Review by Smith6612 
UPDATED: 47 days ago
member for 248 days, 347 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Sanborn,Niagara,NY
 $30 per month (12 month contract)
 about 7 days
 "Fast, always on, good pings, great support"
 "None as of yet"
 "Is a good service for anyone escaping cable"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well above consensus)
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I've heard some bad reviews on this company, but it is a small telephone company, so I can't blame them for that. Otherwise, I have Verizon DSL at my house (see my other review), but at a family relative's house, they have Frontier DSL (I'm there a lot however, so I know how things go there with their service). They live in Sanborn, New York and Frontier had installed DSL in the area 2 years ago. At first when they ordered DSL, they had gotten just the 1Mbps/128kbps package. Well, due to some competition with Roadrunner, Frontier upgraded everyone in the area to 3Mbps/386Kbps DSL for free, and made available a 6Mbps speed for anyone who is close enough. My relatives are a little over two miles from the central office in wire, but the connection stays reliable, and has been reliable throughout snow storms, wind storms, etc. It even went through the Buffalo October storm without going out or slowing down at all, while at my house my Verizon DSL along with the phone had died for a day.
Two years ago, about a day after DSL was rolled out, Frontier had mailed them saying that DSL was available. Instantly, my relatives jumped on the deal and ordered internet, and it was installed a week later. When they also ordered service, a Frontier technician came out for free and set up the DSL account for them, and gave them I believe a Speedstream 6520. It had a built-in wireless transmitter, which managed to break the insulation to reach the rest of the house, but the wireless signal was very week at the other end of the house. As the DSL was installed on a business line (but the DSL is residential class), it couldn't really be moved too much. To make up for the wireless loss, they went out to Best Buy and got a Linksys WRT54G router, which really had a signal impact, but we left the SpeedStream's wireless operating on a different channel in case if the Linksys were to get fried.
No matter what time of the day I run speed tests there, I always get 3,200kbps (200kbps over provisioned speed) on the download, and 380kbps on the upload, day and night. Pings are good for gaming. Not as good as my Verizon connection, but hey, there's only a 10ms difference between my Verizon connection and the Frontier connection, so it doesn't lag when I host/join games from the Frontier connection.
There has only been one problem in two years since the service was first operational. A couple of months ago, I was over at my family relative's house, and had noticed that their internet wasn't working, so I went to check the modem and the internet light was out. I logged into the SpeedStream, checked to make sure all of the PPPoA settings were correct, and tried connecting the modem several time and rebooting it. The SNR, Attenuation and sync rates were all fine, so I gave Tech support a call. I didn't have to wait too long (only a few minutes) to get a representative, and after I told them about the problem and what I had done to try to fix it, they put my on hold and conferenced called someone in from the central office for the area. 5 Minutes later, a trouble ticket was up after the tech on the phone saw that there was a problem with the system, and I was told what would happen next. The person at the central office told us that around 3-5PM, a technician would arrive at the house. They never showed up, but later that night, the internet turned back on. That's pretty quick!
Otherwise, it's been smooth sailing for my relatives, and they are happy they went with Frontier, despite the slightly higher cost of them compared to Roadrunner.
====UPDATE AUGUST 12, 2008====
The service is still running strong with no problems or high pings/low speed issues at night. Service is consistent and provided modem/router combo still performs as expected. Just keeping my eye however on Frontier should they start capping.
====UPDATE AUGUST 20, 2008====
About 5 days ago routing went to the dump. Routes were taking the route that always happens from Sanborn CO to Rochester, but unlike normally where things would go to different routes based on the location of the server, everything was being routed through Chicago, Illinois. This did cause 50+ms latency and frequent lag spikes, but the speed was still going at full speed which was good for me since I wasn't gaming that day. Fortunately that night, the routing returned back to normal and pings shot back down to their normal levels and are consistent down. Routing has been fine ever since. Otherwise, Frontier is still performing well un Sanborn, NY.
Followup comments:  |  | Smith6612
Premium
join:2008-02-01
united state
 ·Verizon Online DSL
·FrontierNet Intern..
 ·Dish Network
| Re: I wish their service was more uniform Hey, thanks for the reply! In your case it sounds like your issue is involving old copper or distance from the RT/CO. This connection that I reviewed is actually on the limits of Frontier's service in Sanborn, as only a few houses over, Verizon takes over where there is no DSL. The wire that Frontier has is pretty small, but it does have a high gauge rating so it's kept the DSL working and synced at a pretty high SNR even through storms. So far a few people from this same street have gotten Frontier DSL after me and my relative told them about it, and they've seen the same consistancy as well. My relatives were Frontier's first DSL customer in the area anyways from what the tech had said, as after all the moment they moved DSL in and turned it on was the day my relative called up and ordered it. | |
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guypd
join:2008-05-08
Silver Springs, NY | Re: I wish their service was more uniform I just sent an e-mail to Frontier, asking if they would waive their ETF, if we cancelled, since we have a bad connection here. We will see what they have to say.
Plus, if they start to enforce the 5GB cap, we would use that in less than a week. | |
| | | | Smith6612
Premium
join:2008-02-01
united state
·Verizon Online DSL
·FrontierNet Intern..
·Dish Network
edit:
August 20th, @05:01PM
| Re: I wish their service was more uniform You can say that again. Steam alone last week on my Verizon connecion burned through 6GB worth of data with almost 3 days of maxing the download out (768k lol) just to reinstall some games and download updates for them from Steam. Seeing as though games these days are becoming very big along with the updates, the gamers for sure won't be too happy. I just hope Frontier doesn't implement the caps or at least keep them this low as they're proposing, as I'd hate to lower their ranking on this review just because of a cap. | |
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spewak
Kiss It, Kiss It Real Good
Premium
join:2001-08-07
Elk Grove, CA
·SureWest Internet
·FrontierNet Intern..
| Re: I wish their service was more uniform said by Smith6612 :I just hope Frontier doesn't implement the caps or at least keep them this low as they're proposing, as I'd hate to lower their ranking on this review just because of a cap. Smith,
What would you do if Frontier does lower the caps to the intended and publicized 5gig a month? I was reading that maybe the Term committed subs will be cap free.
--
The weekend is here, grab a can of beer! | |
| | | | | | Smith6612
Premium
join:2008-02-01
united state
·Verizon Online DSL
·FrontierNet Intern..
·Dish Network
edit:
August 22nd, @01:07PM
| Re: I wish their service was more uniform Ultimately, I don't know really. I would call them up and ask them what is going on and how much they are charging per extra GB, and then ask them why they wanted caps in the first place. Really, Frontier's infrustructure and backbones are sound, no bottlenecks in there, but if anything, the slow downs are because of either your line losing sync, or because of a local bandwidth squeeze. Now, running trace routes from the Frontier connection, I'm pulling some very good pings and stable data streams over Frontier's network, even to the other side of the US in California.
Honestly, I'd just have to say that whoever wanted this cap is trying to get people angry, as caps aren't going to stop bandwidth crunches. When the caps are reset, you get more bandwidth crunching. Any person who knows a thing about offering internet speeds is to serve areas with at least an OC-3 (150Mbps symm), and that's what Frontier needs to do and stop using T1's and T3s to fuel areas unless it's THAT rural.
DSL was also not meant to be a capped service, nor was Cable for that matter. Basically, it's meant to have unlimited amount of usage in a sense, but have your speed capped via provisioning. Cable modems, sure you can hack them to get the max bandwidth for your area, but DSL, there's no way you can fiddle with the sync as that's done on the CO/RT side, and considering the way DSL works, if there was a way to mess with your sync rate to make it higher than you pay for like cable, there's no way you'd be able to max out an OC-3 or a T3 line for that matter unless you're on VDSL simply because many customers are just that far away, even on ADSL2+.
Frontier's chance at competing with cable, especially Time Warner and Comcast IS their UNCAPPED DSL product, while slower and maybe more unstable on crappy/long phone lines, having no caps will surely charge their DSL beyond cable when the cable companies cap their users. And as someone on this site stated before, you are paying to be provisioned/capped at a certain speed, not paying to have a certain speed AND data caps. The only reason Frontier should cap would be if they let everyone get the max line sync possible for their DSL line (which means uncapped speed, basically sync as high as it can go stabally) and say they can use as much speed as they can get. | |
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