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Review by JSpradlin 
Posted: 3.4 years ago
member for 3.4 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.5 years ago
 Cumming,Forsyth,GA
 Business customer
 $59 per month (12 month contract)
 about 15 days
 BellSouth
CLEC party: BellSouth
 "Good to get the service setup and setup right the first time"
 "Deterierating hold time, service up times, and customer support"
 "Bell South has more consistand up times that Speedfactory"
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I have been a long standing business customer of Speedfactory but in the past 12 to 18 months all I have seen is the service become poorer and poorer. At 1 point in time I had 7 DSL lines, 1 T-1 Line, DNS hosting, web site hosting, and E-mail all with speedfactory. due to the DNS server issues they began having I removed my website, e-mail, and DNS after about a dozen outages of them. I than began closing my DSL accounts with them because the DSL modems and router that I was given over and over again failed again and again. I then closed all of the accounts except 2, 1 a business account I had installed at my home the other a small business that has 2 employees. After my home DSL going out about every 30 to 45 days for anywhere from 2 hours to 4 days which I delt with for 10 to 12 month. All the awnser that there customer service reps can ever tell me is and I quote"We have an outage, I have not further information" or "It is a Bellsouth issue and we are working with them to resolve it" come on guys. My service went out tonight and I happen to have a Bellsouth Router that I connected. I called Bellsouth and they connect my DSL on the fry to my second Phone line and I am back on line. I called speedfactory back and spoke with DJ and told him to cancel my service due to the unknow outage time and the lack of support his responce was and I quote" I cant cancel that we will only cancel service if you send an e-mail to contracts@speedfactory.net" come on guys get it together every provider in the world will cancel your service if you call them directly. I beleive that Speedfactory has grown too big for its own britches and that the customer service component that 2 years ago I would have stood by and swon on has been lost they are quickly becomming the MA BELL of DSL.
Jeremy Spradlin
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 Review by dmolavi
Posted: 3.4 years ago
member for 4.6 years, 1231 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Atlanta,Dekalb,GA
$39 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
BellSouth
CLEC party: BellSouth
"Fast setup, reliable connections, blazing speeds"
"local to atlanta only :("
"best provider you can get for DSL"
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I picked up SpeedFactory when DirecDSL went under, and got a great non-promo rate from them for their 1.5Mbps package (this was a few years ago, just getting around to this now). The tech support was excellent, though I only needed it once or twice over the course of 18 months. I had a static IP and was able to run my personal website from a server in my house with no issues at all.
Overall: A+
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Review by GhostDoggy
UPDATED: 3.5 years ago
member for 4.5 years, 572 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Buford,Gwinnett,GA
$42 per month
about 3 days
BellSouth
"Small ISP with attention to customer support"
"Their wholesale pricing limits their offers. NNTP non-existent"
"If cable isn't an option SF surely will be. Great company"
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I moved to Speed Factory after a year of service with BellSouth Fast Access. I've been with Speed Factory for about 3 years. During this time they provided me with a wholesaled service originating from BellSouth known as PC Data on the IFITL platform. I've watched SF as they had growing pains, interacted with several of their employees and seen things get better and then worse for things I need attention to.
The Internet connectivity aspect was terrific, but then that is to be expected for a fiber-to-the-curb solution. And, it was the services-aspect they got me to move to SF from BSFA. Unfortunately, of late the value overall has dropped and their cable competition seems to be rough-riding them. IF they were able to resell cablemodem acces (a la Brand X) then I would stay with them. Nice people that seem to know what they are doing, especially in comparison to BSFA.
While I gave them an average rating on 'Value for money' this isn't entirely their fault. BellSouth is the most expensive ILEC to be partnered with. If SF and myself were in SBC terratory I'd expect the cost to go from $50 to $30. Thanks BellSouth NOT!
Well, its been almost 12 months at Adelphia and I am still enjoying the service, the speed, and the reliability. Had a cablemodem fail on me, but a quick replacement resolved that easily enough. I'm sadden that Adelphia is being sliced and diced up to its new suitors, Comcast and TWC. Not sure how this will affect my service.
BTW, I am paying ~42/month for standalone 4-meg service. It was performing at about 5.5Mbps downstream measuing from testmy.net before my first modem crapped out, but has maintained a nice even 4.5Mbps with the current modem.
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Review by Liquid Lion
UPDATED: 3.6 years ago
member for 8.2 years, 2456 visits, last login: 17 days ago
Duluth,Gwinnett,GA
$59 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
BellSouth
"Outstanding service in all areas"
"None thus far"
"Nothing better than SpeedFactory!"
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I ordered the Platinum service and I couldn't be happier. Since I live near their office, I decided to pick up my modem instead of having it shipped. These guys are great on the phone and in person. Sure, they're a little more expensive than BellSouth, but the service and speeds are more than worth the price of admission. If you live in GA or AL, get SpeedFactory and have no worries.
I had a problem with my connection on the day of provision: My line was in sync, but I couldn't get online. They put me on hold...minutes later, I'm surfing. Just like that!
Update 4/20/06: I really didn't have much problems with sf.net. If there are problems, it usually stems from BellSouth. However, the value isn't as great as other isps. I just moved to Southern CA and DSLXtreme is offering the same speeds for 1/3 of the price.
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Review by kluken
UPDATED: 3.7 years ago
member for 6.9 years, 26 visits, last login: 13 days ago
Marietta,Cobb,GA
$59 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
BellSouth
CLEC party: BellSouth
"Resold Bellsouth DSL without the port blocking"
"Intermittent outages and PPOE sucks"
"Decent servie, but pricey and a tad flakey"
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Well I have been with Speedfactory for a few years. Started with their 1.5mb and now have 3mb. They are not bad, but I have frequent short outages, not sure if it is them or their hook up to Bellsouth. Probelm is I get the run around fomr them to call when it fails. Well it only goes down for a few minutes at a time and by the time I relaize it and call them it is back up. Also with Bellsouth and others lowering DLS prices, SpeedFactory has reminaed high and when you question them you get arrogance of no one is better than us or offers more. Well that is not true so I am gone at the end of my 30 day termination notice. They really don't care about maintaining exisiting customers.
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Review by sleepy52
UPDATED: 3.7 years ago
member for 9.1 years, 38 visits, last login: 228 days ago
Stone Mountain,Dekalb,GA
$99 per month (12 month contract)
BellSouth
CLEC party: BellSouth
"Solid, timely install. Sharp responsive tech support. Good guys"
"BellSouth copper"
"Solid and responsive -- too bad that they are stuck w/ BellSouth"
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Dumped Mindspring for reasons cited elsewhere. Wanted static IPs, so I went with their cheapest business plan: 1.5/256, 2 static IPs plus domain hosting for $99.95/mo, for 12 months. Salesman had trouble returning phone calls, but once I signed on anyway, the tech support folks took over and were great. Rather than attempt the ever-perilous LOA, I went for a new install on a different line. Scheduling and installation went smoothly apart from the mandatory Bellsouth delays. We ended up reusing the external Speedstream "modem" (actually router) that Mindspring gave me with my initial install.
Fired right up. No detected downtime since install! TTH (time to human) for tech support has almost always been less than 2 minutes! 'Bout now you should be asking "No downtime, stats on Tech support. What gives?" Well, the sad story is that the connection creeps, frequently falling below 200K, averaging (for 9 weeks) about 400K and only twice registering above 800K (BTW - these include transfer speeds for ftp directly from Speed Factory's on site server). This while the router is entrained at 1.4M! Seems that Bellsouth would not deliver the ATM bandwidth needed to bring the connection up to full speed from me to Speed Factory in a timely fashion.
Anyway, 10 weeks after the initial install, new T3s from Bellsouth were finally installed and configured. For the past week, I have been getting a very consistent 1.2+/200+ in real apps and tests. During the process of getting up to full speed, the tech (and subsequently sales)folks were responsive and willing to do what they could. This included reducing the rate I paid for part of the slow period and agreeing to release me from my contract if speed was not acheived in acceptable amount of time. It was my choice to wait -- switching ISPs is a major time drain! I'm now glad that I did.
[new comments]
All of that was several years ago - since then, I upgraded to their faster PPPOE-based Platinum service - which went very smoothly due to excellent instructions on making the transition. Every time that I have had a problem, I've been able to reach their tech support quickly (weekends and nights, requires waiting for a call-back - and they DO call back!).
In the past year, I have had progressively more severe problems due to deteriorating copper (BellSouth's), and although SF can ease the pain of dealing with BS's 2nd worst in the industry tech support, they can't fix the problems themselves. If they could, I'm sure this story would have a happy ending. After having had to pay BS twice to come out to check provisioning, I've had it.
To dispose of BellSouth once and for all (eek - they're merging with ATT!), I signed up for Comcast business cable -- it's roughly the same cost for twice the down speed and 50% more up speed. Be warned -- their tech support is horrifying. On the business side getting to a tech is fast. The techs are friendly and polite. BUT, it took me 2 weeks and at least six calls to get DNS hosting for one of my domains on my fixed IP set up correctly. At Speedfactory, it would have been done in one call and completed in a matter of minutes. I'll miss them.
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Review by youngmoore
UPDATED: 3.9 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 3091 visits, last login: 3 days ago
Marietta,Cobb,GA
Contract price not specified. (12 month contract)
about 2 days
BellSouth
"Always on, Great CS support"
"none"
"Very Very happy customer"
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I just wanted to say a BIG thanks to the guys at SF. I came from Bellsouth, I had 2 DSL lines pulled to my house and after outage after outage/ hung PPPoE sessions. I couldn't take it anymore. I was a Biz Customer from bell. I found SF just by searching BBR, called them up and for whatever reason got the president. Talk about nice wow. Anyway they made the cut last night. Time from order was Feb 18 to 25 of Feb. Thats not to bad and the connection is rock stable with the same speed as before. Just no PPPoE!!
Just in-case none of you know this bellsouth support for Biz Customers is as bad or worse than their Standard HD. You get a hung session set apart 3 hours to sit on the phone.
Thanks SF
Young Moore
President - PRVNAS.com
I just switched my account from a DHCP setup to Static IP. Total downtime for this switch over ,,,, 10 mins!!!!!
I've never seen a ISP that is so user friendly and thats got their stuff together like SF.
I'm very very glad that I found them.
ym
Just to update I renewed my contract with SF. They are by far the best I have come across in the past two years. Thanks SF
ym
Update 12-23-05
Another update. As my biz grows our need for higher bandwidth increases.
SF stepped up to the plate and was able to provide us with a 6/896 line
in 2 days replacing our current line. Basically a resync at the higher rate.
SF has always given us great CS for the three years we have been with them.
Thanks again SF
ym
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Review by SKL111
Posted: 3.9 years ago
member for 6.8 years, 246 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Duluth,Gwinnett,GA
$47 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
BellSouth
CLEC party: BellSouth
"Quick, Friendly, Helpful"
"Limited By CLEC/TELCO Equipment"
"Love it"
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Got my phone line installed at my new house and I had gotten comcast cable just to try them out once more at 6 meg and also because they would be quicker than bellsouth to get out here with Internet.
Phone line got installed and I was gonna call up Bellsouth, but i remember speedfactory and browsed the web to see if they were still around, lo and behold they had gotten bigger. I called them up and request the 6 meg service, they ran my address and stuff and told me I could only get the 1.5 meg service because I was on IFITL and because bellsouth's Infrastructure could not support more at this time for IFITL customers. So I said, ok give me the 1.5 meg. They put the order in and 5 days later I had it and they gave me a diagram to hookup the cat 5 lines to the NID and I did it, and works great. I get 1.8 usually which is awesome. I also have 5 static ip's with no port blocking, so I can run my e-mail servers and such with no bs.
I was shocked at how quick it all happened compared to ordering from Bellsouth.
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Review by warriormom
Posted: 4 years ago
member for 4 years, 0 visits, last login: 4 years ago
Woodstock,Cherokee,GA
$42 per month (12 month contract)
about 2 days
BellSouth
"Short hold time and very Courteous on the phone."
"Not available to my family in AllTel Territory"
"Local service from a Local Company"
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Started out with DSL about a year ago with Earthlink. I had service problems from day one. Called over and over to their support. Each time was a very long hold, just to get someone in another country. Reboot your machine, un-plug your phones, get another network card for your computer. I finally had enough. Had two choices--DSL again or Cable. Got my Dish Network 6 years ago, so I could get rid of the Cable companies once and for all. Now here I am with a decision to make. Staying with Earthlink was out of the question. Talked with my neighbor to see if they were happy with their service and they recommended Speed Factory.
I decided to call them. HOLY COW, someone answered the phone right away. After talking with them for a bit, I went ahead and signed up. Two days later, my modem arrived, plugged it in, changed my username from the old earthlink to Speedfactory, that was it. I haven't looked back ever since. I don't think my expectations were to much to ask for. If I sit down at the computer, I need my Internet to work--period. If it's not working, I need someone to help me fix it. Speed Factory has been GREAT! They blow the big companies away with Better service and Better support.
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Review by mmajorek
UPDATED: 4.2 years ago
member for 6.9 years, 172 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
Duluth,Gwinnett,GA
$60 per month (12 month contract)
about 11 days
BellSouth
"Very reliable connection, not a minute of downtime in two weeks"
"Expensive. Transition period for DirectTV DSL customers too short."
"Excellent value for money if you're willing to spend some more $$$"
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-----> Update September 16, 2005
Been SF customer all this time till today. I had two service interruptions during entire period. One was caused by a digger splitting the fiber cable near my neighborhood (hardly a SF issue) and the other one was caused by my router overheating (again, hardly a SF issue). This service has been rock solid and stable.
Today I turned in my 30 day notice. Why? Well, SF has to thank BellSouth monopoly for that. I would like to drop my landline entirely (cell phones and VoIP work well for me). However in order to keep my SF service I need to keep the landline active with dial tone and pay for the "privilege" $27.95 a month on top of the SF bill. With Comcast offering 6M service for roughly the same price as SF Platinum tier ($57.95 for customers who do not subscribe to their TV service) I can no longer justify paying extra $27.95 just to keep my DSL. BellSouth landline is like 50% tax.
SF rep told me that they may have an offer for dry copper soon. If they do I would definitely think about coming back.
-----> Original review starts here
I used to be a happy DirecTV DSL customer. I would have never even thought about switching to someone else if they stayed up. But, Dec 13th came and I learnt that this is it. No more DTV DSL. Started to look around and based on the reports here I chose Covad as my new DSL provider. I thought that 17000 feet is kinda far away from the CO, but since Covad accepted my order that would not be a problem. I ordered Covad Dec 23rd and went skiing for the holiday season. Came back on Jan 6th only to learn that my Covad order was cancelled due to some "Digital Loop" problem. Whatever. I just lost two weeks. I came back to DSL Reports and found out that I am actually served from a remote terminal that's about 3000 ft from my location. That placed me in the hands of Bellsouth, but I learned one more thing here: "and Bellsouth's resellers". That was much better than crappy FastAccess. I settled for SpeedFactory. It's more expensive than DirecTV DSL for the same set of services (static IP, 1500/256) - it's $60 a month.
I called them and found out that the special transition deal for DTV DSL customers ended Dec 31. Tough luck. Signed up anyway. It was Jan 6.
On Jan 15 I called them to see how my order was doing, and they said that the modem was just shipped and will arrive the next day (as you probably remember Jan 16 was the first cut-off date for DTV DSL). My DirecTV DSL stopped working on Jan 16 at about 1:30 in the morning. Modem arrived some time during the day (came via UPS ground). I plugged it in at about 12:30pm and it synced up, but no routing yet. Called up SF support and they said the problem would be fixed before midnight. The connection actually went up at about 2pm (I had a ping running to my static IP). It was up ever since.
My "3" for Pre Sales Info needs an explanation. They should advertise more. If it wasn't for this site I would have never found them. I have never heard of them before. Maybe they should mail a flyer or something. Earthlink keeps sending me CDs with their special offers. Maybe SF should do the same?
"4" for mail, dns and news is actually for the news server. Well - I am picky about usenet news service. SF has the slowest server I ever used. I mean it - a file 5.5 MB long downloaded whopping 763 seconds - it's about 73 kbps. You know - a dialup is 56 kbps... I don't know - maybe they are throttling the usenet bandwidth or something...
Bottom line is: if you are a power user willing to spend some extra bucks they will be well spent. If you sign up because SF has excellent usenet server - don't. Plan on purchasing commercial usenet access (the fastest seems to be easynews.com).
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Speed Factory
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