UPC Rant

greengirl31

Hi All ....

I just cancelled my TV with UPC but had to keep the phone and broadband (for the time being anyway) but when the loyalty team called I mentioned that the signal on My ipad was poor if I wasn't in the same room as the modem. She said they would upgrade me to the 50mgb broadband and send me out a new modem. No bother says I, thanks very much.

So the modem arrives today and I get it home and start the ordeal of installation. it went smoothly at first but there was no improvement in the signal strength in the other rooms in the apartment so I decided I'd give them a call at 8.20 - 40 mins before 9PM (closing time)

So I'm told that I'm 3rd in the Q .... I got the regular updates as to my position in the Q and FINALLY got to 1st at 8.50.
THEN, at 9pm the message told me that the offices were now closed and could I call back between office hours when one of your agents would be happy to assist me. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

40 mins of my life I will never get back - yet another reason why I find dealing with UPC so frustrating !!!

Morf

What modem did you have before?

What modem do you have now?

I imagine every BB problem involves sending out a new modem/50mb upgrade so that they can get people on a new 12 month contract.

Did they tell you explicitly that you'd be starting a new contract?

greengirl31

I had a Cisco epc2425 one before and the new one is a Technicolor one. The contract is supposed to have started today but if there's no improvement in the signal strength i'll be fighting them on it.

Morf

greengirl31 wrote: »

I had a Cisco epc2425 one before and the new one is a Technicolor one. The contract is supposed to have started today but if there's no improvement in the signal strength i'll be fighting them on it.

I have that modem. My desktop was forever giving me trouble with the wifi so I went wired and no problem since. The wifi on phones and laptops is generally good. Did they even get you to change wifi channel or anything else before they suggested a new modem?

I wouldn't let yourself be rail-roaded into a new 12 month contract if that isn't what you want.

nialler

I had the white thomson one, no problem getting 2 bars in the attic from 2 floors down.

Now have the Horizon box, no signal, had to stick a netgear modem on it and that's perfect, faster wireless also than the horizon box.

Lad in the job has UPC with crap reception in his apartment, I told him to put a wireless extender between box and where he does most of his browsing and all seems good now.

Walls, kitchens, wiring all affect wireless strength and signal coverage, with the modem I put on the Horizon box I went from 300kbits to 36mbits in my attic. If you don't get a satisfactory result greengirl ask them for a thomson modem or an additional N300 netgear.

N

somesoldiers

Hi Nialler

You seem to know what you are talking about so just wondered if you might be able to help. I am happy to pay for a modem/ router ( don't really get the distinction) given 2 and 3 below
I need 3 things
1. Bigger wifi range, same problem as OP
2. Ability to link a wireless printer to the network so I can use Airprint to print from iPad to Canon printer with this functionality- horizon box will not pick up
3. Ability to hook up an external hard drive so I can watch movies from it on my tv

The netgear here would seem to fix 1 and 3 but do you reckon it will allow me to 2?

I don’t know much about the mechanics of the whole thing and would appreciate any advice before I go spending money on the wrong device

http://www.netgear.com/home/products/wirelessrouters/high-performance/WNDR3700.aspx#

thanks

Noel

nialler

Hi Soldier

I spent an hour on with a tech support girl arguing (I'm an IT consultant) she was blaming poor signal on the horizon box on the encryption (WPA2), what I did find was dropping the signal to 20mhz rather than the 20/40mhz setting stabilised the connection on macs/ipads/iphones but had absolutely no effect on range, which was still shote.

So I had an old (UPC supplied) Netgear N300, I simply plugged the wan/internet port into the back of the horizon box, let it get an address from the box (192.168.192.2 ish), that then gave me a wirless network in the standard 192.168.1.x range for my devices and full coverage all over the house, well 90mbit about 6ft from the router on my macbook and about 36mbit in the attic (2 floors up) on my iPhone.

There's a usb port on the model you gave, I'm not sure how you're watching the movies off the external drive but once they're all on the same network, either the horizon or the netgear then all should be good, personally if your TV has a USB port and can play movies, just plug the external drive into that, I stream through either the xbox or apple tv from my macs.

Your printer will be fine again as long as it's on the same network (either the horizon or the netgear).

N

somesoldiers

Cheers Niall, thanks for the advice. The LG model I have will ony recognise photos and music from the HD no movies.

nialler

Same as my samsung, hence the AppleTV and stream via Airplay or to the xbox via Connect360 prefer the xbox though as you get full 1080p.

N