 Review by eric_n_dfw 
UPDATED: 2.2 years ago
member for 8.1 years, 537 visits, last login: 10 days ago
 Euless,Tarrant,TX
 $90 per month (12 month contract)
 about 34 days
 Covad
 "Top notch tech support, no PPoE, Static IP's, near 0 unsched' outages"
 "Billing is confusing - a few VoIP issues - pricy compared to others"
 "Decent value for power users, but a bit pricy for mom & pop web surfers"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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--- Updated 8/30/2007 11:14pm CDT ---
Oh, how I rue the day I left the blissful, calm and predictable waters that were Speakeasy DSL. Earthlink DSL loses sync multiple times a day, the voice service is okay when it works, but has random dropouts for no apparent reason. The worst part is that there is nobody who speaks English or that gives a rat's behind if my service sucks or not. As soon as I can jump this sinking ship, I'll be back at Speakeasy. Saving a few bucks is simply not worth it.
--- Updated 11/30/2006 11:20am CDT ---
I have just transferred to Earthlink DSL with Line Power Voice. Speakeasy was rock solid (the DSL at least), but they still are not offering any lower prices or higher speeds that compare with what other DSL and Cable providers now offer. (Their 6MB tier is much more expensive than EarthLink's 8MB or Time Warner in my area)
I've been very happy, overall, with them, but I really need faster upload speeds and don't want to pay what they charge. Static IP's were nice, but DynDNS is good enough for my uses. Earthlink's Line Powered Voice is also very nice - basically the same price as Speakeasy's voip for similar features without the need to run a VoIP adapter at my house.
Once my 12 month contract with Earthlink is up, if Speakeasy adjusts their pricing & speeds I would think about going back, simply for their awesome tech support and uptime record.
--- Updated 10/11/2005 4:45pm CDT ---
A rep from Speakeasy emailed me last week in regards to my comments here, asking what he could do to help clear things up. I forwarded it to my wife (since she is the one using the VoIP and doing the bills most of the time) and she left a return message with him today. I must say, I'm pretty impressed they responded to my comments - hopefully, when my wife talks to him, everything will be smoothed out.
--- Updated 9/30/2005 3:20pm CDT ---
I've now had HomeOffice+ with OneLink and VoIP for a couple of months, the DSL speed feels about the same as the shared line DSL I had before so that's all good. I have had a couple of times where we've had to reset the DSL modem for some reason though.
The VoIP has had some issues: when running BitTorrent or during large downloads that are sourced from fast servers like the Apple Developer Connection it can sound a bit like my GSM phone in a bad cell or something.
They just did an upgrade of the VoIP software and gave us a new call control center that is much nicer. I like that I can disable the voice mail and use my own answering machine, but still have it for when I'm on the other line and don't want to flash over. The upgrade was a bit rocky though - it took about a day and a half to get the voice mail settings to take.
My wife is home all day and the main user and is getting a little frustrated with the problems - the DSL modem needing reset wouldn't be a huge issue for her except that now it affects the phone. She's starting want to switch back to SBC & shared line DSL. I'm hoping things smooth out over the next month.
The biggest problem we've had actually is with the billing - not overbilling or anything, but just conflicting messages from them. It seems that the emails that are automatically sent to us are never correct and we spend a lot of time on the phone trying to understand the charges. A lot of mischarges and refunds got processed in the plan switch so, again, I hope that the next month everything settles down.
(newest updates at top)
--- Updated 8/4/2005 12:50pm CDT---
The new TA arrived at about noon yesterday but it exhibited the same '3 blink LED' problem as the old one! I was stuck at work all day but finally got to call their tech support this morning and it turned out that the MAC address on the Speakeasy (or Level3) side was still set up for my old TA and the static IP configured on my new TA was wrong. After those two things were fixed it finally worked!
A bit annoying that it took so long but I'm glad it's up and running now.
--- Updated 8/3/2005 10:00am CDT---
They updated the ticket with the tracking number soon after I called and, according to ups.com, it's in town and "out for delivery" right now.
--- Updated 8/2/2005 5:45pm CDT---
Finally got an answer about the TA shipping - it hasn't been sent yet! (I had to call back to get that info BTW) - Representative tells me that the person responsible for doing the shipments "should get it out tonight" and I "should have it by tomorrow". I'm not happy with the extended wait - but I guess that will have to be okay. Now, if they don't have it out in time tonight, I'm going to be pretty pissed. We'll see.
--- Updated 8/2/2005 4pm CDT---
Went out of town for a couple of weeks but never had any problems accessing my POP Mail server from the road so the OneLink connection looks solid. Speeds seem great.
The VoIP situation is a whole other story though. My number port got scheduled for 7/28/05 - a day before I got back into town. The VoIP TA was delivered so I figured I would be able to plug it in and have dial tone on 7/29 (when I got back). That *should* have been the case, but the dang thing wouldn't sync up. It turned out the Level 3 hadn't configured something correctly *AND* the TA appears to be bad. I spoke with a frew people at Speakeasy over the weekends and, as of Sunday night, they supposedly had a new TA setup and tested to make sure it worked. They were supposed to be overnighting it to me on Monday, 8/1/05 - but it's now 4pm on Tuesday and it's not here. A post to my help ticket, asking for confirmation of shipment wasn't answered so I called and nobody seemed to know whether it was actually shipped or not. They told me they'd update the ticket with the tracking number as soon as they find it. That was about 2.5 hours ago and still no update. I'm now going on 5 days with no dial tone >:o(, luckily, the DSL works and I have calls being forwarded to my mobile phone - but I'm racking up minutes on it that I shouldn't need to be.
--- Updated 7/14/2005 12noon CDT---
Covad tech got here at 11am - quick, easy, painless. I now have a dedicated (no dial tone) copper pair hooked up and am getting at least as fast speeds as the shared line had. I switched my DNS MX entries over to my new ip and it's all working fine!
SBC, the bell is tolling!
Speakeasy likes you to wait 2 weeks to do the VoIP cutover to ensure the OneLink line is stable so we'll see how it goes.
--- Updated 7/8/2005 11am CDT---
She called me back and said that the SBC guy had left without her knowing and now we have dial tone but no DSL  ( Speakeasy "Order Status" web page indicates SBC and Covad have tested the loop and it's "working" and ready for Covad install which is scheduled for 7/14 between 8am and noon.
I called Speakeasy and they tell me that the old "shared" DSL connection should still be working and to have my wife reboot the modem in case the SBC installer messed with the line and it's hung up or something. Waiting for my wife to call me back to do so...
...she called, rebooted the DSL modem and all is well. )
--- Updated 7/8/2005 10am CDT---
My wife just called me and said an SBC workman is at our house to run the new copper for the OneLink (or at least that's what I gather from what she could tell me). I hadn't expected them to be at the house without calling first, but it's all outside work so it's not too big of a deal.
--- Updated 7/7/2005 ---
FYI: Got an email Tuesday (7/5/05) afternoon from my "Install Coordinator" just to introduce himeself and let me know he'll be monitoring Covad. Nothing big - but nice to know they are on top of it.
--- Updated 7/1/2005 ---
Just orderd their Home Office Plus package with OneLink (naked DSL) at 1.5/368 speed. The package gives me the 1.5/368 line, 500 MB Web space, Pri/2nd DNS and a few other things. It also includes their VOIP service. Total $85.95/mo + taxes
Covad has to come out to the house for the OneLink install and that's a $99 fee  (But they'll bill me over 4 months so the savings over SBC & my web host should make it a wash)
The VOIP contract is for 12 months with the 1st month free and a $40 + $15 shipping upfront fee (also to me billed over 4 months)
I'll update here as the order is processed, but if it's as smooth as my past 2.5 years experience has been - I don't predict any issues.
I predict, when I cancel my SBC POTS line and 3rd party web hosting, that I should save somewhere around $40 a month. (depends on the taxes) Maybe more if my wife and I may lower our cell phone plans' minutes since their VOIP has unlimited local-toll and long-distance calling.
Accordning to Scott (my sales person), once the OneLink is set up on it's own copper pair, then they do the SBC -> VOIP switchover a couple of weeks later. I'm not billed for it 'till it's installed. My number should be portable and the worst phone outage he's seen was about an hour. Usually it's a clean, fast cut over. Then my SBC line dies and I'm free of them forever!!!! (I hope --- then again, that's what I thought with my old SprintION line ( )
--- Original review ---
Ordered this back in December of 2002 and was up and running very quickly - in fact, I was running BEFORE my install kit arrived since an older SBC, Alcatel DSL modem I had worked with SpeakEasy!
I am a prior DSL user with: Southwestern Bell/SBC, Sprint ION and DirecTV/Telocity
Speakeasy is my second favorite only to ION (which went out of business).
My local SBC employees, for some reason, couldn't figure out how to disconnect my Sprint ION pair back in 2001 (and I was ordering business class with a several hundred dollar install fee!) so I had gone with DirecTV for a quick, cheap alternative. When DirecTV shut their DSL service down I had absolutely no desire to even talk to SBC.
I looked into SpeakEasy and they had me up and running in no time.
In the past 3 years I've had no unscheduled outages and they've increased my upload speed to 384 at no extra charge. Speeds have always been as advertised too.
I re-upped with a 2 year contract in May of 2004 (got a free iPod).
I'm currently contemplating switching to their OneLink and VoIP service and dropping my SBC dial tone completely.
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