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Review by universal 
UPDATED: 356 days ago
member for 359 days, 3 visits, last login: 338 days ago
 Denver,Denver,CO
 $39 per month (12 month contract)
 Qwest
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I subscribed for DSL, up to 6 Mb/s for 39.95/mo, a little more than a year ago. Everything was good for a while, although my download speed was below 5 Mb/s.
Recently, however, (maybe a month or two) I started noticing a substantial drop in download speed at certain periods of the day. When I checked it with the speed test it came out to be about 700 kb/s. Sometimes the connection completely freezes and I have to recycle the ZyXEL router that connects me to the service, turning it off and on. The Customer Service technician I had a live chat with was of no help.The same with the upper level technician he transferred me to per my request. I had the impression that both were reading of some script, like "If this is the problem, do No.1. If it doesn't help, do No.2, " etc. When all the options in the script were exhausted, the first "technician" tried to cycle me thru them all over again. The second wasn't any better. Since Qwest is my local telco I'm considering switching to Qwest DSL, maybe because I haven't read the Qwest reviews yet  . Anybody having any ideas of a decent (not VERY good, just decent ) service provider?
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 Review by antoinefinch
UPDATED: 358 days ago
member for 4.1 years, 126 visits, last login: 28 days ago
Fayetteville,Cumberland,NC
$45 per month (12 month contract)
Sprint
 "good web browser"
 "lower speeds than on cable"
 "works with cable or DSL"
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EARTHLINK OFFERS EMAIL PREMIUN ALSO EARTHLINK WEBMAIL SETUp A BREEZE.Phone company offers instead of AOL.fast access installs with ease.
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Review by nikmagid
UPDATED: 364 days ago
member for 8.6 years, 2650 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
$45 per month (12 month contract)
AT&T
"good when up, very fast for the money"
"tech support is lousy"
"ok for speed, terrible for support"
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i have not had my dsl line for the past 2 1/2 weeks. earthlink support said it was a faulty modem. i have been trying for the past week for earthlink to send me a replacement dsl modem. the first time they were supposed to overnight it, they said the order had been cancelled and they would send me a new one right away. that was yesterday. today i called to make sure they modem was sent, and i found out it was not. now they promised me again to have it by thursday at the latest. what a jip! if i don't get it this last time, i will be cancelling my service. their idea of costomer servcie is laughable at best. how do they expect to keep customers if their service is so shoddy?
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Review by mshalett
Posted: 1 year ago
member for 9.5 years, 226 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Metairie,Jefferson,LA
$50 per month
AT&T
"been online for six years"
"incredible service until November 08 when AT&T replaced splitter in CO"
"May have to get another provider unless they can get problems sorted"
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Not sure what is out there right now. Earthlink has agreed to upgrade me to 6.0/760 for all the agro I have been enduring. it is amazing that i am online right now. But overall, I will continue to put up with these problems because I think they are a good company and much better than AT&T
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Review by blg
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 8.7 years, 2976 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Bothell,King,WA
$50 per month (6 month contract)
 about 60 days
Verizon (ex GTE)
"Good speed, reliable connection."
"Long waits for Earthlink technical support."
"I think Covad makes the difference."
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I ordered on 1/13/01. Their order status page showed activation on 1/22. Got install kit on 2/1, modem, nic, filters and software. Hooked everything up, loaded software....NO sync. After 4 weeks of hours on hold waiting for TS(earthlink), colo meets, vendor meets, log updates, no log updates, it was suggested by COVAD tech that the modem might be bad (SpeedStream 5260). A week and half later received new modem and it synced. For the first week speeds were less than what I expected 400/70 - 10500ft from CO. Called TS (earthlink) - waited on hold only to have 1st level tell me "it's best effort, that's not a bad speed". I signed up for 1500/384. Asked for 2nd level and they called Covad. Covad had me on interleave? because of prior modem problems. Switched to fastpath. I've been getting 1200/110Mbps for the last 3.5 weeks. Took awhile, almost canceled.
5/17/01: Called TS and had my upload switched(reprovisioned)to 384. Now 1200/308.
11/30/03: It's been over 2 years and over all solid connection and speed. I'm lucky to have Covad as CLEC.
6/27/04: Called earthlink customer service 6/16/04 and was told my account through Covad would be upgraded to 3Mb by 7/5/04.
7/2/04: Tested 2411 / 309
4/15/06 Solid connection since Covad came out and had Earthlink replace faulty modem.
5/9/07 Still a mostly solid connection. I'd contact tech support, but I have to go through Earthlink to get to Covad.
4/19/08 Solid connection.
11//28/08 semisolid connection. I'm not sure what the problem is, neither is EA tech support. I kept this short so the folks at the Broadband Reports won't need to get a bigger frame.
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 Review by kiddigital
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 9.4 years, 2476 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Deltona,Volusia,FL
$41 per month
"Wicked speed, insane uptime."
"Nothing major. Could use a bit more upload speed."
"Blessed to have such a reliable affordable high speed option in my area."
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I've had EarthLink Cable Internet (and previously Roadrunner on the same wire from Brighthouse) since it became available in my area in the summer of 2000. since then it's increased in speed from 1.5 Mbps to 7 Mbps and dropped in price from $49.99 to $41.95. I've had a grand total of maybe 5 outages in those 8 years. The only thing they could do to be perfect in my eyes is bump up the upload speed a bit. I honestly can't complain too much about the service I've had from Brighthouse over the last 8 years.
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Review by TakeyMcTaker
Posted: 1 year ago
member for 1.3 years, 3 visits, last login: 1 year ago
Burbank,Los Angeles,CA
$80 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Good price, up until there's any problem. Good VoIP/phone. Not AT&T."
"Support doesn't really speak Network, nor English. They read cue-cards phonetically."
"Woe betide anyone with any line issue."
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I am ending this account this month. I am lucky enough to have a decent cable connection option in my area, and a firewall capable of dual-WAN access during the transition. The DSL+VoIP connection was fine at first, but then we had a line-drop problem, which affected both the DSL and VoIP phone connection. That's when it all went south.
Instead of having a standard "press this number" style phone tree, which I now prefer, they almost immediately send you to someone reading cue cards in India, and refuse any hint of service if you don't give the right binary yes/no answer, at the time they deem acceptable. If you are a Network Administrator at your office, like I am (I use SpeakEasy there!), it's still hard to describe how frustrating it is to go through these untrained idiots, who refuse to help you if you don't have a Windows XP box connected directly to the modem (they have never heard of Mac, Linux, Vista, or firewalls). I finally got a "manager", and then find out they can't actually ever connect you to someone who knows anything about basic TCP/IP networking. They didn't even know what traceroute and ping are used for, let alone anything like WireShark!
After three calls like this, I finally got someone to set up a line service ticket. I got a call from Covad a couple days later, saying that someone at AT&T had probably crossed my wires, and he connected it correctly again. It was fine for a couple of weeks after that, but it never really got back to the full 3Mbps I was paying for (yes I know about TCP overhead, and exactly how to calculate it). In addition, after that nice 2 week period, we get complete drop-out periods at least twice every day -- about a minute where no traffic can get up or down the DSL line. We had to get them to replace the modem when the drop-outs started happening more than twice a day (no fun). Any time I try to use an encrypted connection, like ssh or https, the connection slows to a crawl. Earthlink support has never been ANY help with any of these problems -- I feel like I'm working past them, not with them. They simply deny there is a problem as long as they can "see" my modem (they never explain their "sight" test).
The only thing good I can say is that the VoIP service was fairly reliable, except for the first line-drop incident.
WORST SERVICE EVER! To be clear, I don't mind dealing with tech support in India at all. They are often much better trained than the tech support from Kentucky I've dealt with. What I hate is UNTRAINED tech support, of any sort. That is all Earthlink has: they are all heavily accented cue card readers, and nothing more.
Followup comments:  
Doctor Olds
I Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.
Premium,VIP
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30
clubs:
| Agree about Level 1 support, but you need to get past them. I just went through a line migration where I was taken off Covad provisioning, placed on AT&T/Bellsouth provisioning, but lost the ability to Authenticate since AT&T/Bellsouth doesn't offer the speed I had with Covad. It took two phone calls with two trouble tickets and the Level 1 Tech had no clue (note: they are not supposed to at Level 1 so it appears you really have way too high expectations which sets you up for immediate failure  ) so I went quickly through what they would have asked telling them I had just done this before calling. Reset Modem, Done, Reset PC, Done, Try Bridge Mode and a PPPoE connection (use RASPPPoE in Linux, if you don't run XP, the result is the same - no connection), Done. Problem Authentication failed, DSL Sync is fine (older days known as "Sync no Surf, no IP")
I realize it is very frustrating, but you can easily get to Level 3 by following the steps (or like I do, have them done before calling) and remain polite and it will surprise you how fast you are done with them and they are ready to issue that TT number. Instead of being demanding of them to know what you think they should know at Level 1 Support (Wireshark, really?  ), let them tell you what they do know/think they know and give them the answer that shows them they can't fix this at their level and that you need escalation to the Tier 3 Techs.
The first time Level 1 said they could see my line I asked them politely to tell me my current Sync Rate. They told me 6016/768 and I told them, my Modem shows 8160/896 and explained to them they were not looking at my line and that I had been lost in a line Migration. They tried to say again that they were looking at my line and that it was fine, but when I asked them what my current IP address was it was obvious they could not answer as I was no longer connected to their circuits. Boom, Trouble Ticket Issued.
You can read about it if you like.
»[Resolved] Looks like I got Migrated [Issues Corrected] !!
I sincerely hope this helps.
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What’s the point of owning a supercar if you can’t scare yourself stupid from time to time? | |
| 
deedee
@swbell.net
| earthlink is beginning to suck be time I am just about had it with earthlink and their obsolete equipment. The modem prestige 600 sucks a royal wienie. I have tried tens of times trouble shooting disconnections with this modem. Had it replaced with a same brand, and still disconnects randomly. I spent nearly 3 hours with the stupid techs from India, level 1, 2 and finally a 3. He was a character. I still have the same old problem of this modem disconnecting. I can't figure it out. I want to take sledge hammer to it. They take me out of ACT mode to bridge mode.. neither works for continuous connectivity. Does the DLink 2640B really configure to solve the earthlink disconnects? Or is Netgear adsl wireless/wired work as well for easy configuration to resolve these disconnects? | |
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Doctor Olds
I Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.
Premium,VIP
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30
clubs:
| Re: earthlink is beginning to suck be time If your Disconnects are from the DSL LED going out, then that is a Line or Interference problem making the DSL Signal disappear. Is that what you are seeing?
You would need to test at the NID using the test jack to see if the disconnections then stop or not.
»EarthLink DSL FAQ »How do I test at my NID? What does it look like?
If the DSL LED going out don't stop then it is the Line going back to the Telco and you would have to get them to fix that by going to the Tier 3 to report your findings. If the DSL is stable when connected to the NID test jack, then that means the problem is inside your residence or just outside and that would need to be repaired or replaced which is the homeowners responsibility.
--
What’s the point of owning a supercar if you can’t scare yourself stupid from time to time? | |
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Review by arothman
Posted: 1 year ago
member for 1 year, 6 visits, last login: 194 days ago
Fort Lauderdale,Broward,FL
$39 per month
BellSouth
"No surcharges on DSL only"
"Occasional short connectivity drop- just long enough to disconnect from online games, etc."
"Decent service if you're not gaming."
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My first foray into DSL was smooth and easy with Earthlink's help. Their deals are decent and I haven't been charged any surcharges. The customer support (the rare times I needed it) were polite and helpful. They don't specify what speeds I have, but as it was at least a couple of years ago, I'm sure that they were minimal since I currently don't have blazing speeds.
I've also experienced brief connectivity drops- usually not for longer than a minute. Ordinarily this would be nearly unnoticable if the service is used for web browsing and collecting email messages. When one plays online games however, this quickly becomes annoying when one has to run the diagnostics 1 - 3 times to confirm the connection is back up, reconnect to the game, and then hunt down the other players one was previously teaming with in order to rejoin... sometimes repeatedly one night, sometimes once every month or two.
I only wish they could package their services with other companies so that I could have my phone bill, cellphone and DSL on one bill, especially now that I need to upgrade my services.
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Review by rothenmr
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 2 years, 4 visits, last login: 273 days ago
Palmdale,Los Angeles,CA
$40 per month
AT&T
"Very reliable. Almost never down; twice in 8 years"
"tech support sucks."
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I can't complain, although DSL speed is slow at times. I have called tech support twice in 8 years. Service is very reliable. All the neighbors complain about how often their cable service or AT&T service is down. Also, they complain email is missing or takes days to deliver. Never an issue with EarthLink. Most reliable service. However, when you have to call tech support the morons don't know where you live, even after you explain to them 6 times, and they don't have a clue what is happening with your service. AND they want to walk through each step one by one no matter your technical skill level. I felt like I was training the tech support rep how to help me. So when your service may be down for less than an hour just reboot modem, routers, etc. and hope all is well. Overall good experience.
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 Review by DrModem
UPDATED: 1.1 years ago
member for 3.1 years, 1298 visits, last login: a few hours ago
USA
$79 per month
about 2 days
Sprint
"Super Reliable, Really Fast,"
"None"
"If you can get this service, It's a good option."
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I had Earthlink DSL through Sprint in Kingsport, TN. Ordered speed was 1.5 down/768 up. The service was pretty much flawless, it never went out, slowed down etc. We had to call tech support once about a problem with our computer not connecting, but they weren't able to resolve our problem (it turned out our ethernet card was bad) All in all, excellent service and speed.
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