Review by JaxTBear 
Posted: 9.6 years ago
member for 7 years, 4 visits, last login: 4.4 years ago
 Jacksonville,Duval,FL
 $50 per month
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
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My installation was done on Feb 21 and the installer, who was a
BellSouth veteran of 27 years, even called to ask if he could come three
hours early since we were his first install of the day. Big plus for me
right there.
He was polite, professional, and seemed to enjoy exlpaining how it
worked when I asked him questions. I have run into installers who seem
to prefer the grumpy retort as opposed to just answering my questions.
I would invite this guy back for dinner anytime. He installed an
internal PCI card. The model 3060 Speedstream made by Efficient
Networks.
My story has good and bad and more good...the bad no fault of
Bellsouth's. When ordering service initially over the phone, the
representative was courteous and very thorough in explaining that this
was just the first step... My area was just recently looped,
apparently, and they still had to qualify my telephone line. She gave
me a date for installation, which she made sure was convenient for me.
5 week wait time. I could, and would have to live with that.
She also explained clearly the pricing for installation and the monthly
fees. To my surprise, I also got a $50 Barnes & Noble gift certificate
for the online store. I was asked if the PC had a USB port and I
explained that I preferred the internal to preserve the USB port for
future use. Little did I know that would lead to some frustration.
That was some good, now for the little bit of bad...
After 2 days of blissful surfing and a real demo downloading frenzy, I
hit a snag... Forgot to pay my pgone bill and my service got cut off...
The details of life. Got the service restored but the DSL would not
sync. That was an issue for the Bellsouth Digital Services Group (DSG).
After 4...count them...4 hours on hold, I finally got thru to them and
in an instant the problem was fixed. Life is good once again... I am
not complainign too much about the hold time... They did offer to call
me back in 24 hours, but I requested the hold.
All was well, then 2 days later, bump in the information superhighway
again... I call support again and quickly get a live person...Explained
what was happening and the erro message i was getting. The rep said
that the modem was not loading the drivers properly due to a hardware
conflict or due to corrupted drivers. Well, I had already removed and
reloaded the drivers...three times...So, why suddenly a hardware
conflict? I thought she was blowing me off... Turns out, she asked me
a question before she thought it was the conflict... Did I have a
SoundBlaster sound card...Yes, i do... Why was that important? Turns
out the Internal 3060 uses the same IRQ the SoundBlaster does...9, I saw
it myself in the device manager. Lovely...service call for the
following Monday.
The internal modem was removed, the drivers unloaded, and the new 4060
USB was attached and powered up... Life is good. i have had no issues
that I have not been able to solve myself. Most are cured with a reboot
of Windows or a release and request in WinIPCFG. No biggies.
Overall, I am very happy and, yes, if someone else comes along that is
cheaper, I might be persuaded to switch. For me, $50 a month for the
fast connection...the always on connection, is worth it. Reliable
bandwidth is worth it. I run Black Ice Defender for my firewall nd have
had no issues with it.
Bottom line, I recommend Bellsouth FastNEt access and be sure to get the
External USB... I now know that I can add a PCI card for 2 or 4 more
USB ports if and when I need them.
LM
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