Time Warner Internet - does not activate inbuilt ethernet ports? (Austin: sales, new house)

[general101]

We just moved into a newly built house and moved from ATT UVerse to Time Warner (since ATT does not have service here).

I was expecting the TWC technician to enable the in-built ethernet ports in the house in addition to setting up wireless but he did not. He said they don't do it and I may have to contact another TWC department. I chatted with a TWC support person and they told me that TWC does not do that and they do only wirless. Advice from them was, if i need to use hardwired internet connection for my computers, I need to connect directly to the modem. That will not work for me since it is a 2-storied house and the office room is in a different floor than the modem.

Does everyone have the same experience or am I just talking to the wrong TWC people? I am surprised they don't provide options to activate the in-built ethernet ports in houses and do only wireless. This is a brand new house and has a central box for activating everything, so I would think a cable company should find it easy to do this. We use the internet a lot for work and for transferring large files etc overnight and have found the wireless to be not dependable all the time (and specifically when we use it in a different floor than where the modem is). Hence the need for a wired connection sometimes.


Thanks,

[TexasVines]

there is a reason they do not "activate" those ports because it takes more than "activating them" it requires a router and a router is an additional piece of equipment they would need to charge you for and to have support for

and with wired that is additional wires in the house they would need to support as well if there was ever an issue....that all cost money

the reason they can go with wireless is because they do charge additional money for a wireless router and they have specific wireless routers they have trained support for and that is all they support and with wireless they do not need to be concerned with supporting peoples crappy cat 5 wiring all over their house in who knows what condition or how crazy it is to get a wire there....and yes your house is prewired, but the vast majority are not and they don't want the additional hassle of people demanding a wired connection be run because someone else has it or supporting an additional piece of hardware for a wired router service when so many will accept wireless or even prefer wireless over wired

you need to go buy a wired router and figure out how to set it up with the connection from your cable modem and then to the rest of your computers

[EzPeterson]

You should have a panel in your master that feeds the pre-wired house. All you have to do is plug the modem in to the nearest jack, then plug that wire into the "in" on a router, then the other rooms into the router.

Might take 10 minutes.

[general101]

thats for the details and the quick response!

[hoffdano]

If your house is pre-wired for ethernet, all of those CAT5 cables should come to a single location in the house. That is commonly called "home run" wiring. I assume you have a wiring cabinet in the wall somewhere.

TWC has little interest in messing with cable they didn't run. It is reasonably possible that the cabling is untested and they don't want to mess with it.

So the simple answer is to buy an ethernet "switch" with as many ports as you have cables in the wiring cabinet. They are inexpensive. Plug all those CAT5 cables into the switch. One CAT5 cable will go from the ethernet switch to the wireless router TWC hooked up for you. Power everything down. Power up the TWC equipment first. Then the ethernet switch. Then your computers. You should be good to go. You might have to login to the router to make sure it is configured properly.

[CptnRn]

Or you could hire a company like this to do it for you. Computer Geeks of Austin

[BriansZ]

And just to give you an idea on cost, Frys has a 5-port ethernet switch in stock for under $17.00. Add a few cat5 or cat6 patch cables for a couple of bucks each and you can do it yourself for under $30.

[the_grimace]

generally residential cable companies will allow only one direct ethernet connection, multiple lines being installed only if paying for a completely new line. (if wireless cost $50, you would need to pay $100 for two lines). You probably can just move the modem/router to your office, use the direct connection there and the wireless in the rest of your house.

Maybe things have changed, but last time I had cable installed, we had cable connections in every room, but only one modem is allowed. So unless you were going to run a cable super far, you just put the modem in the room you need the direct connections the most and settle for wireless everywhere else.

[general101]

Thanks everyone for the great feedback!! was very useful.

[general101]

staying on the issue of time warner.....the internet/tv service has been ok so far. but the sales experience has been terrible for us.

when we moved from AT&T and signed up with TWC, they committed to a certain $ figure for the final package. when the technician comes, it is higher by 20$ than what we were told. when we called and complained, sales person no.2 said there was no record of the deal the previous sales person offered (which is strange since he spoke with us for 45 mins) and she apologized giving all kinds of BS sweet talk and said she is going to compensate by putting us back on the originally committed bill amount and waive off something else. when we received the 1st month bill, the amount is nearly $40 more than what we were told in our previous committed deal with sales person 2.

when we called again (and obviously talk to sales/services person no.3), they again seem to indicate they don't know what happened in the past but this would be the final rate. they told us they will have some manager call us back the same day to discuss it and we are still waiting for the past 4 days, no call.

i had to clearly tell them they are a bunch of unprofessional (or "professional") liars in my last call. i have never had such bad experience with any service in the past. i don't mind the extra money whatever that is but it sucks to be taken for a ride like this twice.

i just did not expect this from TWC given how many people use it for a very essential service. wonder if i am just the odd one out to have such an experience or whether this is typical TWC way of working.

(unfortunately we do not have any other option than TWC here at this moment).