Road Runner Time Warner Cable

By: Todd R. Moore

Created in 1995, Road Runner Time Warner Cable quickly became a national leader in the providing of high speed internet services. As a division of Time Warner Inc., the system uses Time Warner Cable and some other cable companies to provide the high speed service to its customers.

Currently, Road Runner Time Warner Cable uses DOCSIS-compatible cable modems to provide high speed internet service to its clients.

A Quick History

The Road Runner Time Warner high speed internet service first came on the scene, as has been mentioned, in 1995. The first test of the system occurred in Elmira, New York and at the time it was called the Southern Tier Online Community, before changing its name to LineRunner.

Eventually, Time Warner changed the name to Road Runner and it has stayed that way ever since. Not surprisingly, the company has taken the Road Runner as its mascot.

Its Services

Road Runner Time Warner Cable is often in competition with DSL services that cost less, and as a result, the company offers the Road Runner Basic, which is a lower download and upload speed service.

While they have a basic service, Road Runner Time Warner Cable also has a turbo service that is called the Road Runner Turbo, previously known as Road Runner Premium, which offers much faster download speeds than the average package. Typically, the service offers a 15 megabits per second download and a one megabit per second upload.

Costs

The costs of Road Runner Time Warner Cable varies depending on the area the subscriber is in, as well as if they chose to go with the All-In-One Package of television, internet and phone to bring their cost down.

Where is it Available and Who Uses It?

The service was once available in Newfoundland, but currently it is only available in the United States. As for companies that use Road Runner Time Warner Cable, they include Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks, Insight Communications, Urban Cableworks and AOL.

Conclusion

Road Runner Time Warner Cable is a national leader in providing high speed internet service to clients. Since starting over 13 years ago, the company has shaped the high speed internet landscape by offering excellent service and amazing download and upload speeds. As a result, it is not surprising why so many people have chosen to hop on Road Runner Time Warner Cable to experience it for themselves.

Author Resource: Todd Moore is widely recognized as an expert in all credit help related circles. Todd boasts over thirty years experience in expedia related fields. Todd has appeared in many newspapers, and in article directorys and website across the internet. Visit us today.

AT& T and the Really Horrible DSL Registration

By: Kurt Hartman

The unthinkable happened recently: I bought a new house, and Time Warner Cable wasn t available as an internet selection. This left me with only one option: AT&T. I had previous DSL service back in the early days with a little company called Embarq , and couldn t wait to leave them. At that time, there was a contract, and I was bound to it for 2 years. I promised myself that I would avoid internet access provided by phone companies from then on.

However, I was against a wall on this one, and was pretty much forced to use AT&T. So, I called the local AT&T store. There was some good news: Contracts had been eliminated altogether. I was able to sign up with relatively little information. It was done in a quick manner, so no issues there.

Afterwards, they came out to install it. This is where the first problem began. AT&T was supposed to leave all my line information posted on the front door, along with the passwords. No dice.

I connected my modem without a problem, and all the lights lit up, except for the one that said Internet . Oh no, that one was as red as they get. So, I inserted the install disc, praying it would help me. It did not.

Here is where the real fun begins. The disc required Windows to run, or the latest and greatest version of OS X for the Mac. Now, I don t have either. I one of the exponentially growing minority of people that runs linux. I figured I could get around this pretty easily. Then, it said I needed Internet Explorer. Again, not a problem. I could run IE under emulation.

So, I ran IE, and got stuck. Why? Because Microsoft wanted to run 3 or 4 Active X scripts on my computer. Fine. This was great. So, I broke apart the file folders, only to find out that most of this install program was in Adobe Flash along with a few HTML pages that it wanted to call along the way. This really made me mad, because all these folks had to do was write the installer completely in Flash to begin with. It s cross platform, and would have allowed people to get access to their service immediately.

Hey, I can understand them not supporting Linux. It s frustrating, but it s also something you learn to live with. The next portion of my story is inexcusable. I called my brother up, as he has a Vista laptop. I d just run through the activation and registration through his computer. I m sure you can sense what is about to happen.

Even though Vista was listed as one of the supporting operating systems, I still couldn t get the disc to run. So, being a reasonably technical guy, I decided to see if it needed to be run as Administrator . Nope. What if run it in 2000, NT, or XP compatibility modes. It tells me I am running an unsupported operating system. You just can t win for losing with this process.

Finally, I gave up. I called AT&T, and told them up front that I wanted to activate service online. This meant I had to go through a preemptive strike and tell them all the processes I waded through to let them know I wasn t stupid or technically inept in any sort of way.

In their defense, I did talk to a very nice young lady who seemed amused with my predicament. It s a good thing she was nice, as I had to spend 30 minutes going over personal information, 4 security questions, and countless other inconveniences and annoyances to get my service activated. This was, of course, after completing the requisite hold time of 10 minutes or so. She stayed on the line long enough to make sure that I was able to access my AT&T DSL. Finally, I had service. I said goodbye to the nice lady, and proceeded to hook up my router.

Now, this entire process was a real pain for me, as I am an above average user. As a former Time Warner customer, this really irked me. You see, with them, all I had to do was connect the modem, give them a call, and read the hardware(or MAC ) address to them. That was it. No passwords, nosy questions, or anything of the sort. One call, a 15 minute wait, and there s your internet. Plus, they had much higher speeds available.

AT&T made me go through a convoluted, Jurassic process to get access, along with software, programmed for proprietary operating systems that didn t even have the decency to work. Now, some of the blame falls on the hardware manufacturer, but guess who controls the network access? AT&T gave them the specs that the software was programmed to interface with. They are the ones who should take the lion s share of the blame on this one.

So what s the point... Well, AT&T (and phone companies in general) are not friendly to the vast majority of their users. It s one thing if someone with a bit of tech knowledge is setting things up. It s another thing entirely when your mom, dad or grandma is left to their own devices to set something like this up. People should be trying to simplify the process, rather than overly complicating things with intricate registration processes.

Until they do, the vast majority of people will stay with the cable company for their YouTube and email fix. I may very well switch myself, once it becomes available in my area. Now, I m off to make my own DVR (or PVR, or whatever else they re calling the blessed things these days). I ll let you know if I have a better success with that.

Author Resource:  Kurt Hartman is Head of Employee training for Mobile Fleet Service, Inc. He also set up their network, wired the office, and a few other things very geeky and technical in nature. At any rate, should you want to read any more of his writings, head over to http://www.buybigtires.com .

TimeWarnerCable

By: Todd R. Moore

Started in 1989, TimeWarnerCable was formed in the merger of Time Inc.’s cable company, the American Television and Communications Corporation and Warner Cable.

By 1995, the company had launched the cable modem system that would become known as Road Runner, at the time the fastest internet available.

What Do They Provide?

The amount of services that TimeWarnerCable provides is truly staggering. First of all, there is the digital cable and phone, the Road Runner high-speed internet, wireless phone services and cable advertising.

As well, TimeWarnerCable has news stations in New York, Carolina, Austin, Milwaukee, Syracuse, Kansas City and upstate New York.

How Many Use Them?

TimeWarnerCable has a massive amount of users for its services, which is provided by nearly 85,000 employees. Those users help the company generate nearly $10 billion in revenue each year.

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