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I've had Bresnan for 5 years now and can honestly say they do not offer the same level of internet performance that can be found elsewhere. I have the Speed Plus service, mainly for gaming, and do get anything close to what they claim in their last advertisement as "insanely fast speed" most evenings. In fact, the only thing insane is their claim. Customer service while friendly is either in the dark or trying to keep me in the dark about the realities of their network problems at this time. I'm in Colorado but based on the reviews and forum threads here it seems to be a common problem for Bresnan's subscribers in other areas. I'm currently considering going with another provider. member for 19.7 years, 36 visits, last login: 14.3 years ago updated 14.3 years ago
The internet access is quite good. I run a Cacti server here which monitors bandwidth, signal levels, and utilization. The only issue I had was the modem getting the wrong firmware (8mb instead of 15mb) every now and then. Other than that, it's pretty good. The phone service is freakin' awesome. I haven't had 1 issue with it at all. My wife does work for Bresnan (hence the $25/mo), but I'm extremely picky about my internet access (I'm not biased). I run a few servers along with 3 VPN tunnels. I did have alot of issues with the Pace DVR, but I'm glad almost all of them have been addressed. member for 21 years, 4743 visits, last login: 5 days ago updated 14.3 years ago
UPDATE: November 22nd 2009. I know some people still seem to have issues with Bresnan. Maybe I'm lucky, but no negative issues. The 6 month promo is over, so I am paying more per month than originally, but I'll live with it. No discounts when you only have internet service. I don't need their phone (I have REAL Voip "VoipO.com" ); and I don't need their cable tv (I have REAL TV service "Directv"). But I need more bandwidth than what Qwest can give me, and this is my only other option. The way I see it; IF, a big IF, Qwest could give be DRY Standalone 7mb DSL; it would be about $55 a month or close. So, the $65 a month I'm paying for the Bresnan 15/1mb service, it about on par. And I'm not required to have Windows Live or any other crap software like Qwest likes to push onto customers. Now; price aside; let me mention reliability. I have NOT had the Bresnan Internet go out on me even 1 time; that wasn't my own fault. (I had a cabling issue that dropped the download single to around -15 to -17; and the upload to about 61-63. Definitely my fault. After fixing the cable issue, it's been around -2db on the download and about 50 on the upload. And has NEVER gone out on me. I live in Cheyenne; Sun Valley; if that helps anyone reading. As for speeds. I would say that 85-90% of the time; ALL my speed tests are consistent with what I'm paying for. 15-16mb down and 1mb up. There are a few times when it's obvious that a lot of people in the neighborhood are doing their thing and surfing the internet too. But on a bad day/time, I'd say the slowest it's been has been around 7-8mb down and 1mb up. Latency still remains consistent; and my streaming video conferencing, netflix, voip, etc... are not effected. When I was having issues (Which turned out to be my cabling); customer service was really cool. Yes, they have to read their scrips. And yes, I have forgotten more about the internet, computers, and technology than those service reps will ever learn in a life time; but they were polite and were helpful if for no other reason, than to assist me by monitoring the signal while I troubleshot and experimented with my end. So for that, I bump them up. They could have been pricks; but they weren't. They were very polite and professional. Other than that 3-4 week period where I was reconfiguring on my end, I've never had to call them for anything. I also bump up their service rating, because even though they are instructed to "Up-sell", just like all customers, I specifically spoke with the customer service department and requested that they NEVER call and NEVER email me with promotions or to sell me anything. If they did, and I was in a bad mood, I would cancel service with them altogether. (Service is VERY IMPORTANT TO ME). The respected my wishes. I have NEVER been called and NEVER emailed trying to up-sell me on anything. I could save $10 a month with bresnan by getting their 8mb/1mb service, but on the slower days/times, I'm afraid it might drop around the 3-4 mb area. And that isn't very conducive to the type of video conferencing and such that I do. $65 a month might not be a great value, but for me it works fine. Anyway; I haven't had any issues. I'm not a gamer, and gamers tend to be a bit more anal about their internet connection. I don't know the type of usage those who have issues with Bresnan are, but it's fine in my area. I'm sure a lot depends on the backhall. I have all fiber in my neighborhood. The wiring in the house is all mine. So for me, no problems. UPDATE: February 1st, 2009. Well, it's been a little over 1 month now. 5 weeks to be closer. I bumped up the reliability factor. It hasn't gone down 1 time in the time I've had it. Usually, besides the unforeseen issues like cars running into poles or driving over pedestals; if the service is prone to having issues, it will be seen in the 1st month. I have noticed that like ALL CABLE PROVIDERS, there are times of the day when the service slows down somewhat because of more people using it. E.g. 4-6pm mon-fri after kids get home from school and people get off work. Weekends early after noon. But; having a 15mb/1mb service; I believe that the slowest I've ever seen has been around 8mb/1mb. Yes, there are some people that are really anal and would complain about this. "I'm paying for such and such and I DEMAND that I get what I'm paying for". Well, I'm not one of those people. I UNDERSTAND the technology, the TOS, the capabilities, how to do a speed test and what it means. (Most people definitely don't understand this), and I also have a life. But I would say that probably 80-90% of the time (At least when I am using it); I get the full 15mb/1mb service. So for me, it's been a very good service so far. The latency and jitter are low enough that it doesn't hurt my voip and/or video conferencing. (Very time sensitive). Downloads are good (if you understand the servers you are downloading from). The few times I've call customer/tech support; e.g. set up email, verify I was allowed to stream Netflix, etc...; they have been FANTASTIC. No giving me a line of B.S. or anything. So, I've updated my review of them. If CONSISTENT bandwidth was one of the most important things to me; then DSL is definitely what I would recommend. If you don't have 5-20mb DSL available, and cable is all you have as an alternative to 1.5mb dsl, then it's a hit or miss thing. Some towns like where I am at, Cable is great. The same provider in a town 300 miles away have nothing but complaints. That's the thing about cable. It's a town by town thing. DSL works within the ATM network; which is basically Ma'Bell's OWN LITTLE INTRA-NET. Which means with the exception of different dns servers and some minor issues, the service is the same no matter where you live. What changes with DSL is usually what is called "The Last Mile". The cables running to your house or the limitations of the DSL equipment in your neighborhood. But for those in a larger bresnan serviced area; e.g. Cheyenne, Casper, grand jct, etc... you'll probably love the service. If you are in a town/village; where the service is almost SUBCONTRACTED through other services to get to where it's going; you might have issues. But if 1.5mb dsl is the max you can get; then Bresnan is definitely worth a try. No contracts, month to month service, good customer support, etc... ********************************************* I have been using Qwest DSL for the last 8 years. I am still a Qwest supporter and think their quality, service, and price are great. However; I really need more bandwidth, and Qwest has no intention of upgrading my area any time soon. Qwest 1.5mb/896kb service is $43 a month. Bresnan INTRO price for 6 months on 15mb/1mb service is $46.90 a month. For 6 months, a no brainer. So far, latency is good . Averaging about 30-40ms less than Qwest DSL. Bandwidth fluctuates a lot, but it all ranges in the 12-15mb area. Upload is always around 1mb. Most important to me is jitter. (The difference in latency). So far, that has been very good. Less than 5ms. Necessary for Voip. Anyway, after I do some more testing, I will update this review. For now, it's doing fine. member for 22.8 years, 2693 visits, last login: 2.1 years ago updated 14.3 years ago
**update** The below issue appears to be resolved, but I'll leave this as record of our disgust as paying customers. Also, actual through speeds are still pathetic; I just ran a speedtest [not theirs lol] Spokane: 0.78 Mbps, San Jose, CA: 0.61 Mbps, Helena: 0.71 Mbps. So this may be outside their network, but it's outside in every direction lol. This is at 9:47 am on a Saturday morning. Also, I can't say this as fact, but behavior gives me the feeling that something somewhere is actually capped at below 1 Mbps at the moment. Please see below for some details on how this company performs its services. I have a $60 a month Bresnan broadband link which worked fine for a while; speeds were the best in the area and ping was usually low and stable. Welcome to October 2009; network instability is ridiculous - tonight my average ping to Seattle / Idaho / any server I can find is around 422 ms. Not too long ago, I was getting nearly 100% packet loss for almost an hour. This seems to happen during evenings and weekends, i.e. due to user load. This has been ongoing for weeks now, probably a lot longer depending on your area. So, this is fabulously wonderful for my gaming community connections / hobbies. Previously they had been sticking with the deflector script of "it's outside our network". It is their network that is the problem; there are tracerts that confirm in these very reviews and I can run... actually I'll do that now: Tracing route to www.yahoo.com [209.131.36.158] over a maximum of 5 hops: 1 9 ms 8 ms 10 ms host-10-24-128-1.msl-mt.client.bresnan.net [10.2 4.128.1] 2 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms host-72-175-110-32.bln-mt.client.bresnan.net [72 .175.110.32] 3 32 ms 10 ms 9 ms host-72-175-110-5.bln-mt.client.bresnan.net [72. 175.110.5] 4 406 ms 417 ms 428 ms host-72-175-110-10.bln-mt.client.bresnan.net [72 .175.110.10] 5 431 ms 426 ms 414 ms 66.62.136.49 Trace complete Behold the power of cable. Also, if you use their "speedtest" tool it invariably returns near advertised speeds for your connection. Any other speedtest returns an order of magnitude lower [see below]; this has to be some kind of litigation-worthy practice. I remember when I moved here to Missoula, MT, I was glad there was such a reputable and well run cable broadband provider in the area. Now, I'd like to see the government build FIOS directly into this city and thereby annihilate even the memory of Bresnan Communications. If you are actually considering paying these people cable internet price points, you might want to explore any other option available. DSL, while hideously maligned, is cheaper for one and cannot possibly be less stable or more poorly accounted for than this company's current service. At the least, ask them specifically about their service issues during your initial conversation. See how they reply... Seattle: »www.pingtest.net report: »www.pingtest.net/result/ ··· 5315.png »www.speedtest.net report: »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 2704.png Spokane: »www.speedtest.net report: »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 1737.png Denver: »www.pingtest.net report: »www.pingtest.net/result/ ··· 6492.png »www.speedtest.net report: »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 8681.png P.S. Keep in mind that Bresnan's speedtest tool is indicating 8349 kbps to Grand Junction, CO during these independent tests. [»www.bresnan.com/support/ ··· edtest/]. I think its obvious what this says about their corporate ethics. P.S.S. Also, if your interested in technical aspects of their evil; »Massive Slowdowns? Certainly this could be construed as unfair business practices. For those who would rather not read through everything, the graph about halfway down is pretty damning. It basically shows how this users latency massively dropped off when he tricked his modem into thinking he was a business customer with a "preferred" ip address. The point at which this happens is marked "lol", lol. member for 14.4 years, 3 visits, last login: 14.2 years ago updated 14.3 years ago
They've been going downhill FAST over the past year. Every single evening for about 6 hours (during peak time) their network latency is so high that it's difficult to use the net for much besides email. I am now seeing 400-600ms latency to anywhere outside their network during this time. Of course, tech support says it's my issue, but the traceroutes and pings don't lie. If they had competition in my area I would leave them in a second. Supposedly 7Mbps Qwest DSL is coming my way soon. member for 14.4 years, 8 visits, last login: 14.3 years ago updated 14.4 years ago
I've been a Bresnan Internet/Cable/Phone customer for about 6 months. Prior to that, I had Bresnan internet only for 6 months. I'm paying for "speed plus" 15kbps down/1.5 kbps up, plus phone and cable. During off-hours, my speeds are OK. But during 5pm-1am hours, speed is TERRIBLE. I routinely get ping times >400 ms, high packet loss, and max speeds of 1-2 kbps down during peak hours. Streaming video is unusable. Websites load slowly, if at all. During peak hours, the service is often unusable. Bresnan insists that you only test speed to their servers, which is complete BS. I'm not paying for my connection to their servers, I'm paying for INTERNET service. I realize they have no control over the speeds of services on the net... but the problem is right at the point where Bresnan connects to the net. So they need to fix this, or work with their Tier 2 provider to fix it. But blaming it on the "net" doesn't cut it. This problem has existed for at least the last 2 months. Bresnan keeps pointing fingers at 360.net (their Tier 2 provider)... but bottom line is it doesn't matter who is to blame, they are not delivering on their promised service. Bresnan needs to fix this. I would change to another service... but sadly they are my only reasonable option. I'm too far out for decent DSL. member for 23.3 years, 128 visits, last login: 13.6 years ago lodged 14.4 years ago
The cable internet through bresnan is SLOW. In network of course you get advertised speeds, though that doesn't help you when 99.99999% of the web sites and servers you connect to are outside of their network. I personally know of more than 5 people who have called to complain about the same issues, though when you call they play the "dumb" game and pretend there is no issue. They are more than aware of the slow internet issue though because of their monopoly on the cable in this region they do not have to fix it. Their advertised 8 or 16 mbps speeds don't matter. You will get the same speed during peak hours no matter which plan you have. Which will be sitting around 1.5 mbps download AT MOST. Go with DSL and hope they do not share the same backbone as bresnan, as it is my conclusion that it is the connection between bresnan and 360networks that is the issue, and I have notified both companies of this and both defer responsibility. The cheap 1.5mbps DSL connections WILL be faster than the advertised 8-16mbps connections thruogh bresnan. You will have higher pings and much less packetloss resulting in a more stable surfing or gaming experience Do your own speedtests and you will see this is the truth. member for 14.4 years, 47 visits, last login: 14.3 years ago updated 14.4 years ago
Pings from servers within the same town return values between 200-400 ms. I've seen as high as 600ms. Download speed they claim is 8 Mbps, falls well below that during normal hours. Constantly stalling out, then have to reset the modem (sometimes 5 or more times). If you want to have a reliable internet connection or gaming, don't get bresnan online. member for 14.4 years, driveby review (so far) updated 14.4 years ago
The past several months service has been very poor. I'm either disconnected from the net or teh service runs at a snails pace. I've had service techs out here several times, and they can't seem to find and fix the problem. member for 16.9 years, 11 visits, last login: 14.4 years ago lodged 14.4 years ago
I have the upgraded connection and for weeks now I have been experiencing from fractions to half speeds. Up until this time Bresnan was in GREAT working order, super fast and solid. Be sure to check the date of this post if there is one. They also seem to trap and redirect their user's web traffic at times. Redirecting your browser to a pretty much phony ad driven search results page. They must use this as a resource for ad revenue. member for 14.5 years, 43 visits, last login: 13 years ago updated 14.5 years ago
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