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Review by tschmidt See Profile

  • Location: Milford, Hillsborough, NH, USA
  • Cost: $87 per month
  • Install: about 5 days
Faster DSL, more POTS features then ILEC
Increased monthly cost by $30
Given our distance from CO about as good as it gets for ADSL.
Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

November 2021 Update - seventh year with Firstlight. While the service has been stable the local broadband landscape is rapidly changing here in Milford NH. In May we were experiencing problems with our DSL service. I'm convinced it was an internal routing issue with FirstLight but to their credit assigned a tech to review and ultimately dispatched a truck roll by Consolidated Communication to evaluate the copper circuit they are renting to deliver DSL and Phone. The tech found nothing wrong with the copper circuit. However he did confirm the rumor that Consolidated had received a lot of investor money and would be expanding fiber throughout the state. Until then they had the old Verizon FIOS fiber network they inherited and installed their own fiber in Mason due to a rural broadband grant.



So things were stable but boring when I received a letter from FirstLight stating they had conducted an audit and were losing money on the grandfathered residential accounts they inherited when they bought G4 communications. Letter did not state how large of an increase. Our monthly cost for DSL and phone is now $86.58 and increase of almost $30 a month.

Luckily Consolidated has been heavily advertising their fiber rollout in NH. In late October I signed up for 50/50 Mbps PON and a couple of weeks later took advantage of FCC phone number portability to port our landline to Consolidated. Once that was stable I contacted FirstLight to cancel our account. It was a great run while it lasted and overall much better then TELCO DSL. But DSL is not as fast as it used to be. I'll post a Consolidated review once I get the first bill. The one year monthly teaser rate should be about $59 for internet and phone.

October 2020 Update - sixth year with Firstlight. Another uneventful year. Still stuck on DSL but it is working OK for us. I envy our friends in Mason NH. Town is more rural than Milford, they got a government grant to wire the town with Fiber. Wish that was an option here.

October 2019 Update - fifth year with Firstlight. Another uneventful year. Only problems were a couple of fiber cuts that took down large swaths of the state. Speed is not fixed, it floats to whatever the copper circuit is capable of providing. This has caused some problems where line conditions degrade so end up getting a huge number of errors. It can take a long time before the modem and DSLAM decide it is time to resync. I called tech support and they reduced absolute maximum speed. Connection is a lot more stable. For example as I write this download is 7996 Kbps and upload .999 Kbps on a circuit with 49 DB of attenuation.

October 2018 Update - four years with Firstlight. DSL has been very stable. The TP-Link 8817 has been reliable. We use it in modem/router mode feeding a 16-port Gig switch. During the year I built a DIY DC output UPS to power our networking gear during a power outage. We are grandfathered on the DSL plan as they no longer offer residential services.

October 2017 Update - three years with Firstlight. Very uneventful year. Speed has been constant. Only outage was a few hours due to a fiber cut during a bridge demolition.

October 2016 Update � two years with FirstLight. DSL and POTS phone have been rock solid. In Sept the replacement ZyXEL modem router failed. The failure mode was bizarre. I was unable to access some web sites even by IP. I defaulted and reconfigured the router and still had the same problem. It was replaced with a TP-Link 8817 all in one ADSL modem and NAT router with a single Ethernet port. Happily the new modem is syncing at somewhat faster sync rate, about half a megabit faster than the old one. With FirstLight DSL there is not a fixed speed. You get whatever speed your physical circuit is capable of supporting. At the moment my sync rate is 7.900 Mbps down and 999 Kbps up. With the new modem sync rate has varied between 7.4 - 8.2 Mbps, upload is a constant 999 Kbps.

It looks like FirstLight is no longer offering residential DSL and is solely focused on commercial accounts. While speed is comparatively low by current broadband standards works well for us, Netflix steaming and software uploads work fine. Our cell phones are Wi-Fi centric so when at home they use our LAN rather than cellular radio. That is a plus here in terrain challenged NH. All in all quite happy with the service.

October 2015 Update - one year since FirstLight purchased G4 Communication. DSL and phone have been very stable. Monthly billing is working fine. Speed is not capped varies a little based on line conditions, download tends to be a little higher in winter then summer.

5/9/2015 Update - Billing problems resulting from G4 Communications purchase have finally been sorted out. April's bill was correct but it had a lot of credits so wanted to wait another month just to be sure. FirstLight and G4 primarily serve commercial accounts so residential customers are somewhat of an anomaly. Both DSL and POTS service have been stable during the transition.

12/19/2014 The original ZyXEL P-660R-D1 ADSL2 router was acting flaky. After being powered up for long period it stopped forwarding DNS requests. Received a new modem and the problem has not resurfaced. Keeping the old one as a spare.

On 10/14/2014 FirstLight Fiber completed the acquisition of G4 Communication. Both are regional CLECs primarily focused on commercial accounts but have a residential DSL/POTS offering.

»Review of G4 Communications by tschmidt

Per FirstLight letter nothing is supposed to change. Hopefully I'll be able to post back in a few months and happily confirm.

ADSL

Unlike typically phone company ADSL there are no speed tiers there is a fixed price for ADSL. Speed is determined by phone line characteristics; customer gets whatever speed the line is capable of delivering so speed varies somewhat depending on circuit conditions. In my case modem sync varies from 6.5 to 7.4 Mbps down and a constant 996 Kbps up. Download is about twice as fast as FairPoint with slightly faster upload. There are no monthly caps.

FirstLight uses DHCP to configure customer modem, rather than PPPoE. This eliminates a small amount of overhead but more importantly is more reliable than PPPoE. With FairPoint and previously Verizon almost all DSL problems I experienced were inability to maintain PPPoE session, not the DSL circuit itself. That no longer occurs. Service has been extremely reliable.

DSL Modem/Router

At the time I signed up with G4 in 2012 had choice of a Zyxel P660R-D1 or Comtrend CT-5071T ADSL2/ADSL2+ router. Turn-up requires CLEC to contact FairPoint to have them physically switch customer�s line to the CLEC equipment at the Co. Customer side DSL was a self-install kit.

Because I am pretty far from the Central Office, about 14,000 feet, I had already installed a whole house POTS/DSL splitter and taken other measures to insure in house wiring/equipment did not degrade DSL performance.

POTS

Telephone service comes bundled with DSL. It includes features that were extra cost options with FairPoint and has unlimited calling within the US and Canada. Phone number portability meant we were able to keep the same POTS number we have had for decades.

Billing

Setup automatic payment so our credit card is charged every month.

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updated 2.3 years ago

erikthebean
join:2007-06-25
Milford, NH

2 recommendations

erikthebean

Member

DSL no more..

So i spoke to FirstLight for a business DSL connection about a month ago and they no longer offer any TDM option just fiber Ethernet so hold on to the DSL as long as you can. I ended up having to go w/ another CLEC for my needs that offers DSL in Milford.

Darthgamer64
join:2013-10-06
Princeton, NJ

Darthgamer64

Member

fios in NH?

Im surprised that NH even had a Verizon FiOS presence, and you said it was sold to consolidated? thats wild