Review by sidemaniac 
Posted: 9.5 years ago
member for 9.8 years, 47 visits, last login: 5.1 years ago
 Milton,Norfolk,MA
 $39 per month (12 month contract)
 "Very good value, so far VERY reliable."
 "Difficult install, poor tech support."
 "Not for the faint of heart but NOT THAT BAD once you get it."
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Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
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Ordered 640/90 ADSL service in Dec. 1999, got the service in Feb 2000. The order was easy enough to place but the install was very long and confusing. Seemed like nobody knew what was going on.
The equipment is a SpeedStream 3060 modem, which is a POS modem and quite a difficult child when it comes to PCI IRQ sharing especially.
Now that it is installed, with a static IP and I have resolved the IRQ conflicts, I get nice speed, about 85% of what was promised and decent latency. I have about 45 ms to the gateway, for example. I'm not complaining.... cable in my town has better latency to the gateway and good bandwidth on some sites, but during rush hour it is hell.
One thing that I would have liked to be informed about is that ADSL upload bits take away from your download speed. This kind of stinks becuase you really can't run a server, even a slow one, because your download blocks are all gone and you are just stuck. Probably gaming performance would be MUCH better on a fatter pipe or with SDSL technologie.
But, I'd like to reiterate. Cheap. At 39 bucks you can't go wrong. The only other things at this end of the spectrum are bell atlantic and Cable. Both suck, and now that this is finally installed, I like it. Probably a better modem would only improve my enjoyment of this speed.
3com has begun to produce modems and this is what BA is using. Since this service is essentially BA service with a static IP and flashcom's brand name, maybe I'll get upgraded to a better modem. We can only hope.
One thing that interests me greatly: Bell Atlantic is merging with GTE. Will GTE's DSL customers get crap-Py BA service, or will BA's get decent GTE service? We can only hope.
Tech support is bad, SDSL lines are cooler, but all of this would come at a price. For 39.99 flashcom is one of the better things out there.
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Flashcom
