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Review by jrlittlejr 
Posted: 6 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 115 visits, last login: 1 days ago
 Portland,Multnomah,OR
 $29 per month
 about 7 days
 Qwest
CLEC party: Qwest
 "No charge to cancel"
 "Can't use VPN, or connect multiple computers. What is the point of that??"
 "Service so restricted it is useless!"
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I signed up for MSN Broadband/Qwest service because I was frustrated with the rising prices of my cable modem from Comca$t. Initial price $29.99/month for first year, then $49.99/month. No install fee other than $9.95 for the shipping on the modem. Luckily, I kept my cable modem until I tried the service.
This service simply does NOT do what a DSL connection needs to do. For example:
Qwest & MSN marketing materials state that it is "great for gaming" and high speed connection makes it easy to "work from home". But the Arescom router that they ship SUCKS. Most of the ports are blocked, it will not allow you to connect to a router or hub, and will only let you connect to a single computer. Because it is a router, you cannot use a VPN connection through it. When I discovered this, I called MSN tech support. The guy I got on the phone was a true idiot, and I don't say that lightly. He said "Of course you can use a VPN. I have customers tell me they do it all the time!". I said "Well the tech support pages for Arescom state that MSN has intentionally disabled that feature in the Arescome 800/860 modem used by MSN". Here is the link: »www.arescom.com/Arescom/Arescom_···Nfaq.cfm
Despite me telling him where to look on the net, he insisted for about 15 minutes that I didn't know what I was doing and that VPN would work. Finally, he put me on hold and "asked a supervisor". He came back on the line after 5 minutes and said "You are right, we won't let you use a VPN."
The other thing was the info on the Qwest website about the service is completely inaccurate. It promises an Actiontec 1524 modem, which includes a 4 port hub and option to expand wireless. »www.qwest.com/pcat/for_home/prod···,00.html
However, this isn't what they shipped, I got an Arescom 860 router. When I asked them to change it, they said that the actiontec wasn't available for MSN customers, only Qwest DSL service with other ISP's.
The only good thing about MSN/Qwest was the installation process and the fact that I could cancel without charge. From order to install was 7 days. I got the modem in the mail, installed the filters, hooked it up and it worked first time. Compared to my prior DSL installs a few years ago (with Phoenix DSL, Rhythms and Covad) this was a breeze. My prior installs took between 30-90 days with multiple phone calls and headaches.
They must now what a piece of crap the Arescom modem is... when I cancelled the service they said I could keep it!
So, if you want broadband ONLY for surfing the web and reading your email from a single computer, this service may work for you. But otherwise it is a waste of bandwidth and $$$.
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Review by msft msn rok
UPDATED: 6 years ago
member for 7.1 years, 188 visits, last login: 5.9 years ago
Salt Lake City,Salt Lake,UT
$1 per month
about 1 days
Qwest
CLEC party: Qwest
"microsoft, window's & msn, any ?'s"
"well, i still have 2 fight traffic 2 get 2 work & home"
"nah, i won't go there"
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we operate 4 computer's on a linksys router & msn dsl 800 modem. customer service & technical support was a one call event that took maybe 5 minutes. congrat's to the microsoft corporation along with the msn division. bill & staff, keep up the good work. it's nice 2 have a uniformed isp that know's how 2 make thing's happen & take care of business.
ppl need 2 quit blaming microsoft for everything. we all know how computer/ internet illiterate the general public is in the 1st place. most of u should be thankful u don't have 2 pass a pc test b 4 u can purchase 1. wouldn't that be fun. we would all be out of work then. we won't mention the obvious driver's license issue either.
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Review by Avder
UPDATED: 6 years ago
member for 7.5 years, 836 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Moorhead,Clay,MN
$49 per month
about 10 days
"It was faster than dialup..."
"..but near the end it was dropping all the time, and it was too hard to cancel."
"Buyer beware"
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Since I wrote my original review (below) the service slowly started to degrade. Before I wrote the orignal review it would disconnect maybe once or twice a month. Soon after it was up to once a week, and then soon after that it was several times a day, often while downloading.
I looked at cable a few times, but I didnt like what I saw so I stuck with what I had despite the disconnects.
In the end I kept it until I went back to college and had to move. I called Qwest to kill the line and that went quick enough, but they told me I had to call MSN to actually cancel the internet service. That made absolutely NO sense to me. There should be no reason that they cant communicate with MSN and have everything cancelled.
So I called MSN to cancel and had to wait on hold for a while, and then when I got someone it took them wayyyyyyy too long to bring up the account. After that they made me confirm multiple times that yes, I did want to cancel, and no, I didnt want them to keep my mailbox live for another month and no, I didnt want to purchase 3 months of dialup service. The sales pitches when cancelling is what really got to me.
My advice is that if this is the only thing availible, go for it. Otherwise get something a little more reliable.
Original Review:
Ive had Qwest DSL since June of '00 with few problems. then a month and a half ago I get a letter of final notice (first snail-mail warning or any) that my account will be automatically transitioned to MSN by the end of the month. I'm irritated mostly bacause I hate the Redmond Giant and most everything it $tands for. But I check around and there are no viable alternatives (for me anyway, unique predicament0 I call MSN and say im considering the switch from qwest to MSN and the representative I talk to was very helpful about answering the questions I have (mostly about privacy and that sort) and she reassures me about everything. wit that, I electted to stick with the transition and manually do it myself, thus allowing me to keep a POP3 Email address (hotmail is like..ok I cant print that thought, too disgisting). I recieve my CD about a week later and install it, aftwerwhich I UNINSTALL MSN Messenger..I've never liked that program. .I click the MSN logo thats now on my desktop to connect to MSN and the modem trains up like it always has, but the actual MSN program cant connect because I havnt created a rule with my firewall explicitly permssion the particular program to use any network connections I have. The fact that said program cannot connect so an M$N server doesnt seem to impede the modems ability to connect me to the internet at all, so I now use the DSL connection in my network connectios control-panel in Win2K (I've been connected to the internet for 10 straight days at one point before I had to reboot cause of an MSIE security fix install). I made no hardware changes, and the service seems unchanged. The one complaint I do have is that the forwarding service has not yet taken hold and messages sent to my QWEST mailbox arent forwarded to my MSN mailbox..fortunately I can retrieve them from my qwest mailbox manulayy with outlook yet. And yes, I have allowed the previously said progra mto log-on to MSN so that I would be "officially" transitioned (the last step is listed as logging on to MSN). So far I havnt had any problems except for the unexplained-half-hour-2-times-a-month outages I saw with qwest..obviously I'm using the same servers to connect.
The whole MSN/Qwest partnership looks like its just fancy bells-0and whistles with nothing physically changing at all..so far so good, but after reading a fair share of the reviews here, I'm dreading the day I have to call tech support for something.
Basic stats: Promised speed: 640/272 Actual speed: 570ish/230ish..this is both before and after the switch. Ive had MSN for about 3 weeks now, and so far its good, but im proceding forward with caution.
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Review by augiedoggie
Posted: 6 years ago
member for 6 years, 19 visits, last login: 5.7 years ago
Spokane,Spokane,WA
$30 per month
about 40 days
Qwest
"Its DSL. Its available."
"Account set up improperly, Not for networked computers, can't send email from legacy addresses"
"Too secure to be practical. Tech support unsympatheric,slow to discover the problems at their end."
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Late November 2003
I have left MSN
Early November 2003. Spokane, WA
Set up Qwest 256 / MSN service. dynamic IP. serving 2 WinXP, 1 WinME on FastEthernet.
Delivery doesn't leave modem because apartment looks unoccupied. Qwest and MSN can't figure how to get another one sent out. MSN says Qwest has to start a new order, Qwest says they did their part, talk to MSN. Takes weeks and a threat to bail to get it cleared up.
I get the modem and set it up.
Can't share the internet between the 3 home PCs, can receive email from legacy accounts but can't send. Hire an independent tech. 3hrs @$65/hr later determined that....
(Problem #1) MSN doesn't support multiple networked-PCs using the same modem. Surprised me since Qwest.net (seprate business account) was OK with it. Our solution was to set up a seperate router. This resulted in
(Problem #2) discover that MSN security features keep you from accessing secure (»https://...) sites when you access them through the second router.
(Problem #3) According to my indie-tech, MSN forgot to enable POP3/SMTP on my account. When they enabled it, we found
(Problem #4) MSN security features also won't allow you to send email from any account other than an @msn.com. Took awhile to figure this out because
(Problem #5) MSN neglected to initialise the POP3/SMTP capabilities of my account. When I asked MSN tech support to give me a tracking number for this last issue, they couldn't because their customer event tracking system was down. WhenI asked where I should send the bill for the 1.5 hours of tech support I had to pay for due to their not initialising the POP3/SMTP I was given the "1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA" address. Riiiight.
I bail in favor of Qwest.net - Takes 5 days for MSN to release the line, another 5 days for Qwest to turn on their service. 10 days of dialup to add to the 40 days it took to get the MSN service. grrrr.
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 Review by SubWolf
Posted: 6 years ago
member for 6 years, 53 visits, last login: 3.9 years ago
Englewood,Arapahoe,CO
$39 per month
about 14 days
Qwest
CLEC party: Qwest
"Speeds as promised"
"Connection drop every few days (Possibly Fixed!), port forwarding reset with power cycle."
"Not a bad service, and they just got cheaper"
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I got sick and tired of dial-up, and on the spur of the moment, hit up Qwest's site, and ordered their cheapest DSL package - 256/256, for $39.95/month, no contract. 256k isn't exactly the V8 of broadband, let alone the V6, but it's still 4x faster than 56k, and that's what mattered most.
It took about a week before I saw confirmation on the site that everything was going smoothly, another week and the site proclaimed the service setup "completed", co-inciding with the receipt of my starter package - a DSL1000 modem, plentiful documentation, CD, etc. Hardly a lightning fast response, but acceptable, I'd read for months that getting DSL service can take several days at the least.
Got home, plugged it in, was online within 5 minutes. I managed to avoid installing the entire MSN package - don't need any bloated version of IE to view web pages, just the handy tool. Everything worked great and as promised - happy land!
But, it wasn't all wine and roses. I have two major complaints, which are directly linked to each other - port forwarding and connection problems. I might go anywhere from 24 - 48 hours straight with no problems at all, then out of the blue, the DSL tool reports "Cannot connect to DSL modem", and the only way to fix it is to power-cycle the modem, a restart of the networking system or Windows itself has no effect. I've tried connecting to the modem via USB instead of Ethernet, no change. Could it be the lack of using MSN-IE? If that were the case, why the erratic connection schedule? DSLR's monitoring tool will hopefully give me more statistical data to work with on this issue. I am a Systems Admin for a living, and while I don't claim to know everything, I'm pretty sure that the PC itself is not to blame. Still, there's that small chance that the fault does not lie with Qwest, and I have one friend (in Littleton) who stays connected for several days straight just fine - but, he also uses the MSN Explorer. I'll add any updates as research develops... [* See Update Below *]
The other complaint? Ah yes, the port forwarding, not a huge issue for the general public, but a pain in the backside in relation to the first complaint - when you power-cycle the modem, it forgets any port forwards previously set up. If you want them back, you've gotta open up those ports again, and we're talking up to 50 ports for my needs. There's tools to ease the pain, including a script I wrote myself, but it's still an added task that shouldn't need to be performed in the first place.
Overall, during those times that the service is up - don't get me wrong, it's up and running WAY more often than it's down - the connection speed is as advertised, and for viewing standard web pages, it's more than enough to bring them up fast. With their latest deals ($29.99/month now), the deal gets sweeter. If you can get that kind of price from them with no contract, and you're not a download freak, go for it.
[Update 11-22-03] I noticed the other night, when bringing up the modems' system log, that an error was repeatedly occuring. Unfortunately, I do not have the error handy at this moment, if it resurfaces, I'll post it. This morning, I attempted to perform a firmware upgrade to cure the problem, and I'm currently on the phone to Qwest to see if I can get a 640/256 upgrade for LESS than what I'm paying now - a recent promotion. 
[Update 11-22-03 Part 2] Yes, they confirmed the upgrade, I will have 640/256 for the same price ($39.95) - not less, but I'm not complaining. Should be online December 2nd, will watch for disconnects & update as more news is available.
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Review by Traek
Posted: 6 years ago
member for 6.8 years, 67 visits, last login: 52 days ago
Kaysville,Davis,UT
$49 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
Qwest
"Cheap and has gotten cheaper since my initial signup; dirt-easy to set up"
"MSN Hardware is worst available; must buy your own equipment for most adv. services (i.e. voicechat, game servers, etc.)"
"Not bad if your grandma wants to surf the web or your wife won't let you pay for decent service"
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I've been with MSN for almost 3 years now, and have never had a outage, never had a problem signing in, and never once had a billing issue/problem. However, if you need to involve their technical support and you are in any way an advanced user, get ready for the longest hair-pulling ride of your life. No one technician is "empowered" to help you enough in any way substantial until you reach Tier 3. Getting to Tier 3 is a bumpy ride at best, but mine involved a couple of letters to the Better Business Bureau. That woke them up!
It's sad you can't get a reasonable level of support by asking, instead you have to get mean. What are they teaching their customers? What are they paying their technicians? My last technician didn't know the difference between RAM and a harddrive... hmm...
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Review by edwat
Posted: 6 years ago
member for 6.2 years, 67 visits, last login: 284 days ago
Parker,Douglas,CO
$29 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
Qwest
"Inexpensive-MSN browser -Good Spam control"
"Tech support -billing support is atrocious"
"You get what you pay for."
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Ordered 640K/640K (dynamic) on line 1 of 2 line home phone. Later I wanted to downsize to 256K and move the subscription to the 2nd line in the house. You might as well have asked England to give up India as a colony. I had to cancel my first service, sacrifice my userid (primary) and start over. That was okay except that I had to give up my primary user id and now have to wait 90 days before it "bleeds" out of the servers to get it re-established. What a crock. And NOBODY at MSN could figure out a way to overcome this. I have spent hours on the phone trying to sort out the userid problem (main email address). I still must wait 90 days. In the meantime I can get all the old userid mail at hotmail. In the beginning I liked the look and feel of the browser. It had that old MAC feeling I was nostalgic for, (will Microspft ever come up with an original idea?). Installation of the modem was a snap. But tech support can be iffy - one call good, another awful. Hold times are LOOONG. Lots of referring the problem to another entity. But, its true, you get what you pay for, so I'm not complainin', I'm just sayin. I am reading lots about how these MSN co-ops with the RBOCs are going sour. MSN is losing money? MSN will soon bail?
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Review by msecour
UPDATED: 6.1 years ago
member for 6.8 years, 68 visits, last login: 3.5 years ago
San Francisco,San Francisco,CA
$49 per month (12 month contract)
about 23 days
SBC
CLEC party: SBC
"Fast, reliable networked set-up"
"PLUG HAS BEEN PULLED."
"No longer providing DSL service, as of Dec 12, 2003"
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NEW UPDATE: After hearing that MSN was not accepting new DSL business, they have officially announced the end of DSL to existing customers. Next stop:SBC
UPDATE TO ORIGINAL REPORT: After 8 months of excellent service, MSN has become very flaky this Fall. On occasions I have had to unplug the DSL modem and plug it back in to restore a DSL connection. This used to happen about every 6 weeks or so. Since mid-September it has been weekly, sometimes daily, sometimes several times a day. I was without a DSL connection for 48 hours recently. Online troubleshooting told me to give it a couple of days before contacting service. It came back on just in time. I have down-graded reliability, tech support, and value.
ORIGINAL: For the record, I am computer knowledgeable but non-techie. I may not spend a lot of time at sites like Broadband Reports, but I really appreciate a site like this when I need it.
Going from AOL DSL to MSN DSL probably seems to most of you like going from the sublime to the ridiculous, but I have no regrets. AOL's price jumped over 60%, followed by a trashing of my system by AOL 8.0 and miserable service. Having just had some intelligent and highly productive support experiences with Microsoft (solving problems caused by AOL) I was seduced by MSN 8 during a trial period and made the switch. Most of the 23 day wait from the time of ordering was to allow AOL to release my phone line.
At the same time that I installed MSN DSL, I installed a wireless router for my first home network experience. Being faint of heart, I had a techie friend help. (Well, I watched him do it, actually.) An initial block wall was quickly crumbled by a visit to Broadband reports and some advice by jmanos3 re: NetDSL 800 and Linksys using MSN. Thanks to that tip, my MSN DSL 1000 was quickly functioning for both of my computers. Unlike my experience with AOL, I do not need to be logged on to MSN in order to access the internet. Of course, this is because of the router, not MSN itself. Several other reviews have indicated that MSN DSL cannot be networked and I just want to make it clear that it can.
My tested speed is 643/82. This is quite a bit faster than I had with AOL, and it's cheaper. I cannot answer to behavior with online games because I don't play games. I use the internet primarily for email, research and finance, and I can tell you that I have used this connection for 6 months now with consistent, reliable speed. The only call to tech support was on the day of installation and I thought their support was of average quality that day.
MSN, quite frankly, is far superior to AOL and I don't see how I could improve on my DSL experience at this price.
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 Review by tsunamizone
Posted: 6.1 years ago
member for 8 years, 292 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Port Orchard,Kitsap,WA
$29 per month (12 month contract)
Qwest
"well........."
"still waiting for the link light!!!!!!"
"great deal if it worked!"
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Well I found out I could get qwest DSL for 29.95 a month
(256-256 msn/qwest pg) and thought is was too good to be true, and it was…. (I was cable that did not work well and double that $)
I got it on sept 30th and plugged it in. Everything you have to do to set it up was very easy, but it wouldn’t link up, (the modem) I called msn (qwest goes thought them) and they had me go thru it all and still no net, So 7 days, 5 people and a truck out to my house later it was the phone lines…. It worked for maybe a day and then, works for a while then not, and maybe about 128 (It is the 256 package) so then I go thought three more phone techs and they say the modem is defective, and send me a new one….(F.Y.I. everyone from qwest and msn has been very helpful, and very nice thru out this tho!) It didn’t help and it’s still on then off, and I wondering Where`s the deal? ( they gave me the first month free because of this stuff, but the month is almost up, and i still don`t have net, so is that a deal? "free nothing")
Now their sending out a new guy to check my lines again and if this doesn’t work me is going back to cable…enough said…. (Thanks for the place to vent!!!!!!!!!)
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Review by quicslai
UPDATED: 6.1 years ago
member for 6.1 years, 16 visits, last login: 3.3 years ago
Provo,Utah,UT
$35 per month
about 11 days
Qwest
CLEC party: Network Access Solutions
"It works. It's cheap."
"Tech support are completely useless."
"If you can't get fixed wireless and don't have digital cable, this works."
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Well, I spent two months doing the research.
Cable modem? I don't have cable TV, so Comcast's 1024/256 line was too expensive at $55+ a month, plus purchasing a cable modem (not to mention the bandwidth drops during peak hours).
Fixed wireless? There are some great fixed wireless solutions in west Provo and up around Orem. When I first starting doing the research, I found a 512/512 connection for $35 a month, and I was stoked. BUT, the only fixed wireless providers available where I am (in east Provo) meter your bandwidth (2.5 gig a month? I do that in a DAY! Come on, guys...).
City networks? Actually, three small suburbs of Provo (American Fork, Springville, and Spanish Fork) have excellent (~1 megabit) connections for less than $40 a month. Why doesn't Provo? Who knows!? Not even an option here.
Then came DSL. I hate Micro$oft. I really do. But a 640/256 DSL line runs about $30 a month, and I haven't seen a single ISP that runs less than an additional $15. Plus activation, plus a modem... good heavens. MSN gives me the modem, waives my activation... well, I felt like I was out of options. MSN it is.
Much to my delight, it works great. I'm 10,000 feet from the nearest CO in a house with old wiring and I consistently beat 80% of my claimed bandwidth (518/217 usually, and that's with latency removed). I have a Netgear wireless router that plugged into my modem and configured my service without issue. I didn't even have to intall Micro$soft's software. Since I have a Qwest phone line, I only pay $35 a month.
So the bad points? Well, Qwest did very well. They told us exactly when service would be available and it was. But MSN? They were in charge of shipping the modem... and they don't even ship it until Qwest has turned on your line!?!? How hard is it to ship the thing a little early? Ridiculous. The first guy I talked to at MSN couldn't even tell me *how* it had been shipped. Tracking number? Forget it, he didn't even know if they used UPS or whatever! Then they told my wife it would take between "5 and 20 business days." Strangely enough, a very helpful Qwest employee (who wasn't even supposed to handle this) managed to get us a tracking number and clear things up.
Fortunately it only took the modem two days to arrive.
The verdict? Let's face it, the only thing I think it worse than DSL is Cable, and even that would be a tough call if I already had cable TV. But in terms of the options I had available to me, I took this one, expected the worst, and so far I've been pleasantly surprised. Qwest gets two thumbs up; my connection gets two thumbs up; the fact that Micro$oft can't seem to get their act together is the only downside here, and that's easy to work around.
UPDATE! I just obtained an MSN 1000 via eBay for about $20. With the fix (posted in the forums) I flashed it into an SMC Barricade. I then set it as a DMZ server so only my wireless NetGear router firewall is in place and handling my port forwarding. My connection just got a lot better!!! I HIGHLY recommend this route for anyone whose broadband options are limited but don't won't to be tied down by MSN's crippled routers.
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