Charter Communications

Well, after getting treated like a fucking dumbass tonight, I have sent an email to several different people at Charter. I can’t get here to post to my blog, or even access ANYTHING on my sight, unless I log on to AOL via their software first (they use their own DNS servers). I didn’t look very hard tonight, but if I don’t receive an answer by tommorow morning, or the problem is not resolved, I am sure that I can find some of their VP’s email addresses on their investor relations page. Here’s the email for those technically inclined. Perhaps the issue really is on my end, then I need to have been treated like a dumbass, and an asshole to boot, but I just don’t think so.

I am hoping that you can forward this to the appropriate department. I attempted to use your web chat for my issue and was told that the tech support options were limited, so I needed to call tech support and get my matter escalated. I did so, and went through various troubleshooting that I had already done, with the same results. I ended up getting disconnected, and I don’t know if it was on my end, or yours. I do know that before I will spend another 40 minutes on hold so that I can go through the same troubleshooting yet again, I will call someone else and set up service through them.

The matter pertains to my not being able to access a couple of particular websites.The sites in particular are www.shadowscope.com (my web site), and www.livingdot.com (my web provider). I cannot reach them via ip address either, 72.34.32.113

When I try to ping my website I get:

Pinging shadowscope.com [72.34.32.113] with 32 bytes of

Reply from 63.223.8.77: TTL expired in transit.
Reply from 63.223.8.77: TTL expired in transit.
Reply from 63.223.8.77: TTL expired in transit.
Reply from 63.223.8.77: TTL expired in transit.

Ping statistics for 72.34.32.113:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

63.223.8.77 looks like it might be a router at wvfiber.net, the full name resolves to atl-c00.pos-1-16-1.OC48-atl-nshl3-pos2.wvfiber.net

When I try a traceroute to any of the above I get:

1 1 ms <1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 9 ms 8 ms 9 ms 10.135.48.1
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.

It finally gets to the default 30 hops and times out on all of them.

Using a proxy (America Online) I am able to log on to their service and hit the sites with no problems whatsoever, since they use their own DNS servers.

WV Fiber is based out of Atlanta, so it is a problem either on one of their routers, or your DNS servers, as far as I can tell.

I would appreciate it if this matter would be looked into in a timely manner, I particularly hate having to spend 40 minutes to an hour of my time on hold just so that I can be treated as if I am a dumbass. I do understand that the techs have to do some troubleshooting, as I worked in tech support for an ISP several years ago, but with all of the automated questioning that we have to go through before we are actually allowed to speak with one of your representatives, you would think that there would be a couple that would at least give them a slight hint as to our level of computer expertise.

Thak you for your help,

Richard Miles

3 throughts on "Charter Communications"

  1. Hehe. Good luck with that. It once took me almost THREE months to convince Charter that they had an open proxy on my node that was preventing me from accessing IRC servers. Out of the numerous dumbass responses I received from tech support, this one (from a supervisor, no less) took the cake: “No ma’am. We don’t use proxy servers…only Microsoft products.”

    It was at that point that I figured out I was screwed.

  2. It’s fixed.

    The trick is that once you have talked to tech support once and they can’t help you, find someone’s email address in marketing or communications, preferably a VP and send them an email about how unhappy you are. Personally I could care less whether I am on cable or DSL. Both are available, although I preferred Bellsouth DSL for the simple reason that I was paying the same as for cable, but got a static IP rather than the semi-static that cable provides. The only reason I opted for cable is that Bellsouth won’t let you have DSL without a phone line. My cell phone is my home number.

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