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 Review by kringles 
UPDATED: 127 days ago
member for 7.9 years, 1925 visits, last login: 4 days ago
 Jasper,Pickens,GA
 $39 per month (12 month contract)
 about 7 days
 "Consistent speeds up/down"
 "upload could be faster, was increased to 384k July 15 2005, drop outs after upgrade to 6 Mbps May 22 2008"
 "Worth the cost versus other choices (dial-up, Satellite)"
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Connection reliability:
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(ratings above consensus)
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When I first relocated to the relatively low population area in North GA I soon found out that the only Internet services available were dial up (slow) and Satellite (expensive to set up and dial up speed for upload). After almost two years of trying to get service we finally got a group of about 20 residents in the area to sign intention to get DSL if available. We got this to the right manager in Alltel and they finally got the local equipment upgraded to support DSL! I spotted a local field tech and he had a contract to sign (12 months/free Modem etc with DIY install). I signed up and in a few days got the set up kit from Alltel. I called in and they setup the DSL upgrade for a few days later, so you could say the sign up to success time was about a week but the time from the first attempt to get DSL to success was about two years.
So far the connection has been reliable with speeds of 1100 to 1200 up (1500 advertised) and 200 up (128 advertised). The Modem is a Speedstream 5200 setup for PPPoE with dynamic IP. They say they will give out static IP if requested, I believe there is no extra charge.
update August 5. 2005
Appears that I was incorrect about no charge for static IP, another poster corrected this and is right. In my area they want an additional $40/month for the Static IP for a total of $79. In spite of their ads the Ultra Tier (3000 download) is not yet available here. They did bump the upload to 384 on 14 July 2005. My area has no real competition for Alltel, they have exclusive phone and cable services. I guess I have to satisfied with what I have, it is reliable but a little overpriced.
update 17 July, 2006
A couple of months ago my area qualified for the Ultra (3K download) service. I called to do the upgrade and found that there some new options that allowed me to bundle the upgrade and change to the flat rate long distance plan by Alltel. Their LD plan was cheaper than AT&T and the bundle allowed me to get the higher DSL speed at a cheaper price also. Since I have no alternate choice for broadband service (Alltel is also my CATV carrier and does not offer cable internet) it does not make sense to use VOIP. Therefore I took the bundle offer until some other options are available.
On the plus side we almost never loose connectivity or speed. On the down side I still wish they would raise the upload cap from 384K to 1000K or even 512K
Update 22 May 2008
DSL drops periodically after upgrade from 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps
Have be using Windstream (formerly Alltel) DSL at the 3 Mbps rate since it became available in my area (July 2006). SNR was about 21 and Attn 25. Service was reliable and often ran for weeks, even months without loss or drop out of service. Provisioning was at 3084/384 (I believe) and set for Interleave.
Recently was told that my area was eligible for upgrade to 6 Mbps service for ~$5/month more. requested the upgrade and after a few days and a few calls the service was re-provisioned at 7200/384, set for FAST and speed tests indicated it was working ok. A check of SNR indicated it varied from about 8 to 12 with an average of ~10, Attn was steady at 26.5. All was fine for about 4 days when internet connection was lost. SNR was displayed a -4. Rebooting the modem (SS 4200 f/w 004-D241-A83) corrected the problem. The SNR had dropped to 6 just before the loss of service. Drop outs have continued on a somewhat regular basis (3 to 4 days). Tried using a different SS 4200 and a Netgear DG384 with the same results. There is a whole house splitter at the NID with a dedicated Cat5e run to the Modem.
Some questions;
1. Is the current SNR/Attn sufficient to support 6 Mbps service? If not can SNR be improved?
2. I realize that this problem may be minor compared to others reporting here but is it too much to ask that the 6 Mbps service be a reliable as the 3 Mbps service was?
3. Since the CSRs in India(?) have not been much help who should be contacted, if anyone?
4. Should I just pack it in and and ask that my service be reset to 3 Mbps?
The main reason I don't want to have to reboot ever 3-4 days is that I often want make use of remote desktop login when away from home.
PS; have checked connections at NID and in house, all seem secure.
Update 6 June 2008
After some investigation and testing by local Windstream tech reps have decided to go back to the 3 meg service. Rather have a solid reliable connection at 3 meg than an unreliable one at 6 meg. See the thread I started on this here;
»DSL drops periodically after upgrde from 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps
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