RCN has lots of bandwidth, why can't I use it?
Written: Nov 18 '01 (Updated Jan 18 '02)
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Pros: Really fast connection, all in one provider (internet, phone, cable), price
Cons: All in one provider, all-day installation, server restrictions, dhcp
The Bottom Line: Great speed, lots of cable channels and a good local phone deal. Too bad RCN insists on restricting it's broadband users from getting the full benefit of the service.
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| cvilly's Full Review: RCN Cable |
So, I've seen the RCN guys in the neighborhood presumably running fiber all over the place. I get a flyer on my front door saying that I can get local phone, cable and Internet access for about $110 a month with no contracts to sign and no upfront costs. Sounds great! I set up an installation for Friday morning.
Friday morning, 9 am the RCN installer is at my door. Right on time. He says the installation will take about three hours. I'm a bit shocked, but okay. Six hours later the installation is finished and my installer looks like he's about to drop dead from working six hours straight without a break. He had to work six hours because of all sorts of provisioning problems with RCN. He couldn't get the cable box to work and couldn't get the Internet access to work. All of these problems seemed to stem from RCN's technical support department responsible for provisioning lines. I got to spend an entire day in the house with the cable guy. Fun stuff. He said that this kind of thing happens all the time because the people at the other end don't know what they are doing and that RCN is just growing too fast.
Once everything is up and running, it seems pretty good. My Internet connection is _fast_ at about 1.3MB download and 600Kbps upload. I'm especially excited about the upload speed as I'd like to stream my MP3 collection to my office as well as run a personal web server. I know that RCN uses DHCP and so my IP address is likely to change often. I don't like it, but I accept it as a cost of getting really fast up and download speeds. I get my stream up and running along with my we site. I ask a friend to hit my site to make sure it's up. "Nope." Hmm. I must have misconfigured something. "Try again," I say. "Nope again." Something is wrong here. I consult www.dslreports.com looking for clues. Sure enough, RCN is blocking port 80 in an attempt to keep the Code Red Virus from spreading. This makes me quite unhappy. I don't run an M$ web server, so Code Red isn't really a threat for me. Oh well, I'll just run my web server on port 8080 until they lift the block on 80. Nope. How about 8000? Nope. How about 980? Nope. Nothing seems to work. From what I can tell RCN is blocking all outbound HTTP traffic or a very large range of ports. Either way, it means no server for me. This also seems to affect syncing my Palm device with Yahoo! Running through RCN I am unable to sync, presumably because the syncing process uses HTTP to send data to Yahoo! Blocking ports has all sorts of ramifications that aren't immediately apparent, even for people who aren't running webservers.
This begs the question. Why give your customers 600-700K of upload speed that they can do nothing with? I decide to contact support and ask them about the block and when they are going to lift it. The response is indefinitely and by the way RCN forbids servers of _any_ kind. Hmm. That doesn't make much sense. After all, that would mean RCN customers are forbidden from using popular services like Napster and Morpheus and AIM and Yahoo! Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger, all of which have some server component in the form of file sharing or Webcam or voice. Those are the very services that most people get a broadband connection for. What gives?
It seems that RCN goes out of it's way to tie the hands of it's broadband customers. You can't run any kind of server, no matter if the traffic is practically zero (bandwidth that you paid for, by the way). You also can't change the computer that is connected to the service without jumping through hoops. That's because RCN tracks your MAC address, a unique address that identifies your computer on the network. A change in your MAC address means you have to have support reset your connection and ask you what you're up to. I hate feeling like I'm guilty until proven innocent when I call technical support.
The cable TV seems to be pretty good. With the Resilink Gold package you get a boat-load of channels along with roughly 12 HBO and 12 Cinemax channels. Quite a deal. The TV Guide onscreen guide is nothing short of annoying. You can't see more than one timeslot at a time when viewing the guide. Pretty worthless. Also, the system doesn't seem to update itself properly, so as you surf channels you see a lot of "To Be Announced" messages instead of the program information. Another annoying "feature" is the message system. You get a little light on your receiver if there is an important system message from RCN. Most of the messages turn out to be ads in disguise. Ooh! I have a message from RCN! "Watch the Tyson - Shlomo fight on November 28th!" How truly lame. That's the other thing that drives me nuts about the TV Guide OSD. It's loaded with ads. They can't show much program info because the screen is peppered with ads. Still, I can bypass the box for most channels and I get a lot of channels.
The phone service has been decent. I had one service call right after installation because the volume on my line was low. A tech came out right on time and was friendly and fixed the problem right away. It was a good experience. There are some little quirks I've noticed with the phone service. Sometimes it takes a while to get a dialtone. When call waiting beeps it's pretty loud and you can hear white noise bleeding in. Also, their caller ID service just shows the number and not the name. The name is an upgrade to Caller ID Deluxe. That's just cheesy. Of course, the Resilink Gold package gets you 10 phone features that include Caller ID Deluxe, Call Waiting Caller ID, Call Waiting, Voicemail and others. Pretty nice. The kicker is that the local calling area is expanded by leaps and bounds. Suddenly many local toll calls are now toll free. Pretty nice. That saves me several bucks a month and could save the phone-addict 10 or 20 bucks a month.
Overall, I am happy with most of the RCN offering. I've got a ton of cable channels, cheap local phone service with lots of features and a very fast Internet connection. The problem is that the server restrictions are probably a deal-breaker for me. I haven't decided to dump them yet, but I'm giving it serious consideration. Also, having all of these services from one provider is a bit scary. If we lose our cable, we also lose phone and Internet. Yikes!
-- UPDATE --
Since writing this review I have had 2 problems with phone line quality and three Internet access problems. The average turnaround time for Internet access problems (which have all been related to their network) is at least 24 hours. Not very good if you rely on your connection to work from home. The wait for telephone repair is generally several days unless you want an all day appointment and who wants that? I reiterate my No recommendation.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 110.00/mo.
Version Number or Year: 2001
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Epinions.com ID:
cvilly
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Location: California
Reviews written: 36
Trusted by: 5 members
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