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Review by CHIEFSFAN 
Posted: 9 years ago
member for 9 years, 764 visits, last login: 5 days ago
 Saint Louis,Saint Louis,MO
 $39 per month
 about 30 days
 Southwestern Bell
 "THIS REVIW IS FOR SWBELL: Very fast, ASI was a big help"
 "1-888-NETHELP didnt help at all"
 "Good service, need more expeinced people in tech support."
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Well its been about a week and a half since ive got DSL. Didnt have any complications with the actual install. Got the modem and everything about 2 weeks before the line was supposed to be turned on, hoked it all up and waited. Finally the 19th came and all my lights were on, so i followed the direction given with the software. Sign on, but when i went to register it kept telling me i was putting in the wrong Customer code. So after about 30 tries i called Nethelp and they said that id have to call ASI. I call ASI and they tell me theyll have to write up a trouble ticket on it. So i go back to my couch, sit there for 30 minutes and decide that that was not what i wanted to hear. So i called ASI back and talked to someone different, this guy seemed to care a little more. Explained the problem. He went over all my stuff and hed almost given up, but then asked me what url i was putting into register. Well it seems that SWBell sent me the URL for the Static IP registration. dsluniversal, instead of dyndsl. So that got my problem fixed and i was happy until Halloween. I went to scare the kiddies that walked by the house, when i was done came back in and im not getting an ATM. I reset the modem 3 or 4 times, call ASI, they write a trouble ticket. I then proceed to rewire my whole house and move the modem to every jack, but to no avail. I get a call the next day with the tech saying that they saw activity on my line so i thought the trouble was over, but i get home and same thing. So i call back ASI and set up another appointment to have a tech come out tomorrow. Hopefully things will be better then.
Bottom line is SWBell is good when its working. And as long as you talk to someone at ASI shouldnt have any problems, when something goes wrong.
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Review by risksoft
Posted: 9 years ago
member for 9 years, 1 visits, last login: 9 years ago
Metairie,Jefferson,LA
 Business customer
$100 per month (12 month contract)
BellSouth
"Very responsive support. Rock-solid service. Broad range of knowledge."
"Nothing bad to report."
"Excellent value."
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We gave Southern Star a month's notice of an impending move. They coordinated acquisition of phone service including the ADSL line. Their involvement was transparent to us; we just called them, told them what we wanted to do and left it in their hands. Whatever adjustments were made to our service just happened.
Following a weekend move, our phone service was installed Monday AM and worked by noon. The ADSL service was in place and we logged on to the Internet through Southern Star with no trouble. Obviously, they were well prepared for our move and performed in a timely fashion.
However, we share the ADSL service with a fax machine and we couldn't fax. We called Southern Star and were told we needed a line splitter. We had apparently left it at the old office, but didn't know what they were talking about. Their representative met us at the old office and identified the device. When we got back to the new office, he swapped it for a more compact one and installed it, restoring our service. Easy enough to do if you know what you're doing, but we didn't and he did. He was there for us.
We run a small Microsoft peer-to-peer network using Windows 98. Last week we needed to add an NT workstation to the mix which apparently no one is comfortable with. Beaucoup problems ensued and many days of productivity were lost. Finally, our last known problem with the NT machine was an inability to access the Internet through our gateway. We called Southern Star hoping they could save us again. Although disclaiming knowledge of Windows and internal networking solutions, the support guy kept talking to us and eventually found the right combination to make things work. The problems were not with his service, but, again, he was there for us.
Southern Star offers a wide range of services. They are very knowledgeable of their capabilities, but recognize their limitations. We expect to exceed their data handling capacity (if our e-business succeeds) in the future, and they are already working with us to plan our transition to another ISP. We recommend Southern Star whole-heartedly.
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Review by dtroend
Posted: 9 years ago
member for 9 years, 4 visits, last login: 9 years ago
New Orleans,Orleans,LA
$70 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
BellSouth
"Extraordinary technical support"
"When I encounter one I will post it"
"The ideal ISP for me"
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Admittedly, my parameters for choosing my ADSL ISP were different from most that I know who "went DSL". From experience I knew:
- Networking is complicated and that support was going to be important;
- Large organizations place layer upon layer between you and the person who can actually diagnose and/or fix your problem;
- Port blocking was going to be an issue because I wanted to connect back to my office network and I wanted to videoconference with my daughter who isaway at college; and
- I wanted a static IP address.
I identified three candidate vendors: BellSouth, Telocity and Souther Star. I guessed (correctly) that my questions on port blocking would not be part of the standard sales training and would require pre-sales support. Thus, I would catch a glimpse of the type of support I would get.
BellSouth never did answer my port blocking question and would not let me "try and see" , insisting upon a 12-month contract. Also, they would not give a static IP address.
Telocity could not answer for sure, but said they were pretty sure they didn't block ports and that if that wasn't true, I could just cancel the contract at any time with no penalty. Static IP addresses would not be a problem.
When I called the Southern Star, the prompt (did not have to hold while they checked) answer was "never did and never will". They offered a static IP address with an option to purchase more if I wanted them. When I asked about the DSL modem I was given a variety of choices spanning price, features and warranty. When I asked about design parameters for aggregating DSL circuits (e.g., how many DSL users per T1 line) and backup connections I received rock solid answers.
I decided to go with Southern Star - even though they were not the cheapest. I was up and running in a week. I was lucky and my modem worked at full speed. Since then I have worked out arrangements where the Southern Star helped me purchase my own domain, resolve my domain name to my (static) DSL IP address, and route mail and web traffic to my domain.
Many of my friends went with Telocity or BellSouth and scoffed at me for my choice. I don't hold that against them and let them come over and use my network when they are waiting to get their problems repaired. In the meantime, I enjoy surfing the net, videoconferencing with my daughter, connecting to my office and having fun with my own mail and web server. Their fun seems to be limited to surfing the web.
Bottom line is that support from the Southern Star has been extraordinary. It costs a bit more, but I have been able to do a lot more.
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Review by kolree
Posted: 9 years ago
member for 9 years, 4 visits, last login: 8.7 years ago
New Orleans,Orleans,LA
$65 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
BellSouth
"Amazing Tech Support!"
"None"
"An excellent value."
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I have had a very good experience of Southern Star so far. The tech support is of unusually high quality. I receive prompt courteous help during the day and at night (sometimes very late). There was an issue with the BellSouth DSLAM at first that Souther Star resolved for me quickly. This proved to me that they definitely know their way around the phone company!
I also received crucial tech support from Southern Star regarding the configuration of the Cisco router that I decided to use. This was definitely above and beyond the call of duty, since the modem they normally provide is much easier to set up. Service providers with that sort of advanced level of technical knowledge are very rare!
The other good thing I have been pleased to see at Southern Star is that the central operations center is expanding. As far as I can tell, the ratio of users to total outgoing bandwidth has *decreased* since I joined up. Pretty cool!
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Review by kppr55
Posted: 9 years ago
member for 9 years, 14 visits, last login: 6.3 years ago
Mandeville,Saint Tammany,LA
Contract price not specified.
"Excellent Tech Support"
"None that I can think of"
"Best service I've ever had"
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Ordered DSL and DSL/router. Received a static IP address immediately and was up and running within minutes, once the DSL was connected. BellSouth did drag their feet getting me connected to the DSLAM. After that it was all down hill.
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Review by rayjones
Posted: 9.6 years ago
member for 9.6 years, 11 visits, last login: 8.9 years ago
Westwego,Jefferson,LA
$75 per month (12 month contract)
"Ease of installation. Quality of service, information and help."
"I've yet to find any."
"Been off & on the "net" for about 15 or so years but this is my 1st ADSL experience so I've nothing similar to compare it with."
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I selected Southern Star (sstar.com) in Metairie, LA (suburb of New
Orleans) to be my ADSL provider because I've known the owner (John
Souvestre) for a long time. He is one of only three North American Fidonet
mail hubs and has served in that capacity for many years. I was also a
long-time member of his Southern Star bbs and he has been my regular dial-up
Internet Service Provider for several years as well.
John took care of all the details to have the Network Interface Device
installed by the phone company and filed a formal complaint with them when
they didn't perform the work as promised the first time. When they came
back out to do the job, it was performed in a timely manner at the time
promised. We left a note on the door that the back gate was open and that we slept days. They didn't even bother us.
John ordered the modem, splitter and filters for my phones and set up the
account for me in a few minutes charging my credit card. The monthly fee is
$75 but John also gives up to a 15% discount for pre-paying and an extra 5% discount if you're a member of the New Orleans Personal Computer Club. In the case of ADSL, the discount you get for being a member of NOPC actually pays for
itself with some left over.
He also drew up a diagram describing how to install the splitters and filters and gave me all the information I would need to install the ENI 3060 Speedstream modem. Installation was a breeze. I had the modem installed in my computer and the service connected in a few minutes. That's when I ran into a problem. According to my computer, I was connected but it wasn't working.
Even though it was about 3:00 or 4:00 AM, I called John. Having known John
for such a long time, I knew he's often up that time of the morning anyway.
However, he's always responded promptly to any problems I've had regardless
of the time of day. The vast majority of the problems I've had with my
Internet service, however, have been due to a problem on my end or with the
phone company.
Regardless, John always goes through everything until he finds the problem
and helps me to fix it if he can. On this occasion (as usual), he stayed
with me until we found the problem. It was a minor one. I didn't have the
MicroSoft Virtual Private Network installed. He told me how to do it and I
was up and running.
I've been connected for about two weeks or so now and have not had even one problem with outages. According to tests I've made using the Southern Star test site, I'm getting about 1.2 MegaBits per second as a download speed and about 220 Kilobits per second as an upload speed. From what I've heard, that's pretty good but this is my first ADSL experience.
However, when I try the test from the dslreports.com site, I get quite a bit less than that. The best download speed I've ever gotten from the dsl
site is 615Kbps. Every time I've tried to test it using the dsl's test service, the site has reported "widespread net congestion" and "poor" to "bad" "overall Internet conditions" so I would imagine that is affecting my results from the dsl site but not from the sstar site since I'm more closely connected to the sstar site.
Though I'd certainly like the fastest speed I can get, speed in itself is
not the most important thing to me. More importantly, I was looking for the ability to get rid of my extra phone line, to be always connected and to not have to depend on my regular modem which often gave my flaky connections. BTW, I got the same results with several different modems. Since going ADSL, I've had no problems and have been very satisified, so far.
Getting rid of the extra phone line paid for the majority of the increase over what I was already paying for a dial-up account and some minor adjustments re my cell phone bill actually has me coming out ahead.
If you're in the New Orleans metro area, check out Southern Star's service at
»www.sstar.com
--
Regards,
"Big Ray the Cab Driver" Jones - Licensed Tour Guide - Author of
"The Complete Idiot's Travel Guide to New Orleans" ISBN 0-02-862303-7
Get info about New Orleans & Louisiana from my web page at
»www.neosoft.com/~rayjones/welcome.html
To join the New Orleans Mailing list, write: noml-request@sstar.com
and type: join
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Review by brian.yokum
Posted: 9.6 years ago
(review was emailed from domain homeauto.com)
New Orleans,Jefferson,LA
Business customer
$75 per month (12 month contract)
"Great tech support, full range of services available"
"Expensive for basic access"
"Excellent value for small business or power user"
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I ordered Southern Star ADSL service Friday evening, March 31. On
Monday, April 3 I was informed by Southern Star that BellSouth expected
to have the line provisioned on Thursday, April 6. I wired up the
splitter and Alcatel 1000 modem that I obtained from a friend who
previously had BellSouth FastAccess service. Imagine my surprise when
the sync light on my modem was green when I came into the office
Wednesday morning, April 5. I was up and running in less than a week!
Technical support at Southern Star has been awesome. I did have one
small problem with my connection that was ultimately solved by
installing a newer driver for my Ethernet card. Southern Star spent
hours helping me isolate this problem. Without this cooperation I don't
know if I ever would have solved the problem.
The performance of my connection has been excellent. I've had no down
time and consistently reach 150 KB/sec download speeds, which appears to
be about the 1.5Mbps maximum.
Southern Star is very flexible in its service offering. A static IP
address is provided and additional services such as SMTP email, DNS
hosting, and additional IP addresses are provided at a nominal charge.
The minimum service of $75 is expensive compared to the basic services
of the local competition such as BellSouth, Telocity, and Cox@Home. The
service is ideal, though, for small business users or power users who want
the additional flexibility and support offered by Southern Star.
In summary, I am extremely pleased with Southern Star and would highly
recommend it to anyone who needs more than a vanilla ADSL connection.
Brian A. Yokum
Senior Vice-President
Home Automation, Inc.
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Review by rstaylor
Posted: 9.6 years ago
member for 9.6 years, 5 visits, last login: 9.6 years ago
Metairie,Jefferson,LA
Business customer
$75 per month (12 month contract)
"Excellent technical assistance"
"Higher startup cost"
"Up and running with fewest hassles"
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The order process was simple and straight forward. Modem arrived and line installation were completed within an acceptable time frame. The Modem was the Efficient 3060 which worked well, but even better with the beta drivers from manufacturer. Service is extremely flexible and technical knowledge is excellent. Suffered one extended outage, but the caused was determined to be the telco. Staff from Southern Star kept me informed of the repair process throughout the ordeal.
Excellent choice for businesses and individuals who need some hand holding in the broadband implementation.
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Review by tomp0
Posted: 9.6 years ago
member for 9.6 years, 4 visits, last login: 8.5 years ago
La Place,St John The Baptist,LA
$75 per month
"Static IP, Good evening tech support"
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This was a transfer from Bellsouth.net, Bellsouth.net improperly terminated the ADSL service with Bellsouth Telecom causing a 2 week interuption of my service. Intial speed was less than at Bellsouth.net. Southern Star worked with Bellsouth Telcom to correct the problem. I would have 1 second pauses every 5-6 seconds causing problems playing Half-life. Bellsouth Telcom corrected that problem and gave me 15-30 second pauses every 5 minutes, now ftp transfers would fail. Southern Star had to work with 3rd level tech support to correct the problem. Than a week after it was fixed it was back. This time it was corrected in hours. If this had happened while I was at Bellsouth.net it never would have been corrected. Bellsouth.net could not get there PPP software to work under Windows NT. There response was if there PPP software did not reconize my NIC(which it did under Win98) they did not support it. After the pauses were corrected my throughput was still low. Southern Star found the problem to be in there Cisco router and corrected the problem. The speed and service has been excellent.
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Southern Star
