What area are you in by chance? It is a Charter problem in my area and is being fixed. Head on over to here. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/charterdirect Register and they can get you fixed up. They deal with you 1 on 1 and get the ball rolling. That is the only way I have had things taken care of quick. Btw. Don't let them blame the modem or router. They always try to pull that crap when calling in or when they come. But like I said. When you deal with them through the forum. It is a breeze. I have been on cable internet for years. Practically when it first came out. I have never had a modem fail on me yet. Currently I am using the Linksys CM100 cable modem with a Linksys WRT54GL v1.1 router. With Tomato firmware for the router. The combo has been rock solid and stable. I am on the 20mb/2mb plan with Charter.

I'm having a serious problem with my charter internet. (I will say that 99% of the time it's trouble free, but when it goes down!!!!!! )

This started last night. 5pm everything is working. I leave for a few hours. 9pm I come home, and can't access the internet. The modem and router lights all say i'm online. I connected the modem directly to the computer and same thing.

I called tech support and the guy tryied to ping the modem and nothing. He ran more tests and came back, "Interesting, this shows 100% of the people on your node online, that's not possible." (this was 11:30pm, 1/2 of those people would be in bed by that time) He has me reset the modem. Nothing. He checks the rx and tx signals - rx was zero.

He said the problem is not likely in the hardware but rather in the lines outside. He scheduled a service call for this morning.

The guy arrived, to his credit, several hours early. He never checked ANYTHING outside, but came in hooked something to the cable and said it was connecting fine. He starts playing with the setting on the computer. It is immediately obvious that his knowedge of computers was next to zero. (he later admitted he is computer illiterate). He loaded explorer and couldn't understand why he was getting a blank page. (ummmm because I have a blank page as home! I see no point in loading msn, or any other page by default, when 99% of the time, it's not going to be the page I want) Ok this shows you where this guy is at when it comes to computers. I'm sure he can fix cable tv, but he should never have been dispatched for this problem.

Finally, he replaces the modem. Again all the lights say I'm online. They try to run a couple tests from the other end. One passes, the other won't run, so they decide that the site was down. Still no internet

He makes a couple phone calls, then announces that the problem must be my computer. Ummmmm I don't think so... Two computers with the same problem, failed at the same time. (Before you think surge, 2nd computer was not connected at the time or even in the room) So I bring it in, I already know he's gonna blame the router next, so I hook the modem to the computer. Same thing, nothing.

Now he's trying everything, new Cat 5 Cables, USB, installing drivers. Everything and anything, obviously guessing.

A few more phone calls. He puts the modem back on the desktop, through the router. Does and ipconfig and gets and ip address (ummm, that's the router's ip, duh) I hook it up direct, and now the address is 0's. Another phone call. And he informs me that it's my computer and to have it checked and if it turned out ok, to call back. (Oh, and he didn't have a laptop to try it himself. Too bad, I'm sure his had the same problem)

By this point, it was useless. I said that I've been a tech for over 20 years, A+ certifed since that became available, and have built more computers than I care to count. I said I'd check it out, but I can tell you, short of a lightning strike or a surge, 2 computers don't have the same failure at the same time. As I said, the laptop wasn't connected and we've had no storms.

He leaves, I put back all the settings he had been playing with, and put the cables back, still nothing about 10 minutes later, for kicks, I tried ipconfig, and got an address. Tried email, it worked. explorer worked. Hooked my router back up and it works. whatever it was either fixed itself or got fixed. still suspect it had to do with it showing 100% of the people online.

At the moment, it basically works, but drops intermittantly. So whatever it is, is still not right. I'm not sure where to turn at this point. I don't really need some guy that has no idea what he's doing, poking around again. But I don't need this cutting out on me either.


2nd quick and unrelated question. Is it advisable for me to buy my own modem? I can get them wholesale so the rent I'd save would pay for it in a year or 2, depending on the brand of course. My concern is this is the 2nd modem I've had replaced (well 3 if you count the 1st one today, which was probably fine, and possiblly the 1st one was too.) Do they fail often. If it won't last 2 yrs, then I'm not saving anything. (I'm looking at the motorola)

Thanks

[zeobo]

I have a Ambit modem provided by Charter, hooked up to a linksys wrt54g wireless router.

The issue I have is that certain times during the day, the modem would not get a upstream lock and say denied. Two or three hours later it will be fine... Then randomly shut off (between 12am and 3 am or between 6am and 10am). It may do it more than that but those are the times i noticed it. I game a lot offline and use the internet rather intermittently.

3 pc hooked up to router, plus friends wifi when they come over
Tried power cycling both router and modem
tried hooking modem directly to pc
any help would be appreciated

[youtap29]

kevin mailloux refuses to return the phone calls... My internet is going down atleast 5 to 8 times a day.. Costumer service is not giving me a credit on the internet going down.. Im not the only one.. The modems are resetting its self constantly.. THey have excuses and telling me to live with it... The general manager Gregory Garabedian will not anwser any of my emails... What a poor envirment charter is creating for us... Worcester should bring in another cable company such as comcast to give us other options... THis problem has been on going for 4months now... My wife is a nurse for chemo patients and she needs the internet to communicate.. She has a company cell phone that we need a verizon extender, it runs off of the charter modem... Which is always down and it has cause issues at work for her.. such as being written up and losing a few life and death patients.. Charter ignores this fact and refuses to help out.. I am very disappointed with charter and there services...

[Gravy]

I've been with Charter for 8 years. I've had intermittent connectivity for years but usually on ly for a few minutes here and there.

Last week it seems to have taken a turn for the worse. Several times a day it will drop out for 10 to 20 minutes and at least once a day it will drop for 2-3 hours.

I put up with it for a day or two then called support. I know they have to read the script but it drives me crazy when they go thru the cycle the modem and reboot thing and they just don't believe I had already done all that before making the call.

Well she reset my modem from the other end and voila instant connect. She said she would send a tech out to replace my modem the next day.

He showed up and swapped my faithful ambit for a new motorola and said he couldn't see any problems and suggested that my pc was at fault. My pc is brand new 4 weeks old, Win 7 64 bit and worked like a champ first day out of the box. Now mind you this is the 3rd pc over the years and all had intermittent problems.

So he leaves giving me a clean bill of health and 20 mins later I lost connection again.

All this past week I lose connection 6-8 times a day and usually in the early evening around 8 o'clock it drops out and stays off for 3 or more hours at a time.

Last night it went out for 9 hours.

So they sent the same guy out this afternoon and of course it works perfect while he's here. And it worked well most of the afternoon but it has dropped out twice for about 20 mins each time so far.

He again said he thought it was a prolem with my pc. He also said that he thought they might be doing maintenance during the long outtages. I'm like "really, during primetime?" I can understand early am maintenance but 9 hours of it is hardly believable to me. And on average 3 hours a day.

Anyway he promised to come back tomorrow after putting my modem on a 15 min watchlist. He explained that it would get checked every 15 instead of every hour.

The motorola seems to take longer to cycle than the old ambit did.

I checked with my neighbor when my connection went down and his was fine.

I'm getting really really aggravated with it. I have paid them a lot of money over the years to be putting up with it. As a matter of fact I was the first person in my neighborhood to get HSI with Charter when it first came to our area.

[mecikalski]

Hi,

Starting yesterday I started to lose my internet connection. I called charter and they sent a Tech out. He told me that everything was ok on there side and that it was either my router or my computer. I had the same issue on 4 other computers at home so I didnt think it was my computer but who knows. So I went out a bought a new netgear Rangemax dual band wireless n router and I set that all up and still the same issue. After that I reinstalled my main computer with just the operating system, vista home prem , and I still get the same thing. I replaced all of the eth cables as well but nothing seems to be working. I can hook the modem up to the computer and it seems to work. What if anything changed. I have been using my own routers for years without any problems. I have set charter internet up for many of my business customers without any problems. I did go and hook up a dsl service that I have as well and everything works fine going through my routers to all of my computers. So what could it be with charter service

[lsjimm]

I am going to repeat a post that I made on a different forum over a year ago. The reason is that this issue has not been addressed or solved.
02/2009
"My situation here in St. Louis is similar to the latest complaints. I have had high speed 60m for over a year. I do a speed check at least once a week with various speed test such as Speakeasy, etc. For over a year, Charter speed test and the others have been consistently averaging 37-61m depending on the time of day. However, since aprox. July, the other speed tests are averaging 12-16m while Charter is still giving max speed. So, something has changed. I am not the only one and it is not a problem on my end. There seems to be a bottleneck or over user problem coming out of Charter servers to the internet or something, if that makes sense. Any help or information from the Charter people here or anyone would be appreciated."