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Review by raviyer 
Posted: 6.6 years ago
member for 6.6 years, 1 visits, last login: 6.2 years ago
 Morgan Hill,Santa Clara,CA
 $69 per month
 about 15 days
 Verizon
 "slightly cheaper than alternatives"
 "support never answers phone calls , unreliable"
 "They SUCK BIGTIME"
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I have been using them for a year now. 1500/384 service with static address.
The order process was fairly smooth, but once the equipment got in things did not work. They said it was at the telco end and eventually got it going after a week.
Ever since the beginning I would get micro outages, the connection would just die for a minute or two and later bounce back. sometimes occuring every 5 to 10 minutes. very annoying.
after several complaints they locked down my ip to my MAC address to try and debug the problem. this did not fix it but somehow a month or so later the problem went away.
I started to notice the same problem occur a few weeks ago. Support never answers the phone.
Now since the 14th the line is completely out. support has a canned message saying they are experiencing downtime with verizon customers. I am supposed to have a backup dialup service from them. They said they will provide the details only if the system is down. but they dont answer the phones. I wonder how I am going to get the details if the support phones are not answered. They say they will answer the support phones after the problem with verizon is fixed.
Why would I want to call them if everything works?? haha its funny.
I am going to cancel my account with them as soon as someone answers the phones. They are not answering their billing or sales phones too. may be they are out of business?? who knows.
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Review by Ray.Wan
Posted: 6.9 years ago
(review was emailed from domain synopsys.com)
San Jose,Santa Clara,CA
$52 per month (12 month contract)
SBC
"Horrific Experience.. Absolute Worst DSL company..."
| Pre Sales information:
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DSLDesigns...
Absolute worst company I've ever dealt with.
My DSL was down for almost a month without any support, update or
resolution. You can never get any customer support. No one ever responses to
emails or VMs. It's very frustrating when all you want is someone to talk too and give you an update on the status. I have since cancelled my service and moved to another ISP (covad, which has been great). It's been two months now and I am still being charged for a Service I've already cancelled. How can they charge me when I'm already with another provider? This company has no business model or customer support
function. I advise anyone reading this to avoid a contract with this company. I am now still trying to reach someone in the company to help resolve my issue (two months after I've cancelled my service). I dying over frustration....huuuuhh
If anyone reading this has any suggestion about what I should do, please
respond to this email (rwan@synopsys.com)
Ray
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Review by ljcook
Posted: 7 years ago
member for 7.8 years, 92 visits, last login: 215 days ago
Morgan Hill,Santa Clara,CA
$59 per month
Verizon (ex GTE)
"When it works it works well"
"Downtime and support ridiculous"
"Wish it were easier to change... uptime is terrible"
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I was forced to DSLDesigns when my previous ISP LinkLine decided to terminate it's Northern California Services. The transition was anything but smooth... 2 weeks to get access again!
Since then there have been numerous service interuptions. Primarily a DNS problem that happens almost everyday... even though I have reported it to support on at least 6 occasions. Lately, additional service interuptions, and my personal webspace which I also use for small item for my clients was down for almost 2 weeks! At least 3 calls and 3 emails -- ALL unanswered. Now, finally that the web site is up... I can not FTP or Telnet into my site! THIS SUCKS!!!
I would switch providers in a minute if I didn't have to disconnect the old service and install the new service (requires that old service be removed from phone line and new service installed -- a one month (no service) prospect).
Looks like I'm stuck between a rock and hard place.
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Review by pocoguy
Posted: 7 years ago
member for 7 years, 0 visits, last login: 7 years ago
Novato,Marin,CA
$49 per month
Verizon
"Internet connection is generally functioning"
"Impossible to talk with anyone, no communication at all, mail server goes down"
"If they could only learn how to communicate"
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Ended up with DSL Designs by inheritence. Was with Linkline, based in So Ca., who decided at the beginning of the year it wasn't worth it for them to continue with a no. Ca. customer base, so I was one of the 500 customers who were migrated over to DSL Designs.
Initially DSL Designs was very communicative with me which was most encouraging. However after a couple of months I noticed it was getting more and more difficult to talk with anyone in tech support. At first it was a long wait time, then it degenerated to having to just leave voice messages. A tech would respond, but only after 1 or 2 days! I used to be able to get through to sales and complain about the poor level of service and the connection problem I was experiencing. That used to help in getting a tech to call back sooner. But no more. DSL Designs appears to have solved that problem, by not having anyone in sales answer the phone!
Just in the past week their mail server went down twice, that I'm aware of. Once again, since it was impossible to talk with anyone at the company, I didn't know if they were going out of business or what? It's only because I was able to talk with a tech (who had previously given me his cell nos. out of concern for customer service), who had recently left the company, but was still willing to help me out as much as he could, that he was able to determine that they were in the process of fixing their mail server, and thus were still in business.
Another indication of their prehistoric level of communication is the newsletter on their website, which is dated March 2002. Talk about old news!
There's always light within darkness and on the plus side, I don't have many problems with an internet connection, which is pretty unbelievable. Speed is okay.
Bottom line is, since you can't talk with anyone at this company, you don't know what's happening with this company? They must still be in business since I still have a connection, but I can't help but wonder, for how long?
It's too bad they can't get their communication/customer service act together, because at least in the 94947 area, our choice for service providers are pathetic. We need at least one good ISP for DSL.
By the way Sonic.net cannot service 94947, as they advised me they have no agreement with Verizon.
Anybody know of a really good ISP in 94947?
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Review by SallySlide
Posted: 7 years ago
member for 7 years, 0 visits, last login: 7 years ago
Novato,Marin,CA
$18 per month (month by month)
about 60 days
Verizon (ex GTE)
CLEC party: Verizon (ex GTE)
"None that I can think of"
"webmail down, personal webpages down, email down - all too frequently"
"They never can be reached by phone, never reply to support email"
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Avoid at all costs, now I need to find another provider. :-(
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Review by scamdog
Posted: 7.1 years ago
member for 7.1 years, 11 visits, last login: 6.8 years ago
Novato,Marin,CA
$65 per month (month by month)
Verizon
"can't think of anything positive to say"
"low BW, no service, emails are ignored, no way to leave a phone message"
"not much of an ISP, these guys make aol seem viable"
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Back in December of 1999, Linkline and GTE installed my DSL, and I had nearly faultless service with them until about 6 months ago when I became a customer of dsldesigns. Without any warning or indication as to why, linkline was given the boot and dsldesigns was brought in. I was away at the time of transition and came home to find I had no connection. I was able to get the numbers from a friend across town (also a former linkline customer) and got things working fairly quickly.
Since then, my BW has been up and down unpredictably and unaccountably, I no longer enjoy many of the features I had become accustomed to with linkline, and I get no response from dsldesigns when I try to reach them. I pay for 1500 down and 128 up, but for the last two weeks I have been getting around 100kbps down and up. Linkline provided great service, among which was a Web mail interface that allowed me to check my email from anywhere in the world and a configurable spam filter; dsldesigns has nothing like that. Linkline had a very good usenet server; the usenet server dsldesigns provides is crap. Linkline provided me with Web space at no additional charge; I think dsldesigns does this as well, but I haven't been able to get it set up. Now I pay for a monthly news service, an additional Web host, and I use hotmail when I'm abroad. Needless to say, I am not happy.
What's worse, my attempts to contact dsldesigns have all been frustrated. When I call their "technical support" department I get a useless recorded message that loops and doesn't even give me an opportunity to leave a message of my own. Where linkline's techinical support department answered their phones (I mean actual human beings) within a few minutes during their generous working hours (seems to me they were open from 9:00 in the morning to 9:00 at night), I have spoken with no one at dsldesigns but the gal in billing a couple of times, and I had to interupt my work day to do that.
Finally, even their involvement with dslreports is frustrating me. They appear to have signed on with the "DSLreports complaint escalation program," and that sounds almost promising. I wanted, for no good reason that I can think of, to give them one more chance to act responsibly. But the thing requires my ISP account/customer number and I have no idea what that number is. It doesn't show up on any of the dsldesigns correspondence I have, not on the invoices, not on the bills, and not on the initial sign-up papers.
Dsldesigns gives me next to nothing for my money. The only thing missing from my current package is the screeching warble of the modem handshake.
Sean Camden
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Review by richgray
UPDATED: 7.2 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 17 visits, last login: 246 days ago
Los Gatos,Santa Cruz,CA
$70 per month (12 month contract)
about 21 days
Verizon (ex GTE)
"Same Day Tech Support (not anymore)"
"Changed IP and config after initial hookup, lead time in hours by email. Many DNS and router problems. No network status report."
"Go elsewhere."
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I pay for 384/384, and that's what I got for the first 9 months. Now I'm not sure when I'll get connected. I have experienced numerous DNS and router problems that leave me disconnected. Bottom line is this network is managed by amateurs. No notification of numerous service interuptions. Now after over a year, and recomending to my neighbors, I need to find a new ISP.
The good news is that the GTE (Verizon) part was great. No problems with line installation or modem link. The GTE installation guy was very professional.
08-28-02- I've finally had enough of these Jokers. This is the third time my IP has been changed with no notice, and down time of two days as an unplanned (no notice) upgrade to ATM took me off line and broguht me back with two DHCP addresses 'that won't change" and down again when on reboot no DHCP Server avail. I'm through. I work from home and depend on email. I lost accounts when email sent to me bounced. I should have switched last outage. I'm going to try South Valley Internet www.garlic.com.
Three neighbors have switched, 5 left looking for a way out without having a week of down time.
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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 7.6 years ago
(review was emailed from domain cityteam.org)
Gilroy,Santa Clara,CA
Contract price not specified.
"Pathetic service"
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I have 3 accounts with DSL Designs and the service is pathetic at best. On a regular time table DSL Designs runs kind of routine that takes the 3 services down. It is not until I call do they get service back online again. I would think with the number of trouble tickets I have placed over the months they would be able to figure out what the problem is. I would not recommend them.
Gary Kalus
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Review by gfeneis
Posted: 8.1 years ago
member for 8.5 years, 29 visits, last login: 8 years ago
Morgan Hill,Santa Clara,CA
 Business customer
$100 per month (12 month contract)
Verizon (ex GTE)
CLEC party: Verizon (ex GTE)
"Very good pre-sales."
"Call for support- always have to leave a message. I've never had the BW I've been paying for."
"I cannot honestly recommend DSL Designs"
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Ordered 768/768kbps service and a single fixed IP address. To DSL Design's credit, the connection is rarely lost, and the DNS servers are rarely down.
However, It's been over a year now, and I've never had the full bandwidth I've been paying for. That is, I realize that I'm not going to get a full 768kbps all the time, but I think an average of 88-90% is reasonable.
It appears to be some sort of dynamic bandwidth throttling technique. A large file download starts out at a rather good rate, say 125kbps. After a few seconds, it slips to 75 or 80. A few seconds later, it's at 50. It eventually settles in at something pathetic like 10-12kbps. This is just downloading. Uploading is terrible.
Recently, I've started hosting domains, so the bandwidth issues are now more important. After a few days of testing, I found that my download rate runs from between the upper 300s to the lower 500s. The upload speed is pathetic, ranging from about 80 to 190.
I called Verizon (formerly GTE). They suggested that I call my ISP and that my ISP would handle any necessary work with Verizon.
I called the ISP, and their response is that they didn't see what the problem is. They also said they contacted Verizon, and Verizon did some prelimiary tests and deturmined that the problem wasn't bad enough to warrent further investigation. The ISP continued with some further generalizations about possible improvements in my service within the next few weeks as they are installing new equipment and making some changes soon. The person I was speaking with wouldn't say that the slow data rate was the fault of the ISP's, he only would say that things might improve in the next few weeks once they finish their improvements.
I called Verizon again and was transfered around only 3 times before I found an Advocate for my problem. This person at verizon entered a 'ticket' and started a series of tests. Additionally, this Verizon person told me that my ISP called only to confirm that my level of service is indeed 768/768. No tests were requested by my ISP. This Verizon person additionally scheduled a Verizon technician for a site visit that day. Over the next few days, after several phone calls and a total of 2 site visits, Verizon and I deturmined that there was nothing wrong with my computer, or any of the hardware between my DSL modem and the ISP. Verizon even measured the line distance to the CO to be an ideal 6000 feet. The conclusion was that my poor bandwidth problem must necessarily be the fault of my ISP.
Having done my ISP's ground work for them, I again tried to contact my ISP. It's difficult to call there and actually get to talk to somebody. I couldn't get anyone at techsupport so I tried sales. Eventually got somebody in sales. This person unloaded a bunch of woe about the changes they were trying to accomplish and all the difficulties involved. I suppose that was to make my wee little bandwidth problem seem minor in comparison. Regardless, I pursued and recieved some reassurances in the form of glittering generalities about performance improvements and how I was a good candidate for becoming a beta test customer for a new circuit they were installing.
Monday this week, after calling and leaving a message at about 9am with tech support, I received a call back at about 2pm, getting some reasurances that my bandwidth problems would be over by Friday. Well, it's Thursday evening and I'm looking at 175 down and 94 up. I guess DSL Designs has a lot of work to do between now and tomorrow night.
I have no problem with the service I received from Verizon. They took ownership of the problem and systematically confirmed each piece of the hardware between me and the ISP.
The root of my problem with DSL designs is that they failed to take ownership of the problem. Their response was quite literally "I don't know what to do about it." And/or Nothing can be done about it. and/or things should generally improve in the future as we add equipment, not that we admit that the problem you're having right now is due to our current equipment".
Hey it's Friday! The time is about 8:45. This is the day my data rate issues should improve. Well, let's see:
12kbps down/7kbps up. Wait, this must be a fluke let's test again.
9kbps down/15kbps up. Well, I guess DSL Designs really has some work to do if they're going to get some BW improvements today.
It's still Friday. High noon. Let's take another look before I go to lunch.
194down/17up and
204down/73up
I guess they're going to pull off some magic here in the next 4 or 5 hours.
OK, now it's late Friday afternoon. The time is about 4:30pm.
34 down/37 up. (trying again) 282down/37up.
Placing a call to DSL Design's tech support....No answer.....Calling sales...Spoke with sales person who acted like congestion and poor bandwidth problems were a known issue for several months. She said I should call directly to the tech support person's cell phone. I already had the number. He doesn't answer that phone either. I tried calling it anyway and left a message asking for an updated schedule (assuming that the poor bandwidth issues were actually going to be fixed in the future).
Saturday Oct 20, 8:30am, the day after things were supposed to be right. Also 16 hours after leaving a message asking for an updated schedule for improvements. No reply yet.
Let's do a test:
346 down/153 up Well, at least we're out of the teens. Still pathetic, though.
Saturday Oct 20, 18:14. More than 24 hours after giving tech support a call requesting an updated schedule for improvements. No reply yet. Testing...
214 down/70 up
Sunday Oct 21, 11:00 Test: 462 down/80 up
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Review by dslslave
UPDATED: 8.4 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 185 visits, last login: 3.4 years ago
Los Gatos,Santa Clara,CA
$50 per month (month by month)
about 20 days
Verizon (ex GTE)
"Tech support sometimes returns calls/email, that's a step in the right direction"
"Email to sales or tech support are seldom answered"
"They're out of control. Sometimes the service is smooth, but often it is not."
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** 29 July 2001 **
Read the connection diary entry for July 30 (EDT) for a laugh. Really. It's just too strange.
** 12 June 2001 **
What follows is a snapshot of over a month of problems with service from DSL Designs, with a summary at the end. One warning -- I have been getting under 200kbps download speeds (on a 768kbps line) again for several days now but cannot graph the results for others to see, and have sent a question to this organization (DSL Reports) to find out why poor speed test results are not being graphed for all to see. Until very recently -- last two or three days -- they were being accurately graphed for everyone to see. You can see my test results in my connection diary, taken directly from my DSL Reports Test History, which logs all tests correctly, if you want to check them.
** Feb 2001 **
Just an entry to note I've started a diary due to ISP problems on Feb 22, 23, 24, and 25. Approximately 14 hours of downtime total, with many more hours extremely slow (timeouts, very poor speed test results if the test could even be run to completion) due to some problems on their "circuit 2" that they are aware of. I thought it would be best to log problems here in a diary as they occur. I've noticed they are aware of the circuit 2 problem but do not have it under control, whatever the problem is, and have not notified customers that there is work (I guess) being done with more outages to be expected. They wait for you to call and report trouble rather than themselves using email, a message area on their web site, or even a recorded status message at their support number to alert the customer to known trouble. To their credit tech support did not deny that there was a problem.
--Feb 28--
Service OK Monday Feb 26 - Tuesday Feb 27. On Feb 28 the news server, but apparently no other service, is down. Logged this in connection diary.
--Mar 04--
DSL speed/availability good for Mar 01 - Mar 03, with news server back up Sun Mar 01 A.M. However, speed today is terrible at 11:20 PST: 59k down / 86k up. Logged in diary and in speed test results.
Second test at 11:40 PST is only marginally better: 104kbps / 82kbps -- also logged this (and it appears to have replaced the earlier logged entry).
--Mar 04 (second entry)--
DSL Designs' mail server is now down at 11:50 PST, and DSL is down for all practical purposes. That is, unable to access either the web or mail, but still had an SSH session working. Now using my dial-up ISP to make this update. No tech support on weekends. -- Postscript: All services came back up at 15:15 PST, but then completely down again at 22:30 P.M. (using dial-in ISP again to make this update)
--Mar 09--
Service up from morning of Mar 05 through Mar 08. On Fri Mar 09 at about 8 A.M. PST, NNTP, FTP, and later HTTP access all became impossible -- unable to connect due to timeouts. Details in connection diary.
--Mar 09 (second entry)--
At 18:41 PST it looks like everything's back up, maybe, including FTP and the DSL Designs mail server. So that's at least 10 hours of downtime today, not fixed until after the traditional business day is over. I'm counting this as downtime since major services like POP (email), FTP, and NNTP (new servers) were down, and even HTTP was a gamble. (You never knew if your next web request would be successful or time out.) I even got a timeout just now on my first attempt to post here, so this may not be fixed yet. At least I got my errands run today between tries at working, waiting for things to get fixed. But the icing on the cake is my email to DSL Designs' tech support that I sent via dial-up (Mindspring). I just got it back, bounced of course ... here's the last line of the bounce message: "... Host unknown (Name server: mail.dsldesigns.com.: host not found)"
Yep.
--Mar 18--
Good service for the week Mar 10-Mar 17 ! No gripes for a change.
--Mar 19--
18 Mar was OK, but with Monday comes horrible DSL speed again. 19k down / 63k up (that's right, 19k) at 10:30 PST. I am unable to even log the result.
Update at 10:50 PST -- all services down, unable to access web or POP mail. Looks like another 56K dial-in day with Mindspring.
--Mar 24--
Service up from PM 3/19 to PM 3/24. All services down again at 21:15 PST 3/24.
--Mar 31--
Service up 3/25-3/30. All services down again at 09:00 PST 3/31.
Postscript: Came up after recycling the modem and rebooting a few times. This behavior has continued since Mar 31 -- now after each power down of the PC I have to power off/on the modem to get connectivity. No s/w changed on PC.
--Apr 03--
All services just went down at 18:23 PDT.
SUMMARY
Had about seven weeks of really good service for most of April and all of May, and I thought I'd be able to vastly improve my rating of DSL Designs here, but now the usual old performance problems started again on June 7.
I've written too much here, see my connection diary for details from now on. I thought DSL Designs had improved considerably after the streak of reliable service, but that doesn't offset the lousy service before I started recording it, through all of March (recorded here), and now the resumption of that lousy service in June. If things are back to the bad old days I am leaning towards Speakeasy or perhaps Cruzio if they serve my area. Speakeasy gets really good ratings.
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DSL Designs, Inc.
