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RCN Cable TV and Internet Review

We've made the switch to RCN Cable and RCN Internet from Time Warner are we are happy. Our price is much lower and we have a larger choice of cable channels

We have had enough of Time Warner's unceasing rate increases

This is our opinion - RCN is terrific, We have nothing but positive things to say about RCN Internet and RCN Cable TV.

 We do not use RCN phone services

RCN has been available in our building for over a year and in late 2011 we made the switch. As of April 2012 we have had the service for about 6 months and are pleased enough to write this positive review

We were reluctant to switch because other RCN reviews on the internet have been negative but many of the reviews are older and postdate the acquisition of RCN by a private equity company in 2010

The stated goal of the change was to make RCN better and we think it is. We were ready to be disappointed with RCN but we are not.  This review reflects our RCN enthusiasm.

RCN is interested in getting and keeping your business.  A representative has been in our building every few months inviting us to switch and the deals offered finally convinced us!  The price has a guarantee of one year, and an increase guarantee for year 2 and 3.  The changes are tolerable and they will still beat what we were paying for Time Warner

No contract is required for RCN TV, RCN Internet, or RCN Phone service

RCN technical service and RCN Customer Service is all USA based.  You will never talk to someone with an accent you cannot understand.  RCN gives Americans jobs

The service for our first six months of RCN TV and RCN Internet has been perfect.  No service interruptions, no need for onsite service.  Our three or four telephone service calls to RCN, at all hours of the day, have been professionally handled in a timely fashion (One billing inquiry, two channel addition / subtraction calls).  We should note here that we've had to wait up to 10 minutes, but it is not intolerable. Our phone calls to Time Warner may have been faster but we've had to deal with annoying phone navigation, accents and attitudes at times

We have not subscribed to RCN Phone because our Vonage service offers much better and less costly service to foreign countries.

Things we like about RCN Cable TV and RCN Internet

  • Competitive pricing and willing to deal to make your service less expensive than Time Warner
  • We save over $30 a month over Time Warner for better or similar services
  • More movie channels without commercials are part of the basic service
  • More classic TV channels are part of the basic package
  • Optional add on channel lineups are more extensive than Time Warner and bundled at a better price with RCN Cable
  • Available HDTV channels on RCN are about equal to Time Warner
  • RCN Cable offers one HDTV box free as part of the deal. We have two in the house, Time Warner charged us for both
  • RCN offers TiVo premiere as part of the deal if you choose
  • RCN internet stated download speed at "up to" 25 mbps is more consistent with RCN throughout the day.  It never dips below 10 mbps.  During the peak hours our Time Warner "up-to" 30 mbps was always below 12 mbps and sometimes as low at 5 mbps. (You can check your current internet speed, regardless of which service you use at SpeedTest.net - check your speed at peak and non-peak hours too). 
  • Stated upload of 2 mbps is more consistent and better than the Time Warner throttled upload stated at .75 mbps
  • RCN has a 2nd and 3rd year price guarantee.  We are optimistic but cannot vouch for it.
  • Time Warner "turbo" internet option (at and additional $10 per month) is almost worthless if your internet downloads are not huge.  RCNs more consistent speed is better.
  • Vonage works fine with RCN (actually the calls are clearer because the RCN upload speed is faster)
  • We had our first cable and internet outage in May 2012 after having 7 months of interruption free service.  Our call was the first to report the outage.   We were told that the outage was confined only to our building and not the neighborhood. We were told that the problem could not be solved remotely; a technician had to be dispatched to our building.  Our service returned in less than 50 MINUTES! (after which we are writing this).  Time Warner had taken as much as 5 DAYS to resolve such problems!
  • Verizon POT (plane old telephone) service became expensive.  Time Warner began offering telephone at a bargain over POT service. Over time, Time Warner phone has gotten to be almost as expensive as Verizon POT.  RCN domestic phone pricing is much better (but we still stick with Vonage because of international calling prices - free for many countries) 

Things we do not like about RCN Cable TV and RCN Internet

  • RCN is fee happy. (this remark does not reflect the billing fees that both RCN and Time Warner include on the regular bill - these fees are comparable). Examples of some of the more annoying other fees listed on their latest mailed fee schedule include:
    • payment by phone automated response $4.95,
    • payment by phone by representative $6.95.
    • payment by internet $1.00
  • RCN has move billing complaints and fee disputes as documented on the internet
  • TCM, Turner Classic Movies, is not available on RCN in HD as of April 2012 
  • We do not use RCN phone.  RCN phone prices are more competitive than Time Warner for unlimited domestic calls but are far more expensive than Vonage for international calls.  We passed and are staying with Vonage
  • We did not use this option much on Time Warner but RCN has less on-demand channels to repeat older programs (such as on-demand E-TV, on demand Science Channel, etc. - things are repeated so much that programs we missed will show up again anyway)

Remarks:

RCN has its fair share of current (in 2012) customer complaints, most of them involving fees and billings but Time Warner has complaints too.  Before you switch please review the complaints elsewhere and consider them in your decision.

Every cable system has a channel line-up that varies from its competitor(s).  Make sure your TV cable provider has the channels you love.

We do not have Verizon Fios in our building.  Frankly we doubt we would consider it if we did.  Our experience with their service departments over the last 20 years, both professionally and privately, has always been negative with Verizon

When we signed up for RCN, Time Warner offered us a "Service Disconnection" prevention (aka Service Retention) discount deal of about $20 off (for one year) to retain us as a customer.  It was the best they would offer and it still was more expensive than our RCN "deal"  RCN has guaranteed our deal for 3 years with stated increases for year 2 and year 3. We look forward to integrity of this offer

We asked our RCN installer to not "cut" the Time Warner cable from the hallway into our apartment but rather to add cable ends to it and our apartment cable so we could do a self install again to TW if RCN fails us. We like to be prepared.

Our RCN installer was terrific, helping us with all requests.  We gave him a nice tip.

So far so good, we highly recommend RCN.  In fact, if you have RCN available as an option in New York, you are wasting money with other providers.  As an aside, we were with Time Warner from 1992 to 2011, they valued only our dollars and not our loyalty and being their customer.  We are happy to get rid of them.

Keys:

RCN, Cable, TV, Internet, Phone, Time, Warner, Review, rates, price, increases, 2010, 2011, 2012, reviews, speed, upload, download, mpbs, like, fee, schedule, pay by phone, internet pay, fees Time Warner Cable, Time Warner Internet, guarantee, disconnection, retention, no contract, Verizon, Fios, positive, negative, test, speedtest

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