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 Review by PcGamers 
UPDATED: 1.1 years ago
member for 7.6 years, 870 visits, last login: 27 days ago
 Port Huron,Saint Clair,MI
 $65 per month
 about 35 days
 Ameritech
 "Great Support, Great pricing"
 "None really"
 "Britsys has my recommendation!"
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From day one, Britsys said I would be up a running in 3-4 weeks. I blew it off because another ISP promised me the same thing. Within 3 weeks, Ameritech installed the the line and a week later, I was flying around the internet! Never had a problem, Support was quick and accurate.
I recommend Britsys to anyone that is looking for a good, reliable, responsive, and resonably priced Internet Service Provider.
UPDATE:
Britsys is no longer... this was an old review and now have another provider.
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Review by eotvossings
Posted: 2.4 years ago
member for 4.9 years, 3 visits, last login: 2.4 years ago
Albany,Alameda,CA
$43 per month (12 month contract)
about 30 days
SBC
CLEC party: Covad
"Friendly, personable staff, good tech support on install, linux friendly."
"Service quality has declined dramatically in the last year, their admin and tech practices are shockingly unprofessional"
"Look elsewhere. It's not quite worth breaking a contract to find another provider, but it's close."
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I signed up for Britsys almost three years ago, and was extremely happy with their service and support. They seamlessly handled an order placed from out of state for a future address and a not-yet-connected phone number. When I asked about the exact model number of the free DSL modem to insure linux compatibility, the were informative and helpful instead of offering the usual "we don't support linux" nonsense one hears from the big ISPs. When there was a problem with the local telco wiring on install they Fedexed an additional router to me to assist with debugging and then did a marvelous job of handling all the tedious phone work to get the local telco to fix things. Their tech support was easy to reach, and they were both competent and willing to assume that I was the same.
In short, Britsys earned a lot of consumer gratitude from me. I happily recommended them to my friends.
But, since their switch to Covad last year, they've burned it all. Now I warn my friends to stay away. (I can only hope all the friendly, competent people I spoke with three years ago have left and found themselves jobs at better companies.)
First, there was the switch itself: They sent us a form letter telling us that our service would be changing from MCI to Covad and asking us to pick a new service plan, with no mention of a deadline or date for the change. We were months from the end of our existing contract and decided to wait until we were given a date for the change to decide whether to continue using their service.
Then, a couple weeks later and with no additional notice, they sent us an email on a thursday evening warning that they would terminate our service in 24 hours if we didn't immediately sign up for a new plan. Without time to look for better offers, we signed up and were given a brand new 12 month contract for half our previous bandwidth and switched from a static to a dynamic IP for an extra $8/month. Needless to say, this was annoying - but since they had treated us so well in the past, I was happy to forgive them.
Following the switch, I discovered that Covad was blocking traffic to port 25 (the standard smtp email port) on every server except Covad's, including Britsys.net. That's right: our ISP was blocking email traffic to itself! I contacted Britsys to complain, figuring that it was something that had been overlooked in the transition to Covad. I was shocked when, instead of either convincing Covad to open up smtp traffic to Britsys' servers or giving us an account on the Covad server, they instead directed me to use an open smtp forwarding server on another random port on a britsys machine. Yes, you heard me right: my ISP is running an smtp server on a random port with totally unrestricted forwarding. As far as I can tell, their approach to "security" has been to not tell anyone about their secret forwarding server except customers who complain.
That in itself wouldn't be enough to prompt me to write a bad review. The things that pushes it over the edge is that our service has been terribly unreliable ever since the switch. Their DNS servers drop out (meaning the DSL modem that's supposed to automatically retrieve a list DNS servers instead returns dummy IPs) for more than an hour roughly once a week. The service itself goes down completely for several hours more than once a month. Given how little time I spend at home and awake, I can only imagine how often it must happen without my notice.
I'm not sure which of my problems are the fault of Britsys and which are the fault of Covad, but to the customer it makes no difference. This is a combination from which you ought to steer clear.
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Review by beachgoer
UPDATED: 2.5 years ago
member for 3.3 years, 15 visits, last login: 2.4 years ago
Raleigh,Wake,NC
$50 per month (12 month contract)
about 25 days
BellSouth
CLEC party: Covad
"Tech support is very helpful!"
"Bell South messed things up during the order."
"DNS is reliable, good riddance to the ILEC!"
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UPDATE: Well, DNS had to fix something Bell South messed up AGAIN! I don't even have their service any more so it's amazing what they can do. My internet service went down about two weeks ago and DNS had to send out a tech to check out what was going on. Somehow my phone line going into my house had been yanked out of my phone box and tossed up under the house. Even though it wasn't his problem to fix, the DNS/Covad (?) guy hooked it all back up and made sure I was back online inside before he left.
I ordered Dedicated 3.0/384k in November 2004 from DNS. I was told Bell South went out to run the tests on the line and they failed because of a card in the central office. They passed later on in the month and the Covad installation was scheduled. When the tech got to my location, he was confused about what Bell South had done in my phone box and said it didn't make any sense. He did some work there then he did the inside installation. Since I wanted to drop Bell South anyway, I had them use the pair for the phone line in my bedroom because I was told I only had two pairs leading to my house. The installation went smoothly and I was able to surf. After the tech left, I checked the land line and found the line was down. I called Bell South to get it fixed and they sent someone out about 3 hours later who had to work at the phone box and on the line inside. After the Bell South guy called, my DSL line started dropping and restarting. I called DNS tech support and left a voicemail. No more than 15 minutes later, the tech department called me back and started troubleshooting my line. A loop test showed I was almost 19000 feet from the central office, so they dropped my speed to "safe mode" at 384/384 and downgraded the requested speed to 1.5/384k. The line was sort of stable, but occassionally dropped. After a couple more troubleshooting tips and switching to the 1500/128k PPPoE connection, my line completely stablized.
In April, both the phone and DSL went down unexpectedly. I went out back and the temporary line that had been run for my DSL connection had been physically cut by the landscapers. I called DNS and they opened a trouble ticket with Covad then I called Bell South about my phone line. Covad had me do some tests on the line even though I could tell them exactly what the problem was. Once Bell South came out, about a day later, they re-ran the DSL and the phone line so that the temporary connection could be removed. It was inconvenient to those of us who live in the house to be without phone and internet, but we went to the library up the street when we needed to get on the internet and shared a cell phone for calls. Otherwise the connection has been great and I was finally able to disconnect my Bell South line this month (I was still under that contract).
DNS tech support has told me it is very unusual for a 19000 loop to keep a sustained connection, but so far so good. I've had Bell South's DSL and all the extra fees included in the bill were ridiculous. My neighbors say the cable connection in our area is okay, but that it slows down on weekends and evenings. Plus I like paying all my bills online and Time Warner just recently implemented an online system which I've hit glitches with paying my cable bill.
Overall I have had a great experience with DNS. I haven't had to talk to billing about payments, so I cannot rate them. Tech support is very helpful and has walked me through configuring my router after my LinkSys died in addition to everything mentioned above. Sales sent almost all correspondence via email, which I also prefer.
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Review by grimal
Posted: 2.5 years ago
member for 5.3 years, 25 visits, last login: 354 days ago
Hoboken,Hudson,NJ
$62 per month
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"It's cheap."
"When service encounters problems, you're basically on your own."
"Look elsewhere."
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I've had this DSL since they were Britsys before them. I'd have to say, the bill is cheap, but whenever I have had issues with my service, I've gotten really lackluster responses. Their head support guy, Matt, tries, but all his understaff is quite clueless and reluctant to provide service tickets to disrupted service. Case in point, my service has been shoddy since for the past 6 days. For the first 3 days I was told that it was probably the system updating itself, although no one could confirum this.
To show you how dumb their tech support is, I had a level 2 tech support named James tell me he didn't know who or what Covad was. He asked me if Covad was a company that worked for them! THIS FROM A LEVEL 2 GUY!! HE DIDNT EVEN KNOW WHO PROVIDES THEIR CLEC!!!
Finally, they agree that there is something wrong on my line after I tell them the results of MY analysis on my line ($30 commercial app to monitor website life). They agree to send a Covad rep out. First time the guy supposedly comes, he doesnt ring doorbell nor call and leaves. I reschedule it for next day, he comes two hours before he's scheduled (thank god I was lucky enough to cancel a previous engagement), spends about an hour here and tells me basically he can't find anything wrong with the line. I tell him I've been having problems for the past few days and basically admits that he doesn't know why that would be and says if problem reoccurs that "there are problems you can fix and some you can't." WHAT KIND OF SERVICE IS THAT??
He basically told me I'm sh*t out of luck.
Well, problem starts out again right after he leaves, I call tech support. After some pushing on my part, they agree to try to get him to come back.
It's now the end of the day and he's not coming back I guess because no one's called me to say he has.
Matt, their head tech support, is gonna send me a new modem, but if that's not the problem, I don't know how this will get fixed as no one really wants to deal with it.
Bottom line: This is totally unacceptable. I am really dissatisfied and I would encourage all to stay AWAY from this company. Because if you're service fails, you're gonna be alone in the matter.
I'm chainging over to Speakeasy and am glad to say it!
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Review by ccarlin
UPDATED: 2.9 years ago
member for 7.6 years, 2295 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Deerfield,Lake,IL
$65 per month (12 month contract)
about 13 days
Southwestern Bell
CLEC party: Covad
"Great Upload speed for the price, static ip"
"None"
"I'm Happy still"
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I have been with my share of DSL companies and have always been looking for a faster upload speed. I just moved to a new house that is actually near a CO, my last place was over 20k. So I saw the Cable Buster deal with a 768 upload speed for $45 and ordered it. First problem was SBC didn't have me in the system even though the phone was working. Called Britsys and the resubmitted a few days later. After getting the line hooked up and the equipment I was up and running pretty quickly.
My only complaint with the install was the router came in nat mode and I needed bridge mode, they emailed me the instructions however it seems like it would make sense to include them at some point before I have everything set.
So for ~$50/month I get a static ip and 1.5/768 speed, it tested out around 1.2/640. I used to pay $70/month for around 968/384 (the 968 was covad safe mode). It would be a little nicer if they had a free news server and 3-5 email addresses included, but you can't beat the upload for that price.
Updated: 10/2/05
Well I have since been switched to a dedicated line over covad and I am also running VOIP thru Vonage on it. The line has only gone down twice in around a year both times the entire neighborhood was cut (so all landlines were down as well). They now offer up to 6MB down but still max at 768 up.
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Review by vw_43mpg
Posted: 2.9 years ago
member for 2.9 years, 0 visits, last login: 2.9 years ago
Hauppauge,Suffolk,NY
 Business customer
$589 per month (24 month contract)
about 20 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"Excellent installation coordination, friendly staff"
"None so far"
"Good choice for small business T1"
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Covad installed my 1.5Mbit T1 on Monday, less than 20 days from order to completion and half the price of the T1 it replaces. I opted for block of 16 IP's since i run a bunch of websites and host a corporate mail server internally.
The order process was pretty smooth, we got a great deal with a 2 year contract and a rebate on the T1 router.
Kelly did a great job letting us know how the order was progressing and answering any questions we had about the IP's, reverse DNS, port mapping etc...
Overall i am very pleased with DNS and Covad for the installation coordination of this T1, a far cry better than previous experiences with other providers.
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Review by cahiatt
UPDATED: 2.9 years ago
member for 7.4 years, 1019 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Smyrna,Cobb,GA
$72 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
BellSouth
CLEC party: Covad
"Easy, fast, great value, tech support knows their stuff, no hold times, just an excellent company to deal with"
"That I didn't know about these people earlier. GOODBYE CHARTER!!!!"
"The BEST choice for ADSL if you can get it."
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Called them on 7/31/03 and placed order. Line was provisioned around 8/2 by Bellsouth. I still can't believe Bellsouth got off their ass and did something so quick. Package arrived on 8/5. Plugged in and was surfing in two minutes getting 1250 down and 670 up speeds. SWEET.... Called tech support for assistance on setting up Linksys router and didn't even have to wait on hold. Tech walked me through setup and had the whold house surfing in about three minutes.
Update 5/23/05 - I've since migrated over to a Covad dry line package though Britsys (now DNS-LLC.com). Service is still solid and tech support has always been helpful if a problem comes up.... Running my own servers, using VOIP and having faster service for less than I could get with Bellsouth's unlimited calling plan and their extreme DSL package. (which they don't allow servers either).
Update 9/12/05 - Still running the dry pair and no real problems. My Broadxent bridge did start having some upstream problems but a replacement was dropped off by Covad and all is well. Good service, good support, good ISP to use if you can.
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Review by buzzthorne
Posted: 2.9 years ago
member for 2.9 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.8 years ago
New York,New York,NY
$239 per month (24 month contract)
about 24 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"Knowlegable sales people"
"None yet"
"Good value for business connections"
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A couple of months ago I made a mistake and relocated my office without thinking about internet connectivity.
My previous DSL provider couldnt service the new location and I didnt anticipate the potential problems with finding a DSL provider at my new location. After an extensive online search and comparisons of Covad providers I called DNS. I needed a SDSL connection to for speed web servers. I ended up going with a 1500k SDSL line (why not, the price was great).
The sales person i spoke with was very knowledgeable and offered me a great deal if i signed up for 2 years with a rebate on the router from covad.
Installation was straight forward, the tech did a good install and ran new CAT5 from the NID to our small telco closet. Router is an Efficient 5851 configured with NAT. The GUI is pretty good and let me setup my NAT rules for my website and email.
As a small business owner who relies on small ISP's to give the big ISP's (Verizon) a run for their money, I recommend DNS for your business SDSL connection over a Verizon ADSL business connection.
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Review by CarolinaDSL
UPDATED: 3.1 years ago
member for 6.4 years, 8 visits, last login: 3 years ago
Bellmore,Nassau,NY
$49 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"Stable, 5 static IP's. They now have 24 hour tech support"
"verizon crappy phone line, had to get them out to fix dial-tone twice"
"good value for money, knowlegable techs"
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7/2/05 - update.
Getting verizon repair out again as the voice line is crackling and dropping the DSL. Still very happy with the install/static IP's and speed, other than verizons local service the DSL has not been down since installation (that i have noticed)
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I ordered online back in June 2004 as i was closing on my my new house. I knew that i would need a phone a DSL the day i moved in so i ordered the line from Verizon about 7 days before the closing date. They confirmed installation about 3 days later. Then i place my order for the DSL, had the modem shipped to an alternative address since i didnt have access to the house and it was unoccupied at the time (and i didnt own it).
About 24 hours after closing the DSL was active although it was bouncing a little at the 6000k/768k. Emailed support and they dropped it down to 3000/384 which was fine for about 6 months. Eventually due to deteriorating phone service from it started bouncing again. Quick call into verizon, the replaced the copper pair i was one (cleared up the static on the line) and i was back in business.
Overall i am very happy with the service.
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Review by ncweazel
Posted: 3.3 years ago
member for 3.3 years, 14 visits, last login: 83 days ago
Durham,Durham,NC
$60 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
Verizon (ex GTE)
"Solid connection, excellent customer support"
"Verizon, all downhill after mega-mergers"
"They really care"
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I used BritSys/DNS as my ISP at 2 different residences from May 2000 thru February 2003 in Durham NC. The speed of the connection was as advertised (1500/128), with the basic Fujitsu modem and Static IP address NAT'd through a Linksys for a home network. Throughout that time the service was outstanding. From the installation onwards I had no problems. With an occasional outage due to Verizon upgrading the network in the area, I really had no complaints whatsoever with DNS. I never used newsgroups, web hosting, etc. and so left 'Services' unrated. If I was in the US right now and could order from them again, I would do so without any reservations. A great company to work with.
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Dedicated Network Solutions LLC
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