With my DirecTV contract being up and Mediacom offering me Tivo service and saving $20 bucks a month, I figured I'd give it a shot. I've had the service since Wednesday and watched A LOT of TV this weekend, so I feel I can give this a fair review. Also, I work for a telecom company, so I do have some knowledge ........ :) So for comparison sakes, here's my review:
Channel lineup. It's by no surprise, DTV offers many more channels. However, for what I watch, its a wash. Mediacom offers me more for less than I had with DTV. The channels I watch are all there, in HD, PLUS I now have Starz and Encore on top of all the free video on demand. So for channel lineup, for me, advantage Mediacom.
DVR: This is an easy one. I had the HR24 with DTV and i have the Premier Q for Mediacom. Massive advantage for DTV on this one. The Premier Q is slow. Painfully slow in comparison to the HR24. Menu's and getting to my recordings and playing my recordings is shameful. With my HR24, there was no lag. Everything was there once I hit the button. Things are even worse when I try to access things from my secondary STB in my bedroom. This is a huge deal for me and possibly the deal breaker. I'm sure the new Pace Tivo STB is head and shoulders above the Premier Q, however I'm stuck with this. Another problem I've been experiencing is the message "HDMI Connection Not Permitted" when I change channels. It seems to be a handshaking problem between my AVR and Tivo that I never experienced with the HR24. It's irritating to say the least. If you have experience with DTV's Genie (i have) you will even be more disappointed.
Pic quality/sound. Advantage Mediacom, solely for the fact that I haven't had any of those damn audo cutouts the DTV is notorious for! Pictured quality; I notice no difference between the 2. Both look outstanding.
Remote: Advantage again Mediacom. I love it. Simple and just works and has better command of my AVR vs DTV remote.
Intangibles. I love love love the Tivo App on my iPad and iPhone! It works amazing. The DTV app was nice also, but the Tivo app is faster and easier to navigate. I actually use my app more then the STB to set recordings and turn to channels (mostly due to the fact of the slow Premier Q).
As you can see, I am happy with the Tivo offering. If you're a current Mediacom customer, I strongly recommend you check out their Tivo services. It's head and shoulders above the 'stock' Mediacom. However, if you're a DTV customer and happy with it, stick with it, unless the savings is really worth it. The Premier Q really hurts the overall experience when you compare it against the HR24. If you are one of the lucky ones to get the newest gen Tivo box, I absolutely guarantee you will be thrilled.
Overall, I give this a 7/10 with the potential of a 10/10, if the Tivo hardware was up to par with the great Tivo interface and options. Thanks for reading!
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My Review of Mediacom's Tivo
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[FL] Mediacom Slow downloads Midway/Gulf Breeze
Getting slow speeds last 3 nights in 32563 area .. paying for 50meg service getting 8meg down and 3.5 up. Is there maintenance going on in my area ?
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[GA] Albany Ga local service not authorized
I just turned on the set and all the local stations in the albany ga market say not authorized. Called Mediacom and a Indian women came on and sent two shots to my 3 stb's and no help. Scheduled a truck roll for the 19th. She said I would be credited for the outage (surrrreee).
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[GA] Internet Up and Down
Internet started acting up late last night. Speeds dropped to a whopping 126k down and 2 Mb up.
Tonight, the modem started showing lost signal and signal return.
Has anyone else started seeing the same issue in the Leesburg/North Albany area?
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[Cable TV] I.R. extender for DTA's?
Well, they pulled the plug on the clearQAM last night, so, heres the thing, the DTA's i have have this amazingly bright green (yellow maybe? i dunno im color blind :p) power light, and even "i" (legally blind) can see it from 25 feet away in day light. so thats saying something. i want to "hide" the units but they didnt come with an i.r. extender. thing is, ive never used one. so im just wondering would this one from monoprice work? or is there a specific type that would be needed?
http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=109&cp_id=10110&cs_id=1011009&p_id=8060&seq=1&format=2
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[IA] it is going to cost you
After much study , I have figured out I cant leave you. There is no one in my area that can provide me any more than dsl with 1.5 mbps. Fine I am stuck with you. But I have cut off cable and now have netflix and hulu plus. I am cutting off phone and going with vonage. I have a 105 mbps service with you and I am going to use it for all its worth. I have 2000 gigs of data and I am going to use it. and know this. When your service is not providing me with what I am paying for, You will hear me loud and clear that I am not happy. I will be relentless until its fixed. And when the day comes that someone in my area starts providing a higher speed internet, I will leave you. and on that day I will run out into my driveway and do a happy dance and yell to all who can hear me I am Medicrap free. I yearn for that day.Until then I will use what I pay for in abadon and be happy in the thought its costing you.
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[IL] Am I crazy or all commercials loud?
I've been noticing that in the last couple weeks that all commercials are louder than the tv shows. It isn't like when some were Really loud it is as if someone just turns the volume of the tv up. I lower the volume during the commercials about 6 clicks then when the tv show comes back on we can't hear it.
Maybe its just that commercials are now constantly filled with some kind of noise from start to finish.
So, is it just me?
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[MO] is Mediacom blocking FB?
I've been having issues accessing the site as of this morning...friend can access the site find. Is this ISP related?
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[MO] Painfully SLOW INTERNET
Mediacom has suddenly become slow AGAIN. It's as if the servers have too many people using them. If I want to check email at 3 am it runs like a charm, but any other time of the day and I may as well be using dialup. The internet is just too slow to do much of anything. So frustrating. The lag is terrible and it takes forever to load pages. I've already done the usual cleanup & maintenance. Here are some recent speed tests and modem info. Any ideas?
MegaPath SanFrancisco Calif "Connection Problems. Please Try Again."
Lynksys - BEFCMU10 ver. 4
Downstream Channel
Lock Status Operational
Modulation 256QAM
Channel ID 78
Provisioned Rate 3600 kbps
Symbol Rate 5360.537 Ksym/sec
Downstream Power -6.4 dBmV
SNR 35.1 dB
Upstream Channel
Lock Status Operational
Modulation 16QAM
Channel ID 2
Provisioned Rate 614 kbps
Symbol Rate 5120 Ksym/sec
Upstream Power 51.2 dBmV
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[IA] Frequent, Short Disconnects (Dubuque)
Hi all,
I have been dealing with a problem for a few months, if not longer that has just been on the edge of annoying me enough to try to do something about it.
Basically, multiple times a day, between 2 and 5ish, on average, our internet connection drops out for between 30 second to maybe 120 seconds. It's long enough to kick me off wow, for Google talk to realise we lost our internet and disconnect me, and long enough to where youtube / netflix videos stop.
I'm just looking for some suggestions on how I can get this problem corrected, I have seen a mediacom representative post here and I'm hoping I can contact him (or anyone else who may have advice) and get some help here.
I have read the before asking for help section of the site, and here is my information:
Our home network setup if fairly straightforward, the modem is plugged into a 4 port + wireless router. Most of the computers in the house are hardwired, but we have a few devices that connect wirelessly. The two WoW players in the house both have a wired connection, and this is impacting them the most.
The router is a NetGear WCT524v4, and the modem is an RCA DCM425. According to the main page of what I believe is my modems diagnostic page it's information is as follows:
Software Version: ST52.05.91
Software Model: a806
Bootloader: 2.1.6d
The modem reports a signal strength of -8.2 dBmV, I'm not sure what that means, but there it is.
The speedtest reports a download speed of 5254 Kbps and an upload speed of 2037 Kbps.
Here is the URL for my line quality test:
http://www.dslreports.com/pingtest/ba3295562b73/3118471
I am personally using Windows 7 64 bit, but we may have other OS's on the network, I don't recall at the moment.
The problem is intermittent, but fairly consistent in that I can count on it happening multiple times a day. For a firewall I am just using windows firewall and for AV I am using AVG free.
Please let me know if there is any other information I can provide, and thank you for any assistance that I receive.
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[IL] Still having packet loss, going on a year now.
Is their anything at all I can do to help fix this issue? I've been told 1% loss is acceptible by mediacom but take into account you ping 100 packets, so like a few minutes in a game of league legends and I get around 10-15% loss in those 100 packets, it means I can't move every 10 seconds or so and I die a lot and it makes my gaming worthless. They have quit offering me help and told me to find a new ISP because apparently packet loss is A OK with them. I would love nothing else to leave mediacom but I literally have no other internet in my town above 1 mb connection.
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[Phone] Why am "I" calling Duluth, MN every single day?
I was looking at my Mediacom phone details today, and I have outgoing calls to this number in Duluth every day, sometimes a couple times a day, always for 1 or 2 minutes:
218-206-7979
WTF? Googling the number didn't help much.
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Mediacom Home Security - 90 Day Cancelation Policy
What exactly will mediacom refund with the 90 day refund policy on home security new installs? That is, if not happy with the system. They charge a one time equipment charge, install charge, and monthly monitoring charge. Will mediacom refund it all with their 90 day policy? Anyone know?
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Can't get to address
Hey guys, I just setup a new hosting account with a company, updated my nameservers and all, but I'm still not able to access my site, or the IP it is hosted from. Was wondering if anyone else inside the Mediacom network was having this issue. http://darkvendetta.com/ is the domain.
tracert:
Tracing route to darkvendetta.com [185.28.21.7]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 8 ms 7 ms 7 ms 172.30.84.193
4 8 ms 9 ms 9 ms 172.30.35.69
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * *
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Online viewing and sub accounts
Quick question. Can you sign into apps like CNN with sub-accounts to watch online live?
Thanks.
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[IA] Slow Speed - W Des Moines
I'm seeing really slow speeds tonight - maxing out at about 6Mbps down. I normally get anywhere from 25Mbps to 30Mbps this time of night. Modem signal levels look solid.
Upload speed is complete crap -
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3172268056
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3172273030
Is there a service issue going on tonight?
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Mediacom internet speeds slow as I use my allowance (it's my fault)
So, I've tried on the official forums to no avail and I though maybe a third party forum would be more helpful where there are more eyes.
http://mediacomcable.com/CustomerSupport/forum/index.php?topic=17362.0
This is the current thread. I am being told if I want to use my internet at the speed that I am paying for and not have my speeds drop down to barely usable (3mbps download and literally 0 upload to 200kbps with 200 ping, although all of those bounce around like crazy so the 3mbps isn't even usable) then I should upgrade to use at the current speed I am paying for. Treating your customer this way is absolutely astounding. This is the thread after a month of this going on and a tech coming to my house I finally get told that the issue is me using my upload within the constraints of my contract! I stream to twitch and I see others having the same problem as I am, after streaming for a bit there speeds go haywire, I tried notifying a member on the forum that his issue maybe the same as I am having but that post was deleted my the moderators. He hasn't finally gotten to the true reason his speeds are dropping out.
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[Cable HSI] Is Mediacom throttling Netflix and Amazon Prime?
I am getting a consistent 25-30 Mbps down connection (used to be much higher until recently) but yet when streaming Netflix or Amazon Prime Instant Video the quality is terrible and the network usage is around 1Mpbs max for either service. This change is very recent, a couple of weeks ago everything was fine. Is Mediacom throttling Netflix and Amazon Prime?
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[MO] Columbia net out?
Had Internet go out. 10 mins ago.
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[IN] Need a upper level contact at Mediacom to sort out billing
Been a Mediacom customer for ten years. Provide my own modem and have so since the beginning.
Mediacom continues to bill me for a modem in spite of several attempts to rectify the situation. When speaking with them the rep's acknowledge that fact that I have been mis-billed but yet to se the charge removed or receive credit for their error. Grrrrrr.
I despair of any more service center calls or online communication and would like to write a real person who can and will sort this out.
Can anyone assist please??
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