RCN Chicago's Idea Of Service

Excuse the local PSA for a moment, Cathode readers - though I suppose RCN internet users of other markets may want to pay attention anyway...


For awhile now, The Girl and I have had some troubles getting high quality video running on the old Roku. For the longest time I figured this was just a technical issue with the old wifi, and so I strung 300 feet of ethernet to plug it all in directly from the source so that we (and in particular she) could appreciate some quality entertainment.

I pay for 10mb service from RCN here in Chicago, which is far and above the connection speed Amazon recommends. This is a service that RCN widely advertises here in Chicagoland.

Problem? They can't actually deliver on that service. When we tried to rent an HD movie from Amazon, we simply couldn't watch it in anything less than a couple of dots after some time ... in other words, we rented an HD movie only to watch in blocks.

Why?

Heres why:

Now, while this is off my iPhone and off WiFi - it's not like I was taking this reading from the street or anything. Sure, I would expect some degradation from WiFi and whatnot - but ... this reading is showing a 0.66 download speed and the lesson here is simple:

RCN was selling a 10mb service. From WiFi I was getting less than 1. When I looked at the wired connection? I was getting about 2-3. Sometimes less. The speed is utterly unreliably and usually under 5.

RCN admits this is a problem on their end - but their technical support says that the "capacity upgrade" has no estimated time of delivery. Which is interesting, since I had an estimated time of delivery expected from me when I signed up for the service, although it has been over two weeks now and RCN has shown absolutely nothing from their part for the same. The best I can get, in fact, is "no estimated time of delivery".

So RCN in Chicago advertises a service to which they can apparently not technically deliver - and just tonight I got an email from The Girl that not only was nothing new being done about it, but that our service was actually completely down for the entire night.

Utility companies need to be made accountable, because they will for sure not it for themselves. I would encourage anyone to check their Internet connection compared to what they pay with a simple run of Speedtest.net - but especially if you have RCN in the Chicagoland area. If I'm getting this level of service, there's a good chance you are too - I'm pretty certain few people in the Wrigleyville area are getting what they actually pay for...

And for the record - RCN customer service has been abysmal. I've been hung up by the automated service twice and left on hold for nearly a half hour at least once. I've never gotten a straight answer as to the problem or when RCN will solve it - leaving me to wonder if they're even capable of fixing the issue at all.

Anyway: here's the PSA ... we live in a world where we may pay for exacting Internet service which we only use at certain times, but that fact does not change the fact that we have a contract with a company to deliver that service. I don't care if you pay for speeds to deliver pictures of cute kids or to achieve a better frag count online ... you pay for it, but sadly only you will police it. Nobody on this planet will check to see if you're actually getting the net service you pay for ... there is no regulatory body for it in existence. It's just a contract between you and a business.

Which is why the Better Business Bureau is probably my next step. RCN's response at this point is completely atrocious - and I worry not just for the fight I've got with them, but the fight many of their customers may not even realize they are entitled to have.

City Life: RCN Goes All Digital ... Trouble Begins Already...

For RCN users in Chicago, soon you'll be able to have any kind of television you want ... as long as it is digital. Our condo association sent out notices about the change so we went ahead and ordered a couple converter boxes. One for the TV, one for the Mac Mini.

The last time I had digital cable was with Comcast and it was an absolute disaster. Channels would disappear, the quality was inconsistent and Comcast's final technical solution was "well, you could always just use the analog." At the time, it kinda annoyed me, but honestly didn't seem like that bad of a scenario when we got this place and couldn't get DirectTV.

Thing is, I'm an engineer and there's something about digital TV that bugs me. OK, there's something about converter boxes that bug, really, but here in the US that is one and the same. The converter box offers me nothing I really need. It solves no real problem that I had. Sure, it's nice to have a better looking picture ... but I wasn't really putting that in the "problem" category. Same goes for all the other features digital offers - VOD, channel guide, etc.

The problems it has already added, however, are pretty annoying. As I type this, for instance, I have no channels. I have a channel browser bar, which is sure nifty, but there's no actual corresponding image to go with that channel. Now an optimist would say that it is an impressively clear black, at least. I would say it just kind of sucks. My suspicion is that RCN, in their usual folksy low budget kind of way, has underestimated the level of demand that taking a major metro area into digital would have and that instead of taking the advertised ten minutes to download the needed feed - it might be a couple hours.

My other suspicion is that something went wacky with the activation. Can't really do anything about either one except look at a perfectly black screen and wait for. Six. Teen. Minutes.

The second annoyance is that the Mac Mini's main function lately is to serve as a DVR via Elgato's fine EyeTV product. Digital cable pretty much annihilates that because you can't change channels anymore without point the special remote control to the special converter box. That's the future for you - television in any room, stuck in a little box and let out when you ask it nicely. Perhaps in the far, far future we will have technology that will free television and allow a TV to access it easily. Perhaps we could call this space aged technology an antenna.

With crap like this, it is simply no wonder why people torrent stuff. Why wouldn't you? The only real downside is not getting to watch something when it airs. If you're willing to wait a day or so, though, you get a perfectly clear version of your show without commercial interruption. These days you can even grab in HD without much fuss except the extra time to download it.

And unlike digital cable ... torrents would actually fix a problem for me. That being my digital cable of course.

Now on the line with them. Apparently FCC rules forces them to use a security scenario more restrictive - and I do not exaggerate here - than my bank. Plus I had to spend about ten minutes reviewing my account information with them before even getting that point. This woman has an accent which is hard to place, but I would put it at something like southern screeching ... but it might be an eastern dialect.

I think Chicago offers a decent selection of over the air HD. That plasma is looking sweet yet.

OK, after reviewing my address (even though I'm calling about the cable box they just sent me) and asking if my cables were hooked up cables correctly (I asked her politely that if I had not hooked them up correctly if I could see the little channel bar ... ) and asking about my info channel (oh no, you said input channel) ... she finally just re-activated the converter and it mysteriously spurred to life minutes later.

This was exactly how my support calls with Comcast went. Deja vu all over again.

Update: ... all of my channels over 25? Gone. Just fscking gone. Hurrah for the future.