Wide Open West

What a nightmare! It has been 2 months since I initiated just trying to get a simple internet connection. No cable tv or phone service. I have wasted countless hours on hold, being hung up on, lied to, promised this, promised that, had technicians come out (sometimes) when they were supposed to, had contractors drill under my driveway, tear my yard apart, pull the wrong cable company’s cables, even after I told them what they were doing was wrong, they told me I didn’t know what I was talking about and that they did, unbelievable. DO NOT even consider this company. I had Comcast in the past and even though their customer service and billing practices were horrendous, at least they came out and installed the cable when they promised. What a huge waste of time this ordeal has been, and they still try to pretend everything is right on schedule. Like I said a NIGHTMARE!

Very disappointed. I was a WOW customer 2 years ago and switched to Comcast because of a great deal they offered. I then decided to switch back to WOW now because my Comcast rates went up. Wow am I sorry I switched back to WOW! Only second day into my service, I’m already having issues. One of the TV boxes can’t get the «grid» (guide) to show up on a beat up box they installed. My wifi signal can’t even reach my patio which is about 25 feet from the box. Had no issues with picking up Comcast signal and the box and my patio furniture are all in the same place. They tried to tell me that I should pick up service 150 feet away so maybe too many walls in the way and tried to sell me a repeater for $ 40. Seriously?! My walls haven’t changed since I had Comcast 2 days ago! It’s your service or equipment WOW! I guess you pay for what you get. Service technician scheduled to come out in a week but doubt they will fix it so will be most likely dropping service with WOW.

Every morning the connection drops for a minute or two at a time and any downloading, movies etc get interrupted. Not good as I work from home. 10 day wait for a technician appointment, they came but did not exit the van and left. They rescheduled for two days later with a 8 hour arrival window.

The worst internet service I have ever had! I called and complained and they said I needed a wireless reader to boost signal. Well, I called over a month and a half ago and I still have yet to receive it. I called today to cancel services and only now do they show any concern. They don’t even deserve a star rating.

Wow… more like, Wow, has their reliability gotten crappy. Every morning, between the hours of 8 and noon, our connection drops at least a dozen times, for a minute or two at a time. Not good when I work from home, and my office line is VOIP. Each time I call, the techs are unable to tell me if there is a problem in my area. Every time I call, they tell me «Oh, I can see there is some maintenance going on there, maybe that is what is causing the issue?»
This most recent time, the outages have been happening for about two weeks. This isn’t the first time this has happened either. It seems to happen every month. Today when I called and told them to tell me why I shouldn’t press «Submit» on the Xfinity order form I had open, they told me they would send a tech out to my location. Seems odd that they have absolutely no data on the health of their network, and they need to send a tech out to my location to figure out if it was an issue on their end. Anyway, they couldn’t send someone out until next week. I could get Xfinity installed sooner than WOW could send a tech out to keep a customer. The rep said she would try to get someone out today, and that she would call back within 30 – 40 minutes with that information. Never called back.
Xfinity, here I come.

I am sitting at Einsteins downtown Naperville, WOW has a massive failure, no phone, no internet and limited TV. Shutdowns are part of the deal, but the lack of information that Customer service has is appalling. They do not know what the problem is, what caused the problem, the location of the problem, and this is 4 hours into the problem. Of course it will be fixed ASAP, sure, we should all tell them our printer is broken and it will be fixed ASAP when the bill arrives.

Internet is normally garbage, you are better off with a makeshift satellite dish for internet. Google please hurry up with Google Fiber. Wow makes Comcast look like a decent provider. Internet isn’t working currently, called wow, looks like its going to take 4 f***ing days to send someone over to fix it. RIP data plan. The internet quality starts out decent when you first get it, but as time passes it progresses down ward and proceeds to dig a tunnel into earth’s core.

WOW should stand for «wow I actually have internet service today»?? I’m not sure WOW actually realizes that customers expect them to provide a reliable service and not have day and multi-​day long Internet outages on a regular basis (at least 2 per month). All my neighbors with AT&T don’t seem to have this problem … This is ridiculous.

This has declined so dramatically over the years. I hate to say it, but Comcast is better.
Years ago, My provide was Comcast. And nod they were miserable to deal with at times. I switched to WOW and it was a real refreshing change. Lower prices and tremendous service.
But over the years the price has moved up and the service dropped off. And sadly both of these areas have dropped below Comcast. Not to mention the selections and internet performance of Comcast are on average better. Phone support is prompt and friendly, but field and technical assistance are scarce and ineffective.
If you are miserable from Comcast, maybe it is worth a try still. At least you can hit your head with a different hammer. But if you have heard great stories in the past about WOW, I’m not sure these reflect the current company. Don’t expect the breath of fresh air. Just a new bad taste.

Do not switch to WOW whatever you do. Their service is poor, they can’t come close to matching Comcast in any way including price, speed, guaranteed contract terms, equipment, in fact, there isn’t a single area that they have any superiority in. If you think you are getting a deal, just wait. You’ll regret you ever tried them

WOW! Wide Open West: Undisclosed costs & very poor services:
WOW! is what you say when you get a bill that’s 20% higher than you originally were told and agreed upon with their representative.
If they would allow Zero stars, I would give them a «0» for their Ultra programming plan and their non disclosure of actual costs.
Agreed on $ 105 for cable service, Internet service and phone service plus only the applicable taxes and including two cable boxes and HD service.
I repeated numerous times to the rep «$ 105.00 plus applicable taxes only» reply each time was «yes.».
Getting billed $ 126.25 (without tax,) billed $ 21.25 over the agreed complete costs plus $ 10.76 taxes for $ 137.01.
Junk fees as follows:
Service Protection Plan $ 5.00 (never told or asked for this coverage would not have bought because there is no contract)
Broadcast TV fee $ 7.75
Sports Surcharge (specifically requested no sports channels when I signed up) $ 2.00
Network line fee $ 6.50 =
an additional $ 21.25 over the agreed price.
While $ 21.25 per month does not seem like much it is actually $ 21.25 plus tax (lets say) $ 22.00×12 month = $ 264.00×10 years = $ 2,640.00 out of my pocket and possibly yours!
Some people like my father had been with his provider for 32 years before he changed so at that rate it would be $ 8,448.00 over the actual bill.
They never ever disclose these fees!
Now lets talk about the services:
Internet, told rep we have 4 TV’s with Netflix streaming, three tablets and one desk top she picked the speed.
Computer and tablets very slow to react, as a matter of fact 2 to 4 seconds to change pages/​sites and some time longer.
Much much slower then Comcast (had Comcast before going to, WOW!)
Netflix consistently does some type of rebooting during the program.
TV at $ 105.00 level, no good programing all commercial TV and not all of the channels with commercials are included like MGM some of the Fox networks and more.
Only Turner Classic Movies is non commercial.
Program schedule is difficult to navigate, all program picks on the guide need to come to the center of the guide before you can choose, Comcast and U-​verse you scroll to the program.
Remote is set up opposite of U-​verse and X-​finity so it is difficult to get used to.
Guide is very slow to react to remote.
The network emblems are listed on the left of the guide and many are difficult to read.
Programming: you do not know if you subscribe to a channel until you try to click on the channel then after 4 – 5 seconds wait for the channel to react it tells you you are not subscribed to the channel.
U-​verse menu shows the program in progress on the guide without clicking on the channel.
Comcast is quick to show you do not have the channel.
WOW! Ultra TV is clumsy and very slow for everything you do.
Phone service: gave me a new number that appears to have been very recently surrendered by a Google advertiser, getting multiple calls about my Google ad I never have had.
Comparing U-​verse and Comcast X-​finity is easy.
U-​verse has a lot more programming for less money (can’t get U-​verse in my neighborhood father and girl friend have U-​verse).
Comcast is faster less expensive in the junk fees and much user friendly.
I guess I feel ripped off, lied to and very disappointed, (leaving shortly going back to Comcast.)
I believe all cable, satellite Tv have additional junk fees but some are a lot less than other.
7÷1÷15: today is a good day, back with Comcast.

Not sure what is with all the reviews but I decided to give these guys a shot.
I ordered Friday over the phone, Saturday the sales rep showed up (following on my inquiry) and gave me a free install.
Today (sunday) Ben (the tech) showed up promptly and installed the service. It took about an hour since there were some issues with low signal and such. He gave me his card with his supervisors phone number and promised the issue would be resolved in an hour or two.
An hour later I checked the service and its working perfect, I tried a few sites (speedtest and various downloads off the cogent, zayo network) and I get exactly the speed I purchased.
One note is that I wish they sold the modem instead of renting it, the rental is expensive compared to the price of the modem. I purchased mine on CL for peanuts so I’m a happy camper.
So far I don’t have a single thing to complain about, they were on time, communicated well when they were issues, provided a timeline to fix them and the issue got fixed within an hour.
One thing I noticed is that the service from the local folks is way better then the folks you get from calling the headquarters.
Tom

They are the absolute worst! Very rude customer service. Raised my rate 22% and essentially said take it or leave it. Do yourself a favor and stay away from this company.

Worst service ever. Customer service over the phone is horrible; you’re passed around multiple times, repeating the issue several times as no one can figure out who you actually need to speak to. The cable box cuts out every few hours. We’ve had it changed several times and this continues each time. You can’t watch tv for more than an hr or so without your service cutting out for a few minutes. Terrible customer service and terrible equipment, all around worst cable experience. Switching to a different provider ASAP!

Absolute horrible customer services and relations! Phone menu is a pain to go through in order to make payments or calls relating to the extremely common outages that we endure. Prices constantly go up and channels are removed from line up and the channels that are added are crappy ones that no one will watch. No channel schedule is available, that was removed some time ago, I just guess what is on everyday at any given time.
Be very careful to pay all of your bill on time, I goofed and underpaid and my service was disconnected over 1 cent and I had to pay it to reinstate services. I think I could do better somewhere else, and if you are not currently a customer, don’t give this company a second thought.

Update: I called again, since it’s been a week and no one ever called me back. This time I was able to speak with a supervisor, she resolved the issue, apologized for the problems, and put a note in the file in case any follow up is needed. I’ve upped the rating to 3 stars instead of 1 because of this good experience. It would have been higher if this had happened on the first call.
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Rarely have I encountered such horrible customer service and business practices. After first assuring me I would not be charged, you then do work without indicating anything has changed as far as payment, and then when it’s all done you say you’ve now decided I have to pay for it? Oh and sorry, the supervisor is not available. You’ll get a call back from them sometime, but we can’t guarantee how long it will take. «Wow» is right.

Adequate service as a customer, but if you ever decide to cancel, watch out! The bills just keep pouring in … I am out over $ 350 after returning every piece of garbage equipment I had … they are STILL billing me (months after the service was cancelled) and they just don’t seem to understand the concept.
I wouldn’t use these people again if they offered it free … they should be embarrassed by the way they treat people.

I have them for TV only, Well their billing is horrible and keeps going up. I have been with them for quite a few years too. Since digital TV, the signal is terrible. Certain stations keep cutting out for about 5 seconds and then come back. Of course this only happens during the most important part of the program. Then certain stations will pixelate for a few seconds also while cutting out. The tech comes out and watches TV for a while and nothing happens. So he does not know what to do. Very frustrating and it can’s seem to be fixed.
Would I recommend WOW. Nope. Customer service??? What customer service?

I switched from Comcast to WOW after Comcast’s prices just kept going up and up. Now look, cable TV is not cheap, but still WOW is at least $ 25 less a month than Comcast.
The installer was right on time, a little early even. The setup was a little tricky for him because there was some account activation problem at headquarters that day, but he kept at it and got things working smoothly. He even came back a few hours later to check on everything. Very nice guy. I had to call for customer service one other time for another item, and the installer they sent that time was also excellent.
I have the Ultra TV basic plan. The first thing I noticed is that WOW’s picture is crystal clear, noticeably better than Comcast’s. The WOW Ultra TV 6-​tuner DVR and tablet /​phone apps are very good. But you cannot stream shows to your tablet as of yet. I hope they add that in the future.
WOW’s on-​demand selection is admittedly not as deep as Comcast’s, and a lot of the on-​demand shows are not in HD for some reason. It’s not too much of an issue since I only use on-​demand when we’ve forgotten to record a show on the DVR.
I have the 15Mbps internet plan and it is consistently up and as fast as advertised. Just note that the wireless router WOW includes with Ultra TV does not have the best range, so instead I plugged my own trusty old wireless router back in because it has great range.
Overall though I think WOW’s picture quality, internet speed & consistency and customer service are very good at price significantly less than Comcast’s, so it’s a winner. If they are in your neighborhood, give them a try.

I’ve been with Wow on and off for a few years now. I’m about to be off again, because the internet speeds are ridiculously slow. I pay $ 70 a month for the 30 mbps package and never experience anything higher than 12 mbps. It fluctuates all day and goes out when streaming video, just about every time. Downloading small files is a huge hassle. I’ve called so many times, and while their customer service people are great, it just isn’t enough to keep my business.