Some Time Warner Cable customers have received e-mail notifications of a security breach involving legacy Road Runner Safe Storage accounts:

Dear Customer,

We are writing to inform you of a recent security incident involving your Road Runner Safe Storage account, which may have exposed your password. Recently, an unauthorized third party accessed one of our databases. As soon as we learned of the attack, we limited all access to the database and thus the vulnerability was eliminated. However, as a result of this incident, your account credentials may have been exposed.

The database that was accessed contained information you would have entered when you first created your account, including your name, e-mail address, user ID and password, your hint question/answer, and if you ever purchased more storage, possibly your billing address. Please be assured that no credit card numbers were accessed as a result of the attack and that none of the content that you previously stored with us could have been accessed.

Road Runner Safe Storage is a remote data storage and backup service provided to Time Warner Cable broadband customers that offered 500MB of free, “secure online storage.” The service is operated by Symantec/SwapDrive.com but appears to have been largely forgotten, with no apparent functioning provision for new accounts to register. Time Warner Cable discontinued its “Road Runner” branding earlier this year.

Long standing customers who enrolled in the service years ago may find a copy of the notification e-mail either in their inbox, or in the case of Gmail, in the spam folder.

Customers don’t care who wins, because they don’t need faster broadband, claims Bright House Networks.

Bright House Networks thinks customers do not need or want faster broadband speeds and have no plans to match newly-announced speed increases offered by its competitor Verizon FiOS.

The cable operator, which serves central Florida, is downplaying the importance of Verizon’s upgraded service which will bring 300Mbps broadband to cities like Orlando and Tampa.

“Research indicates that the vast majority of customers do not have interest in these types of speeds for their homes, not to mention the potential expense,” Bright House spokesman Joe Durkin told the Tampa Bay Times. “Our network can deliver these speeds if we felt there was a residential market for it.”

Bright House speeds currently max out at 40Mbps. The cable operator says customers seeking faster service won’t face the sticker shock Verizon delivers for their fastest speed package, which comes in at $200 a month. Bright House sells its fastest package at “an additional $15 or $30 a month,” Durkin said.

Durkin believes most consumers can survive just fine with a slower speed package, even with multiple wireless devices sharing the connection.

“Whether you are downloading music or streaming video to your laptop or iPad, you can do it all with Road Runner Lightning,” he said.

Bright House retains the Road Runner brand for its broadband service that Time Warner Cable retired earlier this year. Bright House has partnered with Time Warner to handle programming and certain other contract negotiations.

Time Warner Cable's old branding for broadband

Time Warner Cable is nearing the end of a licensing deal that has allowed the company to use a familiar Warner Bros. animated character to promote their broadband service.

The company has spent at least a year transitioning customers away from the Road Runner brand name, now simply referring to their broadband product as “Internet” or, in some markets, “HSI” — High Speed Internet.

The “brand refresh” comes as Time Warner tries to associate all of its products and services around its traditional “eye-ear” logo, according to company spokeswoman Jeannette Castaneda.

Licensing the Road Runner character as the broadband service’s mascot has also been expensive, and the continued need to use the character to educate consumers about the speed benefits of cable broadband over DSL has diminished in importance.

The new look

The transition away from the Road Runner brand has been ongoing since last summer, but Broadband Reports notes numerous markets will see the brand and logo eliminated completely effective May 19th.  The company is also using the occasion to adjust pricing and tiers of its broadband service.  Hardest hit will be standalone broadband-only customers, who will now pay $53.95 a month for Time Warner’s standard 10/1Mbps Internet service. New customers will also pay a modem rental fee of $2.50 a month. Standalone Turbo (20/2Mbps) customers will pay $73.95 for their Internet service.

Time Warner Cable’s a-la-carte pricing for broadband is designed to make their bundled service offerings more attractive in comparison. The company will sell you Internet-only service for $73.95, or sell you a triple play package of phone, Internet, and television service for just $16.04 per month more on a 12-month promotion.

Broadband Reports‘ source lists pricing for one unspecified market:

• $53.95 for Time Warner’s 10/1Mbps Standard Internet
• $20.00 additional for 20/2 Turbo
• $30.00 additional for 30/5 Extreme
• $50.00 additional for 50/5 Ultimate
• $29.95 for 1/1 Lite (Usually a retention only offer)
• $42.95 for 3/1 Basic

Customers can avoid paying regular pricing by bundling multiple services together, getting a customer retention deal when threatening to cancel service, or bouncing between a six-month new customer promotion available from Earthlink over Time Warner Cable and the cable company’s own broadband promotional offer, good for 12 months. Both cost $29.99 a month in many markets.

Time Warner Cable's marketing machine pushes customers towards multi-service bundles. New customers pay even less.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Road Runner 2002 Ad.mp4[/flv]

A Time Warner Cable Road Runner advertisement from 2002.  (1 minute)

[Update 10/2/2012: If you are visiting here to explore Time Warner Cable’s new $3.95 modem rental fee, please visit this article for the latest information and reviews, should you wish to purchase your own modem to replace the one you currently rent from the cable company.]

In mid-March, Time Warner Cable added a $2.50 monthly modem rental fee for all new broadband customers, but existing customers not already subject to modem fees will be exempt from paying it.

The new equipment fee applies even in areas where cable modems have always come free with the cable company’s broadband service.  Until this month, customers in some areas including Rochester, N.Y., could not purchase their own cable modem equipment, but that restriction has now been dropped.  In areas where modems always came free with service, some customers have told Stop the Cap! the cable operator cannot provision their new modems until after April 1st.  Call your local Time Warner Cable office for exact information applying in your local area.

At $30/yr, consumers are advised it may be more affordable to purchase your own cable modem, especially if you are comfortable installing it yourself.  Cable modems are at least as reliable as wireless routers, and even easier to configure.

Time Warner Cable’s current promotion page offers six months of free modem rental to new customers, with fees starting the seventh month.  The cable operator supports a large number of different modems.  In the northeastern United States, Time Warner will provision any of these units (you can find your area’s list of approved equipment on Time Warner’s Internet Support page):

Prices range from under $50 for the DOCSIS 2 Motorola Surfboard SB5101, to north of $130 for Motorola’s DOCSIS 3 SURFboard Gateway SBG6580 on Amazon.com.

We called Time Warner customer service in Rochester for information about the modem rental vs. purchase option and learned:

• The modem rental fee only applies to DOCSIS 2.0 equipment suitable for Road Runner Lite, Standard or Turbo service (1-20Mbps);
• Road Runner Extreme (30/5Mbps) and Wideband (50/5Mbps) still includes free rental of the DOCSIS 3 cable modem and the company does not currently support customer-owned DOCSIS 3 modems in this area;
• Support options for customer-owned equipment are obviously more limited, but should your cable modem fail, you can quickly rent a replacement and pick it up at your local cable store to get back online fast;

We also learned Time Warner is running promotions in many areas pitching existing Standard and Turbo Service customers six months of Road Runner Extreme for just $10 more a month for six months. If you need 50/5Mbps Wideband service, signing up for Signature Home at $199 a month is often the best value when combining phone, Internet, and cable TV service.

Because different regions handle cable modem equipment and promotions differently, it is important to call your local office prior to ordering any equipment to verify it can be provisioned and to obtain correct information about any promotions or pricing.

Readers: Please find our 2015 Guide to Getting a Better Deal from Time Warner Cable here. You will find the latest negotiating strategies and deal information in that updated article. 

Time Warner Cable just won’t let you say goodbye, if they can help it.

A year ago, your editor fought for a better deal from the cable company that has served him since the 1980s.  With a tough economy and downsizing, paying a cable bill that was approaching $175 a month in early 2011 for ‘all their best’ was simply no longer an option.  Time Warner Cable’s customer retentions office responded with a promotion that slashed the bill to just $88.44 for Turbo Internet, cable-TV, and unlimited “digital phone” service with nationwide calling.  Incidental charges included leasing a whole house DVR ($7.04), a second cable box ($6.84), $1 for “digital programming” and $0.34 for the remote control.

When the cable operator introduced DOCSIS 3 broadband speed upgrades, an additional $20 a month brought 30/5Mbps speeds.  The total — $123.66 (before taxes and fees).  That’s a whole lot less for a great deal more service.

When the promotion ended in February, the rate shot back up to $160, but $7.95 of that was for a year of Showtime at a special promotional price.  Showtime was destined for the cancel corner anyway (we didn’t watch more than two hours of anything on Showtime in the last year), but even without it, the rate increase was on the steep side.

So we complained.

Unlike last year, which resulted in considerable confusion and arguing back and forth with different representatives to find the best deal, this year we let Time Warner’s social media representatives do the hard work for us.  Within 24 hours, our rate for all of the same services, plus a special promotion that includes HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, and The Movie Channel at no additional charge, brought the bill down even lower than we managed last year: $102.33 a month for a year.  That includes the 30/5Mbps Road Runner Extreme, Whole House DVR, and one extra cable box.  It doesn’t include taxes and fees, which typically add another $6.50 to the bill.

The whole process was painless, and you can follow in our footsteps if you have a Twitter account:

Step One: Tweet Time Warner (Note the Twitter address has changed from @twcablehelp to @TWC_help):

The key phrase in whatever Tweet you send is to include: @TWC_help, which brings you to their social media customer service representatives.  I also “followed” @TWC_help so I could see how active they were.  During business hours, you should expect to see a reply like this within the hour:

For those new to Twitter, “DM” refers to a “direct message” — a private Tweet seen only by the intended recipient.  I finally found the menu option that allows me to send a “direct message” on Twitter’s page for Time Warner Cable:

Note the red box around the option on the top right.  By clicking that you will see a drop down menu that includes an option to “Direct Message” TWC_help.  You will want to include your Time Warner Cable account number (as seen on your bill) and include your contact phone number.

Within 24-48 hours, a senior retentions specialist should call you to negotiate a better offer for your service.  Make sure you answer those unfamiliar caller ID calls!  But before they call, visit Time Warner Cable’s website and note any currently running new customer promotions.  Also check to see if the competition is offering anything even lower.  Those prices are typically the starting point for your negotiations, and the company should have little trouble meeting them.  However, customers with a poor payment record or past due account may discover the company less willing to negotiate.  Bring account balances current before negotiating for a lower rate.

Some Time Warner Cable territories offer “price protection agreements” or term contracts that lock customers into 1-2 years of service.  Negotiating around these contracts can be difficult to impossible.

An alternative contact method is to direct e-mail Time Warner at: [email protected] (don’t forget the “.” in twcable.help).

The total time spent this year on finding a better deal that will save us $58 a month — $696 a year — about five minutes, far less than the time it took to write this article.  Give it a try and let us know in the comments what kind of deals you can negotiate.