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Review by VirtualLarry See Profile

  • Location: Hudson, Middlesex, MA, USA
  • Cost: $28 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 14 days
  • Telco party Verizon
Service is decent, speed (3Mbit) is adequate for most things, except for Skype + twitch.tv at the same time.
My old VZ modem reboots itself sometimes. Not DSLX's fault.
Definitely worth the money, if you need cheap broadband. Going with DSLX also allowed me to get dry-loop, even though VZ disco'd

I was once a Verizon DSL dry-loop subscriber, paying around $30 / mo for 3Mbit / 768Kbit service. After a few years, FIOS came to town. I got seduced by their claims of higher speeds, so I signed up for a double-play with Internet and TV. But the bill was much higher than my VZ DSL, $117 / mo.

So I decided to try to sign up for DSL again, after two years with FIOS. Sadly, once you go FIOS with VZ, they will no longer provide DSL service to that address (even though I could plug in my old DSL modem and get a DSL link light).

Enter DSLExtreme. A 3rd-party reseller of VZ (and AT&T, in other parts of the country) DSL lines. They were able to get me installed with dry-loop DSL, at the same line speeds as my old VZ DSL (3Mbit / 768Kbit) for $27.83 / mo for the first year, with a 12-month contract.

At first, I tried it for a while, and then I missed my 25/25 FIOS. So much so that I increased my FIOS to 75/35 in Jan. But recently, I've become even more budget concious, so I decreased my FIOS Internet and TV packages, so I'm only paying $102 / mo.

In Apr / May, I forced myself to use the DSLExtreme for a few weeks straight, and found that I could get used to the slower speed. I also had an issue with internet radio cutting out, which I blamed on DSLX initially, since it didn't seem to happen with FIOS, but it turned out, that it was due to a bug in the newest versions of Flash Player, and was unrelated to my service. I've also had an issue with my old VZ Westell 327W wireless DSL modem / router re-booting on its own. That issue was reduced by replacing the power brick, but not entirely eliminated.

I am still waffling about dropping FIOS entirely (and losing TV). But the DSLX connection is doing just fine so far. (I always had a rock-solid line with VZ DSL too.) The good thing is, it's affordable.



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