My current cable and internet provider is Spectrum (used to be called Time Warner Cable). Before I begin my rant I'd like to state that I am a fan of their cable, it's nice and affordable and contains well put-together packages, so there's that.
Anyways, as a current college student who survives paycheck to paycheck and formats their life around current and projected income, I am confused and unsure what to do with my current internet provider. I am currently paying for their 2nd most expensive internet package, 100Mbps download/10Mbps upload, because I enjoy high speed internet and good connection when I'm gaming online. However, this internet package is $49.99 per month on top of my cable bill which usually puts me at around $140 per month. I know this isn't a major price like it usually is on this subreddit, but every dollar goes a long way as a student. Unfortunately, I've been noticing how incredibly slow it has been lately so I've been running speed tests multiple times a day for the past week or two. The speed test consistently displayed results around 0.5-5.0Mbps download. If I'm not mistaken, this is about ~3/100 of what I'm paying for. I understand that I will not receive the full 100Mbps all the time and the average expected speed should be about 70% of what you're paying for.
A little background info, I work at a bar so I make all of my money from tips. If we have a slow weekend, that can make the difference on whether or not I can afford to eat 3 meals a day that week. This is where my dilemma begins. So after a poor tip out last week, I had a relatively hungry past 7 days. Knowing that I was paying so much for internet that doesn't even work finally planted itself at the forefront of my attention.
Angrily and confused earlier this week, I took to the TWC app where I could chat with someone and they could help me troubleshoot my problem. After about 2 and half hours, various chat support employees attempted to give me an array of answers/fixes that should work and put my internet speed back to where it should be. None of them worked and eventually a support employee scheduled me an appointment for a technician to come by the following day.
Side Note: Spectrum put my address in their system incorrectly when I set up my account over the phone this past summer so now when the tracking feature tells me the technician has arrived, I have to leave my apartment and jog a quarter mile down the street to pick them up from where they were incorrectly sent. I was informed that I have to go to a Spectrum store location to change this. Being that I live about 30 minutes from the nearest one and I'm typically busy, I do not consider that drive/use of gas important enough to change the one letter that was put in incorrectly. This is super inconvenient and I don't understand why I can't simply fix it online (if I could ever load their webpage).
Fast forward to the technicians arrival, he is a super nice and helpful guy who walks me through everything he is doing so that I can try and understand it. He runs his speed tests and even makes remarks about how terrible the speeds were (about 2Mbps at the time). He shows me this device that displays a breakdown of internet connectivity and points out a bunch of red lines that he described as the reason why the internet was so slow because they were supposed to be blue. We then go outside and he starts doing his tests and whatever else they do when he then informs me that the network itself is running fine, which means that the problem is coming from outside of the building. There is construction literally 2 feet to the right of where we were standing and he hypothesized that the construction guys must have hit the line and exposed it enough to throw off connectivity. After this, he phones in a coworker who specializes in this stuff and after about 30 minutes this new technician shows up in a truck that can lift him up to the power lines. You know the ones I'm talking about. He eventually started moving his way down the powerline and eventually out of sight. The technician that helped me initially mentioned that he might be going to the local node and that he doesn't know when he'll be back. It was about 5pm so business hours were coming to a close, I said my goodbyes to the first tech and thanked him for helping me. I then returned back inside to my apartment, partially because it was very cold outside, to wait until the tech in the truck was finished. 45 minutes later, I realized there was no way I was going to know if this guy had fixed the problem or not unless I called. So thats what I did. I call customer support and they inform me that both work orders had been completed. FINALLY I thought, my internet will finally be fixed. Wrong. Speed tests showed I was still around ~5Mbps which is abysmal. At this point I'm just done with it and I chalk it up as a loss and then go back to the TWC app to schedule another appointment for the next day.
So the next day comes around and I wake up to a phone call from a 1-800 number around 10:30am. Keep in mind, I work at a bar so I did not get home to sleep until around 4am that night. Still dazed, I answer the phone call and it is a automated Spectrum message informing me that my work order had been completed. Nice, so I check my speeds and they're around 40Mbps!! Although it wasn't within the expected 70% as advertised, I was still happy the speeds were moving faster. Later in the day a little bit before the tech is scheduled to arrive, I check the speeds again. 60Mbps, I couldn't believe it. Had my cries for help finally been heard? I checked them again. 65Mbps. Again, not the 70% I had been promised, but at this point I just accepted it. I cancel the work order that was approaching thinking I was in the clear. It was a nice enjoyable day for high speed internet.
The next day, 25Mbps. Not too shabby, and definitely better than what I've usually been getting so I choose to be a glass half full kind of guy that day. Now this brings us to today. Its like nothing ever changed. I'm back to dreadfully slow 1-2Mbps and can barely load anything. It took me like 2 minutes just to load Reddit.
I applaud you if you've read this whole rant. I'm just at crossroads with what I should do and I'm hoping that the right person reads this and can help me either get the service I'm paying for or ultimately decide to find a new internet provider. Thank you again to r/personalfinance for allowing me a place to rant and ask for advice on how to utilize my money the best. Any help is appreciated.
Submitted December 03, 2017 at 10:18PM by shoemazs http://ift.tt/2ATfVLq
