apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I have only used TW in Manhattan. In my experience, they've had very good customer service. It takes a while to get through to a live person on their customer service line, but they are unfailingly polite, and respond quickly. The service is down very rarely, and I love the DVR box. I also use them for my online cable connection.

I have only ever used Time Warner Cable. As far as I knew, only one company was allowed to wire a building, so it was one or the other.

TW has been fine with me. I can remember maybe one or two outages over many years. And they will usually credit you for any downtime on their part.

The DVR service is awesome, although I do wish they would put more memory in the boxes, and have an easy way to download to DVD. (There might be, but I don't know what it is...)

My brother had DirectTV and he went back to regular cable. He had a lot of problems with the Dish, and was not happy with the service.

rcn blows – it took them 4 tries to install my cable... which is kinda weird since they, you know, are like a cable company.

I've had Cablevision (before they started offering digital), direct TV and TW. Cablevision was the pits ... on Direct TV we ALWAYS lost our signal during certain times of day and during any storm. I've had TW now for about 5 years and wouldn't go back to anything else. Beatrice is right ... they do have really good (and kind) customer service, plus I like that their lines are always open, so you can call anytime is convenient for you.

I've never heard about having only one company in a building ... maybe that's not true everywhere. My downstairs neightbors have RCN. I know, because RCN messed up our connections when they came to install their own for them.

I have had Time Warner forever, no complaints

I had RCN in my last apartment for cable, internet and phone and it was a perfectly miserable experience. Billing was always wrong, customer service was a joke and the technicians actually damaged our phone wires almost beyond reconition and it took almosy six weeks to get them working correctly. Admittedly, this was around 2000-2003 when they were fairly new to NY and more of a start-up operation, so things may have changed for the better.

I have Time Warner (Manhattan) now and it's much better. Any problems I have had have been taken care of promptly and I think it has become easier to get the service appointments faster. And the DVR has totally changed my life.

I've had both RCN and Time Warner within the past 2 years; in my experience, RCN actually has better customer service because they don't use as many subcontractors as TW does, so most of the people they sent to my house were fairly knowledgeable; that being said, I had no complaints about TW during this year's install, as compared to nightmares several years ago when digital cable was pretty new.

Overall, RCN was cheaper and their basic service included lots of channels which you need to move up a tier for on Time Warner (e.g., Bravo, IFC). However, their DVR interface had a lot to be desired - for one thing, it included ads. As of a year ago, their on demand offerings also lagged quite a bit behind what I see on Time Warner now.

There are also some weird differences in programming; for example, even in the deluxe TW tier I still don't have access to the Biography channel, which was part of the basic RCN package. Meanwhile, only TW has NY1, since they run the company.

As for choosing a cable company, for a while TW had an essential monopoly over many areas in New York until RCN sued to get access to their wiring; it then took RCN a while to actually build out their infrastructure, but it's pretty widely available now. Some buildings do choose to have an exclusive cable provider in order to get a discount, however. And if there is no DirectTV dish for your building, you may not be able to get DirectTV if you don't have a clear south-facing window, I believe - plus some buildings may not let you mount the antenna on your sill even if you do. There are details about the requirements on the DirectTV site. Hope this helps! -ec

I've had Time Warner for ages and have few complaits.

Forget about Time Warner - unless you are willing to wait forever for decent service or even a box. They did not show up at the first appointment (4 hour interval). They installed the wrong box on second try 2 weeks later. They replaced the wrong box with one that did not work and installed it incorrectly on the third try. Finally 6 weeks into the process a workman came over, insulted me profusely, dropped oil over the rug (how? i still wonder but he did!) and finally installed the right box. Alltogether I had to wait at home more than 15 hours to get basic working service. Save yourself from the company if you can!

Have had Time Warner in the past for cable and internet, and now have RCN for cable/internet/phone. Time Warner beats RCN for cable hands down. RCN has odd lots of losing certain channels with just green screen, or losing sound with a bit of frequency. Outages on Time Warner were far less often, and usually resolved pretty quickly. Phone service is spotty, seems to have a less clear connection than when I had Verizon for my land line. Another friend with RCN had the same complaint. Internet service has been fine. Making the same choice back in time, I'd probably pay the extra money and stick with Time Warner and avoid the headaches.

Other people have talked about customer service and experiences. Let me give you insight from technical side.

I currently use RCN. Have used TW a while back for 6 months. There are a couple reasons I have stayed with RCN for over 2 years. TW may have changed over the past 2 years, so I may be totally incorrect.

1) With RCN, you don't need a cable box to view most of the basic channels (ie 1-100). Any TV with cable in will be able to tune them. TW scrambles their cable channels beyond 20, I believe. You won't be able to view cable channels with TW without a cable box. The only time this is useful is if you have multiple TVs, such as in a bedroom and living room and you don't use the bedroom tv that much to spend extra money on a cable box. Also, with the Digital TV package, the basic HD channels are unscrambled on RCN.

2) If you have HDTV, you have the option of getting a cable card from RCN for $4.95/month.

3) If you go for RCN and want the DVR, ask the customer service person SPECIFICALLY for a "Motorola DCT6416" cable box. The standard DVR that they give you is the "Motorola DCT6412." The difference between these two is that the 6416 has DVI out. 6412 has HDMI out. Secondly, 6416 is 160 GB vs 120 GBs on the 6412. It is no additional cost, but they will give you the lower one unless you specifically ask for it.

I have RCN and agree that it's nice to not have to deal with a stupid cable box for your basic cable service. I have a Tivo-brand Tivo (superior to TW's DVR in every way) and hooking up a Tivo to a cable box is a pain. RCN DVR was a lot more expensive than TW's when I looked into it, although the price may have come down since then. My set-up was pretty painless, although they didn't tell me ahead of time that I needed to arrange for the technician to get access to the roof. The guy did a great job, though, and I've had no big problems with service since then (two years ago).

I'm afraid I'm opening an argument here, but I have Tivo and I have DVR ... although Tivo has cool functions like recording shows you might like, etc., I actually prefer the TW DVR, as (as of yet) they don't block anything out from recording. That may change, as my DVR I have now already has a lot of different functions than the first one I had.

Actually, I meant that to say DVR doesn't block you from saving shows. At least not yet.

Call RCN and make sure you can get service. TW does have a monopoly on the lines and RCN may not be available to you. Direct TV is not cable, its satellite. Also call Verizon and see if you could get Fiber into your home. Time Warner cable has been solid for me. I am able to get rid of my Verizon land line and pay Vonage $20 a month. Remember that Verizon DSL is slower than TW cable.

DirectTv customer service is the worst on the planet. They sub installation with no supervision or oversight. You can't ever followup on an issue. I use them because of inertia but they are the worst provider in terms of service i have ever seen.

just be glad you get a choice in companies. i live in birmingham alabama and there are 2 cable companies, but only one option is available to residents. its all determined by where you live. you either get cable, or pay for satellite. and lets just say things aren't competitively priced. oh, and my cable company is awful. but it is the lesser evil. satellite is worse.

I hate TW and in my building I'm stuck with it. Takes forever to get thru to a person in customer service...and I found that by using first names only and declining even to give an extension number, that employees are effectively shielded from accountability. Picture began to disintegrate in June on new set, confirmed that it was the cable connection--then the fun began. Since I work, I needed an evening or Sat. appt. How about 4 weeks from today? How about sitting home for 5 hours on a Sat. and the workman doesn't show? Reschedule an appt? Another 3 weeks. Credit for inability to use cable...promised, even by supervisors, never happened. Willingness to stay on the line holding for supervisor--plan on minimum 45 minutes. Situation finally resolved in September--it was Time Warner's fault--deteriorating lines outside the building. Gave up on getting credit-life is too short.

ALL are great.
UNTIL you have a problem.

The Time Warner building at Columbus Circle is wired with RCN. Does that answer your question? Also, DirecTV is great is you love football, otherwise, the new non-TiVo DVR supposedly sucks.

i have time warner with hdtv, dvr. their customer service is very good and the office on 23rd st is run effeciently. there is a new on screen search feature to watch and record movies and shows there are too many channels to watch but i love having choices.

Has anyone tried the new offering from Verizon? I am on the fence about doing all my TV, Internet and phone with either TW or Verizon, and wonder if anyone has any thoughts.

Well, I work at TWC so I'll just fill in some areas where people have questions.

As far as running a building with 2 cable providers, it is rarely done but there are places. Usually their is an agreement in certain towns, via their Cable Franchise Agreement, on which cable company will have rights to give that town service. However, in large cities cable companies will compete in same buildings. Some other towns may have exceptions according to the Franchise.

Our customer service is open 24 hours in most of our locations. We do try and provide absolutely great service when customers call in.

Since I work at TWC I also have it at home, and have only had 1 problem in the past year that was fixed same day.

So I say Time Warner.

Of course, I might be biased. :-P