Review of Bresnan OnlineMember review of |
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We cancelled our Bresnan service on January 20th, a week after our triple play Powellink Fiber to the Home install (we would have cancelled sooner if their office hours lined up with our schedule better, and I wanted to watch some stuff on the DVR). We were tired of the run around we were getting with slow internet speeds with no explanation and being told that 2Mb/s speeds were normal and well within range on not only the 8Mb/s tier but their 15Mb/s tier as well. We are now on Powellink and pay almost half the price of Bresnan's 8/384K tier for 10/5 service. We actually get that speed on real world downloads too, unlike Bresnan's HSI service. We told them when we called to cancel that we were switching to another provider, but they must have put it in their books that we moved and that is why we had to cancel since we have been getting tons of 'Welcome to the neighborhood' mailings from Bresnan addressed to the new resident at our address saying that our house is already wired for their service...Guess that is one way to make them sleep better at night after they look at the subscriber numbers in Powell. Any way to hide the fact that their position in Powell is fading away really fast. It is now March and we couldn't be happier on Powellink. It is a lot better than Bresnan ever was.  -----Original Review----- We have had Bresnan since March of this year (2008) and have had nothing but problems since we were installed. I will start off with the TV service. Lately it seems that random channels stop working, some for multiple days at a time. Analog, digital, HD, it doesn't matter, channels from each group will go out eventually. Earlier today, five channels were out. One in particular has been out for almost a week now and I have reported it as down each of those days to technical support, so far no resolution and all I get from support is that they will notify the video group. Either that process never happened or the video group has no clue of what they are doing or how to fix problems because it is still down. Whats worse is that it is one of the local channels (ABC). The people who maintain the guide on the STBs have no idea what they are doing either. There are quite a few analog channels that haven't existed since we signed up, though they still show up in the guide with program data and all! Everytime I bring it up they say they will take care of it...I have been reporting this problem since the start of our service back in March and it still hasn't been taken care of yet. I also don't particularly care for the runaround that I get if I am the only one that has reported the problem then the problem must be on my end. That seems to be a global mentality within Bresnan, be it TV or HSI. If I am the only one reporting an outage then it is only affecting me. It gets a little old especially when I know it isn't just affecting me. For instance, an analog channel being viewed on an analog CRT TV being out with a black screen and static for audio couldn't possibly be something on my end. If it were interference as the TSR states it is, the video wouldn't be a solid black screen, it would have static or other deformities in it. If I go to a known channel with nothing on it, I get the expected snow and static, not a solid black screen like these channels have. HSI is not worth the money. We were on the 15/1 tier for the longest time but never could get download speeds above 1.5Mb/s. We have since downgraded to the 8/384 tier and can max out the download bandwidth a majority of the time. After finding that out, we upgraded again to the 15/1 tier and the speeds dropped back down again. While still on the phone with the tech, I asked him to 'downgrade' us again and sure enough the speeds took off to 8Mb/s. All of this occurred within a 5 minute timeframe, so I doubt TOD had anything to do with it. Latency while on Bresnan's HSI is absolutely terrible. Our latency averages anywhere from 150ms to 4,000ms depending on TOD to any site, inside Bresnan's network and off. After months and months of multiple techs dispatched and calls to tech support, this issue still has not been resolved and I have since given up on trying to get it fixed because I know that they either won't fix it or they can't for whatever reason. Powell's Fiber To The Home network known as Powellink is nearing completion and we will be switching to their service once our zone goes live. Considering we pay nearly $50/month if not more (the way the bill is broken down there is no way to tell how much we pay for each service) for 8/384 service with Bresnan, 10/5 for $35/month is certainly a much better deal than we have with Bresnan right now. Unlike Bresnan's deal for $29.99 HSI, this one doesn't expire after 6 months, that is what it will be. These are our monthly charges minus taxes and the other fees: Digital Receiver/remote 4.40 DVR Service 11.99 High Speed Premier 117.59 Limited Basic Service Expanded Basic Service Bresnan Onlin* HBO Service Digital Basic Service Cinemax Service Showtime & TMC STARZ! & Encore Subtotal 133.98 Followup comments:
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Bresnan Online
Powell,Park,WY
$139 per month
about 7 days
"Customer service reps are friendly and act like they want to help"
"Internet flaky, TV channels randomly stop working, nothing seems to ever get fixed"
"Try and find another company if you can..."
