Time Warner Cable vs. ? (Charlotte, Raleigh: apartment complex, home, buy)

[marvinnative]

I have a college student in Raleigh who was receiving cable via her apartment complex. Today, she found out the complex severed ties with Time Warner and she will need to negotiate her own package with Time Warner. Currently, she has internet, DVR, digital cable. It appears that Time Warner has a monopoly in the Raleigh area and this won't be cheap.

Anyone else got a suggestion for struggling college students? What other options are available?

[saturnfan]

There are various flavors of Roadrunner and cable, so you may be able to get a lower rate.

[apexguy]

Originally Posted by saturnfan

There are various flavors of Roadrunner and cable, so you may be able to get a lower rate.

No idea about cable, but I have roadrunner lite and phone carolinas and pay $58.25 a month.

[somuchbetter]

Haha, that's funny. I was just talking to my old roommate today about why essentially all cable companies are running monopolies. Time Warner down here, Comcast in Michigan. I'm a college student myself, and you're lucky to find anything else.

[Boosted27606]

Did you contact AT&T ? They offer phone service, DSL internet connection and can bundle up a deal with DirecTV or DIsh network.

Reliability is much superior to cable in my experience.

Good luck

[marvinnative]

Thanks for the feedback. We are still "holding" for customer service at TWC. Estimated wait time - 25 minutes. When we finally got through, the system had routed us to the Charlotte rep (since we are calling from our home in Charlotte). So, back in the que for another 25 minutes!

[rbcp]

Definitely a monopoly. TWC has the most horrible customer service I have ever experienced; unfortunately, they do not care because you have to go through them if you want cable service.

[JebediahScooter]

From the TWC website, you can try signing in to a customer service chat if you don't want to wait on the phone. I had a question about canceling a package, and I was able to chat with a person online in a matter of 2 minutes last night. The person didn't seem too entirely knowledgeable, so it might not help with a really specific or complex issue. But it helped me, and I didn't have to wait on the phone. It might be worth a try. Click here for the link to start the chat session.

Good luck, but yes, unfortunately, TWC has the area on lockdown.

[bull_city_original]

HD Antenna (free) + netflix + low bandwidth dsl = about 40 bucks a month...

With the money you save, buy DVD's for shows or movies you like...no commercials, no having to wait a week for the next episode, and no crashing dvr...

[convergent]

Originally Posted by marvinnative

Thanks for the feedback. We are still "holding" for customer service at TWC. Estimated wait time - 25 minutes. When we finally got through, the system had routed us to the Charlotte rep (since we are calling from our home in Charlotte). So, back in the que for another 25 minutes!

Thats funny.. the same thing happened to me a few days ago. They sent me a flyer offering unlimited digital phone for $19.95/month added to our digital cable and road runner. I called the 800 number on the card to inquire about it and was told they don't offer "unlimited" telephone. After talking for quite a while, the guy told me their new offer was one month for $8, and then it goes to $39.95. I figured, forget that, I'll just go with Vonage. So I asked him how I could get the YES channel while I had him on the phone. He told me I already had it. I said I didn't. Then after further dialog I discovered that he thought I was in NY. He gave me a different number to call which I did, and ended up in the same loop again. Apparantly Time Warner has automated their call routing to the extreme and there is no way to call them from a NY exchange to inquire about NC service. My Vonage business line and my cellphone still have NY exchanges which I am going to soon change. I called Vonage and got my phone service setup for $24.99 unlimited... and I used my own business account as a referral so I get 2 months free on each of them for a total of 4 free months... making this about half the price of Time Warner.

I had a pretty good deal with them in NY, but I had to go to DISH for a year and get "won back" in order to get the deal. By moving, I fell out of the "win back" loop.