UPDATE: 10:30pm – In the comments, a Time Warner Cable support rep left a link to the “long reply”, which is precisely six words longer and 32 characters shorter than the statement I posted previously (below). The difference between the new one and the old one is that apparently TWC got a handle on it 55 hours ago:
As of 6PM EST on February 24th, we have amplified and expanded early detection and response to this sort of problem.
So now, what’s the excuse? Service is still awful. Is this a harbinger of net neutrality collapse?
Original Post:
so where’s my free month of service? yeah, thought so…
During the past week, hackers have launched a series of attacks on Time Warner Cable’s servers. Time Warner Cable is working with law enforcement agencies to resolve these crimes.
As a result of these attacks, you may have experienced a temporary “outage” when attempting to surf the Web, including an intermittent “page cannot be displayed” error message. The outages did not result in services being 100% unavailable; and were limited to sporadic timeouts which appeared to be random events. Some users may have experienced a total disconnect. These types of attacks are not uncommon, especially for a network as large as ours. We suspect that the attackers are using “zombie computers,” or hijacking unsuspecting subscribers’ machines to perpetrate the attack without its owner’s knowledge.
All of us at Time Warner Cable take these attacks extremely seriously. As previously mentioned, we are working with the appropriate law enforcement agencies that specialize in investigating these types of crimes. We will pursue prosecution of all perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law. We apologize for the inconvenience that these attacks may have caused and encourage you to report any suspicious activity. Instructions for reporting security abuse are located at http://help.rr.com.
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
night four. ugh.
check this link out for the full response about this issue: http://a.longreply.com/49885
With regard to botnets and zombie computers, there’s absolutely no excuse for anyone to not be running updated anti-malware software. There are plenty of good programs available for free.
I am laughing because I had a similarly titled post on these very pages a while back. Here is the story:
Did everyone see where Diane Feinstein tried to nuke net neutrality in a amendment she tried to get into the stimulus bill. WTF!
With these tough financial times, I’ve been tempted to get TWC’s “All the Best” package, but something told me not to trust them with ALL my communications. I knew my hunch was right on! I had a feeling that they sucked after their takeover of Aldephia–I’ll stick to what’s left of my old local service: jetlink, docknet, and now, uh…Aerioconnect. Never had a problem with ‘em in 14 years! I wanted to get OjaiNet to keep my $ & server local, but it seems that they had some serious problems, too. I’m thinking of swtiching to VenturaHighSpeed just to keep my $ and server local–can anyone recommend or have any problems with them?
Talk to Jon at PCPros/OjaiBroadband for a local solution. More to come, including some details on the Ojai.net situation.
I’m switching to Earlink DSL directly – I’m just going to by pass Warner all together…they’ve always had problems… Warner uses Earlink for their cable internet…
Hey #8, keep us posted on that because I had Earthlink DSL before TWC and it was just terrible (way worse than TWC). But that was a while ago.
I just cancelled earthlink after going online to cnet reviews – customers satisfaction is exceptionally low , although cnet gives it a good review, check it out…I’m checking out comcast and aol…
After checking them all out – I came to the conclusion that time warner is probably the best for residential in this area…I just upped the speed so we’ll see what happens….their customer service is actually great…a live person in no time…
I can’t figure out why some folks have had problems with Earthlink. I’ve been with ‘earthlink’ since the early days of dial-up & the Internet, back when they were Netcom then Mindspring and now Earthlink (aka the 1990’s) – and through my wanderings across the country (East Coast to West). I have had their DSL for 3 years now and it works great (Upper Ojai). Initially I was put off when their support was shipped to India (aka ‘verbal’ communication problems), but that has greatly improved the last year or two. As a long time subscriber I would highly recommend them. They have been ‘up’ for me when other DSL systems have gone ‘down’ and you can reach their support 24X7 – they always have someone answering the phones to help – not the horror stories I’ve heard about Verizon and others. There was never a need to have someone come to my home and hook me up – and when my DSL was first installed they worked with the ‘local’ phone company to resolve substation issues they discovered with the phone company and kept me posted on the status daily through phone calls (the phone company wasn’t so kind in giving me the status in their efforts – in fact they had to repair/replace their equipment at the substation).
When I spoke to Earthlink, the fastest they had in this area was 3mbps DSL – Time Warner has 10mbps to 15 mbps…so Earthlink is limited in our area…but please correct me if I’m wrong…
#10- I occasionally get 20-30 mbps with TWC.
I am signed up for the highest level of residential service because I do quite a bit of (mostly legal) downloading of large files.
I have been dismayed with the recent outages and attacks on their servers.
I have never felt comfortable recommending earthlink to my clients.
My main objection has always been the large anount of “bloatware” they install at setup.
It is not necessary but most users don’t understand that.
I just checked my speed – I’m running at 100 mbps (using a 2GB network card).
Also the comment on the ‘bloatware’ is true – Earthlink calls it ‘TotalAccess’ – I don’t run it and haven’t run it in years (smile).
On initial installation I was running slow, but that was the phone company problem I mentioned in my preivous post. The speed was limited by the phone company equipment problems not Earthlink.
One more thing to consider – I’m in Upper Ojai – phone company is Verizon. Ojai’s phone company is AT&T. Your slow speed my be an AT&T issue that could be (hopefully) as easy to fix as mine.
GS-
are u sure about that 100mbps?
it may be a one-time “burst”.
but to sustain that, particularly over DSL line seems improbable.
what are you using to determine your speed?
i use the speedtest utility at speakeasy.net
I’ve got a question – MK said ‘highest level of residential service’ – are there pkgs priced by DSL access speed or are we talking bundled pkgs with phone, etc added? Like I said I’m a long-time Earthlink person and haven’t been shopping for a while. Right now I’m paying a flat $47.90/mo which may be higher than the competition.
Any-who….thought I’d throw in another company to consider – DSLextreme (aka dslextreme.com) if you are price shopping for DSL. I have a friend in the South Bay that has them and is extremely happy with their service and no-down time.
Just something to consider, but I think all your speed issues are related to AT&T equipment problems.
MK – Well hush my mouth!
Just ran both speakeay and digital landing test – yep well below the average (sigh).
Speakeasy’s test between here and DC resulted in:
Download Speed: 1536 kbps (192 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 359 kbps (44.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Digital Landing resulted in:
Download Speed: 1507 kbps (188.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 349 kbps (43.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency/Ping: 339 ms
Now I’m curious – what results did you get on your PC from either of these tests…and your running TW right?
at Speakeasy:
Download Speed: 9851 kbps (1231.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 975 kbps (121.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
it’s a slow day at TWC
My last response got hung for Tyler’s review – incorrect hyperlink syntax (sigh).
So while Tyler is OKing it (smile)here is another good site for testing if you didn’t know about it….
http://www.dslreports.com
GS – there are no comments in the queue. Bad HTML shouldn’t hold up a comment. They do get held up if there are, I think, 3 or more hyperlinks. But again, there’s nothing for me to free up. Huh, sorry.
Tyler – I wasn’t picking on you, I just got a chuckle that I received a screen saying my post had been sidelined for review. I think you do a great job here!
Everybody else on this thread – THANKS! MK opened my eyes! I called Earthlink and raised a little H… They are upgrading my speed to 3mb download at no additional cost. After a little more research the best speed I can hope for living in the ‘sticks’ (Upper Ojai) is 3MB download unless I want to go satellite. So Thanks everyone for my Ah-Ha moment today (smile).
I wasn’t feeling picked on, just giving you the heads up, GS. Cheerio, Tyler
Mk, I just upgraded to twc their 10 mbps residential internet….I just did a speed test on speakeasy.net and it said: download12538kbps and
upload 481- what the hell does that mean? thanks to anyone who can tell me… I’m wondering whether I should just go back to my basic internet …
Help #24-
That means you are getting what you are paying for…
DO NOT USE / Subscribe to Time Warner Cable High Speed Internet.
They SUCK, connections off and on intermittently. Customer service always ask to restart the modem / comp, basic troubleshooting. The problem is ON THEIR END. DO NOT USE Time Warner Cable High Speed Internet. You’ve been warned.
I definately had the same thing with Time Warner as the other comment. We’ll be there from 8-12, 12 came I had to leave. I had a voice mail at like 2 stating we’re here, if we don’t here from you in 10 min you’ll have to reschedule. so I call, the lady basically said by that time it was too late to send them back and would reschedule… for the next to weeks my options were 8-5. so i pick the nearest date that had a four hour period and she goes ok, on that day we can do 8-12 or 10-12 which would you prefer? are you serious? of course i’d rather be locked in my home for only 2 hours rather than 4. this time they came and did whatever i needed. now i’m canceling and need to return my box and i do. and she’s like you need to return your modem. i’m like i used my own modem. she’s like thats not what i’m showing. so i go home find the modem which i believe to be mine. and i just so happen to have my original invoice when the came out to hook me up that shows i own the modem. i’m going down there today, to show them. i’m so fed up with them.
That’s never a good experience to have to go through. I’m a consumer and an employee with DISH and I have never heard of this before. I had my box go out and I called right away to see what was going on. I paid my bill and had no bad weather. Well of course I had to wait for my new box to come in and that took about 5 days but there was no way I was going to pay for time I didn’t use my service. They told me to wait to get any credit till I knew my problem was fixed. I put in the new box and of course it worked. When I called to active it I let her know what was going on and I need time with out service. She gave me my time without service and everything has been fine since. So I know if they did ever have this problem and I did not have my service I would receive time with out service. I believe every company should do this because it’s not the customer fault.
Recently they laughed off the fact that I was making it my personal agenda for nyone and everyone with issues concerning billing, customer service or whatever contact their president directly.
So here it goes!
Having trouble with TWC, well they told me it is impossible to reach the top directly and get real answers. So, Contact this guy and by all means attach my name: Steven Yaniz
Time Warner Cable President: glenn.britt@twcable.com