I just had an unexpected surprise after a phone call to Time Warner today about my current Road Runner pricing. I’ve recently been going over my current monthly expenses and paying especially close attention to the recurring monthly service bills I have. Of those I was currently paying $39.95 a month for Road Runner Standard service cable internet through Time Warner. I had recently seen them advertise the same service for new customers for $29.95 for 12 months. I know that I could save a considerable amount of money by switching back to DSL which I had used a few years back.
I could currently get basic DSL through At&T for $15 a month if I wanted to. But I’m a speed freak and don’t think I could downgrade to a slower speed. They’re closest product to compete with Road Runner Standard is their “Elite” package which runs $34.95 a month with downstream speeds up to 6Mbps and upstream speeds up to 768Kbps. Unfortunately I’m too far from the Central Office and don’t have this service available to me. They don’t offer anyting as fast as the Road Runner Extreme package.
Before
So I decided to call Time Warner to see if I could lower my bill to the promotional price. After a few idle threats I made of jumping ship to DSL for lower pricing to no avail the customer service rep mentioned another option. She said they could offer me an upgrade to Road Runner Extreme as a “new” customer for 12 months at the same price I was currently paying. She explained how upgrading to the “Extreme” service would increase my downstream speed from 6 Mbps to 10Mbps and would increase my upstream from 512Kpbs to 1Mbps for no additional cost. My eyebrows raised and my brain couldn’t transmit the words to my mouth fast enough to tell the rep “sign me up”. I then ask how long it will be before I receive this upgraded service and she said as soon as we get off the phone.
After
I quckly made way to my network closet and turned the modem off from the front panel and ran a speed test. Hmmm…I didn’t seem to see a difference. I decided to unplug the power cord for a few seconds and try again. After my modem was ready I made my way back to my favorite site to run a speed test and BOOM talk about a speed bump. You can see the before and after images. So it’s a pretty substantial boost. Especially for free.
So in review, if you are a current Time Warner “Standard” cable internet subscriber (although I’d imagine they offer this as an upgrade from their “Basic” to “Standard” service as well) in Southern California (not sure other available areas) call customer service and ask if you could get in on the new customer promotion to upgrade to “Extreme” service for 12 months for the same price. I also want to point out that the “Extreme” service varies by area and there is a slightly slower version that runs 8Mbps downstream and 512Kbps upstream if the faster service isn’t available.
Update: According to this thread on the Fatwallet forums some existing customers have been able to get the Standard service for $29.95 after some creative methods dealing with customer service.
Cool beans. I might try this one out. My main issue with cable is migrating to digital. I’d like to, but then I think my DVR solution (XP Media Center) becomes inoperable.
Cool beans. I might try this one out. My main issue with cable is migrating to digital. I’d like to, but then I think my DVR solution (XP Media Center) becomes inoperable.
Cool beans. I might try this one out. My main issue with cable is migrating to digital. I’d like to, but then I think my DVR solution (XP Media Center) becomes inoperable.
ya i currently have road runner premium and its down speed is 8mbps and my dow speed is 512 and like im im for sure not getting that speed i checked on speedtest.net and it said my down speed is just 3m and my dowspeed is 512 but does the location i live have a effect on the speed because i live in a small town and they said i will get that speed. But i was think because recently Time warner cable and comcast baought adelphia and now adelphia is time warner where i live do the people slow down my connection just being on because i heard the more people on the less conection we had because cable you share internet while DSL doesnt. Long story short i want my connection to be as fast like they said.
ya i currently have road runner premium and its down speed is 8mbps and my dow speed is 512 and like im im for sure not getting that speed i checked on speedtest.net and it said my down speed is just 3m and my dowspeed is 512 but does the location i live have a effect on the speed because i live in a small town and they said i will get that speed. But i was think because recently Time warner cable and comcast baought adelphia and now adelphia is time warner where i live do the people slow down my connection just being on because i heard the more people on the less conection we had because cable you share internet while DSL doesnt. Long story short i want my connection to be as fast like they said.
ya i currently have road runner premium and its down speed is 8mbps and my dow speed is 512 and like im im for sure not getting that speed i checked on speedtest.net and it said my down speed is just 3m and my dowspeed is 512 but does the location i live have a effect on the speed because i live in a small town and they said i will get that speed. But i was think because recently Time warner cable and comcast baought adelphia and now adelphia is time warner where i live do the people slow down my connection just being on because i heard the more people on the less conection we had because cable you share internet while DSL doesnt. Long story short i want my connection to be as fast like they said.
WoW i got to try that out.. Hmm Road runner say im only getting 5mbps but im really getting 8.8mbps lol. Downspeed is only 490 though. Im still going to try getting the “Extreme” package lol cuz i want the fastest connection possible :)
WoW i got to try that out.. Hmm Road runner say im only getting 5mbps but im really getting 8.8mbps lol. Downspeed is only 490 though. Im still going to try getting the “Extreme” package lol cuz i want the fastest connection possible :)
i have extreme its great as long as not peak hours then it blows ass, 220kb down 950kb up, non peak 7.5mb down 950 kb up, i called the president of my region stirred up some serious shit, now i have had techs at my house, problem stil lnot solved but they do agree its not me duh!!!!
i have extreme its great as long as not peak hours then it blows ass, 220kb down 950kb up, non peak 7.5mb down 950 kb up, i called the president of my region stirred up some serious shit, now i have had techs at my house, problem stil lnot solved but they do agree its not me duh!!!!
road runner speeds suck SOOO bad compared to comcast.. comcast I get 25-28mb download and 3mb up. Unfortunately the only thing in the new area I moved to is road runner. They should be renamed to road slug.
road runner speeds suck SOOO bad compared to comcast.. comcast I get 25-28mb download and 3mb up. Unfortunately the only thing in the new area I moved to is road runner. They should be renamed to road slug.
hahaha thats slow if u ask me ….im hitting 18-30mb per sec through rr and at the end of the yr when they come out with the extreme package thats suppose to be 55mbps download and 2mb upload we will hit transfer speeds of 7mbps and upload around 250kbps user to user
hahaha thats slow if u ask me ….im hitting 18-30mb per sec through rr and at the end of the yr when they come out with the extreme package thats suppose to be 55mbps download and 2mb upload we will hit transfer speeds of 7mbps and upload around 250kbps user to user
You are getting ripped off. Those numbers that were quoted for extreme are standard in my area. Extreme in Albany NY runs 5Mbs up and 35Mbps down.
I still have standard and am getting better speeds than you at Extreme. But! I pay $20 more a month for standard.
Thanks for the info Sun…actually this post is now showing pretty old stats as the speed has greatly improved since I wrote it. I just ran a test which you can see here http://www.speedtest.net/result/969865594.png and got 23.14Mbs down and 1.66Mbs up so things have gotten much better.
I have the Road Runner Turbo. They claim 15Mbps down and 5Mbps up. It cost me $29.99 /month. As you can see, It’s MUCH faster than they claim…
Hello everyone, TW will not let me use a motorola eXtreme modem I bought myself because ubee sucks. I’m paying for extreme and getting basic speeds no higher than a 4mbps, the ubee I have now is the third one and speeds still slow as hell. In my city (el paso Tx) all they use is ubee modems. Does any one have any ideas on what I can do about this? It’s been a month and TW has done nothing but make appointments and do not fix the problem. Plus now I will not know if this new modem could have worked. TW says extreme can give u speeds of 20 to 30mbps and I say bullshit!!
Can someone help?
ubee modems are crap the ping fluctuated too much and bandwidth spikes not in a good way… Speeds never stay stable and i drop connection from wi-fi the best thing to do is call them and have them bring you an arris modem with built in wi-fi. It works great! The ubee is not compatible with xbox’s. 2 xboxs on the same ubee router is terrible. And I got kicked from live constantly and when i wasn’t getting kicked i was seeing strange lags in game that made the games un playable. Hope this helps
I live in NC. I’ve been ripped off by paying $57/month for standard. I called them and complained about it and they offered me upgrade to extreme, $49/month for 12 month. What the heck. I upgraded it right away. They just rip you off, incrasing the price every year without any notice, unless you call them.
It depends where you live and what they have rolled out only certain areas have the 20+ speeds , i live in southeast texas and i am signed up for 30mbps speed only getting 21.5 but recently they were doing work and the ready light turned blue meaning the modem is in docsis 3 mode which is required for the highest speeds the green light means your in 2.0 mode cap is 21.5 . price also matters where you live because of taxes and higher maintence costs