Review by DMyers77 
UPDATED: 13 days ago
member for 1 year, 20 visits, last login: 13 days ago
 Halethorpe,Baltimore,MD
 $72 per month
 about 15 days
 Verizon
 "Fast (8-9 Mb down, 800k up @ 8,250 feet)"
 "their fix for everything is to lower your sync speed"
 "Can't beat the price"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
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UPDATE 11/08/09
Cavalier added some new fees, so my total bill is now $72, but the service has been rock-solid since my last review.
»www.speedtest.net/result/616267140.png
UPDATE 03/08/09
Speeds seem to have returned to normal. I ran another line test, and it looks like I've been re-routed through their Washington, DC servers.
»/linequality/nil/2497804
»www.speedtest.net/result/424541519.png
While latency is a little on the high side, I am getting great throughput, and I think I'm going to stick with them for now. If the network goes haywire again, I have direct contact numbers for both an engineer and a provisioning tech.
Their phone tech support is hit or miss... sometimes you get a good tech, but most times you don't. When I called about my slow speeds, their only "fix" is to lower my modem sync speed, for "stability". When that doesn't work, they blame overall internet congestion, the problems between Sprint and Cogent, and everything else under the sun (except their network).
If they do send a tech out, don't expect him/her to do anything but verify that your ready light is on, and call the office to "lower your speed for stabilty" (even if it's working perfectly while he is there.)
All in all, though, I get phone service (unlimited local and long distance + all features), and DSL that gives me almost 9Mbps download speeds. And my bill for all of this is $70, taxes included.
I don't know of any other company that would give you this much for that price. (For comparison, Verizon wants to give me similar service, but with less calling features and only 5MB DSL, for $80 BEFORE taxes. They also say that my line doesn't qualify for 7.1 DSL.)
UPDATE 03/05/09
I recieved a call from a Cavtel engineer yesterday. Apparently, one of my many complaints made its way up to him. He informed me that they had been having a problem with one of their Baltimore area routers. They had to replace a bad card during the time I first started having problems, which only fixed the problem for a couple of months. Now they have replaced the whole router, and he was calling me personally to see if my issue was fixed on my end.
I explained to him that my connection has been stable, but that the phone techs had lowered my speed to try and fix the problem, and that none of them knew how to put me back to the speeds I had originally.
He asked for my email address, so that he could cc me on an email he was sending to the provisioning dept.
I never received an email, but did receive a conference call from the engineer and the provisioning tech later that day. I explained again what had happened, and he tweaked the DSLAM while he was one the phone with me. His first attempt lowered my speed to around 1800kbps, so he put me on hold. When he came back, he asked me to run another speed test, and I was back to 8867kbps down and 864kbps up (using Speakeasy's speed test.) He then gave me his phone number, and said that I could call him directly anytime if I have problems.
After I got off the phone with them, I logged into the modem interface, and my modem is again syncing at 10137 down and 1021 up, using fastpath, with no errors.
It looks like I may be cancelling my Verizon order....
UPDATE 02/23/09
I experienced slow night-time connections again last week, and used the online chat service to try and resolve the issue (my connection to Cavalier's servers was fine). The tech I talked to said that my line looks fine, and that I should be getting 6MB down all the time. I explained to him that I can connect at that speed only to Cavalier's servers and that my line tests (run from this site) is showing packet loss. His only response was to "lower my speed for stability", which I declined.
The problem seemed to resolve itself after a couple of days, but now I'm only getting 5832 down and 732 up.
Line stats are:
sync: 7107 / 883
margin: 11 / 14
line attenuation: 33 / 22
transfer mode: Fastpath
I have an order in for Verizon to install voice/DSL on the 2nd jack on my NID, so I can evaluate their service and compare it to my current one. They say that I qualify for their 5M/7.1M service, and with the line stats I'm showing, I'm hoping it ends up at 7.1M.
UPDATE 11/15/08
Still doing strong, with speed tests showing 6,450K down and 800K up, 24x7.
UPDATE 11/12/08
I called and talked to a tech, and asked him to put me back on a "default" profile, as the field tech called it. He said that he did so, and that my modem should be resetting. My modem never reset, and my speeds never changed. I think he was probably logged into the wrong port. I thanked him for his time, and ended the call.
After I got off the phone with him, I initiated a chat from support.cavtel.com, and got a different tech. She was able to put me back on the "default" profile and reset my modem. I am now on Fastpath again and the modem is synching at 7365 down and 855 up with no errors. This is a far cry from the 10M down and 1M up I was getting yesterday, but if it's stable I can live with it. Besides, I can't get faster DSL from anyone else, at least not for $14.95. Keeping my fingers crossed....
UPDATE 11/11/08
Cavalier sent a tech out today to test my line. Of course, since tech was coming out, my internet was working better than it ever has (9Mb down and 900k up). He said that the modem was synched up at 10Mb down and 1Mb up with no errors. Someone must have fixed something somewhere. I was getting 300k downloads last night.
Since I had been having problems that he couldn't duplicate onsite, he called his office and asked them to give a different profile for "stability". The result is that my modem now synchs at 6MB down and 384k up, in interleaved mode (used to be fastpath.)
The tech said that I could call to have my profile put back, if my speeds stayed stable. I asked him if they had fixed a network problem and he didn't know. I may call them in a day or so to see if I can at least get my upload speeds back to what they used to be.
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We bought our house in 2006, and had Cavalier setup our home phone and DSL service. When the service was activated, I was blown away by the speed I was getting. I would get a consistent 8Mb down and 800k up, 24x7. This could be confirmed using any speed test on the web.
Within the last few months, though, the speed has dropped considerably. It still runs at 8Mb from 12AM - 6 AM, but then slows down to around 1.5Mb around 11AM to as slow as 500k around 5pm. I like to watch Sesame Street videos with my son on YouTube after work, and the connection is so slow the videos take up to 10 min to start.
I have tried calling Cavalier support, but they don't seem to know how to fix the problem. They want to send out a tech to check my jack, even though I told them that plugging the modem directly into the NID doesn't fix the issue.
I confirmed, via the modem's web interface, that it is synching at 9Mb down and 1Mb up with no errors, but Cavalier's network just can't seem to deliver.
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