Difficulty with Internet connection has had some Westwood residents wondering what their Internet service options are.
Some students living in Westwood apartments said they have experienced slow Internet, limited connection and unsatisfactory customer service from their apartments’ Internet providers.
Many students said their apartment buildings only offer Time Warner as an Internet service provider and believe their service is unsatisfactory.
Laurel Reimer, a third-year environmental studies and geography student who lives in a building where only Time Warner is offered, said there are times when her whole building does not have Internet connection.
“It’s hard to not have Internet, especially when we’re here at UCLA and pretty much everything we do requires the Internet,” she said.
“You’ll go to load a page or refresh a page and it won’t work or it will say it can’t open the page, and it’s pretty frustrating.”
But Patti Rockenwagner, a spokeswoman for Time Warner, said many of the customers’ difficulties with Internet connection are a direct result of technological upgrades the company has been making since it bought Adelphia Cable in August 2006.
“There were a number of initiatives in the last six months since we acquired the Adelphia company that we have done to improve the service,” Rockenwagner said.
“Part of the process that we find ourselves in now is very much a transitional phase which I liken as a remodel.”
Rockenwagner said these technological upgrades include upgrading Comcast and Adelphia customers to the Time Warner Road Runner platform, providing larger storage space, and increasing Internet speed.
But Reimer said she does not care about the speed of Internet connection as much as the quality of the connection.
“If I’m going to be using Internet, I’m expecting it to be there because I pay for it,” she said. “If they somehow increase their Internet strength, I really wish they could just have a consistent connection.”
Yael Filossof, a second-year pre-psychology student, said she has had trouble reaching Time Warner’s customer service and having them address her problems.
“I wish they would just get their act together,” she said. “We can’t just be on hold for an hour. They’re so busy because everyone is trying to call them at the same time.”
Some Westwood residents looking to switch their service providers said they were told that other companies did not cover their buildings.
Jon Davies, spokesman for Verizon, said the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which requires telephone companies to share their lines with competitors, has increased competition among different cable-service companies operating in the same area.
But Rockenwagner said the Telecommunications Act does not govern landlords’ decisions, and because Time Warner is one of the only companies to offer television cable, Internet and phone service, many building owners choose it.
“Down to the granular level of what apartment-owner X does, that is not something that is legislated by the Telecommunications Act, and it shouldn’t be. because that is a landlord’s personal choice,” Rockenwagner said.
“If a landlord wants to have satellite instead of cable, they own the property and it is their discretion.”
Rockenwagner said Time Warner is the primary service provider in the Westwood area because other companies do not want to spend money to build and maintain cable plants, not because they are not permitted.
“There aren’t that many companies that would be willing to build that capital,” Rockenwagner said.
“We do face a lot of competition from satellite and phone companies who are offering high-speed Internet and satellite. DSL and Verizon do offer services in Westwood.”
Davies said in the past several years, the trend for college students has been the increasing use of wireless Internet and cell phones.
Yalda Shahram, a third-year biology student who lives on Kelton Avenue, said her building provides Verizon Internet service, and she and her roommates use wireless Internet service.
“In the beginning it was hard to get it started and we had a couple of problems setting it up, … but they helped us through it and helped us fix it,” Shahram said.
“It’s definitely not as fast as the connection in the dorms, but we use wireless and it’s pretty fast,” she said.