[gui-talk] [EXTERNAL] Time Warner Cable Nightmare

[Baracco, Andrew W]

If you have Internet service through TWC, you should have received one
or more Email messages about this change, with links you can click on to
get the new channel lineup.

Andy


-----Original Message-----
From: gui-talk [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Gerald
Levy via gui-talk
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2014 7:13 AM
To: gui-talk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [gui-talk] Time Warner Cable Nightmare


I'm already paying almost $120 a month for Time Warner cable service for
the privilege of receiving 500 channels, 99% of which I have no interest
in just to be able to receive the few that do interest me.  It has taken
me years to figure out which channel numbers corresponded to my favorite
channels.  I spend a lot of time listening to the Music Choice channels,
so imagine my surprise when I tuned to TWC channel 629  this morning,
which used to be the solid gold oldies channel , to discover that it was
now some other channel.  And to my horror, all the other Music Choice
channels, which used to be carried on channels 601-647 were also
apparently gone.  Fuming, I called Time Warner customer support, always
an exercise in aggravation, and after waiting 20 minutes, finally got a
customer service agent who explained to me that Time Warner had changed
its channel lineup, and that my beloved Music Choice channels were now
located from channel 1901 to 1950.  I explained to the agent that I was
blind and that the only way I could determine where all my favorite
channels were located would be to visit their web site and use the Find
function of my screen reader to locate each channel by number and its
corresponding musical genre.  But Time Warner has not bothered to update
its wb site , so when you visit it, you get the old channel lineup ,
which is completely different from the new one.  And because the
onscreen channel guide displayed by the cable box is totally
inaccessible, there is no way to get correct channel information this
way.  And the channel lineups on NFB Newsline have not been updated in
years to reflect the current Time Warner lineup.  What an outrageous
nightmare!  After telling me that she had no idea when or if the Time
Warner web site would be updated to reflect the new channel lineup, I
asked the agent when Time Warner would be offering accessible set-top
boxes, but after she asked me to hold so that she could speak to her
supervisor, she came back on the line and told me that she had no idea
when such boxes would be available.  I asked her whether Time Warner was
even working on an accessible box and again, she told me that she had no
idea.  If I could get decent reception with an antennaa, I would ditch
Time Warner altogether, but here in Manhattan, reception with an indoor
antenna is difficult to impossible.  Time Warner really has its
customers by the gonads,and things are only going to get worse if their
merger with Comcast is approved by the FCC.  Do any other Time Warner
cable customers on this list have any tips for locating specific
channels of interest without sighted help?  Or must I scroll through all
the channels on my cable box just to find the few that I'm interested
in?  What a freakin' mess!

Gerald 

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