Review by ohsie 
member for 11.8 years, 2698 visits, last login: 1 days ago
updated 1.2 years ago
 21215
 $90 per month- (12 month contract)
 about 14 days Verizon "Fast, low latency, reliable service; knowledgable and responsive support" "No free dialup for backup or traveling; $5/mo USF" "They're great! Check them out if you're in their service area."
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Finally moving over to Cable internet after 8+ years of DSL for the increased bandwidth (my DSL line topped out at 1Mbps). I only stayed with DSL because I didn't want to lose the the great service that I got from Atlantech. Still highly recommended.
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Going on 3 years and the service is still top-notch. Highly recommended.
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It's been about 2 years now and the service is still great. I don't have much to add because I've been getting consistently good service since the time I signed up. Give them a call if you're looking for Residential ADSL in the Baltimore/Washington metro area or Business IDSL/SDSL in the ET or CT time zones.
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It's been a year since I got service with Atlantech, and the service has remained as good as it was on day 1. Unlike some other companies, they have *not* skimped on bandwidth and allowed their network to get overloaded; it zips along even at peak times. So, I really have little to update from my original laudatory review (see below).
In my original review, I mentioned the one drawback that Atlantech doesn't give a free dialup account even for backup purposes. In response, they set me up with a free dialup which I have not had occasion to use, so far, because I haven't experienced any outages since then.
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I use my line to connect from my home in Baltimore to my employer in NY. A lot of my work is interactive (e.g. typing) so low latency (ping time) is paramount. I ordered the 1500/384 service with a static IP address.
The presales information was great. They gave me the name of the router that would be serving me so that I could ping it from my employers computer to get an idea of the latency. My questions were answered promptly via email by the salesman.
Installation was COVAD self-install Efficient SpeedStream 5260 with microfilters. Atlantech was ready in one week, but it took another week to get the self-install kit from COVAD (COVAD's fault). Once the kit arrived, I called to get my IP address; the phone was answered in 1 ring by a real person and I was able to get the information that I needed with no hassle at all.
Initially, I had some problems with the ADSL modem losing sync during certain times of the day. There would be times when everything was fine followed by hour long periods where there was a continuous cycle of sync/nosync. I was able to solve this by running a direct wire from my NID (the box that is the interface between the phone company and you) to my router. I also fixed up some of the inside wiring in the basement which was a big mess, and put a microfilter on the telephone feed from the NID so that I would not have to put a microfilter on each phone in the house. I would definitely advise that people try clean up the wiring and make a direct run if they are having any kind of modem sync problems.
The service quality has been great with low ping times and no slowdowns during "peak" periods. Testing at dslreports puts the line at 1271/322. The first hop latency to the atlantech router is 10ms and the total latency to my employer in NY is 22ms. Of course, total latency and ping loss can vary based on where you're going on the internet, but Atlantech has never been the source of problems (more on that below). They put their router statistics online at
»noc.atlantech.net/bandwidth.htm so you can see for yourself that they have adequate bandwidth.
They are occasional outages, but they are rare. They always keep you informed via email and their web page at »noc.atlantech.net. You can check out this page so see their outage history. This does lead me to my one complaint. They do not give you free dialup even to use for backup purposes.
Tech support has been superb. I recently had a problem where their upstream provider, MFN (formerly abovenet) started routing my packets to NY through San Jose, CA bring my latency up to ~100ms which is not horrible, but not the great service that I was getting before. This was not really atlantech's fault, but I figured they might have some contacts in abovenet to complain to. I submitted an email on Friday, December 28. I received a reply on Monday Dec 31 apologizing for the delay in responding and notifying me that they rerouted my packets through their alternate upstream provider. This drove the latency back down to 22ms. For residential ADSL service this is an amazingly quick and helpful response especially during the holiday period.
I don't use their email or DNS services, but their news service (Supernews) is adequate to my purposes (reading and posting to text groups).
I only have two complaints:
They don't provide free dialup for backup. I suppose you can use a netzero account for that purpose. Of course the service has rarely gone out, so it hasn't had much impact.
They charge a $5.16 USF fee (up from $0.69). This is a cost that should be considered.
For these reasons I only gave a 4 out of 5 rating for value.
Overall, if you want fast, low latency, reliable service with great support go with atlantech. If you also want dialup service, you might want to consider toad.net as well to compare prices, since they give you a free dialup account to go along with your DSL. Atlantech and toad.net were the two companies that I looked at when I lost my Northpoint line; I'm very happy with my choice.
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