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Review by diverse 
UPDATED: 22 days ago
member for 1.2 years, 8 visits, last login: 22 days ago
 Kamiah,Lewis,ID
 $40 per month
 "On line live chat tech support--I can get through by dial up when system is down"
 "most of the time tech support doesn't answer their phone but live chat is always answered very quickly"
 "for price and service First Step beats the other companies available to me"
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I am very rural and receive service by wireless line of sight. I have no other option for high speed service except wireless and satellite. Satellite is out of the question for gaming and has limits on upload/download gigs. First Step has no limits except on bandwidth for which you pay. First Step acquired my previous provider and definitely upgraded the equipment and bandwidth. Their price for the bandwidth provided is lower than any wireless competitor. They have been diligently working out the bugs (there were many) in the conversion. Most important they put in PPPoE to stop the file-sharers from hogging all of the bandwidth. Tech support is good except for in depth problems where the answer is "we're working on it". And they don't follow up with progress reports. Given the limitations of this rural environment I believe that First Step does a good job and is well worth the low monthly charge.
My package for the $40 is max bandwidth of 2000 download and 500 upload
First Step has a speed test on their server making it easy to measure bandwidth from me to their server.
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Review by JTY
UPDATED: 4.6 years ago
member for 5.5 years, 2469 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Yakima,Yakima,WA
$57 per month (month by month)
 Qwest
"Good reliability, and performance. Decent customer service."
"Doesn't seem to respond e-mail inquiries."
"Overall good service for the money."
| Pre Sales information:
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Order Process: This area needed some improvement, however I think it could have been attributed to my requesting of "stand alone" DSL. In that case, they couldn't request Qwest to do set things up on my behalf, I had to call Qwest and request new service.
After the circuit was activated, I had some delays in getting my IP allocation. Apparently, Qwest was a little slow in letting them know that they have activated my line.
Tech Support: I've found getting technical support via live chat works the best. It's nice, because you can get help from more than one person at a time. Overall, found this to be the best way to contact them.
Service: The service works plain and simple. Performance is generally quite good, I'm always able to upload/download at my sync rate.
Cost Breakdown:
First Step: $20/mo
Qwest: $37.92/mo ($4.92 in taxes)
Update:
Due to regular routing issues, and Qwest's lack of interest in fixing my line, I've decided to cancel my service. For a provider that has two backbone providers, it's unacceptable for routes to fail for long periods of time when one of their carriers goes down.
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Review by misbehave
Posted: 6.1 years ago
member for 6.2 years, 14 visits, last login: 2 years ago
Pullman,Whitman,WA
$70 per month
Verizon
CLEC party: Verizon
"Er...........one of the only 2 avaliable broadband companies in Pullman, WA."
"Price, Speed, Line Reliablity, Down Time......"
"If you live in Pullman WA and your location have Cable, use cable instead of this."
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I have been living in Pullman WA for 7 years. (Now moved to Renton WA)
2 years ago, I moved into an apartment that already has DSL service from First Step Internet.
As far as I know, there are only 2 DSL providers within the "Pullman WA/Moscow ID" area. Only a little northern part of Pullman has the fortunate of Cable internet.
My monthly fee for the DSL was $70 with $20 of it paid to First Step and $50 of it paid to the blood-sucking phone company Verizon. It was even more expensive than in bigger cities.
For the speed, most of the time it was around 115K. I have serious lag playing online First-Person-Shooter type of games.
And they have serious down time problems. Atleast once a week, the DSL line was dead. I have experienced many times with twice a week down times. And the down time was mostly between 3 to 6 hours.
And their tech-staff never really helpful during the downtime, they cannot tell you when it will be back most of the time and they cannot do anything about it either.
Downloading files took forever.
The only good thing I can say about their service is the 10mb web space and online bill management options.
I will not recommend this service.
If you live in the Pullman WA/Moscow ID area, if your location can get Cable from Adelphia Cable, get it(I believe only a small area north part of Pullman are lucky enough to have it). If not, get TurboNet DSL from Cactus Computers in downtown Moscow instead. Don't get DSL from FirstStep.
My friends in Pullman who used TurboNet DSL never get any much down time at all.
Their speed was so much faster too.
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