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What can be said about MediaCom that hasn't been said already? I've been a customer for nearly two years now after moving to Joplin, MO. Despite all the great help given on these boards by MediacomChad, I just can't get behind this company. The installation process was fine, but from the moment service started I was plagued by latency issues. Fortunately it was a signal issue that a technician was able to get corrected in a couple weeks time. From there things were still not as fast as my old cable ISP (Cox in Arkansas), but I could live with it, and it was a fair price given the first year promo pricing. All that changed after the tragic tornado that hit the area on May 22. I had to call just to get a credit on my account for the 3 weeks that service was out, when you'd think they'd have taken care of that given the graveness of the disaster. After the three weeks and service was restored, I found that the speeds were much worse than before, to the point of being teeth-gnashingly slow at night. But, given the situation, there were much more important things to worry about and I was still in the one year pricing, so I let it go and just decided to be patient, despite things I enjoy like video-conferencing with family or occasional online gaming was no longer an option after 6pm, which is the only time I'm at home to use it anyway. Well now we're 9 months later, and nothing has improved. Calls to tech support have been futile. They once sent out a technician who blamed the speed problem on having two routers bridged together (spoiler alert: he was wrong). I try to be patient and understanding, but the price of service has now spiked up (around $100/month for TV/12mbps), and service outages are becoming more random and frequent. Occasionally I am given credits on my account when I call to complain, but not enough to make it even close to being worth the cost of this service. I really want to give this company a chance, but even the employees who frequent these forums have to realize how frustrating it can be to come home after a long day just wanting to visit with relatives over Skype or watch a YouTube video, only to find that the cable is out and you have yet another letter in your mailbox begging you to switch to MediaCom's phone service. Oh, and the MediaCom apologist trolls that lurk around these forums. Those suck. All that said, if you have the service and it works up to speeds advertised, it's worth the money. If you have a problem, you may be in for a world of hurt. They aren't an evil company--no more than other Internet providers, but they could be so much more if they invested a bit more money in infrastructure to make their customers a bit happier. On the plus side, in the 30 minutes it took to write and proofread this review, my 10 minute YouTube video finally finished buffering. Update 2/26/2012: After missing a few "fix" dates, the Joplin area was switched over to new fiber and it looks like the situation is finally resolved as connection speeds are stable at all hours. I will keep updating this review as time passes. Building back trust from the users in this area will be a gradual process, but I'm hopeful that things will remain stable into the future. Update 2/29/2012: And like that, it's gone back to Mediacom's same old tricks of unusable connection speed at nights. Apparently they have another "fix" scheduled in another month, and who knows how many more times that will be missed (again). Update 6/3/2013 After over a year, Mediacom's service has improved. There's still an occasional frustrating outage every so often where you can't even call to complain because they shut off their phone system, but a couple messages to their social media team will usually get you account credit for the downtime. We are now looking at moving out of these apartments to another part of town. The Joplin metro area is carved into two cable fiefdoms, one run by Mediacom and the other by CableOne. With today's news that CableOne is taking a less aggressive tone with caps (and impressive speeds unlike MC), they are going to be a huge factor in where we relocate to. Right now I'm paying $120 for TV/12mps Internet, and I'm locked into this price since I'm on their grandfathered data plan. I'd love to move to their 50mbps plan with an adequate cap of 1tb, but nope, not available here. Never thought I'd see the day when the ISP that brought us 50mbps service with a 50gb cap and 50cents/gb overages would be the superior option, but there you go... Update 1/21/2014: Well, we have moved to a new part of town in which Mediacom serviced every surrounding neighborhood but not the one where our new house was. After months of complaining (and begging the city to consider changing their franchise agreement to let a rival cable company move in), Mediacom does finally service the area. At least I think so... It has been down more than it's been up since the installation over a week and a half ago. First it was an issue at the pole, then it was a widespread outage, now a localized outage. Getting credits for the downtime is like pulling teeth sometimes and it's a fulltime job given the amount of outages. It would be nice if they would automatically credit accounts instead of assuming that everyone has an alternate method of contacting Mediacom to complain (as well as the free time to sit through the phone support routine). The last time I called into phone support during an outage, I have to sit through the asinine automatic troubleshooter (tip: if you scream "I want to speak to a live person" at it you can bypass most of the garbage, but it does make you look silly to anyone else in earshot). I then get through to a nice Indian woman whom I'm sure is really named "Barbara", who then was able to confirm that yes, indeed, my service is out after running through the usual ridiculous steps like rebooting computer and being asked to remove splitters. She arranges a technician to come out, after warning that if they can't find anything wrong I would be charged an additional fee. Charming. And as her pi�ce de r�sistance, she then subtly adds before ending the call that "I've noticed that you don't have phone service...". This ties into the next topic of deceptive and irritating marketing. If you read some of the threads on the Mediacom forums you'll see that they just love sending junk mail through snail mail. Particularly letters that say "URGENT: RESPONSE REQUIRED", and when you open them up you get an official bill-looking document that in reality is just an advertisement for their phone service. That's pretty bush league, even for a company with no standards. Of course there is no way to opt out of this trash, and there's always a chance they really do send out an important document so you can't just shred it in the envelope. Clever, but bush league. If you were thinking of getting their TV service compared to Dish or DirecTV, you've had enough to drink, please stop. Unless you are in an apartment or somewhere that you can't set up the dish, there is no reason to have to go through an additional layer of headaches with Mediacom for what has to be some of the most overpriced TV service I've ever seen. Their promo pricing isn't even worth it. Next.. The field techs aren't exactly the friendliest or most knowledgeable you'll see. At least the ones I deal with act like it's the last place they want to be, and as soon as their own tests show the service is "working", they are out the door. Even if the modem is offline again by the time they get past the block. The forum support is a different story. They are polite, especially if you protest on the official forums where many subscribers may be watching. I'm not sure if the different guys are truly different people since they always phrase things the same way. For example, there was an outage a few days ago, and when many people complained here and on their forums, the response is always worded the same way. Something like "you will be credited accordingly". Makes me think there's some sort of Mediacom employee reeducation camp or something. They are also bad about spewing talking points and other stats they can't back up, like their "97% of all users don't have problems with the new cash grab data caps" line. That said they will do their best to make you 'feel' better about whatever is wrong, and the only reason I didn't rank their tech support as being the worst. In summary: Pre-sales information: Two times now I have said I have my own modem, yet they 'accidentally' leave that $5 fee on the bill hoping I won't notice Install coordination: Tech did show up in the time frame listed, but apparently didn't test anything seeing as I immediately had problems. Left an unburied line running in back yard that they will supposedly bury at some point before the end of time. Connection reliability: Bad, bad, bad. How can one area have so many outages? Tech support: "Would you like to purchase some non-functioning phone service to go with your non-functioning Internet?" Services: Assuming just having Internet service and no viable alternatives in the area. Not the worst... Does not apply to TV/phone Value for money: $55/month for first year, $65/month for second year. After that it jumps up to 95 and it's time to cancel and get new customer promo under different name. For 50mbps service, that's tolerable, assuming I put the time/effort into getting credits for all these outages... Update 9/3/2014: The year was mostly quiet but Mediacom found a way to screw things up. As everyone knows, a few months ago they rolled out speed updates. My plan is now 100/50mbps with a 999gb cash grab, which seems reasonable, but there's one fatal flaw. YouTube (and Netflix, allegedly since I don't use it) cannot stream at certain times of day. If it's 9 or 10pm in the evening and you make the mistake of wanting to watch a video with your Mediacom connection, get ready for 10 minutes of waiting to prebuffer a 144p video. I haven't been getting those irritating scammy snail mail letters trying to con me onto their phone service, so I can only assume they reallocated their marketing budget to get YouTube 'HD Verified' status. It doesn't mean a damn thing. I'm currently in a new conflict with them as the area suffered a major outage about a week ago, and since then people from the entire area have been suffering unreliable service. You know how you can have co-workers who live 10 miles away but also use Mediacom and have the exact same symptoms as you (constant drops, modem restarts, slow speeds), yet Mediacom will stick to their "We don't see an area problem" line? What this means is you're in for a long period of terrible service and no resolution in sight. Sure, they scheduled a trouble call, with the soonest time being nearly a month away. Do they really think we can just be without service for a month (yet continue to keep paying them)? The levels of incompetence are quickly on the rise. A few months ago I might have been ready to suggest them to friends (who were willing to take a small gamble) but now it's almost literally throwing your money away as you aren't getting service that you're paying for. Since the last time I had problems they also seemed to have gotten more stingy about handing out credits for service interruptions-- like we're just supposed to just accept it. I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing other than satellite as an alternative, but if you have another choice in a larger market, you would be remiss not to get it instead of Mediacom. Update 1/23/2015 It's now been about 5 solid months of signal problems and random modem restarts. Complaining about this went absolutely nowhere. Every day it was "we'll escalate it to area management", and more excuses, and nothing happening. Today I decided to finally vent it out on their forums, pointing out that the delays were inexcusable and asking for credit for the downtime. The result of my efforts? you are banned from using this forum! Spam, rude posts, racial slurs the works This ban is not set to expire. I guess complaining about lack of service is considered spam by Mediacom, and questioning their competency may be rude, but oh well. And racial slurs? I guess I did mention that Commisso should keep sending checks to Republicans to keep Title II regulations from coming to cable companies lest his gravy train end, and that must be a slur in their eyes. Oh, and yes, the outages keep on happening still. Update 12/29/2015 It's been about 8 months now since the major issues from the last update were resolved. I wish the jackasses at Mediacom would unban my support forum account. I promise not to make fun of Commisso or their dubiously outsourced phone support (there, not here. See below.). As there's no other alternatives in this area still, Mediacom is a necessary evil but it is possible to co-exist with some patience and a few techniques I'll provide. My contract with Mediacom expired this year, so I was able to renew on the 150mbps plan for the same $55/month which is reasonable. Stability has been better, and Chad will help expedite things like having a new modem sent out to test if that's the problem. I've increased their rating for value and reliability, but the biggest problem with Mediacom (besides the caps) is still going to be reliability, and the phone support (don't make fun of it on their forums though or you'll get banned for racism). Here's the conversation from a typical outage, let's say during a thunderstorm. -Call number -Get automated BS machine, yell "LIVE REPRESENTATIVE" over and over -Wait on hold for 15 minutes -Representative interrogates for 5 minutes to gather information and SSN as if you're applying for a mortgage Rep: "What seems to be the problem?" Me: "I'd like to report an outage for this area, probably due to the thundersto..." Rep: (Interrupts)"Can you tell me if you're connected directly to your computer through hardline?" Me: "Yes" (A lie of course, just to save time) Rep: "Hmm, I can't seem to connect to your modem, and there are no outages reported for your area" Me: "Yes, obviously you can't connect, and I'm calling to report the outage, that's why..." Rep: (Interrupts)"The soonest I can get a technician out is... [dramatic pause] 2 weeks from now" Me: "But I don't need a technician in my home, I just need to report this outage and ask about an ETR" Rep: "I do not have an outage reported" Me: "That's what I'm trying to do now! Just check every other modem on the block and you'll see that this is an areawide outage and not just my splitter deciding to fail!" Rep: "I can only check your modem based on the security information you gave me earlier" Me: [Vocalized facepalm] "Fine, schedule the technician, and credit my account for the duration of time from now until the 'service' [*Protip: This really works, they always agree] Rep: "Great, is there anything else I can do for you?" Me: "I hope not" Rep: "Oh by the way, I see you do not have our TV service, we have a great deal going... Me: *click* In all it's about 25 minutes or more of your life gone forever but can save you a buck on your bill. In conclusion, everything from the previous updates stands. Title II needs to come to cable companies, and if you have another choice in your area, take it. I know people will mention that Mediacom's data caps are generous compared to some of the other providers out there, but when you have to pay more and for speeds you don't need just because you download a lot of games for PS4 or XBox (or stream with Netflix or Hulu) and would hit the cap otherwise, it's still a crock. Update 12/17/2016 Mediacom goes back to the toilet as after 6 plus years of service, they have not improved one iota in terms of being able to diagnose an issue and resolve it. The entire SW Missouri area has been affected for over a week by dreadful download speeds during peak hours and weekends. People call in, tech calls get pointlessly scheduled, they come, see signal levels are fine, and then leave. The last techs I had visit witnessed the low speeds, said they've been getting dozens of calls just like mine, but that their supervisors just look at the signal levels and assume there's nothing wrong. Add on woefully inadequate support (both through phone and their social media team) where you'll go days without hearing any sort of update on an issue that renders your Internet service unusable, or the last time I called I asked them to pull the number of other people in the area who have reported this same problem, they just say "I don't have access to those numbers, but you're the first one to report this to me personally...". It's just sheer insanity. No company that needed to count on competition would have support so pitiful. It's just a shame that after so much time, they just can't learn to make improvements. As our new pu**ygrabber-in-chief would say: Sad. Update 2/19/2019 It's been a couple years, and I've moved locations in SWMO, but still in Mediacom's service area. Honestly, things aren't that bad now. Outages happen rarely but I can usually report them, get credit to my account, and have service back within a few hours. Rates are fair at $50 for 2TB of cap, and they haven't done anything to really piss me off like their stupid misleading mailers. Transitioning during the house move was easy with them, as was scheduling the activation. I've adjusted my ratings accordingly. YMMV of course depending on where you live, but at least in SWMO they make for a reasonable option currently. The only other cable provider in the area has finally dropped their caps entirely (CableOne, granted, for an extra fee, but it's not unreasonable), so I guess that's the only thing I'm putting on my wish list for them. Update 4/16/2024 It's been a few more years, and now that I'm sitting here with another day-long outage I have plenty of time to articulate my opinions on this service. Rates have exploded and the draconian data caps force me to need the 1Gig service as my wife and I both work from home now. Their scummy marketing campaigns have stopped (at least for me), but service is becoming a real problem again. We've had multiple outages of the entire day this year. When working from home, this is totally unacceptable. I also don't get anywhere near the advertised speed. I haven't bothered complaining about speeds since I don't really need the speeds as much as I need that tier for the data cap. The app also sucks. Bad. Why can't you easily see billing details? Why does the "Support" tab throw errors and close every time you need to check it (which would be during an outage)? I do like that you can now text to get account credits instead of calling up Bangladesh, waiting on hold for 30 minutes and having your blood pressure explode in frustration. Bad, predatory company that thrives in areas where there's zero competition, like rural areas. Update 6/28/2024 I don't know what they've done but after having a pretty good period for the last four years, the outages have gotten to unacceptable levels. Mediacom does not care. They know they are the only game in town, and the fact that millions of people across this country depend on their Internet service for their livelihood is not a concern of theirs. Maybe that's part of them targeting rural areas where WFH may not be as prevalent. As I write this, I'm suffering the second full day outage in the last week. Never an explanation or a genuine apology. If you can't move out of Mediacom territory, you'd better have a plan B for Internet access. member for 18.8 years, 3788 visits, last login: 4 days ago updated 9 days ago
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