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Review by indianajohn 
Posted: 2 years ago
member for 2 years, 0 visits, last login: 2 years ago
 Newnan,Coweta,GA
 $49 per month (12 month contract)
 about 2 days
 AT&T
 "Free to do what I please on the web: running your own mail server is unheard of on other ISP's"
 "Cannot think of any"
 "Swich to Speed Factory!!"
| Pre Sales information:
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Frusterated with the "Big 3" (Comcast, Charter, AT&T), I decided to give a regional ISP a try. Being that I was in the market for a connection which I could run my own servers off of, access my machine from work, etc, I opted for Speed Factory. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised!!!
Time from order to install was just 2 days. When I called to place the order, the phone rang right to someone who answered right away. The longest I have ever had to wait for a rep has always beel less than 2 minutes, if even that. Speed Factory ran my phone number, and I qualififed for the 3Mbx384Kb package (they call it SpeedHome Platinum) at 49.95 per month. With the static IP I finally had a connection I could truly run my servers off of, without having to rely Dynamic DNS providers.
After install, I ran both my Charter connection, and my Speed Factory connection, side by side so I could tun comparisons before dropping my cable line altogether. The difference was surprising. Traceroutes to the first hop on my CABLE line were 40ms plus. DSL line: Less than 7ms!!! My download speeds are always consistent, 360KB plus. On my cable connection, thisvaried from slow to fast spurts every now and then. I never understaood the inconsistency with cable, but do not care now.
With ping times less than 10ms, my online gaming has drasticlly imrpoved as well. With those kinds of ping times, lag has been a non-issue, provided I choose a server within the western world. The connection is also very responsive. You click a link, and you are there before you even think about blinking.
I finally let the cable connection go after several days of testing, and have not looked back since. I look forward to even faster downloads with DSL, and enjoy the better "peace of mind" of not sharing my connection as I did with cable. The Email control Speed Factory offers also have been perfect in allowing me to ensure my kids email come from only people they (and I) know.
Followup comments:  jameswade
join:2001-12-09
Hot Springs, NC | You may want to check other reviews before switching... Many of us have had significant problems in the last nine months or so with Speedfactory. You may want to check around before just trusting this review to be representative... | |
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Review by jameswade
UPDATED: 2.1 years ago
member for 7.9 years, 1856 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Atlanta,Fulton,GA
$59 per month (12 month contract)
about 4 days
BellSouth
"Used to be a good Internet service provider"
"Still charging me even though I've written mail to stop their service"
"Try BellSouth, they've improved while Speedfactory has gone downhill"
| Pre Sales information:
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Just received another bill from these guys - they don't pay attention. I notified them via mail well over a month ago that I was leaving them. I moved to another ISP weeks ago and they're still billing me!
Stay away from Speedfactory!
Well I've used these guys for several years, but they've been getting steadily worse in the last year:
Reliability - Our home and business lines (in three separate locations) intermittently stop working. These problems used to be with BellSouth (they provide the Internet acces to Speedfactory), but now there are server and NIC problems within Speedfactory.
Support - The only way that we've received any sort of decent support is that we know someone that knows someone that works at Speedfactory. IF we get an answer when we call we have to deal with rude and/or clueless people. Finally Speedfactory marked our account as "Knowledgeable Users", but that doesn't help if the "support" person cannot access our account, as was the case this morning when the "support" person insisted on walking us through resetting our DSL transceivers and PCs. (To no avail)
It's been an hour and a half now since we discovered all of this wasn't working and still don't have a call back from them.
The support page on their web site always gives you the same "temporary (sic) down" error message. It's been this way as long as I can remember.
I've had to use my cell phone to get on line, but that doesn't help the business locations...
BellSouth is now offering naked DSL, we're moving to them - we will double our bandwidth and save around $40/per month.
After dealing with Covad and different Covad-based ISPs the four days to connect is amazing. This maybe isn't Covad's fault, but the fact that Bellsouth seems to put up delays for other service providers over Bellsouth's lines.
These guys are based in the Atlanta area and provide Internet access for our small business. One of our people does a lot of business with Speedfactory so it's a little easier for us to call someone if regular support isn't handling things well enough.
I am getting what I expect for bit rates, almost 3 Mbit down and 384 up. I don't use any supplied services like email addresses, usenet, etc. I wanted the highest speed that I could get for VPN. This account came with one static IP. Two months were free if you used your own DSL transceiver, one month free if they sent you one.
I received a SpeedStream DSL transceiver with directions for connecting it, but no directions with the transceiver for configuring the PC side of things. I called and was told that the directions were emailed to me . I had to get a different connection to the Internet, bring up the email and download an attachment called 'WinXP_PPPoE' that told me how to set up a connection to my PC.
I had no intentions of doing this since I have a wireless router. This would have been very confusing for a novice, I have quite a bit of experience, but I still didn't know what kind of connection I was going to get. It was PPPoE. It would be better to have more information packed with the DSL transceiver.
I had asked for some information from Speedfactory a few months ago, but just got back canned responses. If I didn't have other methods of getting in touch with these guys I would have dropped them from consideration after that.
They have taken good care of us with our business account and I expect that my home service will be fine too, but I feel better knowing that I have other ways to get support issues taken care of than Speedfactoy's regular support. It's still early yet, maybe my experiences so far are not the norm.
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Review by jameswade
UPDATED: 2.2 years ago
member for 7.9 years, 1856 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Atlanta,Fulton,GA
$59 per month (12 month contract)
about 14 days
BellSouth
"Only down at least once a month"
"No naked DSL, support has become terrible"
"Try to find someone else"
| Pre Sales information:
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Well I've used these guys for several years, but they've been getting steadily worse in the last year:
Reliability - Our home and business lines (in three separate locations) intermittently stop working. These problems used to be with BellSouth (they provide the Internet access to Speedfactory), but now there are server and NIC problems within Speedfactory.
Support - The only way that we've received any sort of decent support is that we know someone that knows someone that works at Speedfactory. IF we get an answer when we call we have to deal with rude and/or clueless people. Finally Speedfactory marked our account as "Knowledgeable Users", but that doesn't help if the "support" person cannot access our account, as was the case this morning when the "support" person insisted on walking us through resetting our DSL transceivers and PCs. (To no avail)
It's been an hour and a half now since we discovered all of this wasn't working and still don't have a call back from them.
The support page on their web site always gives you the same "temporary (sic) down" error message. It's been this way as long as I can remember.
I've had to use my cell phone to get on line, but that doesn't help the business locations...
BellSouth is now offering naked DSL, we're moving to them - we will double our bandwidth and save around $40/per month.
Update 5/17/2007:
I came home today to find that I had no sync again - this happens about once every month or so. I cycled power, check my phone line going into the DSL transceiver, router login settings, etc.
I called support and was on hold for about 35 minutes and got dropped of the line. I called again and stayed on hold for around an hour and fifteen minutes!
While I was on hold I used my cell phone to hit the Internet and check Speedfactory's site for any outages. I didn't see any mention of outages so I tried the support link. It was down - just the way it has been every time I've tried before.
I sent an email to the support address in the 'contact us' link. It bounced!
Finally someone took me off hold and answered the phone. I got the usual "What lights are on?" questions - Power, USB, and ENET were on, DSL and ACT off, just like every other time that I've had to call about this. (It always gets fixed by a setting at the DSLAM)
I was asked to cycle the power, check that the phone line is plugged in - I'd already done that. Then he wanted me to plug into another power outlet. I explained that the power was on and other items on the power strip were fine and this was really hard to physically get to so I'd rather skip on to another step.
The support guy then asked me if I was refusing to follow the troubleshooting procedure, I explained my reasons for skipping this step and that I do this for a living and didn't think that there was a problem with the power. He persisted so I asked if he could just escalate the problem. He said that they don't have anyone to escalate to!
I asked him if there was someone else that could help me, he said that he was the only one there!!!
No wonder I was on hold over an hour and a half. The good thing is that my contract is up in fifteen days!
An older update in 2006:
It looks like Speedfactory has reversed the slide in reliability and service. We haven't experienced the intermittent service problems in months - these were mostly, if not completely BellSouth problems anyway...
About two years ago I ordered 3 Mbit down, 384 up. Installation went without a hitch and I never really had any problems.
About two years later I receive these speeds most of the time, but more and more often I lose service and it's more and more difficult to get Speedfactory on the phone to fix the problems.
To be fair it seems to be that most of Speedfactory's technical problems are a result of using BellSouth. The reason that I didn't go with BellSouth is because of the stress of dealing with their support people. I thought I'd pay Speedfactory a bit more so that they could deal with BellSouth. It's starting to look as though Speedfactory doesn't have much more clout than a regular customer.
Followup comments: phaqu
join:2005-05-26
Marietta, GA | Look around, Theres more than one dsl provider in Atlanta. And at least one I can guarantee that wont suck.
I remember trying to get dsl a few years ago, and called Speed Factory, but I dont remember why I didnt go with them. | |
| krayzie bone
join:2006-09-03
Marietta, GA | atnex? have you tried atlantic nexus? a lot of people have had good experiences with them, but i doubt it will be any cheaper then AT&T | |
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Review by DnEtDe6c
UPDATED: 2.2 years ago
member for 2.8 years, 10 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
Athens,Clarke,GA
$35 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
BellSouth
"None really"
"Horrendous customer service, nonexistent tech support & unreliable connection"
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"
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I ordered service from Speedfactory in June 2006 based on the generally good reviews they had received here. What I didn't know was that this was right about the time their service started to deteriorate.
For the first few months, there were intermittent outages (every two to three weeks) that lasted for a few hours. Their tech support always blamed the problem on Bell South lines. The thing is, my neighbors used Bell South DSL. One of them had an unsecured wireless access point. I would connect to it just long enough to check whether their service worked, and it invariably did. As you can see from other reviews, I was not the only person experiencing problems with Speedfactory during this time and getting the "blame Bell South" excuse.
If you happened to have one of these problems on a weekend, forget about it. There was nobody staffing the phones or returning calls. You had to cross your fingers and hope that somebody was checking messages and working on the problem.
Eventually the problems settled down (but never disappeared) so that Speedfactory became a sufficiently reliable, though far from perfect, ISP. Then the billing problems started that have been described by other reviewers. My bills were being paid automatically by a credit card, and I admit that I did not notice for a few months that I was no longer being billed.
I tried to access my account info at speedfactory.com. Their web site was literally unreachable VERY often. Once I got through, the message at their "Current Customers" support section said "This service is temporary [sic] unavailable." It still says this to this very day, nearly one year later.
The discussion boards at dslreports.com let me know that I was not alone with this billing problem. How Speedfactory continued for months without this revenue I'll never know. I do know that I was never — not once — notified about the problems they were having. It wasn't until a large bill showed up in February that I knew they had finally gotten things straightened out.
By now I had had enough of this incompetent company but was still locked into a one-year contract. The bills started showing up regularly (no longer being charged to my credit card, fortunately), but their web site was still unreachable on a regular basis. My account information could never be accessed online, as I mentioned above.
I didn't cancel my service promptly at the one-year mark because I knew I would be taking some vacation during that month and, let's face it, it takes an effort to switch. By now, as I mentioned earlier, the service and billing were mostly reliable.
The impetus I needed came when I returned home from vacation in early July to find my internet service not working. I called Speedfactory and was told that my service had been shut off because my account was past due.
Now I'll admit my payment was not made in time. Sometimes things slip through the cracks when you are busy getting ready to go away, and I made a mistake. But now they were going to play hardball with me -- when I was only one bill behind and they had recently gone for months without providing proper bills?
The representative I talked to was exceptionally rude. He expected that I would give him my bank account info in order to turn my service back on. I declined. I said I wanted to cancel my account immediately. He wouldn't permit me to cancel on the phone. Instead I had to write to the email address "contracts@speedfactory.net." I shortly took my laptop to a wireless access point and sent the email. I sent a check for the amount due, plus a late fee.
Story over? Not with Speedfactory. They sent me another bill in a few weeks for services they were no longer providing. I wrote back and said I was no longer a customer. They wrote back and said I had to contact, yes, "contracts@speedfactory.net." I wrote back and said I had already done this weeks ago.
End of story? I thought so, until I received ANOTHER notice a month later. Laughably, they said to "make payment arrangements as soon as possible to avoid service interruption. The system will suspend your account in five days if payment hasn't been received by then." They haven't even been my ISP for the last six weeks!
I am indebted to the reviewer "lyramisu" (see review below) who told the tale of having a bank account drafted by Speedfactory without permission. I had read the review before I was asked to provide my bank information, so this gave me a heads-up not to do the same.
Speedfactory is a regional ISP that should be providing stellar service with few complaints. If you still want to use them after reading the consistent stories being told here ... well, you have been warned.
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Review by bblater
UPDATED: 2.3 years ago
member for 7.4 years, 69 visits, last login: 2.3 years ago
Woodstock,Cherokee,GA
$49 per month (12 month contract)
about 4 days
BellSouth
"Five years and counting, still an awesome ISP!"
"Must have a BellSouth/ATT phone line--just like any DSL."
"Best Broadband ISP I've Ever Dealt With!!!"
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Well, it's been five years and I can't begin to tell you just how wonderfully pleased I've been with their service over the years. The customer service reps continue to be knowledgable and friendly, and their service remains fast and reliable. I'm now using Speed Factory for three different services: my residential DSL, hosting my personal web site, and nation-wide dial-up. Although I hate using dial-up, sometimes it's my only option when traveling. Speed Factory gave me their dial-up for a discounted price since I had their DSL at home. These guys take care of essentially all my Internet needs and do it well--five years running!
*Third review below this line*
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The Speed Factory team continues to impress me with consistent, reliable and friendly service! Since my last review, I've upgraded to their Platinum plan and have thoroughly enjoyed the increased speeds. On the rare occasions that I've had to call customer support over the years, it has remained refreshing to call and speak with a friendly, knowledgeable associate.
My neighbor got tired of his cable company constantly increasing their rates while experiencing a steady decline in customer service. After constantly hearing about my Internet connection being up while his was down, he finally made the switch to Speed Factory. I even received a $25 referral bonus for signing him up!
*Second review below this line*
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Speed Factory once again has amazed me! My wife and I were moving into a new house last month. I wanted to transfer my service to the new location. I made sure to call them ahead of time, as I wanted to experience the least amount of downtime possible. I gave them my new address and they were able to "pre-qualify" it before I even had an active phone line there!
I was coming out of the same CO, so my number was staying the same; however I was going from IFITL (fiber) to copper DSL. After speaking with Bell South and getting the date my number was to be turned up for service, I called Speed Factory back and was instructed to send in an order for my new house.
The DSL router I ordered from them was waiting for me on the front doorstep when we moved in! The instructions in the self-install kit were very simple to follow. I moved in on a Saturday and was up surfing that night! My connection has been solid since I put it in about a month ago. My speeds are consistent here just like they were at my last location. I'm getting a consistent downstream of about 1.3mbps and upstream of 220kbps and my ping is still awesome when gaming.
Speed Factory's support and customer service team went out of their way for me to make sure I had a smooth transition into my new house. I can't stress enough how wonderful it is to call them and get a live person within a minute or less who knows what they're talking about. Their support team is very friendly unlike that of the countless other ISPs I've dealt with in the past. I've been with them now for about a year and a half and continue to recommend them to everyone I know. Thanks again Speed Factory-You guys rock!!!
*Initial review below this line*
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I don't know where to begin. I have a long, tainted history with broadband ISPs. First, there was a company called bbnow. This company promised an order to install time of 48 hours. Well, it was actually more like 90 days! After countless calls to their customer service line, I finally got installed. These people gave me an installation date—no time commitment—so I had to take a full day off of work. I was paying $79.95/month for a 1.5Mbps/1.5Mbps connection. My upstream was always there (1.2-1.3Mbps), but my downstream was terrible (average 500Kbps). This ISP was a nightmare, but it was my only option at the time. Their hold times averaged 40 minutes; not to mention you could easily waste 30 minutes just listening to their outages.
Next, came AT&T cable modem service at my new apartment. At least this time, they gave me an installation date and timeframe of 8am to 1pm. Order to install time was 7 days—not bad. This wasn’t as bad as bbnow, since this time I only had to take a half day off from work. The installer was clumsy and knocked my scanner off my desk—he didn’t even apologize for it! He was unable to answer some simple questions I had about the connection as well. Their service was OK—I noticed some slow-down at night. I had intermittent performance issues several times and each time I called tech support (more long hold times averaging 30 minutes) I got some inconsiderate, unknowledgeable tech support guy. After running several pings and trace routes which showed a problem inside their network, I finally put an E-mail together and sent it to their “escalation” support group. Each time, I got the same answer: “you have what we call blocked sync, turn your modem off for an hour and try it again”! Well, I don’t understand how a 900ms+ hop in their network indicates “blocked sync”, but I guess that’s why I’m not an AT&T tech support professional!
Enter Speed Factory: Order to install time was 4 days! The tech called me the day before and set up an exact time for install! Yes, an exact time/date! I asked for an early install (10am) and the installer was right on time—actually he was 5 minutes early! The installer was in and out in about 30 minutes! He answered all my questions and made sure my connection was working correctly.
I got their IFITL (fiber) service and it flat-out rocks! My speeds are consistently fast (1.3 to 1.8Mpbs down and 240-300Kbps up). I’ve only had to call tech support twice in the 5 months I’ve been with them. Each time the problem was on my end (I had to power cycle my crappy Linksys router. The first time I called, they answered on the first ring! That’s right, no more long hold times! The second time I called it was less than one minute!!! Each of the tech support members I spoke with was knowledgeable and friendly. I’m going to tell everyone about them, these folks simply rock!
Oh yeah, I’m paying $49.95/month which is the average cost of DSL around here. I forgot to mention that I could only find two ISPs in the Atlanta area that do IFITL—BellSouth and Speed Factory. They both charge the same, but I took a chance on Speed Factory—boy am I glad I did!
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Review by Athens101
UPDATED: 2.4 years ago
member for 5.2 years, 11 visits, last login: 74 days ago
Athens,Clarke,GA
 Business customer
$79 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
BellSouth
"It's the only game in town"
"Less for MORE!"
"Good deal for those who host their own sites"
| Pre Sales information:
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Here in Athens Speed Factory is the best bang for you buck! I get 3.0+ down and 311K up all the time. I chose Speed Factory since they do allow you to run your own personal web server and email server. After 5 months the connection has not went down once! If you want to see my upload speed just surf around »Athens101.com .
UPDATE
Well after a few years of Speed Factory I am now paying 79.00 for the same 3.0/384 speed. My site Athens101 has went from 1k page views to 6-8k per day. I am working right now to move my site from home to a hosting service since the next option for more up link a whopping 768k will cost me 199.95 per month.
It would be nice if SF would up the speed along with upping their prices.
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Review by brianfkelly
Posted: 2.5 years ago
member for 5.4 years, 1 visits, last login: 2.5 years ago
Atlanta,Dekalb,GA
$59 per month (12 month contract)
about 14 days
BellSouth
"Not much, any more"
"Support has dropped like a stone; service down as much as up"
"Dropping them for a new provider"
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After close to five years of using SpeedFactory at two different residential addresses, the time has come to find a new provider.
There were several great things going for this company:
1. They don't port block.
2. They provide a static IP.
3. Unlike most companies, the customer service phone number takes you to a real person who assumes you are smarter than a carrot.
Unfortunately, over the last six months, my service has been down repeatedly, and the support technicians have become incompetent and unprofessional. Some anecdotes:
--When my service went down on a Saturday, I was told it was because of noise on the line inside my house. I had to go outside to the BellSouth box and plug in there to convince them this was not the problem. They said they would send someone out Tuesday. No one came. I called back and was told that "I shouldn't listen to anything (Rep X) says, as he doesn't know what he is talking about." They sent someone out Wednesday (from BellSouth) who said he was able to surf. Of course, he was using his own PPPoE login, not mine. On Friday, after three more hours on the phone, (Rep Y) figured out that my account had been deprovisioned on their end--once rebuilt, everything worked just fine.
--Service went down three days later; called and was told that BellSouth had cut the lines and they were working on it and would be done by that afternoon. Came up the following day.
--Service went down five days after that. Was again told it was noise on the line. Called back until I got the rep who had finally fixed it two weeks earlier; he rebuilt my account (again) and it magically started working.
--Service went down again three days later while out of town. Let them know and was told there was nothing they can do while I am out of town. I asked them to try to troubleshoot on their side and they refused to try on the grounds that "most problems are in the house--your router might be off". I pointed out that their track record would tend to contradict that analysis, but they told me to call them back when I was at home.
I put in my Covad order this morning; same cost and services; maybe they will manage to provide the service for which I am paying.
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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 2.6 years ago
(review was emailed from domain mallorysquare.org)
Fayetteville,Fayette,GA
Contract price not specified.
BellSouth
CLEC party: BellSouth
"Excellent tech support in the beginning"
"No response and two additional billings after I cancelled"
"A once fine company is headed downhill"
| Pre Sales information:
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For many years I used Speed Factory as my DSL provider. Their customer
service and technical support was excellent and I was willing to pay
extra (about $25.00 a month) to support a local company.
In fact, I got many of my friends to switch to Speed Factory and even
had a few friends with businesses switch to Speed Factory.
I am sad to say that Speed Factory let my neighbor's business down by
providing intermittent service for several months before finally saying
that we can't do anything better, "this is a BellSouth problem".
Shortly thereafter, my neighbor switched back to Bellsouth and has had
perfect service since.
I then decided to switch to Bellsouth (6M and 1 static at $42.95 vesus
SpeedFactory 3M and 5 static at $69.95) and have had perfect service
since.
My frustration has been in cancelling with SpeedFactory. I sent them
three emails (their stated method of cancelling) and called them three
times yet they continued to bill my credit card. Finally after I
disputed two charges, my bank cancelled my credit card and issued a new
one.
In the past, SpeedFactory provided great customer service. With that
gone, there is no reason that they offer any value. I'm convinced that
SpeedFactory is not going to be around much longer and would recommend
that anyone contemplating using their service not pay in advance or give
them credit card information.
Dave Davis
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Review by computog
Posted: 2.7 years ago
member for 2.8 years, 109 visits, last login: 257 days ago
Lawrenceville,Gwinnett,GA
$32 per month (12 month contract)
BellSouth
CLEC party: BellSouth
"Solid connection"
"Tech support, billing"
"Not what they used to be"
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In February 2006 I had enough of Charter's roller coaster speeds, reliability issues and rising cost. I found out that DSL was available and ordered Speed Factory's 1.5 down 256 up package. My install was longer than planned due to slow provisioning on the part of BellSouth.
I was impressed throughout with the speed delivered and reliability. It was a PPPoE connection, which my Linksys router handled. I tested numerous sites including Speakeasy and Dsl Reports. I was always in the 1.2 to 1.3 down range and around 210 up. Didn't matter what time of day I tested. I only remember the connection being down 2 or 3 times for short periods.
The last few weeks of my contract I had an issue with the ancient Cayman router they provided me. It seemed to be working in router mode instead of bridged, causing connection problems for my Linksys router.
The first call to tech support ended up with the technician locking me out of their Cayman router. The next tech, though she seemed more knowledgeable, was so disorganized she couldn't find her notes on how to fix the problem. At this point it would have been faster to drive to the office (40 min each way) and swap routers for one that worked.
With no resolution, I decided it wasn't worth any more time (at least an hour and a half with both techs) so I decided to switch to another local isp which offers twice the speed and so far much better support/service for the money.
Bottom line:
The internet connection provided is very good and stable, but tech support and customer service are definitely to be desired.
I don't recommend Speed Factory to anyone anymore and have several friends that are also switching providers for similar reasons, including billing problems.
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 Review by roamer1
UPDATED: 2.8 years ago
member for 8.6 years, 2772 visits, last login: 2.3 years ago
Atlanta,Fulton,GA
$60 per month (12 month contract)
about 4 days
BellSouth
CLEC party: BellSouth
"Lightning-fast install; reliable; fast; great support and follow-up"
"No Usenet included; at mercy of BellSouth"
"Everything you want, nothing you don't...well, almost"
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Update 1/31/2007: Aside from a 1.5-day outage a few weeks ago that was again BellSouth's doing (I saw the splice trailer in the same spot it always is in when I've had long outages, and SF support confirmed the outage was BellSouth), service has been rock-solid as usual. Billing was screwy for awhile -- I wasn't billed in October and November then got billed for three months of service in December -- but it's back to normal now.
Update 7/15/2006: I was down for three days, but after SF did some digging it turns out that that was BellSouth doing work in the neighborhood again. (After SF confirmed it was BellSouth, I spotted a BellSouth fiber splice trailer nearby, just as I did during the past long outage, and after the outage I started syncing at 3552 instead of 3008...) Service has been solid as usual otherwise.
Update 3/24/2006: Service has been somewhat flaky over the past couple of months...but the problems have always been either my DSL modem locking up -- something I've taken care of with a Unix script that resets it when it detects loss of connectivity  -- or BellSouth issues that affected BSFA and other ISPs too. The two times I called SF about long poorly-timed outages, they followed up with BST and even called me back to see that I was back up. Try getting the big ISPs to do THAT... 
Update 9/8/2005: SF discontinued included Usenet service (Giganews) with no prior notice...if you want Usenet you now have to go for a third-party service. (I went with NewsHosting...) BSFA, Comcast, Earthlink all offer Usenet as part of the package, so why not SF?  see »NNTP no longer offered as part of your contract Adjusted ratings for "services" and "value" down accordingly... Other than that, no problems whatsoever...it just works.
After having had Earthlink DSL for several years I finally got frustrated with their continuing to not offer 3.0/384 DSL to customers on BellSouth lines (only on Covad...and I'm served by DFITL at my house so can't get Covad anything) so I decided to switch. I had three options -- BellSouth, Comcast, and Speed Factory -- and SF won out, largely because of their much more reasonable AUP compared to BellSouth and Comcast.
I filled out SF's signup page, which showed 3.0/384 with a static IP for $60/mo (I was paying ELNK $65/mo for 1.5/256 with a static IP!) and faxed in a signed copy on Thursday evening and was switched over the following Monday morning, with only a small amount of expected downtime. I chose to BYOM (Bring Your Own Modem) since I already have a DSL modem, so didn't have to wait for anything to show up; SF sent me an email with the PPPoE login info and the IP I was assigned. The connection is certainly faster than Earthlink...throughput is just as it should be for a 3.0/384 connection...and it's been a lot more reliable too -- the old ELNK connection bounced up and down quite a bit, but the SF connection (even though it's PPPoE -- that's a requirement of BellSouth for ISPs that offer 3.0/384) is much more stable. SF has a great news server -- more groups and better completion than ELNK and MUCH faster to boot. I don't use SF's email as I have a dedicated server with a hosting company, but I did test it and it seemed fine.
Having LOCAL support...versus ELNK's and BellSouth's offshored support -- is certainly nice, too, as is SF's focus on providing a reliable connection with no extraneous "frills" like the big ISPs are so into doing nowadays.
All in all...there's no reason I can think of to *not* go with Speed Factory, aside from being unable to get DSL at all. 
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Speed Factory
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