Is Charter Pipeline any good?
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playtennis
Is Charter Pipeline any good?
I live in St. Louis Missouri, and the only option I have for any high speed acess is Charter Pipeline. The package im looking at is 34 bucks a month and is an average speed of 512kbps. This speed package is otherwise known as the silver package. The service is two way, as they recently upgraded the system. I was just curious to see if anyone here has the Charter Pipeline, and im wondering if it is any good. BTW the only better packages are the gold package. It is a total ripoff. The average speed is 768kbps, and it costs 78 dollars a month. :0 Anyway, im curious to see if anyone here has it and if the service is worth getting. Im also assuming anyone here who does have it has the brain not to have gotten the total ripoff Gold Package
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bluegill
I have had the silver since Feb Charter is the only choice for me also never have down time wish the speeds were better but beats the heck out of dialupOriginally posted by playtennis:
I live in St. Louis Missouri, and the only option I have for any high speed acess is Charter Pipeline. The package im looking at is 34 bucks a month and is an average speed of 512kbps. This speed package is otherwise known as the silver package. The service is two way, as they recently upgraded the system. I was just curious to see if anyone here has the Charter Pipeline, and im wondering if it is any good. BTW the only better packages are the gold package. It is a total ripoff. The average speed is 768kbps, and it costs 78 dollars a month. :0 Anyway, im curious to see if anyone here has it and if the service is worth getting. Im also assuming anyone here who does have it has the brain not to have gotten the total ripoff Gold Package
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Rosco
Where outside of St Louis do you live? Just for your knowledge Charter Pipeline is serviced by HSA (High Speed Access)and they do all there nationwide tech support.
Currently, I work as a Tier 2 tech for them,
so if you post your e-mail I will send you any support info you need or if you need ask a question about your service.
Currently, I work as a Tier 2 tech for them,
so if you post your e-mail I will send you any support info you need or if you need ask a question about your service.
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MaxDread
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Rosco
To answer your questions
1.)In California they are a Beta site or Network service Model and they have there own tech support out of Alhambra and Network Operations Center. However,I recieve plenty of calls from Turlock, Long Beach, San Louis Obispo. Arroyo Grande etc, bacuase there call center forwarded on a call to us.95% of Charter is directed to HSA call centers, but one or two have regional call centers. And technically HSA does support all of Charter, from Mass to Ca.
2)Also, we don't support networks except in commercial, but if you have one we don't discourage it. The rule is one computer one modem. So for example if you call and are using a hub the tech will probobaly tell you disconnect from the hub and plug it straight into the computer. Anything else just let me know. I usually check the board while I am at work between 3:00 and 12:00p.m.
1.)In California they are a Beta site or Network service Model and they have there own tech support out of Alhambra and Network Operations Center. However,I recieve plenty of calls from Turlock, Long Beach, San Louis Obispo. Arroyo Grande etc, bacuase there call center forwarded on a call to us.95% of Charter is directed to HSA call centers, but one or two have regional call centers. And technically HSA does support all of Charter, from Mass to Ca.
2)Also, we don't support networks except in commercial, but if you have one we don't discourage it. The rule is one computer one modem. So for example if you call and are using a hub the tech will probobaly tell you disconnect from the hub and plug it straight into the computer. Anything else just let me know. I usually check the board while I am at work between 3:00 and 12:00p.m.
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playtennis
FYI, Rosco, I live right near the Charter Communications HQ in Town and Country, Missouri. I actually live in Chesterfield, which is right on the border of the two towns, but I am only approixmatley 3 miles from Charter Commons, which is HQ for Charter Communications. Also, MaxDread, we have a special deal going on here in St. Louis. The installation and 1st month of service are free, then we have the 34 bucks a month.
I also have a question for both Rosco and bluegill, who has the silver package, and maybe one or both of you could provide answers to my question
My question is, how many kilobytes per second do you see with the silver package. The service rep said the 512kbps was the average, but I was wondering, Bluegill, what your typical download speeds (k/sec), after installing the patches they have here, etc (NO i do not mean uncapping). Bluegill- tell me your average download speeds, what the highest youve gotten was, and if the service gets bad at night. Rosco, id also appreciate if you could provide some input into my question.
Thank you very much for your time
By the way, my email is avinj16@yahoo.com
I also have a question for both Rosco and bluegill, who has the silver package, and maybe one or both of you could provide answers to my question
My question is, how many kilobytes per second do you see with the silver package. The service rep said the 512kbps was the average, but I was wondering, Bluegill, what your typical download speeds (k/sec), after installing the patches they have here, etc (NO i do not mean uncapping
). Bluegill- tell me your average download speeds, what the highest youve gotten was, and if the service gets bad at night. Rosco, id also appreciate if you could provide some input into my question.Thank you very much for your time
By the way, my email is avinj16@yahoo.com
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Rosco
Although, most servivce reps tell you that, it is not true. Ideally, the 500k should work , but more than likely it will be around 200-300 kbsp. Also,in Cali the installers always like to put in an external NIC (USB) on the sytems, and I am always getting calls from two-way customers who are having trouble with these. Try and get an internal card, try LINKSYS, there not great but relatively speaking,or buy your own. 3-com's rock. And cause alot less problems, unless you don't mind hotswapping your card all the time.
-Peace-
-Peace-
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bluegill
down averages 70-80KBper without tweaks or patches tried speed guide, navas meth2 never really helped you get what you pay for night is always better thanday for downlds, throughput like i said wish speeds were better but the only alt is 56 as for the post that said he gets 1200 or whatever he didn't answer your ? guess he was just braggin' never took note of max dl because when i dl i just want the file through &dl are always the same or slightly better than 512kb perOriginally posted by playtennis:
FYI, Rosco, I live right near the Charter Communications HQ in Town and Country, Missouri. I actually live in Chesterfield, which is right on the border of the two towns, but I am only approixmatley 3 miles from Charter Commons, which is HQ for Charter Communications. Also, MaxDread, we have a special deal going on here in St. Louis. The installation and 1st month of service are free, then we have the 34 bucks a month.
I also have a question for both Rosco and bluegill, who has the silver package, and maybe one or both of you could provide answers to my question
My question is, how many kilobytes per second do you see with the silver package. The service rep said the 512kbps was the average, but I was wondering, Bluegill, what your typical download speeds (k/sec), after installing the patches they have here, etc (NO i do not mean uncapping
Thank you very much for your time
By the way, my email is avinj16@yahoo.com
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playtennis
Well Rosco, for one thing i dont live in Cali, so I think that they are already offering internal NICs, here in St. Louis
And you said that the average speed will only be 200-300 kbps? Oh man!!!! Thats like 25-37k/sec, only about 6x better than dial-up!!!! Its better than dial up, but thats real dissapointing!!. And i find myself complaining, while at the same time, other cable users are complaining about getting 300k/sec, which is like 2400kbps, and thats like 10x better than mine! Oh well, its my only option... Too bad @home or RoadRunner or other companies that offer full speed cable arent here. And since St. Louis is Charters headquarters city, it looks as it will stay that way.
And you said that the average speed will only be 200-300 kbps? Oh man!!!! Thats like 25-37k/sec, only about 6x better than dial-up!!!! Its better than dial up, but thats real dissapointing!!. And i find myself complaining, while at the same time, other cable users are complaining about getting 300k/sec, which is like 2400kbps, and thats like 10x better than mine! Oh well, its my only option... Too bad @home or RoadRunner or other companies that offer full speed cable arent here. And since St. Louis is Charters headquarters city, it looks as it will stay that way.
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playtennis
Im sorry- I didnt quite understand what you said Bluegill. What is navas meth2? And could you please clarify all of this?
"navas meth2 never really helped you get what you pay for night is always better thanday for downlds, throughput like i said wish speeds were better but the only alt is 56 as for the post that said he gets 1200 or whatever he didn't answer your ? guess he was just braggin' never took note of max dl because when i dl i just want the file through &dl are always the same or slightly better than 512kb per"
Sorry for askin you to clarify- maybe my brain just isnt working today...
Thanks for your time
"navas meth2 never really helped you get what you pay for night is always better thanday for downlds, throughput like i said wish speeds were better but the only alt is 56 as for the post that said he gets 1200 or whatever he didn't answer your ? guess he was just braggin' never took note of max dl because when i dl i just want the file through &dl are always the same or slightly better than 512kb per"
Sorry for askin you to clarify- maybe my brain just isnt working today...
Thanks for your time
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Rosco
Sorry about the Cali thing, it was late when
I posted and for some reason I thought you lived there. Anyway,what I meant was if the service is sold as a 512kbsp(40KB) service with charter that does not mean that you will never see that,it just that on the average, without tweaks, it's probobably more like 350-400k, sorry that was a mistype, as was alot of things last night..However, this could depend on alot a factors, such as routers in area,serial ports, quality of cable lines, T1's and amount of people on bandwidth,etc. Some areas function better than others. Unfortunatley, I work all day with people with slow dowloads and modem problems, so I only hear the downside of it. If you get charter and get 1000kbsp dl's great let me know. I rarely get calls or hear from people who are doing great.
What is Bluegill talking about?
-Peace-
I posted and for some reason I thought you lived there. Anyway,what I meant was if the service is sold as a 512kbsp(40KB) service with charter that does not mean that you will never see that,it just that on the average, without tweaks, it's probobably more like 350-400k, sorry that was a mistype, as was alot of things last night..However, this could depend on alot a factors, such as routers in area,serial ports, quality of cable lines, T1's and amount of people on bandwidth,etc. Some areas function better than others. Unfortunatley, I work all day with people with slow dowloads and modem problems, so I only hear the downside of it. If you get charter and get 1000kbsp dl's great let me know. I rarely get calls or hear from people who are doing great.
What is Bluegill talking about?
-Peace-
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playtennis
Got it, Rosco. But still 350-400kbps is still WAY below what everyone else here is getting. Everyone else here is complaining when they get 200k/sec downloads. Ill be getting like 45-50k/sec downloads, which is still better than 56k, but probably everyone here at this board will be laughing at my speeds 
. We'll see if I get 1000 kbps. I hope that since St. Louis is charters HQ the cable network will be of high quality. Also what kinds of pings should I expect with cable (ms) ?
[This message has been edited by playtennis (edited 08-17-2000).]
. We'll see if I get 1000 kbps. I hope that since St. Louis is charters HQ the cable network will be of high quality. Also what kinds of pings should I expect with cable (ms) ?[This message has been edited by playtennis (edited 08-17-2000).]
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Rosco
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MaxDread
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MaxDread
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Murdly Gurdson
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SouthnCm4t
Roscoe - I do inside sales in Hammond, LA..just saying hey .... how can i get in touch with you to gossip etc..
Originally posted by Rosco:
Where outside of St Louis do you live? Just for your knowledge Charter Pipeline is serviced by HSA (High Speed Access)and they do all there nationwide tech support.
Currently, I work as a Tier 2 tech for them,
so if you post your e-mail I will send you any support info you need or if you need ask a question about your service.
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krackerjak
- Regular Member
- Posts: 111
- Joined: Fri Dec 17, 1999 12:00 am
if you have any other choice besides charter, take a long serious look at them. charter speeds are a complete disappointment. just like their cable tv service, their internet service is well below par of other competitors. there lies the problem. there are no other cable competitiors. a cable com pany signs a contract in the town or city they cover. no-one can compete with them. they can then give you what they want to give you, and all you can do is complain to city council. like anything else, a few crying gets no results, and as usual, most people don't want to get involved. i have charter because it is the only cable available in this area. i hatem, i write them weekly as well as our city council, it gets me no where.
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playtennis
Hes probably in St. Louis- Charter has its headquarters there. A friend of mine said he got about 55k average speeds here, with highs in like 120k. And Southwestern Bell DSL is even worse- its more expensive, and its download speeds are only marginally better- about 10k or so. St. Louis- the worst city for broadband!
BTW, I live in Town and Country, I dont know where you are at Krackerjack, if you are in St. Louis at all
BTW, I live in Town and Country, I dont know where you are at Krackerjack, if you are in St. Louis at all
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playtennis
Hes probably in St. Louis- Charter has its headquarters there. A friend of mine said he got about 55k average speeds here, with highs in like 120k. And Southwestern Bell DSL is even worse- its more expensive, and its download speeds are only marginally better- about 10k or so. St. Louis- the worst city for broadband!
BTW, I live in Town and Country, I dont know where you are at Krackerjack, if you are in St. Louis at all
BTW, I live in Town and Country, I dont know where you are at Krackerjack, if you are in St. Louis at all
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Rosco
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A Victim
Allow me to go on record..
I've been a customer of Charter's since they started offering the Pipeline service in this area about a year and a half ago. For the first few months, all was well.
Now, though...
Frequent email outages. (Was told that a single hard drive failure was responsible for a near one week outage at one point.. Haven't they heard of REDUNDANT hardware? I've got my critical stuff on a RAID...)
Frequent difficulties connecting to anything. I've been told that the problems were anything from DNS probs to having connection problems to their backbone.
They also have the lovely habit of doing all their system maintenance during the day. Last December, I was wanting to get some research done durning a week of vacation I took. Service would die, every day, promptly at 10am. It would come up, just as promptly at 6pm. We're talking no net connection at all. And, when I tried to use the dialup "backup", it turns out that NONE of the bidirectional cable accounts are enabled for dialup access...
On the plus side, when it works, the speed is pretty good. Near enough to the 500K service promised.
Overall, though.. As soon as anything broadband comes through to compete (DSL...), I'm ditching Charter.
I've been a customer of Charter's since they started offering the Pipeline service in this area about a year and a half ago. For the first few months, all was well.
Now, though...
Frequent email outages. (Was told that a single hard drive failure was responsible for a near one week outage at one point.. Haven't they heard of REDUNDANT hardware? I've got my critical stuff on a RAID...)
Frequent difficulties connecting to anything. I've been told that the problems were anything from DNS probs to having connection problems to their backbone.
They also have the lovely habit of doing all their system maintenance during the day. Last December, I was wanting to get some research done durning a week of vacation I took. Service would die, every day, promptly at 10am. It would come up, just as promptly at 6pm. We're talking no net connection at all. And, when I tried to use the dialup "backup", it turns out that NONE of the bidirectional cable accounts are enabled for dialup access...
On the plus side, when it works, the speed is pretty good. Near enough to the 500K service promised.
Overall, though.. As soon as anything broadband comes through to compete (DSL...), I'm ditching Charter.
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expand
Ummm and I thought that I had problems with charter. Is charter communications the same as charter pipeline? Well I've had charter for about a year now in minnesota and for the first 8 months it was awesome now I have been having problems with it. My e-mail wont connect all the time a get cut off once in awhile and in the evenings at peak time I cant play games cause my pings are in the 100's at best. But as far as downloading, I get a average of 200KB/sec which is great I guess compared to those of you that are reporting 200kbps. But all and all I dont like thier service and I might switch to the other company called seren inovations (astound) if you have any info on seren I would like to hear it.
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jonathon
I have Charter in Tenn. as well. Most of my problems come in the evenings around 4:30p to about 12am. Any other time and the service is ok. I say ok because my speeds are nowhere near what they promised. I never see downloads faster than 60k using download accelerator. Up speeds are also a problem. They just went digital in my area, so hopefully they will upgrade the lines. I call them at least twice a week to complain about losing my connection during peak hours and they tell me the same thing everytime, "There is no way that you can lose your connection because of too many people on the internet at the same time."
How can i battle that kind of logic....
How can i battle that kind of logic....
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Rosco
Unfortunatly, you guys live in, what could be best termed as Charter Hot spots and Charter Communications has Charter Pipeline, but the Pipeline usually refers to the Two-way service.So I assuming that the Gentleman frim Minn lives around Rosemount and Jonathan ,proboblaly near Morristown Tenn. Anyway, I don't know who told you that you could not kicked off line, but thats bull. Let me know what's going on and I will see if I can help.
-peace-
-peace-
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lizard_boy
I've had Charter Pipeline since Febraury. Had many, many problems until they upgraded to 2-way about 2 months ago...since then the service has been fairly reliable...but in the late afternoon/early evening the bandwidth shrinks to near dial-up status.
Rosco, what's the deal with the Smyrna, GA area - why so many problems ??
Rosco, what's the deal with the Smyrna, GA area - why so many problems ??
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Cire
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Rosco
Lizard,
I couldn't tell you excatly what is up with Smryna, maybe old cable,lame server or both. As a tech sometimes they tell you what the root cause of a problem and then sometimes they don't.The last major problem in Smyrna was when a terrible batch of thunderstorms went through and trashed everyones cable, for whatever reason. They were out for a week.
However, let me re-state what I said earlier. Not all of Charter sucks, and a majority of the people that have posted these statements,just happen to live in certain regions that have on-going issues.Such as MorrisTown TN,areas of Ga parts of MInn and La, and yes these areas have do have issues. Hopefully soon.
If you need some help with speeds try out the patches here and If that doesn't help let me know maybe we can enable your DNS in TCP/IP and send to a more reliable and faster DNS server to help you out.
-peace-
I couldn't tell you excatly what is up with Smryna, maybe old cable,lame server or both. As a tech sometimes they tell you what the root cause of a problem and then sometimes they don't.The last major problem in Smyrna was when a terrible batch of thunderstorms went through and trashed everyones cable, for whatever reason. They were out for a week.
However, let me re-state what I said earlier. Not all of Charter sucks, and a majority of the people that have posted these statements,just happen to live in certain regions that have on-going issues.Such as MorrisTown TN,areas of Ga parts of MInn and La, and yes these areas have do have issues. Hopefully soon.
If you need some help with speeds try out the patches here and If that doesn't help let me know maybe we can enable your DNS in TCP/IP and send to a more reliable and faster DNS server to help you out.
-peace-
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lizard_boy
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krackerjak
- Regular Member
- Posts: 111
- Joined: Fri Dec 17, 1999 12:00 am
I live in Greenville/Mauldin South Carolina area. I tried the patches here, no change.
I have Charter pipeline, yet a friend across town has Charter @ home(formally intermedia) and his speeds are exceptional compared to mine. I have warned him that since charter purchased intermedia, he will soon have the sloowwww speeds with which i must deal constantly. when i go to a page that measures cable speeds, I don't even get listed at 'cable' speed. it's usually between ISDN and cable. if you have no other choice get charter, if you have access dsl, look into it first. i'd give my left nut to get the speeds most of you say you get.
I have Charter pipeline, yet a friend across town has Charter @ home(formally intermedia) and his speeds are exceptional compared to mine. I have warned him that since charter purchased intermedia, he will soon have the sloowwww speeds with which i must deal constantly. when i go to a page that measures cable speeds, I don't even get listed at 'cable' speed. it's usually between ISDN and cable. if you have no other choice get charter, if you have access dsl, look into it first. i'd give my left nut to get the speeds most of you say you get.
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krackerjak
- Regular Member
- Posts: 111
- Joined: Fri Dec 17, 1999 12:00 am
your right john, i probably wouldn't(figure of speech i guess). but download and upload speeds are extremely important to me because of why and how i use my connection(those like me know what i mean). i mite add that i also keep a dail-up connection as a back-up, and even subscribe to aol for the kids. total bout $80 a month.
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krackerjak
- Regular Member
- Posts: 111
- Joined: Fri Dec 17, 1999 12:00 am
Rosco, please feel free to email me with any help you have to offer. krackerjak@prodigy.net
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brassmonkey
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A Victim
Well, If I do live in a hot-spot, why, oh why is HSA screwing around with running game servers and NOT fixing the )*^*$#$$% problem?
http://www.stmarys.hsagames.net
Yes, that's right.. Put upstream content caching into effect that power screws many online functions to save a little bandwidth, and then run game servers, which cannot be cached, and burn bandwidth. Makes perfect sense to me.
http://www.stmarys.hsagames.net
Yes, that's right.. Put upstream content caching into effect that power screws many online functions to save a little bandwidth, and then run game servers, which cannot be cached, and burn bandwidth. Makes perfect sense to me.
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Llama
i have charter pipeline in wisconsin, i hate it, ive actually been calling the phone company trying to get dsl here like every day, ive experienced more outages with my cable in the last 6 months then i have with power outages since i was born, ive had more cable outages then hairs i have on my head, i truly hate charter, and for checkin my email, i like how every other day i cant even connect to it, for games, i like never seeing under 140ms ping, hell this one guy i used to ping at 130 with my 56k, but yet with my cable modem i have him at 150, gg charter cable, and talke about throughput, god ive never seen so much warp in my whole life in games, im startin to use my 56k again, as for downloading, 30k/sec, but not steady, nowhere near steady, but its better then 3k/sec with my 56k i guess, but thank god they dropped the price from 40 to 24.99 a month, but still i say its worth maybe about 15.99 a month if that, and as far as users i know there are alot of users in my area, but still for the tiny amount of bandwith they are giving up to us i cant see how its so bad, i mean at alot of peak times, my cable is close to my 56k