Review by mudtoe 
UPDATED: 2 years ago
member for 4.1 years, 649 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Cincinnati,Clermont,OH
 Contract price not specified.
 about 120 days
 Cincinnati Bell
 "Once up and running it's very stable. Also works if power goes out as long as you have a UPS."
 "Can be problems if not installed right at local C/O. Download speed not as fast as cable."
 "Once done right it works all the time from then on. Speed could be better."
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(ratings match consensus)
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I had Zoomtown in the 90s, and then switched to Road Runner cable. I built a new house further out in a county adjacent to Cincinnati, and Road Runner wasn't available, so I went back to Zoomtown. I went with the static IP option on Zoomtown because I needed to run a VPN, and the regular Zoomtown connections are often "double NATed" (i.e. the Zoomtown ADSL modem only presents your router a private address, not an internet address, which your router would then NAT again), which costs an extra $5 per month.
Once everything was up and running it's very stable. After the initial install problems were resolved (see below) the service has never been down as far as I know, and if the power goes out it still works as long as you have a UPS for your ADSL modem, which is a bonus versus Road Runner whose service goes down when the power goes out because they have equipment on the utility poles that need power. Download speed is stated at 5mb and I get about 4.3mb. Upload is stated at 768kb and I get close to that. Road Runner is offering about 7mb download right now, but only 384kb upload for their residential service.
The big downside with Zoomtown for me was the install. I had nothing but problems. I put the order in for the service when the house was about 3/4 complete. I was told that I'd have to be on a waiting list because the local C/O's equipment rack was full and they were going to have to swap out the existing DSLAMs with higher density equipment. This caused about a 60 day delay. When I finally got the service installed the speed varied wildly. I downloaded a test utility and found that about 4% of my packets were getting discarded, and the connection would drop every 70 minutes. It took me several calls to get this information to technical support and get past level one to someone who actually knew something. At first they blamed the problem on my in house wiring, so I had to move the ADSL modem to the dmark location and run a 50 foot ethernet cable to my equipment room in the basement. Problem persisted. Then they sent out a technician who replaced my Westell modem with a Lucent model. Same problem continued. Then I went through a few calls where they basically said that all they were guaranteeing with the service was an average of 128k download, and since I met that they were not going to pursue it further. Good thing for me I "knew" someone at Cincinnati Bell. I called and complained and then they sent out another technician who tested the line all the way back to the junction box in the neighborhood; still no luck. Finally a day after that my whole phone service goes down. I call on my cell phone to ask what's going on and nobody knows. Two hours later my phone service comes back on, the ADSL modem synchs up, and no more lost packets. It's worked perfectly ever since. When I called to find out what they did nobody has a record of my service ever being down or any repair ever taking place. I'm guessing that something was messed up at the local C/O and that they moved my connection to a different DSLAM port. However, nobody would ever fess up to the problem being on their end.
The bottom line to the story is that installation can be a big problem with Zoomtown, and that you have to really be a pest and stay on them in order to get things fixed, or they just blow you off.
If cable became available in my area I'd probably stick with Zoomtown at this point, despite the install problems. The service has been rock solid once the install issues were addressed. Also, since I use a VPN the upload speed is more important to me than the download speed, and Road Runner's upload speed is miserable. Of course if FIOS ever made its way to my door I'd switch in a minute, but since I live in an exurban area I doubt that's ever going to happen.
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Cincinnati Bell
