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Review by RedRSX04 
UPDATED: 329 days ago
member for 1.1 years, 5 visits, last login: 249 days ago
 Erlanger,Kenton,KY
 $38 per month
 about 8 days
 Cincinnati Bell
 "Easy to setup and install"
 "No where near the advertised speed of 5Mbps"
 "Not the best value considering cable options regarding speed vs price"
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We live in NKY in the Erlanger area. Recently we decided to switch from Insight cable TV/Internet to Direct TV due to more sports programming options. With Insight, we were recv'ing a SOLID 10Mbps down on our Internet connection (any machine in the house) for approx $30/mo.
Once DirectTV was installed, we contacted Cincinnati Bell to have their highest speed DSL package installed as well. Cincinnati Bell (Zoomtown or Fuse.net) offers users two packages:
1) 768Kbps down for $15/mo
--or--
2) 5Mbps down for $30/mo ($25 if you bundle)
Additionally, we had to pickup land-line telephone service in the house for DSL to work (we've not had/nor needed a land line in our house for several years as everyone has their own cell phone.) The total monthly cost for the DSL service and land line is $38/mo plus taxes and fees.
Our house is located less than a mile from the switching station.
Unfortunately, the most we've been able to pull from the new DSL service has been approx 1.2Mbps - which is nowhere near the advertised 5Mbps - even after tweaking (on any machine in the house.)
We contacted the Cincinnati Bell (Zoomtown) support department who provided every excuse under the sun as to why we may not be able to pull the advertised speed of 5Mbps -but- no solution to our issue. I complained as to the price vs. speed, noting that basically I'm not pulling much more than their 768Kbps service, but paying for their 5Mbps service - the rep offered to discount our service $5/mo.
I'm thinking seriously that I'll switch back to Insight cable - the speed/price value of DSL vs. cable in this area just isn't in the same ballpark.
Followup comments:  
Anon1
@fuse.net
| Speed & Wiring I think there are two leading culprits to low bandwidth results...
The Zoomtown modem will train itself to the highest possible sustainable speed. Based on your 1Mb comment, there are two probable culprits:
1. House wiring.
- Either the wiring connect at the demarc box outside your home has a "incomplete connection" or the wire within your home is spliced, respliced, twisted and taped together - creating significant signal loss and the net result is the speed you are seeing. My experience has taught me that all of the copper on the wires coming from your house needs to be connected at the demarc. With a voice only connection, a lousy splice is no problem. Lousy splice being where the wire jacket is removed, and along with it a fair amount of the copper inside.
- Your distance to the Cincinnati Bell phone cabinet / central office. DSL is design to work best within 18,000 feet of the central office. Distances beyond that can create bandwidth constraints.
Check and fix the outside box wiring and rerun a dedicated wire for the zoomtown modem. If that doesn't do the trick, the ball is in bell's corner. | |
| | ShawnJ
join:2009-01-20
Louisville, KY
| Re: Speed & Wiring I have done online speed tests for Insight and Zoomtown. The tests tell me that Zoomtown has a 15Mbps Download and 12Mbps Upload that is compared to Insight's 10Mbps Download and their 1Mbps Upload. With that said then Zoomtown is the better choice. I used to live in NKY and i had Zoomtown an it blew Insight outta the water for speed. | |
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Review by ff2366
UPDATED: 335 days ago
member for 1.7 years, 19 visits, last login: 232 days ago
Mason,Warren,OH
$25 per month
about 7 days
Cincinnati Bell
"Consistent, solid bandwidth. Modem doesn't require a lick of babysitting / reboots etc."
"None that I can think of."
"Best deal around. Threw Sprint and Time-Warner out on their ear 6 months ago and haven't looked back."
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A year later...
For a year I enjoyed a 5mb connection - my typical download speed was 4.1mb - uploads averaged 650k. All of the sudden this week, Cincinnati Bell downgraded my pipe to a 3mb download - which means I yield around 2.1mb.
So while it was a good thing while it lasted - Cincinnati Bell doesn't see the logic in leaving well enough alone. It does feel like a bait and switch and I will switch providers and pay the premium for the principal.
I work at home 3 days a week. All to regularly my Time-Warner connection would lose it's network access. I run a constant ping test in the background to a couple of DNS servers to validate when and where the link failures occur and it my connections would die several times a day. 7 visits by Time-Warner over a 3 month period, movement of router, replacement of wires, validation of signals - nothing could fix the fact that the Time-Warner network simply isn't built for high availability. My gut tells me that they perform network maintenance and restarts anytime day or night as they saw fit with no regards to the folks who subscribed to the service and used it for work. One day my VPN connection died - I looked out my front window and sure enough, the Time-Warner truck was down the street and the tech has his head buried in the roadside box. Service was restored 20 minutes later.
The other positive piece is the fact that I haven't had to look at the Cincinnati Bell DSL modem since it was installed. Haven't had to restart, reboot - nothing. It has worked well since day 1.
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Review by cer1
UPDATED: 338 days ago
member for 8.3 years, 282 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Milford,Clermont,OH
$43 per month
about 7 days
Cincinnati Bell
"High speeds and practically committed bandwidth"
"Not"
"Nothing else will do. Satisfied."
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Also known as FUSE.NET
*Self Install
*Turned up easily
*Tech support allways polite but not exceptionally knowledgable 2 times out of 3
Service:
I didn't get the "home" pkg, but got the lowest BUSINESS PKG that put me into a category where the IP is fixed, there are no blocked ports (except 80 incoming, which I wanted) and this makes the connection suitable for a VPN if I like. (Which I do)
I can connect to other ISP's outgoing email servers, which is great because I travel and have a dialup account on another ISP for that. With this service there is no need to change setups as I move around.
The speed is the best I've had on xDSL. I test an honest 2400k bits down, 640k up almost all the time. I have had GTE, PACBELL, COX (cable), DSLeXtreme and Cincinnati bell's FUSE.NET. I'd rate them as follows:
Most Desirable: Cincinnati Bell (Fuse)
10 Fuse - They deliver what they promised.
9 DSLeXtreme - Great ISP. A little more latency, not bad.
8 GTE - Great once I got it going. (Their problem) Speed OK, not great
5 PacBell - Barely adequate speed, Laggy, Arrogant, Inflexible
-10 COX - Worse than Dialup. Arrogant, Inconsistant performance, Socialist ( they wanted to approve EVERYTHING ) I quit them ultimately.
Least Desirable: COX
Bottom Line:
I am a rather picky customer. I can work around problems myself usually, and can help tech support enough to help myself, even when they aren't too swift. Cincinnati Bell's tech support is better than many.
Even so it's not the most important attribute to me. Speed is important, and theirs is quite high and doesn't suffer from "rush hour" syndrome.
The most important thing to me is that I can USE the service to do the things I WANT TO DO. No arbitrary restrictions. Just a simple direct internet connection with LOW latency. And it is all of that.
I am well satisfied for the 6 months I've had Cincinnati Bell's Fuse.net as an ISP.
Update: 7-13-2005
Still satisfied.... performance has not changed and the price dropped from $49 to $43 as a result of a "package" combo.
Still a great deal for superior service.
Update: 12-22-2008
How I fired Cncinnati Bell and why it all Started:
Cincinnati Bell performed some kind of remote modem upgrade over a year ago, and it started my dissatisfaction with that service. Prior to the upgrade, I was promised and received 2.5M down, 768K up. After the "upgrade" I appeared to have 4.5M down and often less than 615K up. (Sometimes a lot less) Several calls to tech support later, I was told that there was no change to upload caused by their upgrade. This was "the first straw".
Next, my land line services continued increase in cost. DSL charges + Two POTS lines + Caller ID (1 line) and Unlimited Domestic Long Distance plus taxes ~$120/mo.
I asked Cincinnati Bell if they offered DSL on lines without POTS and they declined. That was the "Last Straw".
Finally, I determined that it was just too much to pay any more and began looking at VOIP solutions...
Ended up with Time Warner Cable Business Class ISP and T-Mobile@home VOIP ~$70 per month total. Performance is 2x Download, almost 3x upload. See new ISP review for details.
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Review by j0hn33y
Posted: 348 days ago
member for 348 days, 0 visits, last login: 348 days ago
Cincinnati,Clermont,OH
$44 per month
Cincinnati Bell
"Was reliable."
"Beware cuting upload speeds of long term customers."
"If you still have a land line it could be usefull"
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I have been a loyal customer for over 10 years.
Recently Zoomtown had cut my upload speed by over 50%. When called to complain they feed you the line "We cannot grantee upload speeds.”
Also a technician stated that the speeds I had been receiving “He had never seen”, even though it is advertized on their website. After calling BS on them the speed magically returned after pulling more BS by cutting download speeds to “compensate”. So shopper Beware, shenanigans appear to be in play at zoomtown.
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Review by flawedexiste
Posted: 1 year ago
member for 1 year, 0 visits, last login: 1 year ago
Cincinnati,Hamilton,OH
$50 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
Cincinnati Bell
"Good value. The service is as advertised."
"none"
"Well done. I've been a customer from the beginning of the service."
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I have the upgraded service which costs $10/month more. It's well worth it INMO. I got my equipment via UPS in about three days and set it up myself. Seamless process. Using the Westel 6100 router. Small footprint and works just fine. Service interruptions are essentially non-existent.
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Review by conrad_davis
Posted: 1.2 years ago
member for 2.3 years, 16 visits, last login: 60 days ago
Hamilton,Butler,OH
$45 per month
about 2 days
Cincinnati Bell
"speed never varies."
"won't increase your speed unless you complain. no naked dsl"
"good deal for the money"
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I have used zoomtown for 8 years now. I started out when the product was 768kbps download and 384kbps upload. They upgraded their network to about 5mpbs but didn't budge my speed until I complained. I hear some people talk about the supposed higher speeds from the cableco's but it always seems to bog down in the evening when everyone is on and honestly, I do not need more than 3MBPS. For $45/month I"m getting a broadband connection and a lifeline landline.
Followup comments: wharpig
join:2008-08-29
| ... speeds are normally set automatically for what the line can handle. Cinbells dsl connection now automatically adjusts the speed when it is first setup and locks you in at what you can train at and hold a connection. If you were set low chances are you have had problems with the connection in the past. If a technician adjusted your speed generally that causes issues with holding a connection. If it is holding a good connection then it could have just been a provisioning issue on Zoomtowns end that was "capping" the connection. I use to work for there tech support and have saw many people get there speed raised only to callback days later and there connection is constantly giving them problems. Thats why the techs are trained to say they cant adjust your speed. | |
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 Review by bjf123
UPDATED: 1.3 years ago
member for 9.7 years, 3900 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Hamilton,Butler,OH
$35 per month
Cincinnati Bell
"Consistent connection. Good tech support."
"Scans from other users."
"Great value for the money."
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I've had Cincinnati Bell's Zoomtown ADSL product for a number of years now. During that time, there have only been a handful of times I was unable to connect when I wanted. The claimed speeds are 768 down and 384 up. My tests have almost always been close enough, in the 680 and 340 range. The nature of the connection is everyone has a private IP. Mine is in the 10.137 range. They recently changed their service so that I no longer need to log in. As long as my computer is on, I'm connected. If I do turn off my PC, the next time I connect, I might end up with a different public IP. I do get scans from other users in the 10.137 IP range. The few times I've gotten a number of scans from the same IP, and by a number of scans, I'm talking 50+ in a short period of time, I've contacted the abuse department at Zoomtown. The scans have always stopped in a few days. Overall, I'm quite pleased with my service.
Update: I moved about five years ago. The transition to my new address took longer than it should have. After numerous phone calls over the span of 5 or 6 days, I finally got through to someone who had the knowledge to dig into the problem. Turns out the phone company had two databases of information related to the DSL service. One had been updated with my new address, while the other still had the old address, which was overriding the order to turn on service at the new location. Once the incorrect database was updated, the service was working within the hour.
Also, I was able to combine my local, long distance, wireless, and DSL services into one package. This is saving me about $20 per month over the cost the the individual services.
Update 2: I've really had no issues since the move almost five years ago. I have switched my hardware from a PC running Windows with a Linksys router to multiple Macs connecting via Airport Extreme. Everything still works fine.
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 Review by artesian79
Posted: 1.6 years ago
member for 8.1 years, 398 visits, last login: 41 days ago
West Chester,Butler,OH
Contract price not specified.
"Inexpensive - my company pays the bill"
"Too slow; tech support is more difficult than RoadRuner; bandwidth planning is not a strength"
"Didn't think I'd miss RR, but Zoomtown makes it so."
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It took 3 different techs coming to the house to get it working. They didn't show up at the promised time. They DID stay until we had service.
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Review by trin20t
Posted: 1.7 years ago
member for 1.7 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.7 years ago
Cincinnati,Hamilton,OH
$54 per month (12 month contract)
about 2 days
Cincinnati Bell
"Very fast consistent speed over Roadrunner,reliable"
"Not explained as well as it could be on it's company site,Zoomtown home page not that friendly"
"Could be better,but faster and more reliable then Roadrunner"
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I had some issues with Cincy Bell not getting my $60 deposit at first,and my location wrong,but once they did,I was set. A tech did install and test the lines,but he didn't do any repair.
Fuse.net access was fast and line was working great.
Ordered Zoomtown a good two days after,and was sent a basic one computer connection modem the next buiness day,and was shocked to learn my DSL was ready two days before the due date!
Had some jack issues,and a tech came out again(yesterday),to repair finally.
I learned the jacks were very bad in my housing project.
But this was fixed,and I have it working as promised.
I have up and surfing at 1.2mbps speed down and 612kbps upload speed. The site says you get "up to" 5mbps download and 768kbps upload speeds. I'm seeing almost correct upload speeds but slower download. But atleast it is faster then I had with Roadrunner. It was never consistent.
It was always under 1 mbps. For cable it was as bad as using the old Zoomtown speed!
I have had Zoomtown before in the past,back in late 2000 to 2004,so I know what to expect and how to hook it up myself.
Back then speeds were much slower. 768kbps download,and 386kbps upload.
I would see 388kbps download and 176kbps upload back then. So the speed is much better to me.
I'm not complaining at all!
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Review by beaker87
Posted: 1.8 years ago
member for 9.3 years, 184 visits, last login: 268 days ago
Loveland,Clermont,OH
$15 per month
Cincinnati Bell
"bundle price [$30 reg], newsgroups"
"overall speed"
"to bundle or to not bundle..."
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have had alternately cable and adsl, 2-3 yrs at a time, over the past nine years. all local offerings piggy-back the two main biggins' Time-Warner & Cincinnati Bell and are slightly cheaper but mostly watered down. It may be 'bout time to check TW's latest 7 Mbps option...although I know that I'd need to start paying for a premium news server as my previous experience with RR nntp's was crap [and a few folks that I know do cable say it's still the same]. Westell modem was sent next day comin' on 3 years ago when I was still using XP. Company sells ONLY "Up to"...5 Mbps/768 up. consistently got w/XP and get w/Vista 1.2 Mbps
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Cincinnati Bell
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