3 reasons why you should avoid UPC Cablecom

Tech, TV, Mobile, Internet and Geek Corner
1
I feel it is my duty to share my exprience with UPC Cablecom with the members of this community.

I have been their customer for many years, and today I decided to change to Swisscom.

Reasons:

- The speed of internet is 1/3 of what is claimed by UPC, and sold to customers. I have the 250 Mbit connection, but I never get more than 85 Mbit (note that I am an engineer, and IT professional, to say that I know how to measure, and setup the ideal conditions, i.e. short wire from router, the right RJ45 cable etc)

- The internet connection is not reliable, I would say on average, the connection is off once every month, and it requires me resetting the router and often calling their customer service, spend good 30-45 minutes listening to poor music, before someone helps you to get your connection back on.

- UPC recently asked me whether I would like to combine my Sitel (this is an extra amount of 30 chf I pay per month for the cable infrastructure) bill with UPC. I agreed to combining the bill. A few days later, they send me a letter notifying me of a contract change, with a lower internet speed, and my international free landline phone option cancelled. I then called them a few times, and emailed them a few times, still no answer. Now all of a sudden, they have switched off my tv connection, exactly on the day I need the tv to work, to watch Roger/Nadal tennis match.

In conclusion:

- They lie about their internet speeds, e.g. they claim 250 Mbit, whilst reality is 85 Mbit MAX.

- Their service is interupted periodically and systematically, with a need to reset router.

- They try to trick consumers in unwanted contracts.

PM me if you need more details.

I am not affaliated with any service provider, I am just a customer with no hidden agenda. If UPC reads this message, they are more than welcome to get in touch with me so I can expand on my disappointment!

2
Weird... Just this morning, I got this result from SpeedTest:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/6007396058.png

And this is what I usually get.

Ok, I don't test it always and I remember there was a couple of times when the connection seemed slow (when I was connecting to my home-pc with teamviewer), but in general it is ok.

As for the disconnects, I remember having a couple of them in the past, but it was usually resolved quickly, with a downtime of an hour or so max.

I am also not affiliated with UPC or any other provided, just stating my experience.

3
Just got this from beta.speedtest.net.

Wifi from my Macbook to my UPC Connect Box. I've only had three outages in 6 years, and one of those was a fuse in our apartment block somewhere. The other two were resolved in an hour or two.

4
Some clarification on the speed.

I just called Swisscom and was informed that my area only support up to 100 Mbit.

Oddly enough UPC proposed and sold me the 250 Mbit package, knowing that my area only supports up to 100 Mbit.

5
UPC and Swisscom don't use the same infrastructure. Your rants don't seem very logical. As soon as you didn't get the advertised speeds from UPC you should have complained; I know people who've had refunds for periods where they couldn't get the advertised speeds (wired).

6
When we first had a UPC Cablecom modem fitted, we too experienced low speeds and drop-out problems.

But, rather than rant on a forum, I phoned Cablecom and they tested the line and then sent someone out who put an attenuator on the input to the modem which sorted everything out.

7
It is not odd. Cablecom has it's own wiring and can provide much more speed. Which is the reason I switched to them as I too live in the sticks in Swisscom's opinion and I'm not worth getting better wiring (how dear they!).

I was never a fan of cablecom but it seems they improved in the past years, the customer service was fine with me (I only had troubles with their modems so far and they got replaced).

When the wanted to increase the cost of my tv-deal I resigned it - they called me, said they can't give me the old price but take the increase off my internet connection without changing the speed = my total bill stayed the same. LOL. So they're actually very flexible = customer friendly.

8
- Speed as contracted

- Other than 1 outage for 2 hours, I cannot recall experiencing others in last 2 years

- Customer support, especially Technical assistance has been spot on and prompt

I am quite happy having switched to UPC from Swisscom. Cheaper, faster (Swisscom could not support higher speed).

9
Our signal is far more consistent since we switched to Cablecom from Swisscom. We were getting consistent outages with Swisscom due to an aging infrastructure. Since switching we have had only one serious outage and were given a full credit for the time we had no service.

10
[](http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/6007776689)

However, one outage lasting 36 HOURS. Seems rat got into their box down the street - or at least that's what i was told by help.

Only grouse is that they are more than happy to have sales in English, but service only in in Swiss national language.

11
Do I win? Swisscom basic.

12
I've also noticed less than advertised speed with cablecom, started monitoring it a week or so ago. Tbh i hardly notice normally, it's fast enough for my normal needs but i'm thinking of changing my plan to get rid of as much tv options as possible. Getting about half my billed speed.

I didn't notice for ages as my heaviest downloading goes through a vpn, which can impact speeds but i was happy so long as my files downloaded in reasonable time.

Other than that, the service is very reliable, bit of a nightowl and noticed when it goes dow, it goes in the wee hours of the morning more than most.

13
LOL, does it sound like this when you log on?

14
UPC delivers (as usual):

(This is a 250Mb contract)

2 outages (that I've noticed) in the last 8 years + at this location. One for 45 minutes and one for 12 hours.

15
Oddly enough, my Swisscom connection over fiber goes much faster than advertised. I have the 100Mbps up/down subscription but I get gigabit speeds. I wonder if it's just a temporary promotion or something.

I think UPC Cablecom will have a hard time when more people have a fiber connection in their home.

16
That's a crazy upload speed! Can you please keep your torrent client running 24x7? Thanks

17
My experience of UPC:

1. Bad speed in evening and weekend specially performance of youtube sucks.

2. Many outage in 2016. 1 of them lasting for more than 12 hours.

3. Every year UPC wants to increase payout.

18
UPC are the only option in some cases.

My Swisscom or Green etc max speed is 33 because of the local exchange.

I'd love fibre of course...

19
To be honest it's all very well having a Gigabit connection, until you realise that most of the rest of the internet just doesn't run that fast. IME Steam gets the closest, but only peaks at around 80MB/s (640Mb/s), and Apple comes in second in my experience with around 30MB/s (240Mb/s) depending on whether you're downloading an Apple product (fast) or an obscure 3rd party product (slow) from the App Store.

Other sites/services tend to be a mixed bag. This may be down to the sites only allocating a certain amount of bandwidth per connection, or it's possible that my ISP (Swisscom) is doing some traffic shaping.

Speed tests on the other hand always show a good 930Mb/s down and up.

So really my advice to those who want really fast internet is to go for a 300 - 500 Mb/s package, otherwise you may find yourself paying for bandwidth that you can't actually use, plus you can always upgrade to a Gigabit connection at any time (if your ISP offers it in your location)

The one place where Gigabit internet does come into it's own is if you do a lot of parallel downloading, then you can saturate your connection.

20
are you sure that the issue is not your in the wifi connection?

my UPC router has pretty slow wifi but now connected to a repeater that makes a huge difference.