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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 18 days ago
(review was emailed from domain gmail.com)
 Eau Claire,Eau Claire,WI
 $40 per month (48 month contract)
 TDS Metrocom
 "Appeared to be a good value"
 "Never got connected, given wrong informatiom"
 "(For WIMAX): Buyer beware -- poor intracompany communication and little ability to fix mistakes"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
(ratings well below consensus)
|
*08.25.2008
Madison, WI (Northside)*
*
Subject:* TDS WIMAX service.
*The short of it:* It never happened.
*The why:* They gave me incorrect information.
*The outcome:* They told me they gave me incorrect information, apologized
for my trouble, and may no attempt to make it right.
*Take home point:* *Buyer beware*, my experience suggests poor internal
company communication and little desire to fix or make amends for mistakes.
*The details:* We have been having spotty performance with our ATT DSL
service here in Madison and had used Clearwire WIMAX in Eau Claire, WI, a
few years ago and liked it. We were excited when TDS offered WIMAX in our
area. We went to them and asked about getting WIMAX. It was available in our
area and the price and speed quote sounded like a great deal. The catch was
that it was a three week wait and that their install hours were 1 - 5 pm. I
said to the sales person (over the phone) that my wife and I were not
allowed to leave work until 3 pm. To do otherwise would require using
vacation time (or some lame thing like feigning sickness or a doctor's
visit). The salesperson said it was ok -- he would make a note that the
install had to be after 3 pm.
Go ahead three weeks to now: I worked ahead in my hours, going in early and
staying late, and then going in early today (and missing sleep) so I could
be home for the install by 3 pm. Even left slightly before 3 to get here (at
3:04 pm). Basically, I planned ahead a couple of weeks and then rearranged
my schedule on several days to make sure I could be here in the window they
said they could meet me. I arrived at home to find a "we missed you, call to
reschedule" tag on my door.
I called TDS and explained my situation. They acknowledged that the note
about 3pm or later install was on the account but told me that they cannot
actually say they will arrive at any specific time between 1 and 5 pm. This is after
my customer care representative had talked to a supervisor. Apparently I had
been misinformed. No offer was made to see if an install person might be
available, to "bump me up" in the waiting list, or to otherwise make up for
my (in good faith) lost time and effort.
So, for now I stick with ATT DSL. I am disappointed: previous WIMAX service had been good and I had been looking forward to doing business with a more "local" company.
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Review by Greycat 
UPDATED: 43 days ago
member for 5.8 years, 21 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Knoxville,Knox,TN
$40 per month
 about 14 days
TDS Metrocom
"No Contract Required, Service Reliability, Customer / Tech Support"
"Installation Contractors, Initial Bill has Errors"
"Good Value for Good Service"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
FiOS 15 Up / 2 Down, actual performance consistently meets or slightly exceeds
Actiontec Modem/Router MI424WR
Data is part of the $139 service bundle with:
* Unlimited local and LD phone, w/ usual extra amenities
* Digital TV service comparable to what I viewed on Dish 250, plus 1 premium channel, limited HDTV and also music
* HD includes Discovery HD, MTV, TNT, Universal HD, Outdoor Channel, A&E, History, National Geographic, HDNet, ESPN, all local channels of course, plus HBO (or whichever premium channel is selected in the bundle)
* On Demand is not available. Nonissue for me, but others may care.
STB for TV is Scientific Atlanta IPN330HD (DVR model also available for additional $10/mo).
25 Up / 10 Down data service available for $15 additional per month
Overall I'm very pleased with the experience of switching to FiOS from DSL / Satellite TV. Ordering was easy, installation took two planned trips (one for data, one for TV and Cat-5 wiring), plus a same-day repair trip when a separate regular phone line (which was to remain in place as separate POTS line) was disconnected in error by the contract installer.
Had one tech question afterward and, as usual, tech support was helpful and pleasant to deal with. Both Tech Support and Customer Service remain onshore, a plus.
I have had TDS service for the past 8 years and remain happy with their service reliability...and if there's a bump in the road I always come away with questions or issues resolved to my satisfaction. Which is much more than can be said of my experience with the local cable company, but that's another story.
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Review by Brandynr
Posted: 90 days ago
member for 6.9 years, 101 visits, last login: 83 days ago
Cross Plains,Dane,WI
$89 per month (24 month contract)
about 7 days
"Great technical support, good speeds"
"Having minor connectivity issues"
"Better prices than Charter"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
After having had Charter HSI/TV for about 3 years, I decided it was time to quit paying as much as I was. TDS had a very affordable bundle. I upgraded to 10 Meg internet, so it's a little more than the 90/month advertised, but that's to be expected.
After I got hooked up, I was having line noise problems... Within 2 business days, someone was out to check my lines, the problem was inside, and he corrected it. Now I'm having noise problems again, but this time it seems to be outside the house.
A day after reporting the problem, they're already working on it.Their tech support agent was very knowledgeable, didn't ask me to do stupid scripted things (he could tell I had already done some things I think, and also that it wasn't a router needing to be rebooted or anything with my hardware).
Bottom line is, I'm not regretting this portion of my change.
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Review by bftcpa
Posted: 98 days ago
member for 98 days, 14 visits, last login: 6 days ago
Knoxville,Knox,TN
$125 per month
about 14 days
TDS Metrocom
"Super-fast, great digital and HD TV, Fiber to the home. Cheaper than Charter."
"Must use cable box to record, so Tivo is a challenge (but they offer DVR's)"
"$125 above includes 4 boxes, 25/10mbps service, and about 200 channels of TV"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I have been a Charter user for about five years, and am returning my cable boxes to them today. I installed TDS PON (fiber to the home/FIOS) service last Thursday, and used it extensively this weekend. Was very happy with it, and am very impressed thus far. I went from two cable boxes +HDTV and 10/1 Mbps internet service for $165/mo (including taxes) to four digital boxes (two with HD) and 25/10 internet service for $125 a month (including taxes. fees. etc). I have "naked" internet/TV service through them (e.g. I do not have a landline phone, and use VOIP for my home phone).
Thus far, the TDS service is superior by orders of magnitude to the service I got from Charter. As of today, they do not have (or I can't find) on-demand video, but the lack of this service is not a deal breaker for me. While I had to wait a couple of weeks for a setup appointment, they sent out three people to my home for the install, and even cleaned up the existing wiring on the side of my home so it looks much cleaner. I did have some issues converting to the new service. HD didn't work at first, and took a one hour tech support call to fix. I also had to reprogram some of the remote controls and reconnect some of the cables to my home theater, but since I'm the only one that understands how that's all hooked up at my house, I'm not really shocked/upset by that.
The biggest issue is going to be getting my personally owned PC-based DVR up and going. I'm going to look into an IR Blaster, but this seems to be the biggest downside to the service thus far. Perhaps I need to just buy a better TV card for my PC..... or give TDS $10/mo for their DVR service.
I had huge issues with Charter. Heavy rain caused problems with my cable internet signal, and I had lots of problems with signal issues, which caused me to have to have the Charter service people out frequently, and they missed a lot of appointments, causing me to be unnecessarily tethered to my home so I can get my internet working well. I tried and tried to make things work, but after replacing my cable modem a couple of times and intermittent sub-standard performance, I finally made the change to fiber, and I'm pretty happy, and am saving money.
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Review by nekochan
UPDATED: 120 days ago
member for 120 days, 0 visits, last login: 120 days ago
Madison,Dane,WI
Contract price not specified.
"little downtime, no throttling"
"why throttle something this slow? they won't upgrade you when they upgrade themselves, terrible tech support"
"they don't care what you think as long as you pay"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
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entries from years ago on this site talk about ~750k connections. I'm getting that right now, even though we had them upgrade us to the 1mbps probably a year ago now, since it cost the same as our old service. i guess they decided that since we were gladly paying the full price for lower speeds, we wouldn't notice. I called them multiple times to complain about this. the first time, all i got was "well, the computer says you do get 1mbps." second time? they asked some standard tech support questions then hung up on me. third time, they said that the modem (which they gave us when we first got their service) wasn't built for mbps-level speed, but didn't offer to send us a new one. i'm considering calling again, since the 1mbps connection is no longer advertised, so i'm assuming they got faster speeds for the same price without telling current customers again.
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Review by mrrock
UPDATED: 123 days ago
member for 3.9 years, 3 visits, last login: 123 days ago
Wilton,Hillsborough,NH
Contract price not specified.
"Very reliable, fast, friendly and knowledgeable tech-support"
"DNS occasionly gets slow or flaky"
"No hassle, reliable service"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
(ratings match consensus)
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I'm online 6 to as much as 15 hours a day. I get 90+% of the purchased / rated speed (1.5Mb) nearly always. Very little downtime. Once in a while the DNS gets slows, as mentioned. Specifying their DNS IP (or OpenDNS' IPs) fixes it. Tech support hold times are usually short and the reps I've spoken with know what they, and I, are talking about.
Order and install was trivial - they're our phone company - install consisted of plugging in the modem (Actiontec GT704-wg) they mailed us (probably from their depot here in town). Service was on when they said it would be on. When one modem failed, they confirmed it on the phone and resolved it by swapping it over the counter at the local billing office.
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 Review by Island Jeff
UPDATED: 157 days ago
member for 3.2 years, 1031 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Beaver Island,Charlevoix,MI
$99 per month (24 month contract)
about 16 days
"Simply amazing to have low-latency broadband at last"
"Not wild about the actiontec modem's firewall/setup/documentation but works ok"
"Simply Excellent! THANK YOU to TDS for providing this"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
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I've only been a TDS DSL customer for 1 day now, but after waiting for this for 8 years on Satellite (Starband, Wildblue), couldn't contain my excitement on finally re-entering the 21st century. TDS DSL is simply amazing compared to any other option ever available here (with the exception of T1s at $800-$1100/month)
Thank you TDS!
Added: I have now been on TDS DSL for a month and a half and am extremely impressed -- being online ~8 hours per day, I have not witnessed a single glitch, disconnect, slowness, etc. It has been flawless. I expected good service, but with a brand new service here actually expected some issues. I'm blown away by not only how quick the connection is but how rock solid reliable it has been. Well done TDS! Updating rating because in the scope of things install and tech seem better than 4/5. (I'd like to see the rating options be more granular than 1/2/3/4/5 as the results are then displayed in percentage; I'm now giving install and tech support a 5 because they were a whole lot better than 80%. Previously I had given them a 4 because I would have liked to see the paperwork shipped with the modem instead of separate as mine lagged behind by a day causing confusion (which number the dsl was setup on where we had more than one line) and related, to get a simple answer there was some hold time involved. But these issues are really minor and don't warrant knocking 20% off, so I wish there was something between 4 (80%) and 5 (100%) possible to give... I'd honestly give them 100% on presales, reliability, services, and value, 95% on install co-ordination, and 90% on tech support.)
Followup comments:  
spider died
@cox.net
| yay!! I am so happy for you!
You have been putting up with underpar services for so long..
This is the least you deserve..especially since you have been so helpful on the satellite boards.... to everybody.. congrats, goodluck and whatever else. yeah have fun!!  | |
| |
Island Jeff
join:2005-07-18
 ·TDS
 ·WildBlue
| Re: yay!! Thanks so much!
Being here 30 miles out in Lake Michigan I absolutely love everything about it with all my heart with the one exception that I've really missed and longed for a solid low-latency Internet connection for the last 8 years since having to give one up when leaving the big city where I went to school. Satellite provided a lifeline since 2001, but now this TDS connection is simply amazing in comparison. I am so happy with it that I can't put it into words! I imagine they felt the same way the day electricity came to town.
--
Wildblue in Lake Michigan | Color Printing Forum
Unhappy with noticeably slower secure sites, higher latency due to 11/17/06 firmware changes | |
| weierj80
join:2008-05-16
| TDS... I had some issues with them initially too. Took almost two weeks for them to get my DSL turned on (they had turned on the service to an empty apartment in my building by mistake apparently). As far as the constant dropping, that previous message about "every 23 hours" is 100% correct! I had the same issue. After 5 heated phone calls to support I figured out what the deal was (got fam who work for Verizon...little hint, when you finally talk to someone from a phone company demand to be put through to escalation...makes them a little jumpy). TDS uses temps for just about everything, I don't even know if they employ permanent staff. This includes some of their techs (I know I've applied). The constant dropping has to do with their primitive system for load balancing their DNS servers. If your using one of their modems or routers this doesn't seem to be a big deal (for reasons I cannot explain) , however if your like me and using your own router you'll have to power cycle to get things back "...or... Use OpenDNS. OpenDNS is free, you set up and account, add their addresses into your DNS fields in the router and TADA! No more resets. 3 months power cycling every day...haven't had to do it since adding OpenDNS.
PS did I mention it's free? | |
| |
Island Jeff
join:2005-07-18
·TDS
·WildBlue
| Re: TDS... I first ran with the supplied actiontec modem only for a couple of weeks with no issues. I now have my own router (smoothwall box) behind the tds modem because I like its easier firewall rule input, squid, and usage graphs per client -- I set the actiontec modem to transparent bridged. I also have had zero drops and no glitches at all and no dns errors with the smoothwall box set to pickup dns servers via dhcp from TDS. (I did run my own dns server with treewalk and use opendns on a previous satellite system, so I don't doubt your advice if the dns server that serves you is having issues) Also don't mean to be a TDS-fanboy, but my TDS service has been perfect so far for the last two months. Being on satellite for so many years, I expected some glitches here and there, maintenance windows, etc., but so far I have had zero downtime with TDS which has been quite nice in this remote location!
--
Very happy TDS DSL user | Wildblue in Lake Michigan | |
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 Review by IMaPIRATE
Posted: 166 days ago
member for 1.6 years, 2 visits, last login: 166 days ago
Saint Marys,Camden,GA
$45 per month (12 month contract)
about 8 days
TDS Metrocom
"Low Latency."
"Nothing over 3MB pipe offered."
"I bought it!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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The service is pretty good, personally im the type of person who wants a 10MB or more connection though.
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Review by geeman9000
UPDATED: 184 days ago
member for 184 days, 0 visits, last login: 184 days ago
Madison,Dane,WI
$30 per month (24 month contract)
about 10 days
TDS Metrocom
"4 /512 means 3.9/0.486 megabytes"
"none"
"It's the best option in madison wisconsin"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I had charter in which broadband disappears at prime time, I've checked the tds adsl and it gives me
3930/486 all the time. That is worth it and the package price with dish, phone, and dsl is a good deal compared to charter.
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 Review by philfna
UPDATED: 185 days ago
member for 4.7 years, 1361 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Wisconsin
$55 per month (24 month contract)
about 21 days
TDS Metrocom
"WiMax Service is Fast and Stable"
"Still quite a bit slower than Cable on the D/L"
"A great value for much less than cable"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I had TDS Metrocom as a DSL provider, and it stinked. I thought as a "best effort" technology it would be better than cable as I did not have to share with others, but it was miserable with speeds ranging from 111k down to 4mbits/sec as I was supposed to get. I just had WiMax installed on the side of the house, and I am getting 6mbits down / 3 mbits up no problem. I also get $10 unlimited local and long distance with it.
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