 Review by Seven1 
UPDATED: 1.1 years ago
member for 7.3 years, 1076 visits, last login: 146 days ago
 Lexington,Fayette,KY
 $43 per month
 about 1 days
 "Very fast download AND upload speeds. Very stable connection."
 "Torrent throttling - even legit uses like WoW."
 "Highly recommend them."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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The install process got off to a rocky start. I had just moved here to be closer to my work place and was eager to get my internet connection going. I work in the IT department and I truly need my connection in the event I need to VPN into my work network to fix something (plus let's face it, being an IT person I'm lost without internet access). I had scheduled the install for later in the day on the Thursday before Friday, July 4th, but I had a hard time getting through to them that their odd 2 to 5pm time slot didn't work for me because I didn't get off of work until 3:30pm. Eventually I just gave up and figured since it was a cable company they probably wouldn't show up until the last minute anyway. When I got to work the next day (Thursday) I was told that we could have the day off since our department was pretty much the only one there anyway. I saw a good opportunity to schedule the install when I could be home and called to reschedule it for the morning instead of the afternoon. I was told that was possible and the install was scheduled. I left to go home about 15 minutes later, and before I could even make the less than 10 minute trip home I got a call from a technician who left a voice mail saying they had missed me and would need to reschedule for another day - and since the next day was Friday and the 4th of July, that meant next week, and I would have possibly missed the technician again at the next appointment since their odd time slots didn't work for me. On the one hand, that's obviously really good response time, but who would have thought they would be THAT quick? I called to see if I could get the technician to go back that day, but was told it would have to be rescheduled for the next week as I expected. I found the whole situation very unacceptable but the person I spoke to was not cooperative in the least. So I ended the call and decided to take a trip to the local office thinking they might be more cooperative and helpful than someone in a call center. They were very courteous and sympathetic, but it was simply out of their hands. So a while later I called and spoke to another person in the call center who was pretty rude and condescending. I asked to speak to a supervisor to lodge a complaint about the whole situation and was told one would call me back. A little while later I received that call and managed to sort out the scheduling to get my cable installed later that day. I was told by the supervisor that generally the policy was to try to work with people on scheduling. Even though the scheduling is usually done in a time-slot manner (like 2-5pm) they would make a note saying something like "not until after 3:30 if possible." The people I spoke to before the supervisor would absolutely not budge on the time slots though. In any case, the supervisor came through and I got my cable installed later that day.
Despite the installation fiasco I remain impressed with the service. The speeds are great, even during peak usage times, and the connection is very stable. There have been some hiccups where I've lost my connection, but they don't last any longer than a minute or two. I can easily live with that.
The one gripe I have is the torrent throttling. While I can't say I can provide proof that they do it, it is very obvious that something is quite wrong when you are downloading a torrent at, let's say 10KBps (they advertise, and I get in HTTP downloads, 10mbps) and your upload speed is only 5KBps (they advertise, and I get in FTP uploads, 1mbps) and your whole connection slows down to a crawl. Browsing the web is painfully slow. Then you stop the torrent download and immediately things go back to normal speed. The worst part is that they are legit torrent downloads. I play WoW and everyone knows they use torrents for the big patches. I also prefer torrents to download any extremely large files that would otherwise take twice as long or more to download from an HTTP or FTP site (America's Army for example).
All-in-all I would recommend them, but at the same time I would like to see them improve their installation process and knock off the torrent throttling. I use them here at home and we use them at work, and unlike other ISPs they actually live up to the speeds they advertise. Their pricing is great too. I pay $40 per month, plus the $3 for the modem rental and that is exactly what my bill totals up to - $43.00. Not a single junk fee, which is a breath of fresh air after having service with many other ISPs. I can't speak on their tech support since I've never had to call them, but I view that as a very big plus as well.
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