6 Comments on From The New York Shitty Inbox, Part I: A Question About Internet Service Providers

AlleyCat on Tue, 21st Dec 2010 10:07 am


When I moved in about two years ago, they told us the only option was Time Warner. In my humble opinion, Time Warner sucks. We only get internet, no cable, no phone, and it’s expensive. Like $55 a month. For a connection speed that’s okay at best. I’ve had worse, but sometimes it’s awful. And they’re VERY annoying about getting us to upgrade to include cable in our “package”. But hey, I gotta read New York Shitty somehow, right 🙂

nee716 on Tue, 21st Dec 2010 10:16 am


Being born and raised in Greenpoint. I have had it all, Dial-Up, Time Warner, DSL. Go with Time Warner (TWC) until FiOS comes to greenpoint since that is your only option. The DSL in the area is slower than dial-up IMO. Time Warner is fast as long as you make sure you specify you want new equipment with your order. Not refurbed/recycled crap Also try not to sign the 2 yr deal TWC throws down your throat. For when FiOS comes next spring.

d on Tue, 21st Dec 2010 10:26 am


I know a lot of people complain about service with ANY provider but just like mobile providers, there is no one perfect option. That said, I have Time Warner and I’ve never had it go out more than a few hours at a time and even then it’s rare (knock on wood) while people I know that have Verizon have experienced multiple day outages (2-4 days out at a time). I think it’s a crap shoot, honestly. Now that many mobile providers offer wifi services, that is an option if you don’t care about getting cable/digital phone with your internet.

vintagejames on Tue, 21st Dec 2010 12:02 pm


I once had a Verizon landline phone and I requested that they install DSL cable to my apartment. They did. With DSL, I can access any internet provider I wish. I am with another provider than Verizon. The DSL from Verizon doesn’t cost anything. Squat. Zero.

Then I installed Vonage for the phone thing, which I don’t use anyway. They disabled Verizon as my landline and I still have the DSL service for my ISP, AT&T (Covad) which costs about $30 a month. And the Vonage cheapass Internet version runs me another $10 a month.

rutila on Tue, 21st Dec 2010 3:31 pm


I ordered a Verizon-Direct TV combo: cable runs ~$60 a month (the most channels without any premium ones) and Internet is ~$40 at 7Mbps. The wireless router that comes with Verizon’s package is shitty; I suggest you get Apple’s Airport Extreme. I’m also splitting these costs with two other people.

a neighbor on Tue, 21st Dec 2010 6:15 pm


Time Warner is terrible. The customer service is abysmal. It’s all fine unless you depend on the internet for your livelihood and then it gets a lot more frantic if you don’t have a signal. We went through a bout of horrific, degrading service a few years ago, and only by continuing to insist that the signal was terrible did we ever get anything done. It also required repeated visits from a tech, because they could never just check everything the first time, until they finally determined that the problem was that every apartment in our building had just been jacked into the same line off the master line, instead of everyone having their own line. We had to get the landlady to give us the key to the outside access point to determine this (with her sputtering that no one else was complaining, how could there be such a problem if no one else was complaining) and then, finally, it was fixed. But the attitude of everyone at Time Warner to get it fixed was agonizing. They also treated me, as a female, differently than they did my boyfriend, a male, despite the fact that I’m actually the technical one of the two of us and he’s just short of a Luddite. I finally gave up and let him handle it just so it would get taken seriously and be done.

I am sure FiOS will be bad too, but at least there will be competition; there is none now.

If you depend on the internet to make a living you need to get business-class service installed and pay for it accordingly if you want any kind of serious customer service.

Nothing requires you to sign the two-year deal. I just say “we might move out of the state” every time they try to sell it to us and that shuts them up.

I would not recommend Vonage, personally. I had a terrible time with them, but that was five years ago – however, getting out of the contract once my year was done was ridiculous and took an hour of conversation when all I kept saying was “I don’t want the service”.

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