Anyone recommend a good broadband provider in Central Orange County?

I’m an Earthlink-Time Warner ^[1] “High Speed” Internet customer and I’m into week two now of call center wait hell. I’m frequently being assured that “Your call is important to us, please continue to hold for the next available customer service representative.” Strange, I’m not feeling like my call is very important.

I’ve had this service for five years and, overall, I’ve been fairly happy. When it works, the speeds are were more than satisfactory. Sure, once a year or so their service would go down and a technician to come out and set things right. (Strangely, they usually blamed some oversight on the part of the prior technician.) This time, though, the technician has come, tried to tell me that a) everything was OK (despite having speeds only marginally better than dial-up), or, b) if it wasn’t OK, it was a problem with the Earthlink Servers, or, c) my computer, or, d) (after clomping on the roof for a few minutes and returning with a cable splitter in his hand) “maybe replacing this splitter will help.” Hmmm, a variant on the “it’s a problem with the last guy’s work” theme.

“Try it for a while and if you still have problems, give us a call.” It did seem a little better. After his visit I was up just above the speed of a 56K modem. All for $41.95 a month.

He also told me that I’d be better off dropping Earthlink and going with Time Warner’s in-house Roadrunner service. Earthlink and Time Warner seem to have quite the partnership going on, because when I called Earthlink on the off chance that they might be able to help, I was told that it was a Time Warner Issue (”EarthLink only gives you the web based services like, Web Mail, Start Page etc. … The networks to which you will be connected is maintained by Time Warner”). They also suggested that I dump Time Warner and “check with our DSL services, currently we are offering good packages.”

Great. Customer service pong. And I’m the ball.

I tried sending an email to Time Warner but I’ve recieved no response. I think I’d have better luck writing to Santa Claus.

I’ve been on the phone now for over an hour. Two “customer service representatives” have told me that they couldn’t help, but they would transfer me to someone who could. Oh, and I’ve now descended to the second level of call center hell”

“We apologize but due to exceptionally high call volumes wait times are unusually long. We appreciate your patience and the next available agent will assist you.”

I’m in for a long night.