No, the problem with the SDMB is on their end, usually during peak times. It’s not something I generally get too pissed about. The average load time on this site could be .01 kb/s and I’d still be here. Cable or DSL won’t help. It’s the best thing that ever happened to the mp3 world, though. You can get two songs in the time it takes to listen to one!
My Road Runner installation took about 1 hour including drilling holes in the walls and all that. It was down for 5 minutes once. Other than that, its been perfect. 300k/s when I downloaded Netscape the other day ahhhhhh.
And I just signed up for a cable modem. Hoo boy…
crosses fingers
(Actually, I’m more worried about the installation…I have this gut feeling that the tech is gonna treat me like a moron. Lord knows the salesperson did…)
That’s two positive votes for Road Runner. Any negatives? I’ve considered it, but was daunted by the cost and the fact that they keep track of your surfing for marketing purposes. Bastids.
Good Lord…and people say AOL sucks. What a complete nightmare!
I find this board loads very, very fast at times - right now I can get 50 posts in less time than I can type the word “posts.”
Other times it’s slow; I think the SDMB server is easily overwhelmed.
This Road Runner sounds great. Wish they had it here. I eagerly await the DSL guy.
Yeah, the SDMB gets bogged down during the day a great bit, when all us white-collar workers with net access piss away company time. 
My frustration level is currently maxed out with Bell South. I signed up to be notified as soon as DSL is available in my area (DSL is my only option as my apartment complex gets it’s cable from a third party that buys in bulk and re-sells to apartments, so no cable modem through those bastards). Now Bell South calls and leaves a message telling me that I’m all ready to be a DSL customer AND that they have a great offer: No setup or installation fee and you first two months are a 2 fer 1 deal…GREAT!!! Well after spending tons of time on hold and being transferred to all sorts of different departments they finally tell me that it is not yet available in my area, BUT they will call me when it is. Okay fast forward about one month and my voice mail has a message from Bell South saying DSL is now available…for real this time!!! So I call and get to be on hold and transferred around and told no it’s not. I explain how I’m getting jerked around and they let me talk to the somebody in the DSL department. Now this guy gives it to me straight: Some relay or something in my neighborhood needs a completely new circuit board and the board is backordered and they’ve been waiting on it forever and they have NO IDEA when it’s actually gonna come in and when they can get the guys to go out and install it. Apparently he has been through this with a lot of customers who keep getting told that the service is available when it isn’t. So now, I’m still waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting…
On the upside, I now have direct service numbers to various departments so I don’t have to wait on hold! 
Beep Beep,one more satisfied RoadRunner customer here.
Ayesha and I have had their cable modem service since the end of Febuary 2000.
We have both decided that if we were to lose the cable modem service that we would go offline before we went back to a dialup connection.
In the eight month that we have had cable modem it has been fairly reliable with only 4 full outages (both computers not connecting),1 hardware and 3 network related (1 longer than 36Hrs,2 less than 12Hrs).
Which is pretty good compared to some of the DSL horror story I read about in the newsgroups.
The bad news is that RoadRunner phone tech support is a serious voice-mail clusterfuck,you call the local number and after wading thru the local v-mail hell it kicks you to the national v-mail superhell which kicks you back to the local hell again,(lather,rinse,repeat).
At 2+ Mbps downstream and 384Kbps upstream I can live with it.
Peace
LIONsob
Had RoadRunner in Oregon - virtually no problems, always speedy, always on. Absolutely loved it.
Just moved to Connecticut, am having ATT@home installed - and am very nervous. So far customer service has been confused, to say the least. I checked both on website and via phone to see if available in my neighborhood, both said “no”. Checked several times. Finally was talking to my next door neighbor, who said…“oh yeah, i’ve got cable modem. But I had to call several times to get them to come out.”
So called back and they’re coming out…but am expecting the worst. NOT impressed w/ ATT@home so far.
On the bright side, promotion is free installation and two free months of service…so what am I out?
Another smiling vote for Roadrunner. Seems to fly at the speed of light in Austin. I won’t even begin to talk about the service here at work. We have a proxy server based in the South of France!
Seventeen days to restore my email. Pricks.
Yeah my Roadrunner in Houston is nearly flawless. It was installed for no install or modem cost the next day after I phoned requesting it. It had a few problems when I first installed it (it was pulling the error IP block when I rebooted from Linux->Win98), but I phoned tech support, and I asked the first guy who answered:
“What is your DHCP lease time”
and they said
“Usually about a day”
Wow! The tech support dude knew something! Amazing!
Then I asked him about the error IPs and he admitted to me readily that the part of Houston I was in was having some problems, and the routers were to be switched by the end of the week. And they were.
One time it went down for a day (with the digital cable and all), and I phoned Time Warner (for digital cable). They said they could only get a guy out to me the week after, so I phoned Roadrunner and they had a guy there the next day, and refunded me for two days lost service…
Like the messiah compared to Southwestern Bell DSL. Here is the story.
I freakin’ know one of the people in charge of installation for SWB DSL. I phoned late March to get DSL. She said to me that they were backordered, but she scheduled me for 2.5 weeks time (early April), while the average was 2 months. Great, I think.
I wait 2 weeks. Not a peep. I phone customer service. They have no idea. I phone my friend. She assures me that my order has been placed. The install date comes and goes without a word. I phone back. The order is gone. I place another order. 3 weeks more wait until I can get it. No big deal, I work a lot and it was kind of something I was “treating” myself to. Besides, I have a lot of patience.
Two weeks go by. I get a DSL modem in the mail. Great. Not another peep from SWB. Install date comes and goes. I phone my friend sometime that week to see what’s up. She says that it may already be turned on, plug in the modem and see if it works. I do. It doesn’t. I phone again the next day. Transfer to tech support. A hour on hold. Tech support comes clean. He says that there is a problem with back-order of parts, and that I will have to wait another 2 weeks. This is early May. In mid-May I will be going overseas for 2 weeks. I tell this to the guy. He moves me to the next date – late June. Wonderful.
I go to South Africa. I come back. Still no DSL. Install date, you guessed it, comes and goes. I phone and bitch like hell. They say they can do nothing about it. This is a Saturday. I phone Roadrunner. They are there on Monday morning. By 10AM Monday, I have cable modem. It is now late October, and I have a DSL modem still in my closet. No word from SWB…
This is actually nothing compared to my friend. His apartment complex uses OpTel, not Time Warner Cable, so he can’t get Roadrunner. He didn’t have a friend who works for DSL. He started before me (in March). He scheduled install dates. He got two DSL modems. He had 3 install dates missed. After the third one (by now July, each time he phoned was an hour on hold), the tech support guy says
“Oh, I’m sorry, DSL is not availible in your area…”
He goes apeshit. He calms down. A month later, he is in the leasing office for his apartment complex, and he sees lots of tenants have DSL modems coming in for them (packages are picked up from the leasing office). He laughs, to the apartment manager
“They are so screwed – DSL isn’t availible here.”
She says
“Yeah it is, lots of people have it. It just depends on which tech support guy you speak to.”
He goes apeshit. He calms down. Hour on the phone to SWB DSL. This time, he convinces them that it is availible in his complex. So, he gets another install date. So far, it is October, and he doesn’t have DSL. They have missed another 2 install dates.
Wonder-freakin-ful.
Here are some Forbes articles. Our experiences are not unique. :
Might wanna check out http://www.rhua.org - The Rogers @Home User’s Association. Just found them two days ago.
Not sure they’ve been effective, but it can’t hurt to be a part of the revolution.
RickJay: I checked the link(s). It’s nice to see that we’re not alone in this.
One of the stories says that we’ll get a rebate, but only if we apply for it. Well, fuck me! Isn’t that good of them. Pricks.
Had Roadrunner here in Akron, Ohio(first in the nation with Roadrunner) for about a year now. Down time of 1 hr. on two occasions. Never another problem.
I’m waiting for MediaOne to get RoadRunner service here on Sanibel, and I’m looking forward to it, but…
RoadRunner also makes note of each site you visit for marketing purposes and God knows what else. Which is why I’m going to look into local DSL first.