I thought I was getting pretty good service from Time-Warner with the regular $34.95 per month plan, so I upgraded to the $99 wideband plan, thinking it would be even better. Not so. The new service is much worse. 

It takes a minute for pages to load sometimes. Other times the Internet is just out completely, with no service at all. The DNS is unreliable.  

A few minutes ago it waited a minute before failing to locate psychologytoday.com.  

Sites like Google and WNYC, usually very quick to load, take minutes. I've resorted at times to using my Verizon Mifi to access the Internet. 

It can take a minute to upload a 30K image. 

Sometimes when I search for something on Google, they can't find it (i.e. they can't find Google), so instead they take me to a helpful page on Roadrunner that can help me look up something, you know, like Google does. :-( 

In other words, the "upgrade" is actually a disgusting awful downgrade. 

It. Doesn't. Fucking. Work. 

One of my neighbors has Optimum on a wifi router without a password so I tried using that a few times instead. It's pretty zippy. Should I have them install service here? Can I get out of the Time-Warner deal without a penalty? 

Net-net: A huge honking thumbs-down on Time-Warner "wideband." 

Note: My theory is that far more of my neighbors have made this upgrade and that I was virtually alone on the cheap circuit. Regardless, the net-effect is much worse service for almost three times the money. A shitty deal. 

Update: Someone from Time-Warner got in touch via email. Totally beats going in through voicemail. I'll let you know how it goes.