First bill received after TWC Maxx upgrade, now seeing Monthly Services as "Extreme Internet & Ultimate 300 Upgrade", same price

I have received my first bill after I got the TWC Maxx upgrade in mid-August. The 'Monthly Services' portion of the bill has changed from Standard Internet ($57.99) with Extreme Upgrade ($20) for a total of $77.99, to "Extreme Internet & Ultimate 300 Upgrade"; still at the $77.99 monthly price. I only have internet from TWC.

TWC bill pre-TWC Maxx upgrade

TWC bill post-TWC Maxx upgrade

I think this is somewhat misleading as I believe since I was on the Extreme plan I should be on the Ultimate 200 plan as implied by the letter I received from TWC informing me I was getting updated speeds.

TWC Maxx in effect and speeds good, TWC letter recieved (pic), understanding new TWC plans and trying to get max speeds

I have had TWC Maxx since Wednesday and today I got the letter in the mail from TWC discussing the speed boost. Pics of the letter are below.

I was on the 'Extreme' plan (30/5 Mbps) and now, per the TWC letter, I should be on the 'Ultimate200' plan (200/20 Mbps) and the cost will be the same. However, on speedtest.net I am consistently getting 100 Mbps down and 10Mbps up since Wednesday. These speeds seem to be the way it is for me, but this is only half the speed of the Ultimate200 plan which is the one I should be on. Why is this?

I have a Motorola Surfboard SB6141 cable modem and per the TWC approved modems this model can only support up to the Ultimate100 plan. That TWC page says you'll need the new Arris (they bought the modem bits from Google/Motorola) SB6183 modem to get the speeds advertised in Ultimate200 and Ultimate300. This is a drag as it seems TWC did plan on supporting the SB6141 for the Ultimate200 plan based on the pic included in this Stop the Cap! page. I'll have to get confirmation from TWC on the SB6183 requirement to achieve 200/20 speeds. I bought the SB6141 last year (it's basically paid for at this point as I avoided the TWC $6/mo modem rental fee), but having to buy another modem (or rent from TWC) to get the Ultimate200/300 speeds would be a bit of a downer. Maybe I'll downgrade my plan to the Ultimate100 and keep the SB6141 as its doing fine, probably save some money too.

TWC Customer Support Live Chat reports wait time for a representative at over a half hour!

Generally I like to use online chat to engage with customer support (TWC or otherwise). I find it a more pleasant experience and I can do it discretely while at the office if needed. I've used TWC online chat support in the past with satisfactory results. Though I never was quickly connected with a rep in the past, my wait time to start a chat session with a TWC support person was estimated at over a half-hour! That's just a whopping delay. I think Time Warner Cable and all cable providers need to double down on good customer support in light of the recent bad press the industry has been getting. Minimizing support wait times for your customers would be a good first step. I do appreciate being notified of the estimated wait time so I'll let this play out to see how long it takes to get to a human...

Screengrab of chat initiation with TWC Customer Support, the estimated wait time for a support representative is over a half-hour!

TWC Maxx is now here in Greenwich Village!

I just checked my internet speed and I am now getting both faster downloads and uploads. I am seeing about 100Mbps down and about 10Mbps up. This is much better than the 'Extreme' tier of 30Mbps down and 5Mbps up. I will monitor this over the coming days to see if the upgrade is stable. The screengrab below is one of several tests I have done and though the upload says 87Mbps I was seeing it as high as 110Mbs on other runs. Overall this is pretty fabulous, thank you TWC! 

Ookla Speedtest.net result after TWC Maxx upgrade in Greenwich Village NYC on August 13th 2014

Just got email from TWC with subject: "Time Warner Cable is bringing you faster internet. At no extra charge." So TWC Maxx coming to Greenwich Village soon?

On the afternoon of Tuesday August 12th I received the following email from Time Warner Cable:

Actual TWC email screenshot stating higher speeds are coming for my account

Time Warner Cable has told me that they will notify users ahead of their upgrade to TWC Maxx. I take it this is my notice? I have not received a letter in the mail stating the upgrade is coming as other TWC NYC customers have said they received. Doesn't matter how I get informed, just want the speed bump ASAP. There is no date provided in the email or even alluded to as to when I will see the improved speed. Checking speedtest.net I see that I still have 30Mbps down and 5Mbps up which is my 'Extreme' package, so nothing has changed yet; I'll be checking regularly though from now on....

"TWC Maxx" and Faster Internet Speeds in New York City, Status and roll-out for Manhattan, when do I get it?

Time Warner Cable stated in January 2014 that they will significantly boost internet speeds in NYC in 2014. This is great, but how is it progressing and when will I get updated to faster speeds here in Greenwich Village?

A press release with a date of 04/22/2014 states that Time Warner Cable Begins Major Internet Speed Increases in Los Angeles and New York City. In the press release there is the line "TWC has boosted speeds for all its residential Internet plans in ... areas of Woodside (in Queens) and Staten Island in New York City." This is good as TWC looks to be making actual progress on these upgrades in NYC. TWC also posted a couple months ago a YouTube video titled TWC Techs Launch 300 Mbps Internet Speeds at Queens, NY, Hub | Time Warner Cable so they are touting their TWC Maxx progress.

But I want more information about which neighborhoods have been updated besides Woodside and SI; which ones will be next to get the TWC Maxx upgrade, and when this will happen in specific neighborhoods?

There is very little information on the TWC Upgrade progress, but I found a TWC Untangled blog post discussing the NYC TWC Maxx upgrade where a Jay Gormley (TWC Director, Content Production) states:

Just a friendly heads up. We’re getting several comments asking when “TWC Maxx” is coming to a specific neighborhood or community in LA and NYC. We truly appreciate your enthusiasm and we are working hard to make sure both markets are completely upgraded by the end of 2014. So the best answer we can offer is that our goal is to have all neighborhoods in the NYC and LA markets transitioned to “TWC Maxx” within the next five months.

This is a start but it is vague and could mean anywhere between now and Feb 2015. To get a tighter estimate I emailed TWCable.Help@twcable.com (an email address listed on the TWC Untangled page) asking when I can expect TWC Maxx in my Greenwich Village neighborhood. I did get a reply! But it was also vague; "Melissa O." stated that such specific information is not available at this time and that I will receive notification prior to the upgrade (through email or on monthly statement) in the instance I may need to upgrade my equipment.

Continuing my research online to get more hard information I found sporadic mentions of people getting their TWC Maxx upgrade in the NYC area. The site with the most information about actual TWC users getting the upgrade seems to be the forum postings on AVS Forum. New York City TWC customers are posting there if they have received the upgrade and are getting faster service and what zip code they are in. There are many Manhattan zip codes listed, one of the posts:

Originally Posted by Carlos_E
Time Warner MAXX availability by zip code

• Astoria NY 11102, 11103
• Long Island City,NY 11106, 11101
• Woodside, NY 11377
• Sunnyside 11104
• New York, NY 10030, 10128, 10028, 10035, 10022, 10021
• Flushing, NY 11355
• Elmhurst, NY 11373
• Jackson Heights, NY 11372
• E. Elmhurst, NY 11370

I have the updated speed and reside in 10026

From what I have found online and searching twitter it appears the TWC Maxx roll out is happening in a North to South and West to East kind of way and parts of Manhattan have it already.

But  I want to have an idea of when I can expect the upgrade. Is it imminent? Will I have to wait until 2015? The lack of detail from TWC is a real drag. People in Austin figured out who was getting the TWC Maxx upgrade by neighborhood, can this be done in NYC too? Why not, just takes some analysis I think. From this TWC press release "Time Warner Cable to Transform TV and Internet Experience in New York City and Los Angeles" there is this meaty paragraph:

As Time Warner Cable embraces new network performance standards company wide, the first phase of this initiative in NYC and L.A. will include a stringent review and upgrade of every network connection site (referred to as hubs) to ensure optimum service levels are delivered to every neighborhood. Each TWC hub serves thousands of customers with phone, video and data services. The first four hubs to receive upgrades are those that service customers in West Hollywood and Costa Mesa in California, and portions of Woodside (in Queens) and Staten Island in New York. The Company will complete its transformation of the customer experience in both major markets by year-end. As each hub site upgrade is completed, TWC’s Internet customers in every tier of service served by those hubs will see substantial upload and download speed increases.

The TWC Maxx roll out will be hub-by-hub. So what are the hubs in New York City? And which hub am I on? And when is that hub scheduled to get updated?

Searching the web I found at that the TWC Woodside hub is called the Woodside Headend and that there is a "Hub Site C" in Manhattan (I found this page which linked to this page which linked to this PDF on "DATA CENTER EFFICIENCY PROGRAM") which had this paragraph:

To meet this increased demand, Time Warner Cable is growing the capacity of one of their most active sites, Hub Site C, by building out approximately 14,800 square feet of raised floor data center space on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The new, full 2N structured Tier 4 facility, dubbed “Super C”, will be three times larger than the current Hub Site C

If there is a "Hub Site C" that implies there is a "Hub Site A" and "Hub Site B", maybe a "Hub Site D" and so on? Trying to find info on these hubs I came across the URL "https://www.twcnyc.com/". The site is old and appears to have not been updated in several years but it had some TWC network topology info that is probably still accurate (see the network topology at the Google cached page here). The info for Manhattan:

• Hub Site A in Midtown
• Hub Site B in the UWS
• Hub Site C in the UES
• 111 8th Avenue (the Google building)
• 60 Hudson (a big colocation site)
• 25 Broadway

Hub Site C has been upgraded, so customers who are served by this hub should be on TWC Maxx or getting it soon I'd imagine. I am likely not on this hub as I do not have TWC Maxx speeds and it is too far North of Greenwich Village, and Hub Site A and B are too far North as well. Probably for me I am routed to the 111 8th Avenue hub site or to the 60 Hudson hub. I also don't know if all it takes to get TWC Maxx is for the hub site you are on to get updated, or if there is more work TWC needs to do downstream from your main hub site.

I wanted to find out more about which hub site I am routed to. The site DSL Reports site has a community thread that discusses how you can determine which hub or headend you are on. It involves running a traceroute (or tracert on Windows DOS) from the command line. I did this and here are my results:

C:\>tracert dslreports.com Tracing route to dslreports.com [64.91.255.98]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms HomeRouter [#.#.#.#]
2 19 ms 16 ms 15 ms cpe-#-#-#-#.nyc.res.rr.com [#.#.#.#]
3 17 ms 21 ms 18 ms tge-0-0-0-0.nycmnyd-rtr02.nyc.rr.com [68.173.214.41]
4 12 ms 15 ms 19 ms agg58.nyquny9101r.nyc.rr.com [184.152.112.91]
5 12 ms 19 ms 15 ms 107.14.19.22
6 15 ms 24 ms 17 ms 107.14.17.216
7 11 ms 17 ms 11 ms te-0-7-0-21-pe02.111eighthave.ny.ibone.comcast.net [66.208.216.49]
8 16 ms 14 ms 16 ms 68.86.84.237
9 35 ms 38 ms 52 ms he-0-11-0-0-cr01.350ecermak.il.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.86.226]
10 42 ms 38 ms 48 ms pos-0-13-0-0-pe01.350ecermak.il.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.87.250]
11 39 ms 43 ms 39 ms 50.242.150.126
12 39 ms 44 ms 42 ms lw-core5.rtr.liquidweb.com [209.59.157.244]
13 46 ms 44 ms 40 ms 69.167.128.241
14 43 ms 45 ms 39 ms www.dslreports.com [64.91.255.98]

Looks like my hub is at 111 8th Avenue. I do not know if that TWC hub site has been updated or when it will be updated. Google is in that building so it has to be an impressive facility in terms of network gear and capacity. So hopefully that hub is next in line for the TWC Maxx update and then I'll get the speed boost. Also note that Comcast is in the mix in my traceroute results, they haven't even merged yet but the peering happens at 111 it appears.

According to the website "Stop the Cap!" it heard from people in Queens when they got the upgrade a few months ago. Stop the Cap says the first notification that your area is about to receive the TWC Maxx upgrade will come in a letter from Time Warner Cable and they posted a copy of a letter a Queens TWC customer received notifying them of the upgrade. Another letter here.

I have not yet received a letter, looking forward to getting it.

TWC to significantly boost internet speeds in NYC in 2014, new "TWC Maxx" product, I'll get "up to 200Mbps" down in 2014

The cord remains cut for me but I did upgrade my internet service from 'Standard' to the 'Extreme' service a couple months ago. This boosted my download speed from 15Mbps to 30Mbps and upload to 5Mbps from 1Mbps. This makes my bill $79.99 a month from about $50. Still a ridiculously high price for the speed considering that the Google Gigabit Internet package in Kansas City is cheaper at $70/month.
 
The current speeds and the speeds that will come when the TWC Maxx service is rolled out to NYC by end of 2014:

TWC Maxx Internet Speed Targets

I currently have the "Extreme" package so I will see speeds increased up to 200Mbps down and 20Mbps up. A noticeable improvement so I will be happy about this. The TWC presser says the initial NYC neighborhoods to get the speed boost with TWC Maxx will be portions of Woodside in Queens and Staten Island. No idea when it will come to my neighborhood but hopefully tomorrow.