Charter Internet in Madison, WI (my review)

If I had a choice, I would stick to AT&T U-Verse. U-Verse Internet and DVR quality, customer service and lack of outages were excellent for the 3 years I had them. One of the trade-offs moving to the new neighborhood was being restricted to Charter Communications, the only ISP serving this area. In my previous years with Charter (2004-2008), I had frequent service outages and billing overcharges.

This time around, I am minimizing my dependency with Charter, opting only for Internet service. I have subscribed to DirecTV for television and have an excellent VOIP service for the phone line.

Charter New Customer Promotion (Internet only)

Bundled services (Internet, Phone, TV) have better promotional discounts, but as I mentioned, I have better alternatives for my other needs. As of Dec. 2012, Charter's Internet promotion for new customers (or those who have been deactivated for more than 12 months) looks like this:

Internet Plus tier (30Mb/s download, 4Mb/s upload)
$29.99/mo for first 12 months (then $49.99/mo thereafter)
No contract/no early termination fees
Required $19.99 installation fee

I recall U-Verse Internet Max (12Mb/s) being $48/mo after the promotion rate ended, so Charter's price is far more competitive given I'm getting almost 3x the speed.

I have found that Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends are generally the best periods to sign up as a new customer for Charter. Google "Charter Specials" and you should find authorized resellers who throw in slightly better promotional rates.

The $19.99 installation fee is mandatory and despite my best efforts, I could not opt out of this fee even though the previous homeowner had Charter service and left all of his Charter equipment in the home. Installation was about 20 minutes.

As of July 2012, Charter requires all new
customers use one of their provided
modems, such as the Ubee U10C035

The one disappointing policy is that as of July 2012, Charter no longer allows customer-owned cable modems (apparently to reduce troubleshooting difficulties), so I had to sell my rock solid Motorola SB6120 cable modem on Craigslist. Charter leases the cable modem (doesn't charge for it) and gave me a choice between a Ubee U10C035 and some Cisco (didn't get the model), but the technician told me to stick with the Ubee as it's more reliable.

Existing Charter customers are fortunate because if you do happen to have a Motorola SB6120 or SB6121 cable modem, you can continue using one of the best rated modems on the market. Wish I could have kept mine.

Testing my Internet service

Reviewing the quality of Charter Internet boils down to what max download speeds I am getting, any throttling limitations and service outages.

I ran a SpeedTest to confirm my bandwidth and was pleasantly surprised with the results:

Given that my Charter Internet Plus plan is supposed to be "up to 30 Mb/s" download speeds, I can't complain! For the first weekend in the new home, so far I haven't experienced any speed drop-outs or service outages.

Overall rating: A+

UPDATE (12/30/2012): After the first month of Charter Internet, service is still reliable and I haven't experienced any issues yet. I have noticed my download speeds drop down to about 33Mb/s in peak times, but I'm still clocking over 60Mb/s in off-peak hours.