Review by ep1taph 
UPDATED: 1.2 years ago
member for 2.9 years, 1160 visits, last login: 1 days ago
 Erlanger,Kenton,KY
 $45 per month
 "Amazingly fast and stable"
 "Routing and network infrastructure issues"
 "A good experience"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I am reviewing Insight, but I have been using the cable internet connection here since it was @home beta. Thus I cannot accurately comment on how pre-sales information, Install coordination and I have not had to use any tech support.
Originally, with Insight, the service as 4mbit/384kbit. Insight rolled out their 10mbit/1mbit and things were shaky at first. After some research, I determined that the modem I was using (an old RCA) was not compatible with the upgrade. I took it down to the local Insight Office and they replaced it completely free with a new webstar modem. I had bought the original Cable Modem when the company was "InterMedia" and they had no problem replacing it. Once I had the webstar up and running I was cruising along at 10mbit nearly all the time.
Insight obviously has some restrictions on users who utilize excessive bandwidth. See the Inside Insight forums for more detail. I am not one of these users. I have noticed that they seem to be making an effort to hinder peer to peer technologies, and my torrents often seem to drop outgoing connections. Over all this does not concern me, and I believe that the network is more stable because of this.
What does concern me is that Insight obviously has not spent much time or thought into their metrics and routing. From my limited sources of information, I have gathered that the way you are routed is entirely dependent upon your geographic location. For example, I am always routed through Atlanta, GA. Atlanta is a linear distance of approximately 600km from where I live. Chicago, IL is approximately 400km in linear distance from my location. I play a lot of online games where ping has a sizable impact on deciding the winners and losers of matches. Part of Insights service area (the area blatantly next door to Chicago, IL) is indeed routed to Chicago. I have even seen a post of someone in IL being routed to Kansas City, MO.
All in all, I think Insight should have set it up so users are intelligently routed the most efficient way to the final destination. Chicago is a huge infrastructure hub and is where most servers are hosted for the games I do play. Even in server in Atlanta, where pings are obviously the most optimal for me, I still ping higher than many others that live further away. Having to go all the way down to Atlanta and back adds a lot of unnecessary latency.
Bottom line is, if you're overly concerned about your latency and you live in my area I recommend zoomtown/fuse. They have multiple direct routes with lower latency to Chicago and peer at much closer locations to their service area which give you much better pings. A friend on fuse pings lower than me to Atlanta, Chicago and anywhere else. If you need the bandwidth, on the other hand, look no further. Insights 10mbit service really does mean 10mbit for me -- even at peak times where latency skips up 4-8ms, the bandwidth is solid.
I will attempt to keep this post updated with further info on routing changes and speed issues. Don't hesitate to ask me questions in private message or email, or post in the Inside Insight forums since I frequent them.
[ Interesting point #1 ]
Often, routing changes. Insight has sprintlink and level3 bandwidth available at Atlanta. At the start, routes were quite balanced between the two. Over time, changes occurred on strange intervals. Routes would change from using a balance of sprintlink and level3 bandwidth to using almost entirely level3 bandwidth. In my experience, the latency using routes on sprintlinks network was superior and thus preferred by myself. Changes in routing changed between level3/sprintlink to a majority of servers over the course of time since the 10mbit/1mbit change. Now, it is rare to find any routes that use sprintlink. I can only wonder if, once again, it will eventually revert back to using a combination of sprintlink and level3. Routes from servers back to me commonly use sprintlink rather than level3 -- a good indicator that those servers have a much smarter routing configuration than what seems to be in place now at Insight.
[ Update on 07/22/07 ]
There was a very short (few hours) outage that occurred between Level3 and InsightBB for Atlanta-bound traffic a few weeks ago. There has been no change in routing, all traffic still goes south to Atlanta. Service has been reliable and stable with nothing to complain about. The experience with InsightBB has been amazing and if you live in the NKY area and desire speed, look no further.
[ Update on 09/18/07 ]
No real problems with service. It seems that sprintlink inbound routes have been disabled. Normal users won't notice a change, but it has a pretty negative affect on any Usenet providers that resell UseNetServer services. Insight provided Usenet access (through Giganews) is amazingly reliable and consistent. Insight customers are lucky to have it.
[ Update on 10/31/07 ]
Continued good service. Two nights ago I was having trouble accessing my email and many websites. Running some tests I saw that the routing was changing almost every 10 minutes. For a bief period of about 60 minutes everything was perfectly optimal, including direct routes to both Atlanta and Chicago. Routes were intelligently taking logical paths (Dallas servers would route through Atlanta, Seattle through Chicago, etc) but when I woke up the next morning all traffic was forced through Atlanta again. Sprintlink inbound is still nonexistent, routes only take sprintlink outbound. There are rumors of another speed upgrade for InsightBB customers. Numbers being thrown around by someone for the Evansville market were 20mbps download speeds. Will update if anything changes. I have changed my rating for Services to a 4 since provided Usenet access is reliable and very consistent. Tech support moves to a 4 also as I was contacted about issues happening with the connection late in the night.
[ Update on 11/07/07 ]
Almost all routing is using Chicago (Level3) now. There are a few routes that are still taking inbound Atlanta (Level3) but nearly everything outbound goes through Chicago (Level3). Some outbound routes still take Atlanta (sprintlink) and Atlanta (sprintlink) inbound continues to not exist. Perhaps they truly are phasing out the Atlanta bandwidth they have (had?). As the changes are made the service sometimes degrades but it's worth it to me -- great ingame ping to a majority of the servers in the games I play. InsightBB started taking over DNS not found pages (or whatever they are called). If you go to a non-existent domain/url it forward you to a page with advertising on it. I am using Level3 DNS servers as I think this is a poor practice and dislike it.
[ Update on 12/29/07 ]
Things have taken a turn for the worse. I am getting dialup speeds and contacted InsightBB on friday. They promised that I would receive a call before 6pm on friday. I received no call. Perhaps I was capped (why, I have no idea. I have transferred 32GB in this month of december and that is all) seeing as how it's exactly 7KB/s day or night no matter what protocol. Tried rebooting modem, changing my IP with a release/renew and all kinds of wire configurations. My local network is fine, there is something with InsightBB.
[ Update on 06/22/08 ]
It's been quite awhile since an update. Quite a bit has changed.
First, the routing now is quite optimal, with a direct route to Chicago being used in most cases where it should be. This satisfies me greatly.
Second, the speeds were top-notch until a little over a month ago. Since then, congestion during peak usage hours has plagued me with low speeds and horribly high latency. Insight claims this issue is "escalated" and should be resolved soon, but I am skeptical. I will try to remember to post here when it is fixed.
[ Update on 8/1/08 ]
Just wanted to say that InsightBB customer service has treated me well and the connection has been running well since the issue (posted on 06/22/08) was cleared up. Few minor hiccups, but over all it's been everything I want. I'm bumping up my ratings due to the continued service and their will to fix it. Also because they have continued to offer free access to Giganews.
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