Review by fightingmink 
UPDATED: 54 days ago
member for 203 days, 19 visits, last login: 54 days ago
 Elk Grove,Sacramento,CA
 $140 per month (12 month contract)
 about 18 days
 "Faster than cable. Phone is good."
 "Hack job on installation."
 "Excellent phone/internet, bad HDTV software upgrade, poor installation."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
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First things first... I wasn't here for the installation. My wife was home while I was at work. Additionally, I've been going on broadbandreports for over 7 years. This is my first time registering. I'm an avid online gamer since 2000 and found this website extremely useful.
My brother used to work for Surewest for customer retention. Number 1 complaint he receives is poor customer service, ie tech support and knowledge of service. Secondly, the installation for FIOS is very poor. And third, pixelation on HD. My fault for not listening to him. The first 2 happened to me. Total hack job on the installation. They installed a box outside my home with dry wall anchors... plastic dry wall anchors. I've complained that they box fell off the stucco wall and they havent fixed it yet. Next, I paid top dollar to have 3 rooms in my house for a media center hook up. Even a moron could see it should've been an easy install, but he made things worse by splicing my CAT5 connections to make only 2 work. He said that my home was only set up for two... wrong! I spent the next hour cleaning up the rat nest of a hack job he left behind. Since his hack splice job was so bad, my wired network is a complete mess and most of the connections I cant use any more.
Once he hooked my HD tv's, it was all component. All my included HDMI cables were missing. I'd say he kept it for himself.
Tried to call customer service, but I was place on hold for 30 mins. I gave up.
UPDATE: Tech support directed me to pick HDMI cables @ their store location.
UPDATE 2: Happier with service. Changed scores.
UPDATE: 3 I notice some dropped frame rates, frozen pictures on NatGeo HD. Atleast once or twice a week. Dropped score on reliability. Upgraded to 20/20 and I am very pleased. Tech support is great and customer support still falls behind.
UPDATE: 4. The DVR software update slowed everything down. I get more pixalation and frozen screens. Half of all recorded shows are ERRORS!!!! Im just waiting for my contract is over and Im dumping TVOIP!!
Followup comments:  cyberbeing
join:2005-02-18
Sacramento, CA
 ·SureWest Internet
edit:
February 8th, @09:04AM
| Re: Bad experience Sorry to hear about your bad experience. I hope you are able to get everything resolved.
I think the third thing is people complaining about pixelation (blocking) when watching SDTV programming on a HDTV. I made a huge issue out of that exact thing when I first signed up. It basically comes down to that Surewest gets something like 50+ of the sdtv "cable" channels in bulk via satellite at only 2-3Mbps (mpeg2) per channel. Surewest's HDTV programing on the other hand is quite good (full-bitrate stream 13Mbps+ and not re-compressed).
They don't have any excuse for a poor wiring/install job. I guess they aren't training their installers very well anymore or maybe you just happened to get a bad one or something. You should get them to refund you install cost. I know when I signed up for Surewest a few years ago there was no charge for install and they did a good job on my house.
About the HDMI cables, those aren't included in the boxes so the guy didn't steal your cables. As for why he didn't hook it up with HDMI it's probably because he wasn't told otherwise and just used the component cable in the box. I get the feeling that HDMI cables are a by request sort of thing because they are an extra expense that comes out of Surewest's pocket. If you stop by one of their showrooms they should have them on hand and will give you an HDMI cable for each box that needs it for free.
You must have called during a busy time of day. I call them every so often and my hold times are usually very short (1-10mins) and sometimes someone even instantly picks up the phone. Personally experience with Surewest customer support and tech support has been overall above-average but I agree that some of their employees' knowledge of the services is quite poor. | |
|  | fightingmink
join:2008-02-07
Elk Grove, CA
·SureWest Internet
| Re: Bad experience So far, the pixelation issue hasn't come up. My brother told me that it was a major problem at roll out. I'm sure they have taken care of it.
As for the HDMI cable, the box came with a list items included in the package. The HDMI cables was one of them. Customer support stated that it did not, but after talking to tech support, they said that it was included.
They came out and fixed my box, but after the big storm. I'm hoping there is no damage. I was warned that the sub-contractors do a crappy job, but man.... | |
| | | cyberbeing
join:2005-02-18
Sacramento, CA
·SureWest Internet
edit:
February 10th, @11:09AM
| Re: Bad experience I still have issues with blocking/artifacts on SDTV programming on my Sony CRT (some channels are worse then others). I watch a lot of videos on my computer and sometimes even encode my own stuff so I might just be overly sensitive to it because I know what to look for. Channel 99, the Comcast one that has some Kings games, is by far the worst one.
I have picked up 3 brand new Amino 130 STB. One had no cable and the other two were packaged with only the component cable (see part list on page 4 of the manual).
Also if you look here: »www.aminocom.com/products/pdf/Am···yer_.pdf all of the cables are optional. The HDMI cables they gave me were made by All Systems Broadband not Animo. | |
| | | | fightingmink
join:2008-02-07
Elk Grove, CA
·SureWest Internet
| Re: Bad experience I use the ADB 5810WX HD-DVR. In any event, it still look like I'm going to Fry's to get some HDMI's...
Some LCD/Plasmas have problems with pixelation. Both my HDTVs have 6ms/4ms @ 60hz and I do get pixelation on fast scenes, but it's hardly noticeable. I haven't surfed, or try to avoid the SDTV channels, so I haven't found any artifacts.
One thing I notice on some digital boxes is that in the settings, there is a choice for screen resolution. I found it better, though not in my current settings, to set it at 720p vs 1080i. My HDTVs rate a 1080p and at times 720p matches well. 1080i and 720p maybe the same resolution, but 720p gives me less pixelation.
Cheers... | |
| | | | | cyberbeing
join:2005-02-18
Sacramento, CA
·SureWest Internet
edit:
February 10th, @09:08PM
| Re: Bad experience Ah you have the HD-DVR. There seem to be a lot of complaints about it in the Surewest thread on avsforum so I haven't been that interested in it. I hope the Amino 530 HD-DVR ends up being better whenever it finally comes out.
And like I said earlier, if you go to one of the Surewest showrooms they will give you the HDMI cables you need for free.
Showroom listing: »www.surewest.com/wireless/buy/#showrooms | |
| bigRoN
Premium
join:2004-05-02
Roseville, CA
·SureWest Internet
| SureWest I'm sorry you had such issues with installation. When I made the switch to SureWest, I had re-wired my house myself, adding numerous CAT6e (wanted to future proof for eventual gigabit speeds) connections. Installation was easy. The only issue I had was they forgot to schedule someone to install it on the day it was supposed to be done. When I called to find out where they were, they immediately dispatched the nearest available person, who was here in about 15 minutes. The gateway for my place went inside a panel on the side of my house, not on the stucco. I have been extremely happy with the Internet service, 20/20 Mbps, with upload often running even faster than 20 Mbps... occasionally up to nearly 50 Mbps. The TV quality is also much better than ANY other cable or satellite service I've ever seen. The biggest drawback is their DVR service. Their current DVR for HDTV is utter garbage. Luckily they are not charging for it at this time, because it is garbage. When they finally get the software right, they will start charging. It is about as user friendly as a mid 1980's VCR. | |
| | fightingmink
join:2008-02-07
Elk Grove, CA
·SureWest Internet
| Re: SureWest I'm happy to hear your experience was better than mine. It took them 2 weeks to correct that problem... I'm hoping the rain storm didn't do any damage to my home.
I found out that the media package in my master bedroom is now useless. The only thing working is the surround sound. I haven't checked the rest of the connections, but it seems like he only killed two connections. Now, to find out which one. 
Thanks. | |
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