Time Warner Cable is putting new software on digital cable boxes nation wide. The new software is called Navigator. The existing software that it is replacing is called Passport. Navigator is not comparable to Passport. It is a “downgrade”. Some of the features that you will lose with this software are: the ability to search for a program by keyword, the ability to select the current program that you are watching on the guide to find out how many times it comes on again (you now have to maneuver through screens and type in the name of the program), and the ability to tell whether a program is new or a repeat on every program when you press the info button, just to name a few. Other issues include: the software does not rewind properly (it does not stop at the point shown on the screen), when you swap programs, it sometimes swaps to the wrong channel, sometimes if will not record the program that was programmed to record, the picture quality is poor and the backgroud of the guide is an unappealing shade of blue. Despite the fact that Navigator is not comparable to Passport, has less features, does not work properly and results in poor picture quality, Time Warner is trying to force this faulty software on customers because they don’t want to pay for the use of Passport, it has nothing to do with going to HD as they are trying to claim. They conducted trials on Navigator before they started rolling it out to customers and received negative responses and complaints. They ignored the complaints that they received from their trials, just as they are ignoring complaints from the customers who have had their boxes changed to this new software. Customers should band together to let Time Warner know that they cannot continue to ignore their customers and get away with it, that customers will not accept this poor customer service from their company. Call the presidential customer advocate number at the corporate office if you do not want this new Navigator software and want to keep Passport. Spread the word and give out the number: (203)328-0600, press 2 for the presidential customer service office.
Tags: cable, complaint, Consumer, Consumer Advocate, monopolies, monopoly, Time Warner Cable
Speak4us's Weblog 
April 7, 2008 at 8:30 pm |
Thank you for putting my exact thoughts into words! I’ve been wondering who to complain to. I just called the number, gave my complaint & they said they’d have the CA presidents office call me today. If you really want to get pissed off, try searching for a Laker game (or any other team). You have to search for NBA Basketball, then it gives you a long list of “NBA Basketball”s (@ least 20 or so). That’s it. No dates, no teams, no times… nothing!! So you have to click on each “NBA Basketball”, then you have to click on each “date” sub-heading to see the teams. So, basically I have to go through this for every “NBA Basketball” until I find my Laker games! This is stupid. Don’t you think they would have come across this issue in R&D? Someone needs to get fired.
Here’s another one…
Try going a few days ahead in the guide using the “Day” button. Now you can only do it one day @ a time & you have to let each day sloooooowly load until you can go to the next!!
I admit it… I am a TV junkie! This really pisses me off!!
April 25, 2008 at 8:27 pm |
I agree with Herb, I’m glad to see I’m not the only one pissed off at time warner! and also see why most of my neighbors have changed to zoom town or others. I’m sitting here with about about 50ft of cable over the inside of my patio door frame! There has been 5 techs to my home because my internet wasnt getting good signal. each time they just kept adding more splitters an more cable! Which to me means making the signal weaker duh! So the simple solution I came up with, is install another outlet on the other side of the patio door to go to pc making a stronger signal and use outlet on other side of room for tv. Simple right? Not! every tech they sent said ” Oh I dont do that, you have to call our sub contractor. called again,same story ! Im an old disabled women and I can do it myself probably in 10 to 20 minutes ! So I decided to join my neighbors and get rid of time warner! I’ve been paying a monthly bill for services that works half the time if your lucky! So like the comercial for at&t ” I got the Time Warner Blue’s an I’m cutting you Loose ! ! another provider will gladly take me as a customer ! Dianne[ another pissed off Time Warner Customer] soon to be X customer…………..
April 25, 2008 at 8:33 pm |
My service with Time Warner has been a total waste of money.
May 16, 2008 at 12:49 am |
The new Mystro software from Time Warner is horrible. As mentioned by others you lose features. I have complained to customer service and they say that the old software was leased and they own the new software. My response to them is they should have debugged the new software prior to making me a dissatisfied customer. I have a clear signal to the horizon in 360 degrees, bet I could find a satellite service to replace them.
May 31, 2008 at 2:47 am |
I’ve read many complaints about TWC’s Navigator software. I live in Lincoln Nebraska, which was the guinea pig site for the Navigator software rollout. That debacle caused a lot of outrage, including public hearings as to compliance with TWC’s cable franchise. See the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper archives for more info.
However, the real problem is that TWC feels they can burden customers with lousy software, for TWC’s own greed, and provide incredibly poor service, because they have no competition in most service areas. They use public right-of-ways for their infrastructure and have exclusive franchises in many service areas. If TWC, or any provider, was required to have non-exclusive franchises, by changes in state and local laws, then other providers, likely with new technology, would feel they could enter the market. The added competition would “fix” TWC problems, and more importantly would provide the customer with better, less costly options.
Obviously not an easy thing to do, but it starts with many contacts, phone, email, letter, or personal, with state and local representatives, and appropriate agency’s, to ask, or demand that they work toward changing all applicable laws to foster competition and benefit the consumer.
Even the move to demand competition will get TWC’s attention in a positive way for the consumer.
June 7, 2008 at 1:55 pm |
Thank you Time Warner for the new guide upgrade. No, I’m not happy with the guide, but they have opened my eyes to how much better Directv is. Plus I didn’t realize how many HD channels were out there. The only downside is that Directv doesn’t offer Mojo. No Three Sheets for me:(
Since the new upgrade(downgrade?) I’ve been living in Time Warner’s dark/cold cave of slow, rebooting, can’t find anything service for a month. And to think if they would have kept the old guide I would still be a customer… I love when the higher ups of a company see the bottom line rather than building relationships with their customers. I have sent them two complaints via email, but only the second time did they respond. And I’m sure the only reason was that I hinted at dropping their service in the second complaint. They tried to swap out my boxes as if the hardware is the problem. Oh well.
Thanks again TW and enjoy your mass exodus that’s coming soon.
June 19, 2008 at 1:19 am |
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation 🙂 Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Apparitional.
July 23, 2008 at 1:48 pm |
If you don’t like the DVR service from TW, then get a different DVR. Contrary to their advertising, relying on one company to provide every aspect of your overall television experience is not the best way to go. Would you buy your television set from TW? Your DVD player? Your sound system? I know I wouldn’t. That’s not what they do. So why get your DVR from them?
TW’s expertise is delivering a signal to your house. If you’re using them for anything beyond that, well, that’s your mistake. Try feeding your TW signal into a TiVo DVR and watch your problems melt away.
July 27, 2008 at 2:37 am |
twc is relly bad ???
September 6, 2008 at 1:20 am |
The software is so bad that TimeWarner service reps simply hang up on you if you ask then for support on software issues.
December 26, 2008 at 11:30 am |
Like Herb I’ve always used my DVR primarily to watch the Lakers/NBA Basketball/Premiership Soccer/etc. On my old Passport system I could just search for the keyword “Lakers” and set it to automatically record anything with the word Lakers in the title or description.
Now not only can I not do keyword recording – it doesn’t even recognize “NBA Basketball” as a series!!!
Mystro basically sucks: extremely limited feature set/terrible user interface
For all intents and purposes – the DVR is now basically useless to me
But here’s the best part:
I called TW support and when I got confirmation that I wasn’t crazy and that they really took away my ability to do keyword recording or recording “NBA Basketball” as a series altogether I asked to file a formal complaint.
I was transferred to a “Supervisor”. This guy proceeds to tell me that he’s had time warner for 10 years and has had Passport and that it never had the ability to do keyword recording!!! He literally said “it may have been a fluke” that I was able to do that! A FLUKE?! wow… talk about insulting my intelligence!
Time Warner has always been great but I’m now looking into alternatives
July 29, 2009 at 8:49 pm |
Well, so it seems this is old news. I got this mystro for a month now and I cursed the day the guy took away my passport box. Not having keyword search is the worse thing that could have happened to my tv experience. Not being able to “save shows until they are manually erased it’s just as bad. Now the stupidity of the people that design this mystro is beyond belief. They should all be fired.
August 22, 2009 at 4:03 am |
thank you so much for all of the preceding comments. my TWC box switched over to mystro yesterday and i thought there was something wrong with me! it was supposed to be an upgrade with new features. the Passport interface was so superior. what happened to the detailed program descriptions? now there is just 1 sentence with the name of 1 or 2 lead actors. Passport gave you so much more information, which was extremely helpful, especially if I was not familiar with the movie. searching for a program is a horror. it can’t be done from the program grid. the list just goes on and on.
can anyone tell me if the tivo interface is similar to the passport interface?
thanks,
disgusted in NYC