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Review by jwsmiths4 See Profile

  • Location: Winder, Barrow, GA, USA
  • Cost: $40 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 10 days
  • Telco party AllTel
We've had very reliable service
Not really fast and not extremly cheap either
If you live in Winder its your only real choice...
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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


Review by wesleyjwilso See Profile

  • Location: Thomaston, Upson, GA, USA
  • Cost: $29 per month (12 month contract)
  • Telco party AllTel
  • CLEC party: AllTel
Reliabable
Download always 15% slower than advertised, Upload 20% slower than advertised
Reliable service but less than 15-20% slower speeds than advertised
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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







Review by Kraphty See Profile

  • Location: Campbellsville, Taylor, KY, USA
  • Cost: $34 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 7 days
  • Telco party Verizon (ex GTE)
  • CLEC party: AllTel
Thre were no problems with the install at all. Speed is good so far.
Price is the best available around for any service but I still think it is too high.
Now widely available and seemingly stable.
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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

vitalus
join:2003-12-17
Sugar Land, TX

vitalus

Member

Cable internet from AllTEll

Wow that would be great i have had ALltel since DEC and its only going smoothly - if they offer cable in my area I would def jump on the band wagon.

Review by jdbento See Profile

  • Location: Jefferson, Jackson, GA, USA
  • Cost: $39 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 24 days
  • Telco party AllTel
  • CLEC party: AllTel
Works Great
Alltel Will pull a "bait and switch" on you.
Alltel does not do what they promise... they say they are not responsible for "misinformation"
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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


wiredaddy
Premium Member
join:2005-04-22
in a chair

wiredaddy

Premium Member

Bait and Switch?

Where did you get your info? Call center or internet?
What speeds did you select? Selecting a bundle package will save money on dsl.
mrproper
join:2005-08-08
Chatsworth, GA

mrproper

Member

Alltel

I agree with you totally, Alltel holds a monopoly over internet services here in Chatsworth (unless you have cable) and I've recieved some of the sorriest service ever, I've also experinced over-inflated bills and incorrect charges for service.

BBSsearch »search.bbs.us

xrazorwirex
@alltel.net

xrazorwirex

Anon

come and get your love......

talk about it..

our router "mysteriously" looses a connection to their switch when we exceed about 1Meg down...

its apparently a flaw on our end.. even though it maintains a connection to the router the entire time...

Review by MaxSmart420 See Profile

  • Location: Export, Westmoreland, PA, USA
  • Cost: $30 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 10 days
  • Telco party AllTel
  • CLEC party: AllTel
Extremely reliable connection, Servers allowed, Static IPs available, Friendly People
Latency needs work, Not very good for gaming, 1 Year contract minimum
If network uptime is important to you and you live in Export or Murrysville, Get them.
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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


Review by benny17 See Profile

  • Location: Albany, Clinton, KY, USA
  • Cost: $34 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 5 days
  • Telco party AllTel
Price and reliability
Long time between upgrades
Not a bad speed for the price
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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


dslguy1234
@cox.net

dslguy1234

Anon

well...

Each time speed is increased, the distance someone's house can be from the dslam is decreased. Prob about 75% of customers qualify for 3k, I'd say prob only 50-60 qualify for 5k, hard to say. DSL has it's limits, and it will die out eventually.

Review by ellis4pa5 See Profile

  • Location: Watsontown, Northumberland, PA, USA
  • Cost: $54 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 5 days
3MB connection, reliable
none so far
exellent service
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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


Review by kywirelessgu See Profile

  • Location: Nicholasville, Jessamine, KY, USA
  • Cost: $35 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 5 days
  • Telco party AllTel
  • CLEC party: AllTel
Stable upload/download speed
Horrible pings. Frequent disconnects.
Go with something else if its available.
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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

FaRty Pants
join:2006-12-31
Nicholasville, KY

FaRty Pants

Member

Ive noticed the same problem

Actually just about a week and a half ago i noticed Windstream (formerly known as the infamous Alltel) working at the CO at the end of my road, before I had made the switch to windstream from local provider Qx.net from which i got excellent service and great pings (low 30's in ms to their gateway). Before they had ran whatever kind of matenice they ran my pings in cs 1.6 were awesome for a 1.5 line only getting about 1200 to 1300 kbits on speedtest my pings rested at 45 and 50 to low pinging servers of which i had about 10 of everytime i refreshed. Now the problem is something they did almost 2 weeks ago which after around 3 hours of being on the phone with the egg heads in Kansas they still refuse to believe, they say its client side that there is line noise or I dont know how to use a dsl filter. Anyway now my pings have skyrocketed from a superb 45 to 50 to a lowly 60 to 80 on the lowest pinging servers, also my upload speed has decreased 70kbits per second since their doings at the CO. Truthfully I think they have put even more of a cap on teh service to make people want to upgrade to the 3mbit package. But we dont have cable and i cant get 3mbit because of the distance to the CO from me, so they've got me right where they want me...giving them money for 3/4's the service I was getting. thanks again windstream.

Review by wiredaddy See Profile

  • Location: Lexington, Fayette, KY, USA
  • Cost: $29 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 5 days
  • Telco party AllTel
Excellent, very happy
None
Good value, excellent speeds, no sharing bandwidth
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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


Review by johnbor See Profile

  • Location: Newton Falls, Trumbull, OH, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
Price good at 29 and Getting service to remote areas a real plus!
Techs need better training.
Great Value, better than Sat and cheaper then future cable roll outs
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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


Icon
Time Keeper
Premium Member
join:2004-01-07
Little Rock, AR

Icon

Premium Member

Glad you're back up

As a tech for said company I agree w/you that it shouldn't have taken them that long to figure out your problem. And its not that the test equipment we have doesn't work well, the problem lies with the technician not knowing how to USE that test equipment! Also, when you took a phone outside and plugged it in, was your modem still connected inside? If it was you were hearing the DSL static due to the test jack being unfiltered, not necessarily static due to a problem. If you said people were calling your house and getting somebody else, then it sounds like they had your line crossed.

Anyways, glad they finally got you back up and going, and if you're interested check into DSL Ultra and see if you qualify for it. It is the newest offering from Alltel with 3072/384 speeds.

Enjoy!
johnbor
join:2004-03-30
Chagrin Falls, OH

johnbor

Member

Re: Glad you're back up

Yes I actually used the filter outside also and the static was still there, I will be doing another update cause 5 days later and the trouble started again and again Alltel is doing the run around, there telling me the DSL is fine but I hear static on my house phones during the dial tone and yes they are plugged into the filters. I will update this main thread.

Alltel is trying my patience here..
joeking57
join:2000-10-09
Nicholasville, KY

joeking57 to Icon

Member

to Icon
Guy, I can tell you are a desk Jockey in LR or Lincoln. When the customers open the test jack in their NID it disconnects all their inside wiring so the deregulated side of the house is totally out of play, just like when we call you from the CO with the cable pair removed from the line removes any possibility of OSP trouble in the network. With the rare exception of the rural customer who has an extension in the barn or garden shed/garage which is detached from the main premise and is still unfiltered, if they tell you they have static at the NID IT MEANS THEY HAVE PHYSICAL PHONE TROUBLE. Pleased be kind at that point and refer them for an outside CZT to come and resolve their troubles B4 they look elsewhere!