OK, I’ll come right out and say it: TimeWarner’s Road Runner broadband Internet connection is the worst I have ever used. Here I’m paying around $100 each and every month for cable TV and an Internet connection, yet as soon as I launch Transmission on my iMac my Internet connection slows to a crawl. If this doesn’t resolve itself, I may have to consider switching providers, not even a month after signing up.
I won’t bother discussing how my cable cuts out every now and then since that’s not exactly gadgety-techy.
Here’s the deal: I recently moved from Middle of Nowhere in Upstate New York to Queens. Back upstate, I had Cablevision’s OptimumOnline. Besides the fact that OOL caps its Usenet download speed, the service was great. I could have Transmission or Azureus open and seed a couple of torrents, building up my ratio on any number of private BitTorrent trackers. I’m not talking hundreds of torrents or anything, but maybe six or seven at a time. Then I move and find my connection melts down faster than Chernobyl once I open Transmission. Here, the pics to prove it.
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Um, yeah, TimeWarner. Hi, how are you? You see, you advertise your service, such as it is, with fast-sounding phrases like “Blazing Speed” and that “Nobody Runs Like Road Runner.” Actually, George Costanza in the automatic walker goes faster than Road Runner.
Oh, and what the hell is “upload compression” and why are you applying it to my connection? I’m paying for this! Does Toyota tell its customers that they can’t drive faster than XX mph with one of its cars?
Maybe I’m just overreacting, or maybe I was spoiled by my school’s fat pipe. All I know is that TimeWarner has some explaining to do. And if they want me to keep paying for their lousy connection, it needs to shape up.
