 Review by tmpchaos 
UPDATED: 344 days ago
member for 8.3 years, 5363 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Hoboken,Hudson,NJ
 $40 per month (24 month contract)
 about 3 days
 "fast instalation and very fast speeds (especially after tweaking)"
 "none (yet...)"
 "should have gotten it sooner..."
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Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I started out on the net quite a while ago (anyone else remember 2400 modems and dial-up shell accounts?)...been through all the speeds, until I finally decided to get broadband both for the speed and to free up the phone. I started out with Flashcom/NP, and had a reasonable experience with them (4 weeks for installation-in the midst of the verizon strike, and speed about as promised, 400k). I was a happy camper, until they went under, and gifted me with Hellocity/NP. The changover (in retrospect) went very smoothly, with no loss of time. The connection was a little slower (370k), but nothing to get worked up over. Then the problems started. Outages, mail server problems, dns problem, until I went down completely, about two weeks BEFORE the death of NP. Finally got Hellocity to tell me that it was a MAC address problem, and that NP was going to fix it. Of course, we all know what happened next... I put up with six weeks of their dialup (constant drops) while waiting for them to reprovision me; in the middle of April, when I called, they told me my new CLEC would be Verizon (oh, joy...), and that I shoud be up in about two weeks, Then, a week later, I received the infamous DJ letter... So I went to look for other options. It turned out that I had only (on a practical basis) two options- Earthlink (via PPOE), or OOL. Looking things over, I decided to go with OOL (for speed, and installation timeframe). They got me hooked up in 3 days; the technician actually called me on the day of installation to see if he could come early (and did so). I got the modem the next day, and hooked it right up. Had a bit of a problem with the registration setup, but I called tech support, and they did it from their end with no problem. I also asked the tech about my main concern about cable (line overload), and he told me that they monitor the lines, and switch as necessary to maintain speed-which, in general has worked quite well. Speeds have been anywhere from 1200-8000k, and, in fact, a current test via Speakeasy shows 2482/825 to San Francisco and 5651/908 to NYC. The lack of a static IP hasn't been a problem (it hasn't changed yet), and it works fine with my system- G3 powerbook, G4 desktop, both with VirtualPC; everything is uniformly fast. In all, I'd say pleased.
The only quibble I have is with customer service, after the price increase. It's taken them three months and counting to change the charges.
Speeds have increased to a relatively consistent 14/1.8 M, while the price is now 49.95. They've swapped out my old modem with a new SA, which is unfortunately configured to not let the user see some of the typical information (signal or status).
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