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Review by pmglab 
UPDATED: 4 days ago
member for 8.5 years, 198 visits, last login: 4 days ago
 Lowville,Lewis,NY
 $71 per month (24 month contract)
 about 30 days
 "usually is working"
 "slow usually,really slow during peak usage times"
 "it's the only high speed available to us so we grin and bear it"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
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Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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They constantly call and send junk mail trying to set us up with their phone,high speed,satellite tv service only to fall way short when I ask them to quote pricing.They can't show me any savings.Our free calling area is so small it makes ya cry.As it is our phone,high speed service through Frontier works ok enough,but I believe they owe us faster service for what we pay.I doubt Frontier will be able to manage so many more customers.
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 Review by Sarick
UPDATED: 10 days ago
member for 6.4 years, 391 visits, last login: 5 days ago
USA
$51 per month
"Good hardware"
"Multiple repair tickets for same problem"
"It's the only service available"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings match consensus)
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Last year they upgraded the download caps we loved the fact of having maximum connection limits. Service was wonderful and our connection was stable.
We contacted support over technical issues of being disconnected recently 3/2008. This happened after a line was damaged in route to our house was repaired. (a tree fell on the lines) An intermittent issue caused attenuation to reach over 60+ causing our connections to drop with an average that was 51. After contacting the tech support a ticket was issued.
The problem appeared to be resolved and out connection was again working at about 2m+ down. We again started having issues, We again contacted support after unusual errors. That night our max limit prematurely dropped to the minimum guaranteed rates. The problems with drop offs continued and we again contacted support. The next day a tech visited our hour for the first time and we had no issues.
Unfortunately, because of contacting support our connection limits that where previously 100% reliable before 2008 where permanently capped. I contacted support and was given the run around that we only guarantee 1m down and because the problem is fixed they don't understand why I'm upset.
UPDATE:
I finally contacted, frontiernet's main company about this issue and a nice employee called me back withing hours. The issue was fixed and my line was upgraded to 2.6 meg. Today it went down for the first time in months after I called up over congestion. now it's at 3.7 almost 4 meg down.
There are still a lot of errors but I suppose as long as the line is stable and fast I'm not complaining. I'm very please that this single representative got through the red tape and fixed everything.
UPDATE:11/11/09
did a line test seems ok enough but as you can see they still have some minor backbone network issues that aren't on my end.
»/linequality/nil/2585263
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Review by JSmith113
Posted: 17 days ago
member for 17 days, 0 visits, last login: 17 days ago
Kingman,Mohave,AZ
Contract price not specified.
"Slightly better then nothing"
"They don't want to do anything"
"It's like wheel of fortune"
| Pre Sales information:
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Tech Support:
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(ratings match consensus)
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We pay for a business account for our 4 home computers where it's been fine for awhile. Recently we moved down the road. Now we're getting speeds as low as 100kbps, NEVER anywhere near what we're paying for and frequent disconnects. When we called them to ask them to fix this, they said they couldn't see a problem on their end so they can't send anyone out. We've tried different routers and other peoples networks, the problem has to be on their end. We've got an appointment with another company tomorrow.
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 Review by guypd
UPDATED: 38 days ago
member for 1.5 years, 755 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Silver Springs,Wyoming,NY
$34 per month (24 month contract)
about 7 days
"First year is free"
"We lose our connection every time it rains"
"Switched back to RR"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings below consensus)
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(update)After continuously comparing bandwidth between my mom's dsl with Frontier and our Road Runner connection, the Road Runner connection is always about three times the bandwidth and less than half of the latency.
(update)My mother, who still has Frontier DSL, got hit by lightning. She called Frontier's customer service and told them that she lost the phones and DSL. The service tech came out and got the phones back online, but never checked the DSL. She had to call them again and finally drove an hour to one of their centers, to pick up a new modem.
(update)Forget trying to get anywhere with their customer service. If you tell them you have an issue, only when it is raining and the lines are wet, they will still send a technician the next day, even though the sun is shining and everything is dried out.
(update)Switched back to Road Runner after less than six months with Frontiernet. It was a mistake to ever switch to Frontiernet.
Switched from Time Warner's Road Runner to Frontiernet's 10M DSL with a new plan that the first year is free and the second year is only $30/month and a promise that the 10M was available to our house. This turned out to be a mistake
After having the service for almost a month, we had several problems and tech support was a 45 minute wait on the phone. Technicians came out the next day and found a problem between us and the CO. Our speeds, 3568/374, are better than they were yesterday, 503/260, but not as good as they had been, 4417/376. This definitely is not what they promised us, though.
Apparently, when it rains our connection is unstable. This is terrible. I guess I have to hope for a drought, so I can have a good connection. Because of the bad connections in the wet weather, Frontier keeps throttling back our speed, instead of fixing the actual problem. The latency has really tanked, too. We were getting a latency around 35 ms, but now we are over 80 ms.
Every time it rains, we can look forward to speeds around 500/200 and a latency over 100 ms. It is terrible.
»/linequality/nil/2450089
Frontier has released their announcement on their caps, and our speed is down to 95/78 with a latency of 695 ms. Go figure.
After lying to us about the availability of 10M being available in our area and their position on net neutrality, I am not holding our breath about their honesty, that people in their price protection agreement, won't be capped, also.
Attachments:
Followup comments:  | | 
Racerbob
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
 ·FrontierNet Intern..
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Oh Yeah?? Well what does what you are getting in Elk Grove, CA have to do with what we have for service here in Western NY State ? Congrats guypd on getting Frontier DSL and welcome to you. I have had the service since March 18th and like you, switched from Roadrunner. I could not be happier with Frontier's service and speed so far. | |
| | | 
spewak
R.I.P Dadkins
Premium
join:2001-08-07
Elk Grove, CA | Re: Oh Yeah?? Easy Hoss, Easy! Don't get all Bi-coastal on me! You dig? 
--
The weekend is here, grab a can of beer! | |
| | | phantom77
join:2004-11-04
Rochester, NY
| I live in West Irondequoit and my speeds are just over a meg. The frontier guys have been here 4 or 5 times this year because right down the road about 3 miles speeds are 6 megs. I hate frontier and am just waiting til the end of july for my contract to be up and it's Roadrunner all the way. | |
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spewak
R.I.P Dadkins
Premium
join:2001-08-07
Elk Grove, CA | Re: Oh Yeah?? That in a nutshell was my situation. I grew weary of slow speeds. 
--
The weekend is here, grab a can of beer! | |
| | | | | phantom77
join:2004-11-04
Rochester, NY
2 edits | Re: Oh Yeah?? Oh yeah true, But I was trying to contradict Mazakman because lives about 5 to 8 miles from me in western Ny and frontier is way slower than RR. Thats why the have the couple hundred dollar penalty for breaking you're contract. They'de be up the creek w/out that fine print. RR has no contracts. They dont need it. When you're selling Corvette's for the same price you're competion can only get and sell Chevette's for you dont need trickery. | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | phantom77
join:2004-11-04
Rochester, NY
| Re: Oh Yeah?? See what I mean. The highest i get is about 1500. I avg. about 1200. The techs did everything they could. It used to be half that, then they bumped it up, but then I would keep getting dropped because the equipment outside is old and cant handle it. I.E. no central office points. They aren't up in West Irondequoit w/ no plans in the near future to upgrade them either. I was told by them. I.m a block west of the House of Guitars, and the techs told me that since I'm right near the river gorge and relatively close to the lake I.m stuck in a corner that isn't of great importance. Tha''ts why you're flyin' there. Webster and Penfield etc... are growing, Irondequoit is full. And 60% senior citizens so it basically comes down do the demographics.. One good thing is though the customer service is awesome. When we first had it installed, a month later we got a second computer, they came out to hook up the wireless network, the guy pulls out a wireless card, I said "man I'm gonna run up to the bank." He says "why"? I say "because those things are like 40$". He goes" the ones in my van aren't". Then a year later they came out and put all new lines from the pole to the house and inside too. Then after that the speed was like 2 meg, but we were getting dropped all the time, so they had to do a repair near Hudson and Norton on the pole to stable us out at these pathetic speeds.
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Racerbob
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
·FrontierNet Intern..
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Oh Yeah?? Wow. I can see why you are anxious to get RR. We are just east of the bay and our part of Webster is not growing. We are in a neighborhood that is full of 45 year old homes. ( or older ) There are some very nice new and very expensive homes right near the bay and those are very near to us. Maybe Frontier is trying to please the rich folks that live there. My parents are down off of St. Paul near St. Thomas the Apostle. I haven't speed tested there lately, but I know that my dad was seeing somewhere aroung 4.5 to 5 megs with the up to 6 meg cap. I had heard that their CO was up around Norton St. somewhere. | |
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spewak
R.I.P Dadkins
Premium
join:2001-08-07
Elk Grove, CA | 
--
The weekend is here, grab a can of beer! | |
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Racerbob
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
1 edit | Re: Oh Yeah?? Wow, thats cool. But no way would I pay $120 a month for that. I can wait a minute longer to download any of the large fles that I get...which aren't too many. $120 a month for internet ? You can have it. | |
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Racerbob
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
·FrontierNet Intern..
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Oh Yeah?? OK...well as I said. First...I am not jealous. I have no use for the speed that you have. 20 megs won't make my web browsing any faster or enhance my internet experience. Second... the service where I live is very nice. I routinely see over 80% of my 10 meg download speed and that is fine by me. Furthermore, my current deal with Frontier has me paying $48 for the whole first year of my service. That is $48 for the whole year not per month. And then in year two, it goes to $34.98 a month. Yes, I took their phone service too, and that is locked in for two years at $19.99 a month plus the inevitable taxes. My TV service is through DirecTV. So we are both happy it seems. Frontier in this neck of the woods is at least trying to take steps to improve their services and after trying them twice before, this time it is 100 % better. | |
| | | | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
·Comcast
·Qwest.net
 ·magicjack.com
 ·BeeCreek Communica..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| Umm, what point are you trying to make, spewak? You live in an area serviced by FiOS. Awesome. Most of us don't, and it sounds like in some cases Frontier does a decent job with their service where you can't get FiOS. Roadrunner does a better job in some areas, worse in others. It's downright silly to say you have "one up" on someone else because you live where there is FiOS, and thus have it, and they don't.
I'd pay for the 2020 FiOS tier if it was around here. Maybe even more. But the fastest internet in this neck of the woods is 15/2 RR business or 12/1 WS business. Or for residential tiers, 8/768 RR or 12/768 WS. No wait, I'm outside of town so 2/512 would be $100 a month for me.
As I said, I'd get FiOS if I could, but it'll be ~2015 before that happens. | |
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guypd
join:2008-05-08
Silver Springs, NY | Very happy I am very happy with the service that we are getting. We aren't getting the full speed, because of the distance from the office, but overall, it is quite satisfactory.
The deal that Frontier offered us, to switch, can't be beat, either. | |
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guypd
join:2008-05-08
Silver Springs, NY | No longer very happy After finding out that whenever we have wet weather, we are going to be struggling to keep our connection, I am no longer pleased with this service. | |
| 
GNM
@frontiernet.net
| Frontiernet in Elk Grove, California I have had Frontier-net in the Elk Grove, California area for approximately 5 years. I pay $29.99 per month plus all of the taxes for a DSL line that was originally rated at 1mb down and 128k up. I generally get around 3 mb download an 350k up. The system has been very stable for about the past 4 years. I did have some problems when I first got the service but it was cleared up by the company quickly. I'm in a rural area and no cable is available where I live. The only other choice AFAIK would be satellite and those are rather pricey.
Although I seldom call them, I've never have any problem reaching the technical support line. Sometimes you have to wait 5 minutes or so but I can't complain about that.
The only strange thing is that they keep wanting to raise the price to $39.99 a month until I call them and agree to take the service for another year. Then they leave the price at $29.99. Go figure. | |
|
Racerbob
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY | Have I mentioned ? Have I mentioned that I am very happy to be back on Roadrunner ? | |
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guypd
join:2008-05-08
Silver Springs, NY | Re: Have I mentioned ? I think we are contemplating going back to Road Runner, also. | |
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Racerbob
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY | Re: Have I mentioned ? Well times a wasting guypd. Get on with it. | |
| jonnn
join:2005-04-01
Sacramento, CA | elk grove where do you guys live in elk grove? i live near sheldon high school and the internet is really shitty around here (130 kb/s download, night lag 7-11pm) | |
| | HOLLYWOOD727
join:2007-10-06
Wilton, CA
| Re: elk grove map out how far you are from the CO. That may be one problem...
run multiple tests to the Bay Area ISPs and see what you get on numbers...
what kind of Latencies are you experiencing on your tests?
have you done a phone line quality test?
I'm sure you have a capable PC?
Frontier guarantees minimum up/down speeds... if you don't meet the minimums... they have to fix it. I think their minimum for DL is 768kbps - UL 128kbps
| |
| jonnn
join:2005-04-01
Sacramento, CA | im about 5 miles from the CO, im positive the problem is on frontiers end | |
| | 
Smith6612
Premium
join:2008-02-01
united state | Re: elk grove It most likely is. A lack of bandwidth at your remote terminal is most likely the problem. | |
| bbarry
join:2008-01-11
Chemung, NY
·FrontierNet Intern..
| said by HOLLYWOOD727 :
Frontier guarantees minimum up/down speeds... if you don't meet the minimums... they have to fix it. I think their minimum for DL is 768kbps - UL 128kbps
Frontier Residential High-Speed Internet Terms and Conditions
No Warranties
We make no representation or warranty regarding the actual speed of High Speed Internet or other Services provided by Frontier. Actual speed may vary and depend on several factors, including Customer location, equipment, and traffic on the Internet. Speed comparisons to dialup based on average download speeds of 28 Kbps and 56 Kbps modems. | |
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Review by Smith6612
UPDATED: 63 days ago
member for 1.8 years, 972 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Sanborn,Niagara,NY
Contract price not specified.
about 7 days
"Fast, always on, good pings, great support"
"None as of yet"
"Is a good service for anyone escaping cable"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well above consensus)
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UPDATE Sept 19, 2009: Service is still great. Only wish I could get higher speeds than 3Mbps since my line will handle them.
Just like my Verizon review, I'm going to summarize this review.
We have had FrontierNet DSL for a couple years now. Was the first customer to get hooked up in the area, and began at 1Mbps/128kbps speed. A few weeks later, the line was boosted for free to 3Mbps/384kbps. The modem supplied was a SpeedStream 6520 which is still in use to this day. The modem itself is a wireless router. The router doesn't seem to be able to pick up the reception from the computers very well on the other end of the home, but it is certainly strong enough to get to the computer. However, not sure if this is due to config or not (most likely my config), the modem doesn't play very well with Steam's server list, and being the gamer I am, I tend to lock the SpeedStream up for a few minutes after running Steam's list.
In terms of the quality of service, the line has been rock solid since it's been installed. No dropouts, the SNR sits in the mid to lower 20s, sometimes peaking down to 6dB on a rare day but it never loses sync nor do the speeds or pings degrade in quality, and the service is 2 miles away from the CO in wire. The speeds hit a constant 3100kbps of download, and a constant 384kbps of upload, and the pings sit at roughly 12ms to the first gateway. I have to say though, even though Frontier's routing may not be as good as my other DSL line's routing, the pings I have gotten on Frontier's network are quite good. I've hit 200ms solid ping to Australia on several occasions.
I have had only one problem in the few years I've had service. This issue was when the service failed to get a PPPoA connection and I was without internet connectivity for a day. Calling up tech support, they were very helpful, and connected me with someone at the CO who told me of what may happen in order to get my line fixed. Though a truck roll was scheduled, no truck showed up but the line was fixed the next morning. There was also one time where the New Jersey portion of the network coming out of Rochester must've been down and Frontier had been loading their Chicago link down which did cause some degraded speeds and elevated pings for a day, but the issue was fixed within a day as well.
I have noticed that during the night times however, right after the holidays that the pings from an outside network to the DSL connection are starting to go up. This may be a wake up call, as though the speeds and pings remain the same on the Frontier connection's end, when pinging the same connection at my Verizon line, in the morning I'll be getting a good 53ms ping to it, where as at night, the ping will be from 60ms to 115ms ping. If it starts to get worse, I'll be sure to convince Frontier of a possible bandwidth issue and raise a yellow flag with them to see what is going on. Wouldn't want to see the service hit the fan after 3-4 years of great service now, would we? 
But Frontier has been great and I hope for anyone looking for service in Sanborn, to look for Frontier for your needs. I guess a lot of people already have them in Sanborn and every person I've asked about the service have been happy with it.
======UPDATE JAN 28, 2009======
I gave Frontier a call and it turns out the CO is running low on bandwidth. They are aware of the issue and are current in the works of installing more bandwidth, so things should be fixed up soon! See my topic on it called "Sanborn NY issues" in the forums for anyone wanting the full details.
Followup comments: | | | | |
guypd
join:2008-05-08
Silver Springs, NY | Re: I wish their service was more uniform I just sent an e-mail to Frontier, asking if they would waive their ETF, if we cancelled, since we have a bad connection here. We will see what they have to say.
Plus, if they start to enforce the 5GB cap, we would use that in less than a week. | |
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spewak
R.I.P Dadkins
Premium
join:2001-08-07
Elk Grove, CA
·SureWest Internet
·FrontierNet Intern..
| Re: I wish their service was more uniform said by Smith6612 :I just hope Frontier doesn't implement the caps or at least keep them this low as they're proposing, as I'd hate to lower their ranking on this review just because of a cap. Smith,
What would you do if Frontier does lower the caps to the intended and publicized 5gig a month? I was reading that maybe the Term committed subs will be cap free.
--
The weekend is here, grab a can of beer! | |
| | | | | |
Smith6612
Premium
join:2008-02-01
united state
 ·Dish Network
·Verizon Online DSL
·FrontierNet Intern..
3 edits | Re: I wish their service was more uniform Ultimately, I don't know really. I would call them up and ask them what is going on and how much they are charging per extra GB, and then ask them why they wanted caps in the first place. Really, Frontier's infrustructure and backbones are sound, no bottlenecks in there, but if anything, the slow downs are because of either your line losing sync, or because of a local bandwidth squeeze. Now, running trace routes from the Frontier connection, I'm pulling some very good pings and stable data streams over Frontier's network, even to the other side of the US in California.
Honestly, I'd just have to say that whoever wanted this cap is trying to get people angry, as caps aren't going to stop bandwidth crunches. When the caps are reset, you get more bandwidth crunching. Any person who knows a thing about offering internet speeds is to serve areas with at least an OC-3 (150Mbps symm), and that's what Frontier needs to do and stop using T1's and T3s to fuel areas unless it's THAT rural.
DSL was also not meant to be a capped service, nor was Cable for that matter. Basically, it's meant to have unlimited amount of usage in a sense, but have your speed capped via provisioning. Cable modems, sure you can hack them to get the max bandwidth for your area, but DSL, there's no way you can fiddle with the sync as that's done on the CO/RT side, and considering the way DSL works, if there was a way to mess with your sync rate to make it higher than you pay for like cable, there's no way you'd be able to max out an OC-3 or a T3 line for that matter unless you're on VDSL simply because many customers are just that far away, even on ADSL2+.
Frontier's chance at competing with cable, especially Time Warner and Comcast IS their UNCAPPED DSL product, while slower and maybe more unstable on crappy/long phone lines, having no caps will surely charge their DSL beyond cable when the cable companies cap their users. And as someone on this site stated before, you are paying to be provisioned/capped at a certain speed, not paying to have a certain speed AND data caps. The only reason Frontier should cap would be if they let everyone get the max line sync possible for their DSL line (which means uncapped speed, basically sync as high as it can go stabally) and say they can use as much speed as they can get. | |
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Review by noprob
UPDATED: 72 days ago
member for 6.6 years, 5 visits, last login: 72 days ago
Renick,Greenbrier,WV
$101 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"not bad for being out in the boondocks/nowheresville"
"only 3MB download,be nice to have at least 6MB"
"this is the best in my area"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
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First and foremost I could not believe even DSL service was available in this area.
I am approximately 20 miles north on 219 from the intersection of Interstate 64 to a road called Auto in a town/city goes by the name Renick,WV,but seems to be listed on the www/net as Falling Springs,something to do with district regulations.
I use a program called NetStat Live downloaded from »www.analogx.com/ which showed me my avg. upload/download speeds.
At first my downloads were around 100KB/s,so I called Frontiernet a few times asking them if this is normal, they stated they would look into it.
Within a month or so my internet connection more then doubled.
I now download around 333KB/s+ and upload is above 38KB/s.
@34.99 monthly for this service even tho the total cost is more w/unlimited long distance and other charges it's ok.
I don't care for the added cost of "renting" their modem/gateway/router,but I guess if you want this service you have to.
Showing respect to tech support goes a long way as they will do their best to help.
The only alternative to DSL broadband in this area would be Satellite as I seem to be in a dead area for any cable service.
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Review by qezden
UPDATED: 77 days ago
member for 123 days, 11 visits, last login: 38 days ago
Pine Bush,Orange,NY
$69 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Gives some access here and there."
"Unreliable, slow, and we pay more than other services."
"Great when we started with them, beyond bad now."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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We are pretty limited with our access to high speed internet in our area. Frontier here was great when we started, we were quoted 1 mb down, not sure on the upload limit. We often got way more than that, and sometimes up to 3200k DL speed was often easy to get. Unfortunately, over the past year or so, the service has gone from out once every few months, to barely usable at certain times. Resetting the modem and router is now a thing we do before getting on the computer in order to make sure we have access. I was an avid WoW player, ping times where around 120 to 200 ish at worst, which is fine considering how far we are out, and the server I use is in CA. I have since quit playing the game due to the fact that the connection here can not hold up long enough to enjoy more than checking my in game mail. If I get that far, I consider it lucky. The ping time on the servers now are average around 400 to 500, and at times above 12,000, making the game unplayable. Monday, I will be calling them and asking to have a look at our setup and see what they will turn up or whether they will even try. I would say that if you are in the area and looking for an ISP, I would look elsewhere if you can. We have multiple machines on this DSL line, with a great router and each machine can connect to each other regardless of if the internet can or not. We have changed routers three times, we have unplugged all the phones and the fax machines to try that, but it seems as the issue is now worse than it was in the beginning. Changed the cables with new ones, and even changed the modem out once. Not sure what else we can do to fix this.
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Review by Drone6076
UPDATED: 82 days ago
member for 181 days, 6 visits, last login: 82 days ago
Moab,Grand,UT
$134 per month
about 7 days
"The only broadband game in town."
"Frontier plays the contract game and jack up prices incrementally."
"The devil is in the details!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I have a two year contract for digital phone service and high speed internet.
Pro: Rather idiot-proof interfaces and setup - great for non-tech people or the elderly.
Pro: Local techs and installers are top-notch and very professional.
Pro: Customer service is excellent and polite, but have to be cut-throat in these hard economic times.
Con: Frontier speeds fluctuate greatly. Some times of the day it seems congested and sluggish hovering around 400kbps and at other times it can reach close to 3mb. Upload in rural areas is always significantly worse, which is due to infrastructure issues and oversold bandwidth.
Con: Frontier redirects your DNS lookups to Yahoo search. In rural areas your DNS servers will be physically far away, which slows down every single webpage load.
Con: Frontier's homepage and webmail is My Yahoo.
Con: Frontier charges you rent for a modem which you can never pay off. In one year of dishing out $5.99 a month you could have bought a-top-of-the-line router with all the bells & whistles rather than the siemens rebranded gateway forced on you by Frontier. The supplied modem is a SE567 which is extremely easy for war-drivers and freeloaders to break into and steal your signal or sniff your traffic. In rural parts of Utah, Frontier techs on the other side of the country can telnet right into your gateway bypassing all the security settings. You can bridge the modem to a third-party router but Frontier does not support this and offers no technical support or documentation.
Con: Frontier plays the contract game many cellphone providers have been sued over in recent years. If you sign up for a $70 a month contract, be prepared for close to $20 in taxes and the modem rental fee knocking it up around $95. Frontier will not tell you how much you will be paying in taxes as per their policy. When your contract expires, rather than offering you a promotional contract to get you signed back up, they jack up the rates. For bundled long-distance and ADSL my current rate is $133.99
If you end up having to go with Frontier, ask the techs to put the phone line and the ADSL lines on separate runs - this will greatly improve your latency and upload speed, and might save you the hassle of having to use line filters. Also, make sure that if you are using wireless phones that they are not on the 2.4GHz spectrum because it will degrade your wifi signal.
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Review by speedhacks
Posted: 82 days ago
member for 87 days, 7 visits, last login: 10 days ago
Charles Town,Jefferson,WV
$55 per month (month by month)
about 10 days
"Reliable?"
"Slow, pricey, horrible / lack of customer service."
"Don't even waste time or money until they offer the speed the fiber can provide."
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Just built a brand new home in Huntfield and was given the option of fiber. When I found out I was ecstatic! Boy was I wrong to get my hopes up. I'm not offered DSL at my location it is fiber. I started to do some research by calling their help desk to find out speeds / pricing. Well if you look on their website - they don't offer fiber even though the hardware is fiber... Hmmm, well nobody could point me to someone that knew. I was blatantly told they didn't offer fiber to the home, didn't know what I was talking about. I called 4 seperate times to 4 different people, clueless. I had to call the local Frontier office in Charles Town to get some traction and knowledge on the service. However, they were unable to provide me with speeds. They only knew pricing was $49.99/mo + $4.99/mo for router rent. $34.99 installation for installation. My first (only bill was ~$130). Misc BS costs and stuff.
Had a tech out about a week later to perform the install. Took him about 6.5 hours to do the install but it was very clean and professional. Very happy with it. (Only part I enjoyed).
After install I decided to test speeds, this is where the big disappointment comes. Fiber and I'm just DSL speed. 3mbps down / 384 kbps up. Ping times are a little above average. To google.com (regional dns ~ 55ms).
Hardware:
Siemens Gigaset DSL/WAN gateway
APC Battery Backup
AS A WISE CONSUMER - why pay for this service is Comcast offers more speed at cheaper prices? I suppose I have the setup for when fiber plans are offered but for now - why bother? I told their customer service that if they're installing fiber without offering plans to use it, they're just wasting their money and losing customers to competition. My needs are based purely on speed for video games and remote access of my desktop and files from work.
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Review by bparisi
UPDATED: 89 days ago
member for 4 years, 104 visits, last login: 6 days ago
Bloomfield,Ontario,NY
$15 per month (12 month contract)
"Consistent speed download speeds, poor latecy and random lags."
"Deceptive practices, misinformed CSR's, you likely WILL NOT receive advertised speeds."
"If you have no choice it is worth the risk, but be prepared to deal with csr's and tech support to get what you are paying for!"
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New review in process, stay tuned.
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