Great. Thanks for the help. That's the generic customer support line. *facedesk*

Wincy Orlando: Hello! Thank you for choosing Road Runner Internet technical Chat. My name is Wincy O. How may I assist you?
Sean: Hi, I've been having some connectivity issues over the past couple weeks. Is there anything you can tell me about the reported outages on the network status page?
Wincy Orlando: I'm more than happy to assist you. To get us started, I'm going to need to verify some security information and then we can move on to understanding your issue. We will need to perform some troubleshooting steps together, and I'll be running some tests on my end. Feel free to ask questions along the way.
Wincy Orlando: May I have the following four pieces of information from you please inorder to bring up your account?
1. The account holder's 10 digit telephone number. (xxx-xxx-xxxx)
2. The account holder's Full Name (First and Last)
3. Please tell us your name.
4. Your preferred e-mail address?
(Preferred e-mail address is the one that you use frequently; it may be different from the Road Runner e-mail address)
Sean: **stuff**
Wincy Orlando: Thank you for the information, Sean.
Wincy Orlando: Could you please elaborate the issue?
Sean: For the past few weeks I've been getting dropped connections, some hosts unreachable, and generally shoddy service. I did my own investigating and it seems that my computer will occasionally lose the ability to contact the default gateway.
Wincy Orlando: Okay.
Sean: This is in addition to three outages on the network status site, one of which has been there since May 8th
Wincy Orlando: Isee.
Wincy Orlando: If I understand you are experiencing intermittent connectivity, am I correct?
Wincy Orlando: I am awaiting for your response.
Sean: More or less, yes. I'm usually connected fine, but every few minutes all my connections will hang and some will disconnect.
Wincy Orlando: Alright.
Wincy Orlando: Please allow me couple of minutes to research the issue further.
Wincy Orlando: I appreciate your patience.
Wincy Orlando: I have checked our records and it seems there is an issue with the connectivity.
Sean: That's apparent
Wincy Orlando: This needs to be addressed by our other department at this number
Sean: Sorry, what number?
Wincy Orlando: Just give me a minute.
Wincy Orlando: 207-253-2222 as they have the required tools and expertise to help you resolve the issue.
Wincy Orlando: This is the ticket number for this chat session RQST00056863397.
Wincy Orlando: Is there anything else I may assist you with?
Sean: Nope. Thanks for your time.
Wincy Orlando: You are welcome.
Wincy Orlando: For further assistance please logon to our website http://www.help.rr.com and check for online FAQs.
Wincy Orlando: I would appreciate if you could provide us with your valuable feedback on the support experience after the end of this chat session. It will help us to serve you better. Please submit your comments at http://surveys.rr.com/chat.
Wincy Orlando: Thank you for visiting Road Runner Internet Technical Chat. Have a good day!
Wincy Orlando: Analyst has closed chat and left the room

And what the crap kind of name is Wincy Orlando?

"Fuck Roadrunner"

...Agreed.

Now, my own "I hate them" story:

I've been noticing over the past couple weeks that people are signing on and off rather randomly from AIM, even when they are obviously away from their computer (James for one). I've also been intermittently losing connectivity over my wireless network, which produces the same disconnect and reconnect that I'm observing with other people. I can only assume that this problem is with Time Warner, not my own network, if everyone is seeing it.

Over the winter, I had some major outages which were, well, rather annoying. Since I depend on Time Warner for internet, phone, and TV, it was kinda annoying when I lost all three for days at a time, multiple times a month.
For the first couple service visits to my house, Time Warner tried to pin the blame on user error. (I overheard a technician talking to his supervisor, rather blatantly accusing me of "probably flooding his connection with illegal downloads and porn, it's not our problem")
After the third outage, I noticed that it was always happening at night when the outside temperature was dropping below zero. When I pointed this out to the next technician, she checked to make sure that there wasn't water in the line freezing, found nothing, and went back to blaming it on user error.
Fourth technician, I told the same thing. He seemed to recall that there is a device on the pole outside that works only under a set temperature range...but he couldn't do anything about it.
Fifth visit (after probably 10 outages) finally got someone to climb the pole and find that someone really had screwed up with my house's hardwiring from the pole, and actually fixed that problem.

Now that my house works fine, I just have to deal with Time Warner's normal pain in the ass random disconnections and all...

How I love Roadrunner...

Not to mention how painfully slow everything is when the connection /is/ working. For example, right now I am downloading perl. That is the only network activity save for the occasional HTTP request. I am getting about 4kb/s.

And take a look at their network status page for the Time Warner Cable of Maine region. I haven't seen it without outages for months.

Information is unavailable at this time

We are sorry, but your request cannot be completed. Please try again at a later time.

^^^ That's what happened when I tried the network status page

I am a road-runner tech working tirelessly towards working to resolve customer issues. I understand that customers may be fruatrated because of the issue that they are experiencing, however we are bound by certain policies and protocols that we have to follow at any costs. We can't go ahead and help you with issues not supported in our boundaries cause we may loose our job or a part of our salary. We transfer or refer you necause we want to resolve your issue if not by us, then by the other department.

Mr. Anonymous you do indeed have a very valid point, and I think it's important that people realize that any trouble they may be experiencing is not the fault of the employee on the other end of the line. Unfortunately the people who deserve your strong words are the ones you won't reach over the phone.

I apologize for directing my frustration at the support representatives. I am still frustrated with many of my experiences with roadrunner technical support, but having worked in a corporate environment myself I can understand how such procedures would be developed, and I imagine it is frequently just as frustrating for the techs. Process control can be a pain.