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Review by GCoop 
UPDATED: 275 days ago
member for 4.9 years, 749 visits, last login: 3 days ago
 Gordonsville,Orange,VA
 $29 per month (12 month contract)
 "Stability"
 "Customer Service"
 "Its my only shot at Highspeed. BUt I have been pleased for the most part."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Had the service since Dec 2004. No major Problems. A few latency issues but those cleared up usually in a few hours. From my experience I would give them an "A" rating.
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Review by zartron
Posted: 285 days ago
member for 1.5 years, 590 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Franklin,Johnson,IN
$29 per month
 about 14 days
"Reliable service"
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(ratings match consensus)
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The service rep was friendly and knowledgeable about available plans. I received a bundled plan of local phone and DSL.
Install was done by the needed due date with all services running as offered.
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Review by ypestis
UPDATED: 287 days ago
member for 287 days, 1 visits, last login: 286 days ago
Commerce,Hunt,TX
$35 per month (12 month contract)
about 4 days
"Local support (1 tech guy) very good"
"phone support so-so"
"3meg conection 35.00 a month"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
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Tech Support:
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Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Had problems with speed dropping from around 3040k down to between 1500-2200k.
Could not get to the bottom of it with support requests.
At last they sent a local tech guy out and he was like a bulldog.
He would just not give up,and kept looking and looking.
It took him awhile,and a lot of arguing with his office,but he fixed it.
So,my advise is ask to see a real support guy,if they are all like him,they
will get your problem sorted out.
I had Verizon before,and I thank they are pretty much equal in terms of service.
Verizon charged $27.00 for a 2 meg connection.
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Review by Grentz
UPDATED: 298 days ago
member for 5.4 years, 72 visits, last login: 106 days ago
Chaska,Carver,MN
$65 per month
about 3 days
 Sprint
"Stable speeds, great reliability"
"Took a long time to expand service to me more than ext. reach"
"Great if you are close to CO, not good if you are farther out, as is DSL!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
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(ratings match consensus)
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Update: I had years of being kicked down to a 512/128 plan as I was so far out from the CO. Very happy that I was able to get service at all, but it was annoying as I work from my home and have a lot of downloading to do for said job. For years I was given the run around that service was being upgraded in my area soon. Got to a point where I just really gave up.
Well finally after many years (6 or so) of being stuck on the lower speed plans, embarq finally upgraded service in my area and I am very happy. I now get great speeds and my connection is very reliable. Kudos to embarq and I am now a very happy customer.
Speeds are very stable, the service has only had one or two outages in all these years, and tech support has been helpful. Cant ask for much more except maybe a naked DSL option in the future 
Note on the price, I pay $25 for the 1.5/512 plan. The rest of the cost is my phone/taxes/etc.
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Review by tysivad
UPDATED: 306 days ago
member for 1.2 years, 69 visits, last login: 126 days ago
Greenwood,Greenwood,SC
$75 per month
"Let's Golf is a good guy. They at least have one good employee."
"There were some dark days before they did the desperately needed upgrade ."
"Seems to be good, better than Northland for sure. Would like them better if they gave me free internet."
| Pre Sales information:
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I have the telephone and 3MB internet at $75 per month.
Install was simple once I received the modem. I only had one problem initially when my phone calls interfered with the DSL connection and vice versa. However, one call to Embarq and they came out a day or two later and split the phone line outside the house. Problem solved.
Overall, they have been good. Definitely better than Northland, who might I add has deleted the entire account my friend had with them on accident. Yes, that's right, he called to find out that even though he had Northland for 6 months, they said they had no record of him having an account with them even though he also had cable TV. . . sad . . .
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Review by mshultz
UPDATED: 307 days ago
member for 349 days, 146 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Wooster,Wayne,OH
$67 per month (12 month contract)
about 3 days
"Much faster than dialup, cheap, phone is no longer tied up when online"
"none"
"Best value for the money"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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When it became obvious that my dial up ISP was not going to offer wireless broadband in my area, I started to look for alternatives. I do not have a television, so cable was not cost effective just for the internet. My local phone service is Embarq, but I was wary of signing up for DSL because there is no speed guarantee. Also, Embarq's aggressive sales calls from Out of Area numbers turned me off (I put a stop to that some time ago with an Email to them requesting my rights under their privacy policy to not be bothered). It was the reviews and forum comments on this site that convinced me to try it.
I received the DSL package, and installed it after the designated time. I had to enable the Gigabit LAN port (RJ-45) in my bios. Carefully following the installation directions, I booted up the Windows XP x64 drive and uninstalled my dial up connection. Windows XP x64 found the LAN port and installed the driver without problems. The browser went to the proper web page, ran some checks, and failed with a message that the Embarq DSL was not compatible with Windows XP x64.
I then booted up the Windows XP x32 drive. It could not locate the driver for the LAN. Since I was having trouble finding my installation CD, I hooked the dial up connection back up. Windows XP x32 then downloaded the proper driver from the web. However, I could not get to the installation page on the web. The web address was not readable on the instruction sheet, but I was able to do a Google search from dial up and locate it.
Once I had Windows XP x32 successfully set up, I booted into Windows XP x64 and used the installation web page address I had found with Google to set up x64. So Embarq DSL is compatible with x64, if you have the necessary computer skills.
I got the 785 Kb speed I signed up for, but would lose my connection occasionally. After the first couple of times, I figured out that turning the 660 box off and on would restore it after a few minutes. With the computer on, there was line noise, and the caller ID no longer worked (I had installed the filter as directed).
I ordered 7 foot and 14 foot RJ11 twisted-pair cables to go from the wall box to the 660 from »www.excelsus-tech.com. The 7 foot cable was just long enough. Installing it did not make any difference. I also ordered a ADSL2 / VDSL2 Splitter with surge protection, including the outdoor box, and CAT5E weather resistant cable from »www.homephonewiring.com. As it turned out, my current box and surge protector were identical to those supplied. However, the splitter is the most expensive component, and life is easier if you just order everything at once.
I installed the splitter and removed the filter. The loss of connection problem went away, along with the line noise. My caller ID now worked with the computer on. However, I had a funny sounding dial tone. It occurred to me that the dial tone sounded like a phone at work which is set up to automatically forward calls. After doing some Wikipedia research, I figured out that I had messages (voice mail is part of the package). I went to the Embarq site and figured out how to listen to my voice mail, and then delete the messages (political spam). I replaced the line cord from the outside box to the computer wall jack with the CAT5E cable. There was no further improvement.
Recently, my connection speed was not quite fast enough to keep up with standard YouTube videos. However, I am probably getting close to 785 Kb 99% of the time. This is adequate for YouTube videos with HQ sound, but not with HQ video, unless you pause it to let the buffer fill up. I am quite satisfied with the speed and reliability of Embarq DSL.
I have not set up a web page yet. I was disappointed to see that you have to use the Embarq format, instead of raw html code, which I prefer. Perhaps if I paid an additional $5 a month for a fixed IP Address, I could get around this problem.
The Embarq package included free long distance access and voice mail, along with caller ID with name. I already had the caller ID with name. There are apparently some other provided services, such as enhanced call waiting, call forward, and 3-way calling. I doubt that I will ever use these features. My total cost is $67 a month, or $18 a month more than I was paying before. My dial up internet had cost $100 for 6 months, so I am getting DSL for a little more than $2 extra a month. Had wireless broadband been available, it would have cost another $20 a month.
Suggestions: Embarq needs to print the DSL setup page web address on the installation sheet. Buy yourself a good splitter like I bought, and use it instead of the filter.
Although I have not used technical support, I rated them as a 5 based upon the responses in the Embarq forum.
01/25/2009 Update: I bought another hard drive, and installed Windows XP (32-bit) SP3 Professional on it. Unlike my previous XP 32-bit and XP 64-bit drives, I did not remove Internet Gateway Device Discovery and Control Client (through Windows Component Wizard). This client is not needed for dialup, which I had in the past, but helps when installing DSL. The new drive connected to the Internet by itself as soon as I had installed the Ethernet driver and turned on the 660 box.
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Review by dougjessco
UPDATED: 316 days ago
member for 7 years, 44 visits, last login: 68 days ago
Saint Robert,Pulaski,MO
$25 per month
"Speed advertised is Speed delivered!"
| |
Advertises 3Mb and I get 2.8Mb! Can't Complain!
My price is $25/month
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Review by gbh2o
UPDATED: 323 days ago
member for 8.9 years, 2592 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Greenville,Pitt,NC
$109 per month (24 month contract)
about 14 days
"Only local service permitting static IP block available at the time"
"Cost, non-compliance with IANA requirements"
"Worst and most costly ISP in last 20 years of experience"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
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Unfortunately, Embarq was the only local and available service provider at the time that would even allow me to obtain sufficient static IPs to meet my verifiable requirements. But, Embarq would only allow them if I converted from residential to business telephone service and subscribed to their "business-class" DSL service. Since the forced conversion of my home phone number to a 'business 'number, I have been harassed by vendors calling to sell business services, despite being listed on the Do-Not-Call registry. My regular mail is also stuffed with continued offers for business credit cards [for the non-existent business] and supplies.
Due to the exorbitant cost as a "business" customer, this retired residential user was only able to afford 1500/386 DSL.
Embarq refuses to comply with requirements of IANA /ARIN regarding reverse DNS/ provision of detailed information to IANA/ARIN for any /29 equivalent. Causes widespread problems due to non-standard internet service. Best the can offer is a lame "we're looking at the issue an may be able to provide that service sometime in the future."
I have experienced numerous outages and failures. Each time, Embarq promises only that they'll try to have service restored in 24 to _48_ hours. If on a weekend and not physically present to reset my customer equipment to accept Embarq resettings, then service is disrupted for greater periods of time. Most failures have been verified as Embarq equipment failure.
My IPs are provided via bridging, rather than via standard routing procedures. That seems to even baffle some of their national tech support personnel as to why it was set up that way, but Embarq has yet to change it for me.
Two year contract with horrendous termination penalty even when due to Embarq failure to provide standard and adequate services. Embarq claims they're making their 'best effort' on providing services, which is all the guarantee they offer.
Forced to change to a business telephone service in order to get more than one static IP, just because it is Embarq policy. That policy is not in conformance to internet number authority provisions or requirements!
Bottom Line: This is the _worst_ ISP with whom I have had to deal, at least in the last 20 years.
February 15, 2008
I have upgrade reliability a notch to reflect the fact that I've actually been up for more than 30 days straight, I believe for the first time. I guess I'm so used to terrible that now it seems not bad :-(
No communication from Embarq though on the issue of IANA/ARIN compliance.
March 17, 2008
On my! Up for over 60 days now! Embarq must have fixed something.
May 12, 2008
I was almost ready to upgrade my reliability rating, since it had been over 90 days with out an outage of over a few minutes. Then I had two failures within 7 days of each other, so I must leave reliability as mediocre at best. During the last outage, I called the business services number and transfered to the DSL support extension. Twenty-four minutes later a human answered and indicated that there was a major outage in NC, and that although technicians were working on the problem, he had to tell me it would be resolved within 24-48 hours. _Not_ a meaningful response, just the standard script garbage. It was actually fixed in a few hours.
May 15, 2008
Well, here I am on a backup, dial-up connection and without DSL service for the last four hours. Calls to the only published business customer support number (in either the phone book or on the web site)only get me the message that they aren't open yet and to call back during normal hours. I still have a connection to the CO but the failure is upstream somewhere.... any bets on more problems in the Rocky Mount, NC center?
May 20, 2008
Several hours of sporadic service. Taped message at support indicates that people in and around Kingston, NC may be unable to reach the internet today. Note that the city should be _Kinston_, NC. Expected service repair hoped by 1545 hours today. Yep, high degree of reliability here.
May 21, 2008
I have service, although it is still crippled by something I, the customer CANNOT fix. Email from my servers is being rejected by the State of North Carolina, Office of Information Technology Services, due my address range being listed in blackholes.five-ten-sg.com because my ISP [EMBARQ] refuses to comply with their contractual requirements/obligations to provide my /29 information to ARIN. Embarq continues to refuse to report my information. The State of NC relies upon the information provided in this blackhole list, which will not change until EMBARQ follows ARIN reporting policy. Two pertinent ARIN references for these ISP requirements are at the bottom of this post.
According to blackholes.five-ten-sg.com
"IP address 65.41.xxx.xxx is listed here as 65.41.213.182.sprint-hsd.net misc.spam.
"The misc.spam group is mostly (but not entirely) composed of entire addresses blocks that have a) sent spam here, b) have consecutive or missing reverse dns, and c) have no customer sub-delegation via either the controlling RIR (ARIN, RIPE, LACNIC, APNIC, etc) or an rwhois server referenced in the main RIR records."
"In particular, 65.41.xxx.xxx [Deleted Actual IP] has reverse dns of nc-65-41-xxx.xxx.sta.embarqhsd.net. Since your domain name does not appear as the last components in any of those reverse dns names, that needs to be fixed first. Any email sent to the address at the top of this page will be ignored until that is fixed."
ARIN POLICY REFERENCE:
4.2.3.7.2. /29s and larger nets
ISPs must provide reassignment information on the entire previously allocated block(s) via SWIP or RWHOIS server for /29 or larger blocks. For blocks smaller than /29 and for internal space, ISPs should provide utilization data using the format described in Section 4.2.3.7.5.
and...
4.2.2.1.2. Efficient utilization
Demonstrate efficient use of IP address space allocations by providing appropriate documentation, including assignment histories, showing their efficient use. ISPs must provide reassignment information on the entire previously allocated block(s) via SWIP or RWHOIS server for /29 or larger blocks. For blocks smaller than /29 and for internal space, ISPs should provide utilization data using the table format described in Section 4.2.3.7.5.
July 13, 2008
Embarq continues to ignore ARIN policy causing numerous rejections of my users' email by businesses such as AT&T, bizsiteservice.com and geeksnet.com. THIS IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR BY EMBARQ!
January 8, 2009
Reliability has improved greatly. However, I am eagerly looking forward to the end of my two year contract so that I may switch to a provider that complies with ARIN policies!
Followup comments:  n0ah
join:2008-01-10
27548 | you got it bro exact same problems | |
| 
rs239
@embarqhsd.net | the absolute worst Frequent outages, high price, low speeds, horrendously high latency even while the download speed is acceptable. These hacks should be taken out of business. | |
| 
Maxo
Your tax dollars at work.
Premium,VIP
join:2002-11-04
Tallahassee, FL
clubs:
| ARIN / IANA This was already discussed in »No vanity hosts or PTR There is no requirement from the IANA for Embarq to provide reverse DNS to it's users. espaeth clearly stated why.
Your other IANA points are equally as misguided. Everything they do is in compliance with proper networking procedures.
As for the bridge, I would be interested to see you post in more detail how that is setup in the forums. As of now most users get their IP address via DHCP (which in turn uses a backend PPPoE connection at the DSLAM.) There may a few still using PPPoE, but I think they eliminated that.
With the addition of the official techs in our forum now, you should post your problems so that they can try to remedy them. They have proven to be pretty helpful in resolving the problems they are empowered to, and to communicate with the proper people to get problems resolved on stuff they can't touch directly.
--
"Padre, nobody said war was fun now bowl!" - Sherman T Potter
»www.cafepress.com/maxolasersquad
»maxolasersquad.com/
»maxolasersquad.com/network/ My DSL Network Guide
»myspace.com/mlsquad | |
| | | | |
TarboroBoy
@embarqhsd.net
| Re: ARIN / IANA If you are running something that requires several static IP addresses from your place, it's likely a business. Very few home users need static IP's. Frankly, it's a premium offering, and charging you a business rate is not unreasonable. I'd be intrigued to find out how many ISP's offer static IP's for free.
If you had residential phone service while running a business (since you stated you were "forced" to switch to a busines line), then you had obviously been shafting the phone company for a while. | |
| | | |
SgtDot
@embarqhsd.net
| Re: ARIN / IANA I used to live in Greenville / Winterville i am a Bellsouth /At&t employee.. I have a Cisco 3620 with a DSL card and configure it to run Embarq's DSL 6mb Dn /768 up Works Great!! you can also use there DSL modem in Bridge mode that works very well also.
there is a ton of things you can do with 1 ip address unless you really need more with 1 Static ip you can run an microsoft windows XP 2003 server and eneble routing with 2 nic's and run an Email, DNS, Web and a routing server all in one. i would recommend you setup a domain and a DNS server on one of those ip's i did and things work a lot faster and you control your dns records.
Remember greenville is a town in the middle of the state 35 miles from I-95 the copper /Fiber lines coming into this town are Very OLD and at times WILL fail! i know this because i deal with embarq on a day to day basis and have had numerous discussion in reference to there Telco lines!
But even like this they are far better than the Cable company cox/?? there tech's have no idea how internet work and i had to give them a network layout and show them where they had failures!!
I am Cisco/Bay/Ascend/Hp Router/BGP Border routing Certified and all i do for a living.i do installations of ISP/Data centers and maintain OC192 /DS3's and T1. been here for over 10 years and have a bacgound in Computer networks for over 24 years.. been there done it.
well thats my 2 cents worth hope this helps good luck
G-Man.
| |
| | | | | gbh2o
join:2000-12-18
Greenville, NC
 ·Future Nine Corpor..
·callwithus
·MyPhoneCompany
·VBUZZER
·Voxee
 ·Embarq
·VOIPo
·STANAPHONE
·Axvoice
·Packet8
1 edit | Re: ARIN / IANA said by SgtDot :
I used to live in Greenville / Winterville i am a Bellsouth /At&t employee.. I have a Cisco 3620 with a DSL card and configure it to run Embarq's DSL 6mb Dn /768 up Works Great!! you can also use there DSL modem in Bridge mode that works very well also.
there is a ton of things you can do with 1 ip address unless you really need more with 1 Static ip you can run an microsoft windows XP 2003 server and eneble routing with 2 nic's and run an Email, DNS, Web and a routing server all in one. i would recommend you setup a domain and a DNS server on one of those ip's i did and things work a lot faster and you control your dns records. There are usually at least 6 servers running various flavors of microslop products, Linux, sometimes flavors of Unix [yes, I own licenses back to Version 7 and System III in early 80s] and occasionally even hook in a CP/M or MP/M system for grins. Some are exposed on public (static) IPs and others are protected within, as are the general workstations. I have a lot of fun...it's only a hobby! But I do provide a centralized point through which my siblings, relatives and a few friends share and communicate.
Remember greenville is a town in the middle of the state 35 miles from I-95 the copper /Fiber lines coming into this town are Very OLD and at times WILL fail! i know this because i deal with embarq on a day to day basis and have had numerous discussion in reference to there Telco lines! M problems have been with CO equipment and a particular redback.
But even like this they are far better than the Cable company cox/?? there tech's have no idea how internet work and i had to give them a network layout and show them where they had failures!! I think it's suddensink or something here. They wouldn't even discuss multiple IPs! 
I am Cisco/Bay/Ascend/Hp Router/BGP Border routing Certified and all i do for a living.i do installations of ISP/Data centers and maintain OC192 /DS3's and T1. been here for over 10 years and have a bacgound in Computer networks for over 24 years.. been there done it.
well thats my 2 cents worth hope this helps good luck
G-Man. Well it sounds like you've had a bit of fun, did you ever get to play back in the good old days of UUCPNET, UUCP mail and email addresses that looked like some long stream of swear words? usxbox!funbone!ibmone!fooname!vaxboy!osuedu!ohioubox!me or something similar (that's _not_ a real hop trace)
I have always tried to keep this in the hobby rhelm, although the military did abuse and misuse me for one particular project/period  | |
| | | | | pilot_in_fla
join:2008-04-29
 ·StarBand Communica..
| most costly ISP in 20 years, really? You indicate you are getting 1500/386 service for $109/month with a /29 static address block and that it is the "most costly ISP in last 20 years of experience". I'm not aware of any asymmetric service that was being offered in 1988 at any price so let's just treat your current service as if it was a symmetric 384k service. Who were you getting 384k service in 1988 for under $109/mo? In 1995, I was paying $1,200 per month for T1 bandwidth (1536kbps or about 4 times the upload service you are getting now) plus a telephone company local loop that cost about $400 per month more.
As far as your complaint about service reliability; DSL, be it either business or residential, is almost always provided as a "best efforts" service. If you need a more reliable service you will have to pay more. In any event, while many people get almost perfect service from DSL, there are always some who will not get such good service.
Allocation of ip address space has changed quite a bit. You could probably have gotten two class "C" blocks back in 1988 or better (a /23 in today's terminology) and if you retained them, all you would have to do is have them routed for you. I suspect you could have figured out a way to use either a dynamic address or a single static but it might have taken you some time and effort. It sounds like you made a decision to pay Embarq a bit more so that you would have to do less work.
Finally, you also state that Embarq is the worst ISP you have dealt with in addition to the most costly. As outlined above, I doubt if you were buying comparable bandwidth 20 years ago for what you are paying Embarq. As far as Embarq being the worst, I suspect you either have limited experience with ISPs and/or a limited memory. | |
| | gbh2o
join:2000-12-18
Greenville, NC
·Future Nine Corpor..
·callwithus
·MyPhoneCompany
·VBUZZER
·Voxee
·Embarq
·VOIPo
·STANAPHONE
·Axvoice
·Packet8
| Re: most costly ISP in 20 years, really? I am not sure of the purpose of your response other than to proclaim what your expenses for _business_ uses may have been over the years and for some reason to defend the substandard status quo of the US communications industry. I can never understand why someone feels compelled to try to insert their values as more correct in regard to my evaluation or try to insert their experiences in a _different_ environment. Nor do I understand why they feel that their opinion of _my_ experiences and statements must be more accurate than my own? I see that you have recently joined the DSLR/BBR community so I am giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are not just another troll hired to mislead and disrupt.
Your business communication requirements are no more relevant than would be those that were applicable to my work environment at any point in time. Why try to compare apples and oranges? But, continuing with these 'fruity' lopsided comparisons, and recognizing that I don't know anything about you or your experiences, most likely my available work assets, network environment and requirements in 1988 were watermelon-sized compared to any of your grape-sized requirements of the day. And, that the price for, and expectation of, services in that environment also has little or no relevance to my evaluation of Embarq today.
In any case, nowhere in my evaluation did I say I have had the same speed or type of connection for 20 years. I did say they are the most costly ISP I have ever had; that is a simple fact, like it or not. I am still a hobbyist, and until coming to this market, have never had to purchase so-called 'business grade' services to support that hobby. 'High speed' or great bandwidth is largely a luxury that has until recently been a waste for me and my uses. Since I am not now and never have been a business, as I have previously stated, I have never had to pay business prices before. Residential prices and the associated expected service quality are indeed much less expensive, but only if available. Please remember that I was also 'forced' to convert existing residential phone service to business service in order to 'qualify' for this 'business-class' DSL and to be 'eligible' or allowed to have multiple static IP addresses in Greenville, NC. Why should I pay for something I don't really need, and that obviously has little increased value or reliability? Why should I believe that I should only be entitled only to substandard service and access from my ILEC for residential use? I have no more use for a T-1 than an OC-3, and don't plan on paying for either for my hobby use. I have. however, experienced great service and value from many ISPs _other than_ Embarq. Therefore _I know_ that not all ISPs offer only substandard and failure-prone service to their residential customers. How could _you_ possibly consider, compare and contrast the quality of service from the majority of other ISPs with which _I_ have had positive experience?
I am quite aware of how DSL has generally been offered. I have been primarily served by asymmetric DSL for many years; I was previously lucky enough to have been able to obtain reasonably priced sDSL and other services at lower speeds which were more than sufficient for my uses. At one time I considered myself very lucky to have obtained a great price on ISDN services during an initial offing in a particular area. Indeed, I have even run over multiple dial-up connections, and am quite capable of effectively playing with 'dynamic' addresses or limited static IPs; but why should I have to? Dial-up accounts were sufficient in the '70s and early '80s when I ran BBSs and used UUCP mail, but things have changed. I have always been able to justify my use of IP space when requested or required in the past. Unlike many corporations and their IT/IM or whatever they wish to call their departments, I have never claimed to have a need for more than the number of IP addresses I could reasonably use. I have never had a valid requirement for anywhere close to a class “C” and would have been embarrassed to have attempted to hog IPs like so many commercial entities. But then, I am primarily a hobbyist.
I do have to admit my memory may not be as good as it once was. I did have a bad experience with PSN when it went bankrupt a little more than 7 years ago. I guess the tremendous subsequent support and service I quickly received from an outfit called Liberty Communications [libcom.com] helped me forget.
So, if you have some pertinent first-hand knowledge specifically about Embarq in Greenville, NC with which to dispute _my_ experiences and evaluation, please post it. For example, perhaps you know if, or when Embarq will really fix or replace the equipment in Rocky Mount, NC (rumored to be a particular, known Redback ) that has failed multiple times, causing regional service loss? Or, if they really care. I'm not sorry that my definition of what should represent a “best effort”, or even reasonable effort is obviously different than Embarq's. | |
| hazezilla
join:2006-02-19
| Cheap I have followed your postings
It seems that you are reselling your DSL connection
which maybe disallowed under the the Acceptance Use Policy
I would say quit being cheap and buy bonded T1s or a Metro Ethernet. You are trying to used a product aimed at residential and small business customers for a ISP purposes.
And your whining about Embarq not helping you rip them off. | |
| | gbh2o
join:2000-12-18
Greenville, NC
·Future Nine Corpor..
·callwithus
·MyPhoneCompany
·VBUZZER
·Voxee
·Embarq
·VOIPo
·STANAPHONE
·Axvoice
·Packet8
4 edits | Re: Cheap I must question whether you are an Embarq shill trying to misdirect a viewers attention, or perhaps just a troll, based on the inflammatory rhetoric and nonsensical and unsupported allegations used in your comment. I base this comment on your indicated knowledge of alternative products offered by Embarq, your false characterization of my status and use of the business DSL, and your false accusation that I am in violation of the Embarq TOS.
One should refrain from opening one's mouth when one does not know what one is talking about and makes assumptions. One only reveals one's ignorance.
IF you had read the above review and postings, you would know that I resell nothing, and none of my uses are disallowed. In fact, my uses are precisely those for which I obtained the service after discussions with, and recommendations by, Embarq staff. | |
| 
Tarheels Fan
Premium
join:2006-01-05
·Embarq
| Good Bye Suddenlink will love you!
Arin - File a complaint - wait, you probably did and they didn't agree with you.
The rest of your complaints are bogus - your hobby constitutes business like practices and justifies business pricing. Residential only allows the use of a single static IP. If you need more, then go business which is the "forcing" you are speaking of. No one forced you, you decided to go since you have a need for more statics. Thats that... | |
| | | | |
Tarheels Fan
Premium
join:2006-01-05
·Embarq
| Re: Good Bye Again, Embarq does not force any service upon you. You agreed to upgrade to a business line in exchange for mutilple static IP's. Forcing someone to take a service, would mean if you didn't take it there would be some sort of consequence or penalty. Otherwise, it becomes a choice you make.
As stated before, I wish RDNS was offered, but your continuous complaining obviously has gotten you nowhere. Why not try a different approach? Your review in itself proves my point. You state you pay $109 month? Is that just the DSL price, b/c I am not aware of a single pricing structure as to where DSL costs $109. So that is a bit misleading.
As for your ARIN argument, I am not sure how RWHOIS or SWIP means RDNS.
Anyhow, Best of luck with the new ISP. | |
| | | | | | 
Hazy Arc
join:2006-04-10
Greenwood, SC | Re: There Are Other Options... Don't you find it a little odd that throughout this entire review, you've been having to defend yourself through your ridiculous encyclopedic responses? Speaking of which, regardless of what you may think...they impress no one. | |
| | | | gbh2o
join:2000-12-18
Greenville, NC | Re: There Are Other Options... Please contact a moderator should you feel the urge to continue your irrelevant diatribe. | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of Embarq |
| »next review in page (previous review)
 Review by Titus Pullo
UPDATED: 325 days ago
member for 5.4 years, 1969 visits, last login: 3 days ago
Charlottesville,Charlottesville City,VA
$82 per month (12 month contract)
about 4 days
Sprint
"VG service and performance"
"None"
"Good to go"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
1/7/09
New pricing as of 1/6/09 puts the 10M package at $54.95 for landline customers. I'm adjusting my total cost based on an increase of roughly $15 (from $39.95 for 3.0 to $54.95 for 10.0). Easy as a phone call (or chat) to get the new rate.
1/3/09
I upgraded to the 10Mbps package on the 24th. of December by way of embarq_joey here on the DSLR Embarq forum.
The install date was one day off due to line conditioning and being moved to a new DSLAM (I'm 4000 ft. from the CO). So far everything is working great. You can see my speedtests here:
»/testhistory/1031267/8cbb5
I'm estimating total cost; I haven't received the first bill with the new charges. I have a land line, and with 3.0 service the total bill was $67. The 10Mbps service is $65 a month (roughly $25 more than the 3.0 service).
Connectivity so far, as always, is rock solid.
Hat tip to embarq_joey !
8/20/08
Teh system logon message for me today (aren't they cute!) told a heart warming tale of how my last update was framed and, to this day, leaves the staff in tears. After finding their hankies, I was implored to update my review.
PS: The HSI price here is $39.95 + the no-frills landline brings the total to $60 and change.
No downtime since February. At least none that I was aware of, anyway. I may have been asleep, so I can't say for certain. I'm so very sorry the previous review brought such emotional responses from the BBR staff that I'll keep this one short (-:
2/15/08
Embarq is currently rolling out 10MB plans, as well as re-structuring tier prices. I was offered 5.0 for $5 more than I'm paying now for 3.0 ($44.95 w/POTS). I called in and renegotiated my current price for 3.0 to the new price of $39.x, with the understanding that I've renewed my contract for another year rather than go month to month come April. The service has been very good; speeds are spot-on with my caps (with only one brief period of high latency -fixed fairly quickly), and with no downtime. I'm happy with the service, and the price drop was most welcomed.
12/21/07
It's been one year since I signed up with Embarq. The service, up until a week or so ago, has been excellent, with no downtime and consistent speeds. There is a promise of "new equipment" in my area by 11/23/07 to address these issues. However ...
Embarq appears to have joined in an industry trend of appallingly bad support. Everything is geared towards sales, and problems are addressed (or not) only by repeated calls because you can't get through or you get erroneous information when you do. Service interruptions always cause clogged queues and their online chat system buckles like a dollar store beach chair.
I'm downgrading my rating to reflect the poor support and lack of accurate information from Embarq. I'm also not happy with what I'm paying at this point given the quality of support. There was also confusion as to what occurs when your lease expires at one year: I've received different answers from different reps. This is not acceptable.
Bottom line after one year: very good connection reliability (much better than cable) but with near terrible support (on par with cable).
--
7/10/07
There has not been a moment of downtime since my last review, and speeds are consistently spot on. The price ($50 for 3000/640) is still a bit too high, IMO, but the service -- compared with cable in this area -- is solid as a rock. Cable goes down here with half the passing storms.
Latest test to speedtest dot net's DC server was:
D: 2988
U: 637
L: 19ms (DC server)
4/3/07
I'm updating my review due to a recent experience with tech support. There's a world of difference between phone messages (management) and the people that man the lines -- both phone, email and chat. These guys are on the ball and deserve a lot of credit for the time they take in helping us out, even with matters of little concern. There is a tech here on BBR who posts in the Embarq forum that is also a valuable asset to the BBR community and Embarq. Perhaps I shouldn't mention the name, but it begins with dsl.
Kudos to all of you that work hard to make the little things possible for us!
3/19/07
My first trouble with the service and I'm totally unhappy with tech support. There has apparently been a fiber cut somewhere that occurred midday on the 17th. Phone tech support has been horrid, with messages stating everything from their business hours to 'all lines busy' to some nonsense about weekends being their busiest time and to try my call at another time.
36 hours to fix cut fiber is one thing, but their communication on the matter is worse than Adelphia - and that's saying something.
If not for Comcast being my only alternative, I'd pay the $99 and go with another provider. If customers don't talk with their wallet the companies never hear you. If this problem doesn't go away by next Saturday my next review will be for Comcast.
I dropped my TS rating to 3 and the Value for money rating to 2.
----
Update: 12/8/06
I upgraded to the 3000/512 tier for ten more dollars a month, as all speed tests were right under my 1500 cap, line quality was good and latency is bearable. I notice I'm paying a bit more than some areas for my middle-tier speed. I've no idea what metric Embarq is using to determine price points per area, but income in my neighborhood certainly isn't above the national average.
I've included some links to tests run via BBR:
Speed tests from both coasts:
»/im/19732034/46256.png
»/im/19761057/86700.png
Line test:
»/linequality/nil/2142177
I'm quite happy with (A) no longer being a customer of Adelphia/Comcast and (B) the performance of Embarq so far. The connection can lag a little more than cable at times, but pages pop open and downloads generally run better than 250KBs. I've actually hit above my cap a few times, as illustrated by the image below.
The upgrade was done completely from the CO, on time and with no problems. I did have to reboot the modem in order to gain connectivity after the upgrade.
----
11/21/06
I called Embarq last Friday and I'm up Tuesday (today, the 21st) on their 1500 tier. Installation was a breeze (5 minutes), and speed tests clock me nearly up to the 1500 I'm paying for (I'm within a mile of the CO).
So far so good -- I'll update after some time passes.
Attachments:
Followup comments:
shinji
@Level3.net
| Issue was not Embarq equipment related I'd just like to respond to your review about Embarq just so you know. The issue that occured on Saturday, March 17th was due to a network issue that affected 4 states. VA, NC, SC, and TN were all affected and customers were down for about an hour. This caused a huge spike in call volume hitting the 1000 mark and preventing any additional calls from coming in. As of yesterday it appears all remaining issues have been resolved for all 4 states. Embarq worked with SprintLink (the backbone provider) in getting this issue resolved. This issue was more likely due to bad routers in the backbone network rather than a cut cable. A cut cable affects small areas but a router that dies or stops working properly can affect a large region. SprintLink and MCI had to both re-route traffic. Other providers in those 4 states may of been affected by this issue. | |
| |
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| Re: Issue was not Embarq equipment related Yes, if you check the thread for this issue within the Embarq forum on this site, you'll see that I found the fiber cut claim dubious at best (one of my posts).
The issue here, in my opinion, is not so much the three days where customers were unable to reach many sites, the problems were (a) that PTS was unprepared to deal with the problem and (b) why the fiber cut story was the official line offered to customers when they were able to talk to support.
The service, by and large, has been good in the time I've been a customer; however, I was taken slightly aback by the inability to reach TS during a three day problem. | |
| | |
shinji
@Level3.net | Re: Issue was not Embarq equipment related I don't think anyone could of been prepared for it. A 1000 call queue would fill up most companies queues. I think customer service was probably getting some of the overfill. To top it off I think they said it knocked off half of their phones. | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of Embarq |
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Review by rick121x
Posted: 331 days ago
member for 7.8 years, 120 visits, last login: 40 days ago
North Las Vegas,Clark,NV
$25 per month (12 month contract)
"Generally works as expected"
"In the last week, modem loses connection 50 % of times PC is off"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Was promised 3000 Kb connection at my new residence location.
Was connected at about 875Kb
After one month raised to 1500 Kb
Had to demand price reduction for first month
In week of 12/25/2008 there is a loss of DSL connection about half the time I turn off my PC. Problem continues. Prior to that, no problems for 5 years.
The package is a special for one year costing $25/mo and includes phone service - but is part of a larger package including dish network for TV - total cost about $110/month
The modem is an Embarq 660 series
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Embarq |
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