 Review by oldduke 
UPDATED: 22 days ago
member for 7.2 years, 658 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Gulf Breeze,Santa Rosa,FL
 $59 per month (12 month contract)
 about 14 days
 BellSouth
 "Fast access is the only thing operating after a hurricane; good Internet access for a fair price"
 "Sales and help desk persons beyond frustration"
 "For the price this is a great deal."
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Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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07Aug08. Bellsouth is now ATT Southeast. Not much difference. Some annoyances on install but good value and NEVER DOWN (are you listening Mediacom!). Compared to Mediacom, ATT SE is spectacular, so everything in perspective. I have the 6000 down package, and generally get in the high 5000's on my hardwired computer; upstream is 400. My 3 computers on a home wireless network are a little slower, about 3m down, but this is compared to the 300 down these units used to have with Sprint. Aside: Looks like a VRAD box across the street. Pleeeeeeeeze let it happen! Can't wait to dump Mediacom for U-verse.
25Feb07. Sales and tech support SUCK. But, Fastaccess is great! Had to change phone numbers and get new Fastaccess. Ordered 2 Jan 3k/386 home network. Followed up midmonth, New Delhi guy said I was scheduled for mid-June, even though I had a confirmation receipt for 9 Feb. On 12 Feb I did an install and tried to connect; no connect. Called New Delhi; no help; they would send out a tech for $80.. A Bellsouth tech came out 14 Feb and found the first instal to the house a couple of years ago connected Fastaccess to a single jack in a now unused room. Tech did something outside and Fastaccess was up and running nicely. No charge. EXCEPT - I had ordered home newwork, and the other computers would not sync. Called New Delhi again. After about 30 minutes of please-repeat-that-because-I-can't-understand-you, the fellow said my modem didn't support home network. I would have to order home network. Ok, "transfer me to billing, please." Answer, "Yes, I will do that, sir. (pause) Sir, billing is closed. You will have to call back during the week." GRRRRRRRRR.
So, after you get Fastaccess, it's great. Everything up to that sucks bigtime.
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26Dec06 - Still on 3000/384 hard wire home network. Still works as advertised. Still best deal around.
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Three weeks abo put in home networking and upgraded to 3000/384. The first 2wire modem was faulty. BS was remarkably ineffective in figuring that out. On the other hand, one tech was very good at getting 2wire to work on a Windows98 system. So, t's mixed. Also, two computers get all of my family email accounts, but MY account does not come up on MY computer. Maybe it's a Windows98 thing; the other two are XP. Once the bugs are worked out, I still think BS Fastaccess is a good deal.
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I've been on Bellsouth DSL for about two years now and it's still great and still a bargain. I get 1.1M downstream consistently and it's always on. You must, however, 1) avoid the help desk in South Carolina and 2) apply every tweak dslreports suggests.
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The help desk sites in West Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia have been very knowledgeable, and unbelievably patient. At the site in South Carolina, only one out of three has impressed me as knowledgeable; the rest were very polite. If you get a good rep that knows more than a flowchart, you get great service. If not, you're on the phone for a long time.///My Presario 1245/MSW98 notebook kept losing the modem driver. A help desk stepped me through turning off the virus scan, screen saver, etc. This also stopped a problem with losing sync.///The connection was only giving 550/256 at first against advertised "up to 1500/256", but some tweaks from dslreports got that up to 1100/256 rather painlessly. FastAccess really has to be "tuned."///The initial modem, a green thing with two eyes, failed pretty quick. Bellsouth techs came out right away, spent about four hours, and installed a line filter on the house and a different modem, SpeedStream 4060. (Both used the USB.)///SpeedStream worked for three or four months but failed a couple of days ago. Was told it would take 10 to 14 days to get a new one -- wrong! My wife finally muscled her way to a supervisor. Modem is now on overnight delivery. Gotta shove your way past the first tier of help desks and get to the supervisors.///Email addresses are limited to eight characters -- WTF! But, it is very fast and easy to use.///Since I have access to fast Internet at work and our local library, I wasn't interested if 56k. I signed up for ISPChannel though through MediaCom when it came out. There is no numeric value low enough to post how bad that experience was. Words like incompetent, totally wrong, screwed up, dumb as stumpwater, clueless -- just don't come close. I never did get ISPChannel and it was hell anyway. Long after I didn't get it they called and asked my how I liked it! Then Bellsouth put FastAccess in my neighborhood and, despite some difficulties, I'm very satisfied. What they're providing for $49/month is a bargain on my end.
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AT&T Southeast
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