how-to block ads
|
 Review by dbmaven 
UPDATED: 2 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 4721 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Highland Mills,Orange,NY
 $49 per month
 about 15 days
 "Reasonably fast (2002 update - very reliable)"
 "(2006 Update) - No longer the same value for the $$"
 "Although satisfied, I gave it up for OOL"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
I live in Highland Mills (Orange County, NY) - local telco is Frontier Communications. Getting DSL was a chore - they're very slowly rolling it out across the service area. No other option (COVAD,etc) is available in the area.
Installation was pretty smooth - computer tech showed up and did the trick in 15 minutes. Speed was abysmal - took a couple of days for them to figure out that the DSLAM side was incorrectly configured.
Promised speed is 'up to 1 megabit/sec down and 128k up'. Generally consistent speed tests on DSLREPORTS shows about 700k down/130k up - not unreasonable. I'm towards the far end of the rated distance for service.
Two frustration points:
1 - they randomly take down various servers (like the DNS server) with no warning. One minute you're flying along and the next you're dead in the water. They have got to start treating this as a business with SLAs (service level agreements) and schedule downtime for updates/upgrades/etc with posted and e-mail notification !!
2 - The modem/router is a CISCO 677. What a nice piece of equipment. Too bad they've dumbed it down to the point they have. It's capable of NAT and DHCP client/server, but it's configured to obtain a single IP address and withold NAT. They say it's dynamic IP - but 99.44 percent of the time you get the same IP when you renew the address. To this point they will not provide the management password to allow you to change the config. In the meantime, I'm using WIN98SE ICS to share the connection with more computers ---- but I shouldn't have to !
Overall - no serious complaints and it's worth the money.
2002 Update.
Since this was posted, the Cisco has been swapped out (no charge) with an Efficient Speedstream 5667. This router has been super reliable - and is a little faster than the Cisco.
Network downtime has been minimal - extremely rare. Occasional issues with DNS - but these are very sporadic and not much of a problem.
If you're in the neighborhood and want broadband, this is a good choice.
2003 Update.
Still have the same Speedstream modem. Overall I would say that the service has been more reliable over the past 12 months, when compared to the preceding 12.
Still occasional minor DNS issues every once in a rare while.
I am very happy - although I would like to see a 3mb option in this area, and/or a price change to compete with our neighbors a few miles up the road who have Verizon DSL... 
2006 Update.
In November of 2005, I took advantage of an 'intro' offer from Cablevision for OptimumOnline - $29.95/month. Although Frontier had upgraded the service to 3/768, OOL announced they were upgrading to 15/2 by June '06. So, for an intro price that's 2/3rds of what Frontier is charging me, I get 5x the download and upload?? Didn't have to think too long on that one..... I kept the Frontier DSL as a backup (I do a lot of VPN work) - but finally cancelled it on 9/29/06 as OOL has been 100% reliable. Frontier just can't compete with OOL....
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Frontier Lightning Link |
|
|
Frontier Lightning Link
·
·