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Ok folks. I have had decent service with Charter since 2009
Recently my modem and router went south (so I thought...well they were old and slower than current speeds)
But I kept having to reboot my modem and router. This started about a month ago and well I figured it was just time to replace both items.......
Got brand new ones a week ago and STILL having horrible interruptions in service. I would have got the modem from Charter but they said a week and I HAVE to have the internet for my job (telecommute). The router is a decent Netgear Router. And the modem is the same one Charter says they use a Motorola Surfboard 6121
Simsponville near Lee Vaugan and Woodruff.
How is it going for others?. Right now it is like I have zero service about 50% of the time. It goes in and out and reconnects without my doing anything. I get a different message everytime I call Charter and the service guy reams me out for buying my own modem even though I did not have much choice. It was a very rude experience. I am almost at the point of "eek" looking at paying through the nose for doing something else. I cannot do my job without the internet!
I don't understand why it would take a week to get a new modem - can you go to Charter's gleaming new Woodruff office and pick up a new one? I know that Charter now requires new residential accounts to utilize their own proprietary modem (it should be free - ours was) - they also have a combined modem/wireless router for a monthly fee (we didn't elect to get that - we have our own wireless Netgear router).
Additionally, if you need absolute, reliable internet service, I'd advise you to get a Charter business account - I've heard the service is MUCH better than residential service (your employer may even pay for it).
(Of course, you may have outside/inside wiring issues.)
Last edited by drfranklin; 03-18-2014 at 08:09 PM..
I have a Cisco modem from Charter and a Netgear router. For the most part, my connection is decent. I did notice in the past couple weeks, I drop my connection on occasion. Maybe it's a wire outside?
I had major issues with our internet going in and out and it was normally out during the day. After about 8 phone calls and 4 service trips on the 5th trip the repair tech did some checking of the main box out back and found that they had a shorting out jumper wire. He replaced 3 broken jumpers and boom no more issues. Might have them check their box.
Modem SHOULD auto-provision. At least, it used to work that way. You'd plug the modem in, and on first access to the internet, it would auto-direct to charter's provisioning site.
I've had horrible problems with charter.. My HD channels pixelate, and they say "Well, it does that in cold weather".. Asked them how would they like it if I didn't pay my bill in cold weather.
When I lived in Simpsonville, I had to call them repeatedly for over 6 months to fix a cable that was hanging from the pole.. They would schedule someone to come out, they'd never come out, then they'd say it wasn't theirs.. I walked outside with a pair of wire cutters and them on the phone and they had someone out there the next day.
You really have to hound them.. And, do as much research on the problem as you can.. ping IP addresses, FQDNs, so you can tell if it's DNS or actual connection.. Look at the logs for your modem.. Generally, you can access that at 192.168.100.1 for most cable modems.
Charter's DNS blows.. I keep mine overridden with Google's DNS servers at 8.8.8.8 and 4.4.4.4
I called to provision the modem the day I got it. As soon as I installed it.
The reason I bought my own modem was the online support telling me I could not go pick one up locally (phone support) and I had to work the next day (it was a Sunday). Then, yesterday the repair guy tells me the modem is not "in their system" But that fixed nothing. I really did not appreciate at ALL the fact that this guy was not listening to me. Glad to hear the "provided" router is a combo gizmo. Those are not usually as nice as a modem plus a good router from what I can tell. My router is a Netgear dual band 900MHz.
And I was very frustrated at having to run out and buy one because I wanted them to come set it all up (thought that is what renting a modem was about).
I will have to look into the business account. Isn't that the American way? It is like rewarding them for low quality work. I do get a monthly stipend for office expenses. As is, my phone usage is quite low. Actually my internet usage is not that high. Mostly file sharing, emails etc. not high powered stuff.
Say Labonte, how do you keep these logs and override the DNS? I often get a DNS "lookup" error. As is I have pinged google at 8.8.8.8 using the command prompt and took pictures of the computer screen when it looses connection. It seems to me if it was my modem or router that when it drops it would not reconnect without me rebooting or doing something? When I look at my wireless connecting to my router I have a strong signal throughout the house. And the speed of the connection is consistent and at the specs of the computer (e.g., I have some old computers with a wireless-G card). WHen I am connected it is EXCELLENT. There is no issue with signal quality and speed though I have noticed a wind down just before I loose it (things get slow, I run to speedest and check and download speed drops from about 40MBPS to 5MPBS.) Sometimes, though it just catches me unaware. EDIT, I do not believe it to be the computers. Everything goes out when it goes out. New / Old /Wired /Wireless.
I think my next troubleshoot if it goes out again for any duration is to connect my work computer directly to the modem bypassing the router. Not a solution to limit to one device, but for troubleshooting to say "I did this so don't blame the router"
Last edited by grannynancy; 03-19-2014 at 05:12 AM..
Now my work computer, unlike my home computer, has to connect to VPN (and their servers are actually the speed limiting issue on that one but it is not a profound difference). ......... I still have identical outage issues and that computer is wired to the router directly (required by our IT)
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