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Phillip Dampier
Time Warner Cable has completed their DOCSIS 3 upgrade of the Rochester/Finger Lakes region and their new Road Runner Extreme and Wideband services should now be available throughout the region. Stop the Cap! HQ will receive its upgrade to Road Runner Extreme late this afternoon, primarily for the 5Mbps upstream speed, which will make uploading content to our servers much easier and more efficient.
The cable company is insistent on their installation fee, which amounts to nearly $68 (unjustified in my personal opinion). Some details for our local readers:
- Customers in the Rochester & Finger Lakes region almost never own their own cable modems — they are provided with Road Runner at no extra charge;
- Upgrading to Extreme or Wideband will mean either a modem swap or a second piece of equipment if you have Time Warner phone service. The new equipment includes a built-in wireless router;
- You are not obligated to use the cable company’s equipment as your primary router if you favor using your own existing router;
- As part of the installation fee, you have a right to insist they spend the time to configure service the way you want it, especially if you want to continue using your own router;
- It is also a good time to ask them to check signal levels and clean up any wiring or service issues. Western New York has endured a record-breaking deluge of rain this spring, and degraded outdoor wiring can create havoc for broadband and cable service.
- If you are currently receiving a promotion such as free or discounted Road Runner Turbo service, you will lose the value of that promotion when you upgrade service and will pay full price going forward.
Beyond the installation fee, Road Runner Extreme (30/5Mbps) costs $20 more than Road Runner Standard (10/1Mbps) service. Road Runner Wideband (50/5Mbps) is priced at $99 a month, but is a much better value bundled with the cable company’s Signature Home ($199) package, which includes complete packages of digital cable, “digital phone,” and broadband service. For most in the Rochester/Finger Lakes area, the only alternative is Frontier Communications’ DSL combined with an unlimited calling plan and satellite television or a similar package from Verizon or much smaller Windstream. Verizon’s fiber to the home service FiOS is not available anywhere in this region.
Well, after two years of waiting, D3 is finally up and running here. One issue I encountered — the giant Ubee modem/router absolutely hates my Linksys WRT150N router. In bridge mode, the Linksys router results in a blinking green light on the Ubee, which I am told means it is not in D3 mode. When I run Ethernet from a nearby computer straight to the Ubee, it blinks blue (D3 mode). It also blinks blue when I use the Netgear router the FCC supplied as part of the national speed test program. But I loathe the Netgear for requiring regular… Read more »
What Linksys model are you using? Not that it matters, I’m just curious about what it is.
Swap out for the Motorola modem that they have for DOCSIS 3, SB6580. I have the Ubee DDW3611 and it works fine with my Netgear router.
Phillip,
Have you set the modem into bridge mode, seems like here are instructions on how to: http://blog.woofbit.com/2011/04/21/docsis-3-0-road-runner-extreme-howto-and-initial-thoughts/
The Linksys router is noted above — WRT150n running DD-WRT. The Ubee is in bridge mode, according to the cable guy anyway, and I have not had much time to fuss with it. The cable company called me today with a potential solution but I won’t call them back until I am done writing for the day. If it does turn out to fix the issue, I will post it here in case someone else runs into a similar problem. The Motorola modem, by the way, is apparently not common in Rochester. The tech thought they were having problems with… Read more »
Check for yourself if the modem is in bridge mode.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,25631898?hilite=ubee+bridge+mode
The signature home deal would be great if it included premium channels! How is voice quality on the TW phone service? I have OOMA currently and the voice quality can be hit or miss…
“Digital Phone” from TWC works better than other VOIP products I have used, mostly because it does not share your broadband connection. If someone is maxing out the connection or there is an issue along the path between TWC and your VOIP provider, you are going to get audio artifacts, lost speech, and disconnects. TWC uses its own network, not your broadband connection for their phone lines, and presumably the path between me and their network is much shorter. But there are some anomalies. The worst is the combo cable modem/phone interface they provided me with. Making calls in rapid… Read more »
Mind giving the model number of the new device TW provides? It might be useful to familiarize myself for when the TW tech comes to do the install (I’m rather particular about my network configuration).
Thanks!
I think it is the 3611. It is huge and ugly!
Thanks Phil. When I call I’ll attempt to get them to bring a ‘basic’ modem instead of the big integrated one. Wish me luck.
“Thanks Phil. When I call I’ll attempt to get them to bring a ‘basic’ modem instead of the big integrated one. Wish me luck.”
You will need more than luck, you will need a miracle. The UBEE is the only D3 modem approved for use in the WNY area. There are no “Basic” approved D3 modems.
I ordered the Extreme service which to be installed tomorrow. The TW rep. told me that the monthly cost for the new service would be $54.95 which is $10 more of my current promotion price $44.95 for 12 months for RR Turbo. It looks like I would not lose the promotion.
Thanks for the information about requesting the tech to set up TW’s router the way I would want to.
Good to know. Just make sure you check the billed amounts. I always write down the name and, if possible, extension or ID of any TW employee promising me anything. Too often, it does not get documented on the account and they end up having to reach out to the person who made the commitment to verify it.
I’m jumping for joy over here!
In fact, the TWC rep was so good that he managed to decrease my bill by $4.01, and that’s including the upgrade to RR Extreme! (For one year, by bumping my cable service back into a promotional tier.)
The only disappointing thing is that they’re booked until the first week of June, so I probably won’t see installation until June 6th. Hopefully it’s worth the wait.
Where are you? I might call and check again looking for any sooner openings. Mine got installed the afternoon after ordering, mostly because someone canceled a scheduled service call. Just ask the rep what is the soonest possible date, considering people do cancel. Be flexible on time windows. They sent two trucks out here, so I suspect it might be a two person install.
The latest tidbits and developments: 1) My Linksys router problem has been solved. I am one of two households in Rochester beta testing the latest firmware for the Ubee 3611. One of the corrections in the update is to deal with handshaking errors that resulted in my Linksys delivering DOCSIS 2 performance. I have now got the Linksys back in with full speeds. The new firmware will be pushed out as soon as they make sure it doesn’t break anything else. 2) I learned PowerBoost is disabled for Extreme/Wideband service. The thinking is people want consistent speeds at those levels… Read more »
What does it mean if DS is blue and US is green? I’m assuming that I’m getting D3 download speeds but D2 upload speeds.
Ok, my work order is in. Not until 6/6 due to my schedule. The sales person was definitely not technical, but was very helpful in working out a package deal for me. I currently have basic cable, a cable card, and regular RR. No promotional pricing = $65.65/month. I called looking for the upgrade to Extreme (30/5). I was quoted an upgrade price of an additional $16/month. Not bad! We worked up a package with Digital Cable and Extreme (wife wanted cable back). To get a promotional rate I had to agree to rent a basic cable box from them… Read more »
My service call was this afternoon. The new faster internet speeds are very nice. Testing consistently at over 30 down and about 4.5 up. There were a few moments of confusion at first, as the work order didn’t seem to have the correct details, but that was worked out quickly – the techs were competent and willing and worked hard to make sure things were set up and working as I wanted them. As usual the cable card and TiVo proved to be temperamental, but we got it worked out. I must say that I have been impressed with the… Read more »
Austin, Texas still waiting for these speeds.
*sighs*.
Thinking about switching to Earthlink for the $29.99 promotion, but don’t know if I’ll be able to get the Wideband speeds when they roll out, should I do that.
I decided to switch from Direct TV to Signature Home. I have to say, at least talking with the Signature Home people on the phone that they are better trained than normal. All of my questions were answered and they bumped up my install as well. I ordered this morning and I could have had it installed Tuesday morning, but I opted for Wednesday. The regular installers were booking for Saturday. Signature Home, from a price perspective is a good deal. 50/5 Wideband, Home Phone, 2 HD DVRs, Whole Home DVR, all channels except premium, and extra paid services such… Read more »
All set for Wideband install tomorrow. Going to get the tech to set the modem to Bridge Mode. Hopefully my Buffalo Router will be able to connect with the modem without problems. Thanks for the explanation on the lights. Hopefully I don’t know more than the tech who shows up. Any major benifits to Dual band Wireless Router. I basically have one main router with two access points (big House)?