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Ordered the service first back in August 2003. Was much better than the shared lines we had back in the dorms at UGA. The connection was rock solid for us even through some pretty big storms and our modem has survived lightning strikes that blew out the phones (this before we had put it on a surge protector). Now the connection doesn't seem so fast after using Charter and the price seems a bit high but its better than the thought of using Adelphia who has proven through our television service to just plain out suck. member for 20.4 years, 1235 visits, last login: 17.3 years ago lodged 18.3 years ago
Speeds: DL expected: 1500 Kbps, Actual: 1280 Kbps (~15% slower) UL expected: 384 Kbps, Actual: 305 Kbps (~20% slower) Price: Signed 1 year contract for $29.95 /month Setup: dynamic IP, PPPoE Charter Cable is more competitive with price than Alltel but reliability has been a problem for Charter. member for 19.8 years, 5 visits, last login: 16.7 years ago lodged 18.4 years ago
Past dealings aside this install went exceedingly smooth and trouble free. So far speeds have been expected and have had no outages in the 36 hrs it has been activated...jk. The price is right even for the required 1 yr contract at $34.95 a mo. for 768/128. Also Alltel seems to be willing to expand their coverage with Comcast getting ready to offer cable internet service. Update: Pluses Service was upgraded to 1536/128 then to 1536/386 free of charge during my first year. New plans came out recently 1536/386 - 24.95 3072/386 - 34.95 3072/768 - ? i think is 49.95 Minuses Ping times and lag are still higher than I would like but with an 80 mile backhaul to the nearest pop I guess I can live with it. Definately beats dial up. Update. Latency is finally better. Speeds can vary widely from very good to so so, service has never been terrible though. Coverage for the area is proported to be at around 85% so they are definitely trying. Rumor of another speed upgrade is in the air, that makes sense with Comcast in the area with a basic 6meg/384 package Alltel needs to stay competitive. member for 21.4 years, 936 visits, last login: 4.3 years ago updated 18.4 years ago
I have been an Alltel customer for 13 years. They sold me a package that would give me DSL for 24.95 per month. Then they told me that I was given misinformation. This is just a way of them saying "We do not stand behind what we say" I will be glad when the day comes and I can jump ship to another provider. In areas where they do not have the "Monopoly" they will keep their promises. Also, if you have a problem, they will promise to call you back, but they won't. member for 19.1 years, 4 visits, last login: 18.7 years ago lodged 18.7 years ago
Ordered Alltel DSL last August and was up and running in about 11 days, The modem arrived here in about 4 days but the line wasnt ready until about a week later. Initial speeds were about T1 down and 350k up. Good enough for my needs at the time. Setup a small network and things were rolling. 4 months later became aware of a new service called Ultra which boosted the download speed to 3mb so I ordered it. Download speeds now are about 2.6mb constant no matter what time of the day it is. This has been one of the most reliable ISP's I've ever dealt with. The only time the connection has ever been down is when I physically unplugged the router and modem to move them to a different room. It has even stayed up and performed well during the most violent thunderstorms and even when the electricity had been knocked out. The weather seems to have no effect on it whatsoever, worked great through the winter as well. The only caveats with this ISP you have to be aware of is if you use latency critical applications such as videoconferencing or fps online gaming. Performance of such online applications will suffer due to a default circuit mode setting in the DSLAM known as "interleaving". This is an error control mechanism that uses buffering and introduces about an extra 20ms latency to the line. Before ordering the service, If you are a short distance to the CO or RT, be sure to ask to have the circuit set for "fast-path" mode to avoid this. Interleaving may be neccessary though if your line is prone to noise or you are very far away from the CO. The only other issue I didnt like with Alltel is the Speedstream5200 modem they sent out to me. Although the device performed OK, It made a high pitched noise that sounded like your ears ringing and could be heard from anywhere in the room where it was located in, if everything else at the time was quiet. This situation was remedied by replacing it with a Cisco modem. I gave Alltel 4 out of 5 stars for their pre-sales information because I wasnt well informed that DSL was even available in my area until a neighbor told me they had ordered it. Other than that, they have been a great ISP. Also, using VoIP over their DSL seems to work well with no echoing or noise. member for 19 years, 16 visits, last login: 17.6 years ago lodged 18.8 years ago
I have had alltel for about six months now. I signed up for the 3000/384 package for $34.95 a month. My speeds are in the 2450-2550 down and 310-325 up range. The first two to three months that I had alltel the speeds where fine but my SNR would drop until my dsl would go off. But after I bought a splitter and hooked it up I haven't had one problem. I guess it was the inside wiring. The only thing I wish alltel would do is increase speeds more often. Because the cable internet in my area is now up to 5000/512. But alltel has been a great choice for the money I think. member for 19.1 years, 649 visits, last login: 12.3 years ago lodged 18.8 years ago
i have just updated to alltel's 3MB line and it is awesome, they currently have a promotion out for their Ultra DSL it is $35 a month for the term of the contract then it reverts back to $55. i have been with alltel for 3 years now. all the equipment is supplied by alltel and static ip's are opptional but $$. the equipment included the modem, 5 filtering devices, and includes a cat5 cable and a usb cable. extremly easy to install pluged everything in and windows went through the connection wizard an done, entire proccess took maybe 15min. member for 20.9 years, 6 visits, last login: 18.8 years ago lodged 18.8 years ago
Still not through with Alltel Tech Support, but thus far my experience has been sub-par. I've been with Insight Cable for 4-5 years and thought it was below average, but Alltel is even worse. I payed for the service so I could play online games, but it is near impossible with the lowest pings available over 100ms, and a first hop (to the Alltel router) of 53ms! I'm hoping alltel will be able to help me out with the situation, but I'm afraid I'm paying 35 bucks a month for a year to browse websites like I could with a 56kb modem. member for 20.1 years, 2754 visits, last login: 9.6 years ago lodged 18.9 years ago
I have tried cable but was very disappointed. So I tried Alltel, got a excellent bundle package. From order to live was about 5 days, but well worth the wait. No down time as of yet. Speeds constant, what else can I say an excellent service. Service is PPPoe, speeds were 1.5/384, for bundle package dsl was $24.95 Still no poblems, very satisfied with service, still as of yet no down time, except 1 day when the area router went down, speeds stay consistent. Upgraded to 3mb. Still no problems,no downtime. member for 18.9 years, 569 visits, last login: 16.8 years ago lodged 18.9 years ago
I ordered DSL through Alltel after receiving a advertisement in the mail. I cant get cable internet cause my cable company does not offer it yet. Last I checked I was way to far from my CO but later found out Alltel started a new program that installed the hardware needed into sub stations on the corners of the road. I no longer had to be by the building (Great Idea Alltel) My speed was to be 750/128 kb/s. but later found out they had bumped those up to 1.5/128 which was a plus. Modem was a speedstream 5200 which I upgraded and I was amazed at the down speed from DSL. It only took seven days to have the service turned on and only took 3 days to get the modem. Install was a breeze. The only thing I don't like about the service is the low upload speed, 128 actually tests at about 108 up and getting 1.2 down. I'm about 11000 feet from my box on the side of the dirt road and a good 9 miles from the CO building. I hope that Alltel picks up the upload speed some more soon. Service has had minors problems a couple failures on authenticating cause Alltel failures. My only grip is about getting higher uploads then 108. Great Idea On getting service to us Alltel, and price is pretty good. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- UPDATE: Well couple months ago they picked the upload speed up from 128, I'm now doing about 320 up and 1200 to 1300 down. I've had only 1 day out in the past year so not to bad, they also notified me of a lower rate which brings it down to 29 a month. Overall , really pretty good since cable from cebridge is way higher. Alltel is also rolling this out to more remote areas, so that a real plus.. GOOD job ALLTEL! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- March 09, 2005 UPDATE ON ALLTEL DSL SERVICE Well it’s been about a year with Alltel and mostly the service hasn’t been too bad. It’s not as fast as some cable companies but then it’s not as expensive either. In fact it went down from $34 to $29 a month now. They did perform increase in the up speed to 384 from the 128 so I’m doing about 311 up actual which is so much nicer then the 128 but the down speed is still rated for 1500 which I hit 1200 or 1.2 down. It would be nice if they increased that, higher since many others are. I did encounter one day of no service but I understand all of Alltel in my area had a problem. I just went three rounds with there service team when on a Thursday my DSL started getting very sporadic and at times was getting 187 down only, and not very constant and back and forth emails showing ping results and test speeds and three service techs coming to the house it ended up with me pointing out the problem. I had told them that I saw Alltel vehicles at the DSL box down the street on Thursday and then my DSL and phone line started acting funny. People were calling my phone but getting other peoples houses and my DSL went bonkers, they sent a couple people out that hooked up their supposed testing equipment to the outside and said everything was fine it must have been the weather. I told them to find and fix it but then I could hear them saying is the problem must be in your house. Well when the third person came out, I decided to take 2 phones outside and plug them into the service box, after he tested it again with his DSL equipment. Well long and behold there was a ton of static when you first opened the phone line and heard the dial tone. It occurred every time. He said it was my phones so we tried his, sure enough, his had the static too! Well he climbed the pole and said he fixed it, and guess what? The static was still there! He then went down the street where the team was working Thursday as I told him and he switched my DSL and phone connection to a different switch. Well that did it, No more static and DSL was staying at the 1.2 (1200) down and no longer sporadic. I asked him with all this expensive equipment telling everyone that the phone line was Great, how come it could not hear the unbearable static we were hearing? He said he did not know but also found several problems at DSL box and would have to call the cable splicers in. I guess not all test equipment is as good as the human ear of a real person, and not all Alltel phone techs really know how to find a real problem. I have to downgrade the service people for they should of found this much sooner than then 6 days it took them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------- April 6, 2005 UPDATE: Well after about 25 days of having serviced that was very poor and keeping logs and tossing back and forth conversations with Alltel, my service is again working. They had a problem with static on my line that they fixed but introduced the 3 mb down in my area and when everyone jumped on the ban wagon to get it, all of our speed plummeted into the ground. They oversold the area and there were not enough T1 lines servicing the mini sub stations on the corners of the roads unlike the CO. The speed would drop down from my 1250 to about 300 and 600 during times on the weekend and around 4 pm when people started to get home. They corrected some span line work and rewired and now my speed is steady in my area as I’m holding a nice 1272 down and 319 up, but I hear couple miles away in my area they are having the same problem with the speeds. I’ve also had some sporadic network losses throughout; I would say about 1 to 2 a week for about 1 to 3 hours each time when the system in my area hits the ground while their techs try to get it back in control. I think Alltel needs to spend more time on training of employees for DSL and they also need to form one area rather than have a DSL department and Phone Department cause when the DSL department doesn’t find a problem since its equipment in the field, they close the open ticket and then you have to reopen a ticket. Then the phone people don’t know much about the DSL so they pass it back to the DSL department. I found this to be the most frustrating problem with Alltel. Better training, more resolution on speed, and keep that network up cause a low price means nothing if it doesn’t work. member for 20 years, 1290 visits, last login: 56 days ago updated 18.9 years ago
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