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Review by Action2 
member for 2.7 years, 411 visits, last login: 3 days ago
updated 5 days ago
 Newman,Douglas,IL
 $60 per month- (12 month contract)
 about 6 days "Low Latency, great uptime." "Congestion issues limit speed during prime time hours." "Expensive for what you get."
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Update 4-03-2013:
It seems Frontier still can not get a handle on the congestion issues. They have become more severe since the last review. Speeds are generally below 3Mb after 5PM and the low speeds occasionally stay down in the basement until well after midnight.
With the window for low speeds widening instead of closing, their service is becoming less valuable for the price they are asking.
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Update 9-26-2012:
Another short update, the new bonded DSL plan is now available and I have upgraded to 12Mb Bonded DSL. The speeds are definitely improved. With this new plan, a new modem/router combo was issued, leaving me with a Comtrend nexuslink 5631.
Congestion is still apparent, I have had severe drops in bandwidth during prime time over the last couple of weeks. Speeds are generally 10-11Mb/s until the 8PM-1AM time frame.
Value for money is a little better in my opinion, with the 2Mb upload being particularly nice.
Bottom line: Once congestion is cleared up, this bonded DSL will be a solid service.
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Update 8-15-2012:
Quick update to this review, it appears upgrades have taken place and I can now order 7.1Mb DSL.
I have switched to their new dry loop plan that was recently made available for a similar price but faster speed.
Congestion is still a minor issue at times with speeds dipping during peak hours slightly, however latency usually remains low and bandwidth generally remains above 5Mb.
With the faster speed, the service is becoming more worth the price compared to speeds I had before.
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Update 4-9-2012:
Since I wrote this review, the congestion has been mostly cleared up. There are still times of congestion on the network near Chicago, but over all latency and peak time bandwidth has improved.
The most problematic issue with the service at this point is value for money. Despite being on ADSL2+, and very close to the CO I am limited to a 3Mb connection downstream, and 768k upload. I am on the Frontier Max plan and I am currently being charged $57 per month for dry loop DSL line, ($50 + $7 modem fee) which is a very poor speed to cost ratio.
Hopefully greater speeds will be available soon, as current speeds are low even for DSL standards.
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Summary: $57 a month for 3Mb DSL with congestion still being an occasional problem during peak times. Expensive and slow overall speeds compared to modern high speed internet.
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Original review:
I have had the 3Mbit/s Frontier DSL for the past few months, starting probably in late October of 2010 when it first became available in my area. The service started out great however I started noticing congestion issues from 7pm-midnight every night starting in early november.
Now on average the speeds are about 1Mbit/s with latency of over 200ms every evening. Calling Frontier customer service is not always as helpful as it should,
During non peak hours the latency is usually under 50ms for nearby locations with speeds greatly varying up to the max 3Mbit/s limit of course. I have recently been debating if I should consider going back to the local Wireless ISP in the area as I feel Frontier doesn't have the strength needed to overcome their issues in a reasonable amount of time.
Comments:
 | | and another one. I find it almost comical that out of the last 5 or more reviews customers point out 2 main points. One being an oversold network, and 2 very high latency.
They also point out the go nowhere tech support. The CS reps cant even look at SNR/attenuation numbers from dslams. Frontier techs must go crazy with all the service calls to houses where they know the cause is an oversold network. | |
| | | Refund Frontier service was canceled on February 7, 2012. All equipment was returned and today April I made my third call about the $129,84 Frontier owes me They claim I should receive it in 2 to 3 weeks. Unacceptable!!!!!!!!!!! Never again will I deal with this company, | |
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Review by isp10002
member for 165 days, 126 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 18 days ago
- Burbank,Wayne,OH
- $40 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 7 days
- "Consistent fast speeds"
- "Nothing so far."
- "Great service, frontier needs to work on getting faster speeds"
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I got this installed a few days ago, we got the highest package we could get 3 Mbps down 768k up, speeds are very consistent I'm getting 2.5 mbps down and . 5 up all the time, fast speeds, but I wish I could get something a little faster but 3 Mbps Is fine I play Xbox live and rarely have lag, but I wish I could get faster speeds buy 3 Mbps will have to do.
Update 1 week later
So far frontier is doing great, but I'm getting 2.5 mbps down and . 6 upload out of the 3mbps down and 768k up. I play Minecraft and Xbox and have no lag, I plan on staying with frontier for a long time in till cable comes to my area. I can stream 720p videos with no buffering and 1080p with little buffering.
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Review by William
member for 2.9 years, 1234 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 20 days ago
- Washougal,Clark,WA
- $30 per month
- about 7 days
- "No complaints"
- "Nothing so far"
- "Reliable, fast, no lag"
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As an ex-satellite user, was quite skeptical about Frontier was even really available here, my location is over 10 miles from the nearest town, there is a remote terminal about 2 miles down the road. Had Frontier DSL since 02-23-12 and took about a week for the install, using the Westell 7500 modem/router, all in all quite happy with the service.
Started with 3 Mbps down and 768K up, normally see speeds of ~ 3 Mbps down and ~ 1 Mbps up, don't recall exact date upload speed increased to 1 Mbps from 768. Have yet to contact Frontier for support, been over a year now. Pings generally stay below 50 ms, all hours of the day, but do spike every now and then, still when its higher than what was mentioned, beats satellite pings, no complaints, not an online gamer.
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Review by DurhamDanger
member for 25 days, 3 visits, last login: 12 days ago
lodged 25 days ago
- Durham,Durham,NC
- Contract price not specified.
- "Local Tech Support are Great"
- "Oversold DSL leads to speeds LESS THAN Dialup"
- "$5 credit off bill still does not help crappy speeds"
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I was one of those many people who had Verizon before they sold Durham to Frontier. The sale was years in planning during which time Verizon ran Durham into the ground. On the switch to Frontier my network immediately bottomed out. However the field engineers and local techs worked through the issues and fixed my 3Mbps/768kbps to acceptable speeds hovering around 2.5 Mbps.
Until last week that is...we have been experiencing terribly crappy speeds during the evening hours and just plain crappy speeds during the day. We've even had network disconnections happen now. My last speed tests are now showing horrific speeds of 168kbps down. That is even crappy for dial-up!
When consulting with the technician, she admitted Durham has been over-subscribed in DSL and they don't expect to have it completely fixed until June 2013. Sending me over to customer support, they could only offer me a $5 credit for six months. That's five dollars off unusable service? It's like handing a company money for absolutely nothing.
I was supposed to get a call from the local technical manager to either explain the issue and do something about it or offer up something else. Nope. No call today.
I am having to move to another service (most likely Earthlink cable) to get the Internet back into my house.
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Review by smtfish
member for 10.1 years, 87 visits, last login: 32 days ago
updated 32 days ago
- Shepherdstown,Jefferson,WV
- Contract price not specified.
- "pleasant employees, sometimes helpful, always professional"
- "inefficient bureaucracy, *!# yahoo ad-laden webmail, slow dsl offerings, monopoly"
- "love-hate relationship with the new/old Frontier"
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At my home office, I have the only DSL speed supposedly offered in my area which is 2.5 mbps down, 512 up. (There used to be multi-tiered offerings but when I inquired I was told I only have one option). I've been a customer with Frontier both on the business side (POTS,T-1,metro-e,PRI) and their residential side (POTS, DSL) for over 15 years. I oversee services which total over $1400/month to Frontier.
I abhor their sales/marketing function. As a customer, I get constant mailings to buy services I already have, while at the same time being exhorted to go green with electronic statements. Physical statements often have ads selling junk for 3rd party services. Their sales technique to a captive audience in what is essentially a monopoly market is ineffective at best- irritating at worst. Having been a long-time customer, my irritation with Frontier continues to escalate over time. In addition to their snail mailings their current Yahoo web-mail is laden with cr@pvertising, C'mon I'm a paying customer. If there was another option for combined phone+internet I'd jump ship in a heartbeat.
Frontier is a multi-headed monster. I've been transferred between as many as four agents in a circular loop. I've signed contracts for services that took 6+ months to install (still in process). After the sale is made - don't expect the salesperson to call back if there is trouble. Where's the accountability?
Frontier has many gems in its technical support staff if you can get to the 2nd tier support or talk to people actually making the repairs. They are pleasant, intelligent, stay on the problem until it is resolved, and followup.
One problem I've noticed is that the support functions are divided by specialty (by necessity) but they often don't talk to each other. As a result diagnosis is often slow and sometimes the first response is along the lines of "we can't see a problem, it must be on your end" or "are you willing to accept any fees before we come out" Jeez, I thought you were the experts. In a world where network testers can tell me a line break is 50 ft away, I still don't understand why their troubleshooting tools seem to be lacking. This is both a technology and a management issue. Focus here first- not on your marketing. There once was a time after a recurring number of failures with Frontier, that I had a dedicated rep - amazingly all the problems and frustrations seemed to vanish almost instantly. Sadly that hasn't been the case for some time now
Frontier executives, please sit in on a support ticket from beginning to end. To truly understand the magnitude of your inefficiency, don't interfere in the process because then you won't see all the circular loops and hoops your customers are jumping through.
Frontier, cut your sales and marketing budget, streamline your support processes and use the money you save to improve your infrastructure in WV, improve your internet offerings to be competitive with Comcast, and get rid of the yahoo mail for residential customers. . . Then perhaps instead of deterring other people from signing up for your services, I will actually recommend you.
update 2013Mar6. I still stand by my original review but I will mention on the plus side I was able to increase my speeds to roughly 6 mbps down/768 kbps up. That said, they seem to be severely bandwidth constrained at their Charles Town, Central Office especially during the evenings. Heck, they even admit it on their speedtest.frontiernet.net webpage. I've been with them so long, I probably could be described as tel-codependent.
Comments:
| | Ditto Very well written sir!
I agree 100% with your evaluation.
Just to compare, TDS telecom has its own in house web app's to access every type of DSLAM they have, Anymedia, Calix, ect. You could even Telnet into a stinger if you needed to. And that was just level 1 support. If you needed to adjust a customers Modulation it was on call to a SR , to have them adjust them.
We had a Intranet chock full of granular topics to find the answer if you needed it.
I find that frontier spends gob's of cash on truck roll's due to their CSR's throwing their hands up in the air, or just putting to problem on the customers end.
Time to clean house frontier. | |
| | | Off topic. What does TDS telecom have to do with this review? Don't spam the forum. | |
| | | | Re: Off topic. trying to sell TDS's service in other areas??? They are a CLEC as well. | |
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| | Yahoo! Mail If you don't like the Yahoo! Webmail why use it? Why not go else where to obtain your own domain and host it some where? | |
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Review by Gentoo
member for 60 days, 19 visits, last login: 29 days ago
updated 45 days ago
- Carbondale,Jackson,IL
- $45 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 21 days
- "Good off peak speeds and not much else"
- "Extremely High ping, Congestion, and Horrible tech support."
- "Oversold network, It's just not worth it."
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I signed up for frontiers 3Mbps/0.750Mbps Dry line DSL package for $40 a month plus a $5 modem rental fee. When we signed up they told us it would be on in 1-2 days. That never happened, we ended up waiting about 3 weeks with multiple calls to frontier wandering what the hell was going on. I'm not sure if there was a legitimate problem or that they just don't care.
Were I live frontier seems to suffer extreme congestion problems, starting at noon my speed slowly drop then about 7-10 it just dies completely with downloads as slow as 0.10Mbps. Then at midnight my speeds skyrocket to a constant 2.8Mbps. Overall I'm not very pleased and living in rural southern Illinois, I won't be seeing any upgrades for a long time.
I am no longer a Frontier Customer.
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Review by applerule
member for 105 days, 107 visits, last login: 1 days ago
updated 46 days ago
- Weaverville,Buncombe,NC
- $45 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 5 days
- "DSL Internet is better than dialup"
- "Speed not as advertised, customer service, communication."
- "Use 4G/3G/Satellite instead...it's that bad."
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Where I live my options were to go with Frontier DSL, WISP, Cellular, or Satellite. The first thing I tried was the WISP; however, after a site survey I do not have good enough LOS to the tower to get the service. Therefore, since Frontier was the only uncapped option left, I decided to go with them.
Subscribing to the service was interesting. Even though I knew Frontier serviced my area (my neighbor has it), I had to call twice to even get them to say that I could get service. I ordered their DSL 'Broadband Ultra' plan - which is up to 12mbps. When I talked to Frontier on the phone, they said the fastest I would ever be able to receive was 7.1mbps even though I would be paying for 12mbps. I agreed to this. The install was scheduled for a Friday morning between 8am and Noon.
On Friday, the installer called me at about 8:15AM to tell me that he would be arriving in the next few minutes. The installer then arrived and installed my DSL service. I still have a line laying across my yard that the installer said would be buried in a few weeks. The installer was great...if only everything else went as well as the initial install.
After the installer left, I logged into my modem (Which is a Netgear 7550) and noticed I was only provisioned for about 3.3mbps. I called Frontier customer service and explained that I was only provisioned for 3.3. The rep told me that sometimes it takes a few hours for everything to update in their computer to reflect what I am paying for, and the speed would increase. About 8 hours later, I call back again. This time I'm told it will be after midnight before it will reprovision any faster. I call back the next morning, and am told that all I can get is 3mbps where I live. Then, I proceed to complain about the fact that I was sold the 12Mbps plan and that I will never receive that speed. I explain that I want to be dropped to a lower plan if I will never receive this speed. The rep just keeps telling me over and over that 12mbps is "up to" and not a guaranteed speed.
I had to call again to explain my situation again and then I find out that they had already dropped me to the 6Mbps plan (I am told that there is no 3Mbps plan -- I assume that the last time I called they dropped me to it without telling me or something...) --without notifying me of the change. I explain that I had not been told of this again, and ask for my new price (about $45/mo for DSL only, which was cheaper than I was originally quoted at about $55/mo for 12mbps); however, I was never informed of this change, or what my speed would be. If I had not been savvy enough to complain about this, I wonder how many people are paying for speeds that they can never receive.
Now that my Frontier has openly admitted that I will only get 3mbps, I get pretty close to that speed. During peak hours it will drop to 1.8mbps-2.4mbps, but otherwise I usually speedtest around 2.8mbps. Pings typically run in the 150-250ms range. I had 50mbps cable before, and this speed is horrible compared to what I used to get with cable, and is very noticeable. I'm in the process of mounting a 4g antenna and going with Verizon/Millenicom to get faster speeds and the 20g data cap. (No Sprint 4g here)
In short, it's better than dealing with dialup/satellite, but at these speeds and with the customer service I have had with them, I would run far away if you have any other viable options. I have had Charter and Comcast in the past and I would run back to them in a heartbeat. I would easily pay more for another service if I could get it. You don't realize how good you have it with some other companies until you have to deal with a company like Frontier.
See screenshots for best/worst tests.
Update 2/20/13:
Speeds were pretty close to 3Mbit down most of the time at first, then it just started going all over the place. Two people cannot share the line. If one person downloads something, your latency will shoot to 500+ ms.
DSL went down a few days ago due to the fact my line has been laying across the public road for over a month, even though I was assured the line would be buried within two weeks of the install. I called tech support, and even though my line was laying in the ditch, I appeased the CSR by going through all the troubleshooting steps. I was informed it would take FIVE days to get a service tech out to have it reconnected. Since it was going to take so long, and the service has been so horrible, I have officially disconnected my service and have went to 4G as my only source of internet.
I had already e-mailed our regional manager a month ago about getting some faster speeds, but that never went anywhere either.
Long story short, I am paying double what it cost for the DSL to keep some form of high speed internet, and I don't mind to do so because the experience with Frontier has been horrible. I would use 4G or satellite before I would ever go with Frontier for any services again.
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Review by brkr19
member for 65 days, 2 visits, last login: 59 days ago
lodged 59 days ago
- Genoa,Dekalb,IL
- $40 per month
- (24 month contract)
- "Very slow and costs as much as Comcast"
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Slow speed. Called tech suppt of course the speed test says 1.5mb/sec but thats not what I get when I download and the browsing is slow too. Tech suppt says "not our problem".
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Review by asdfasd2
member for 7.1 years, 5 visits, last login: 63 days ago
lodged 70 days ago
- Columbus,Platte,NE
- Contract price not specified.
- "Not owned by recording industry. I've never had a C&D."
- "Unstable, speeds not as advertised, poor tech support, VERY slow for what you pay"
- "Don't use them unless they're the only ISP in town."
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For the first few years of being with this company (since around 2003), I was miserable. Something in their box out in our yard was messed up, it was making our connection essentially unusable for MMO gaming and completely down altogether when it rained. They kept sending techs out, they started threatening to charge us for the tech trips, they kept not fixing the problem. Some of their attempts at "fixing" it resulted in our speed dropping to half for no apparent reason and it took years to get them to revert THAT change (same old distance excuse, despite the fact it was 2x faster before they started messing with it to "fix" things). EVENTUALLY, they finally replaced whatever was buggered up in the box and apologized.
The net itself, when "working correctly", is unstable, especially in the evenings, because they need a serious hardware upgrade to get with modern times. There are times when pages won't load or game latency spikes up to 2000ms.
I still have random short periods of no connection at all, though fairly rare now - 1-3 times a month.
That aside, their prices for slow internet are absurd. If your internet is slow, they will blame you or the distance, even if it's their problem.
Also worthy of note:
This is one of the companies that tried to implement a 5gb cap on slow $50/mo 3mbit connection with a steep charge per gb. Bandwidth doesn't cost nearly that much! And it's so slow compared to modern internet!
I'm not exaggerating, unfortunately. I've put up with this company because the only other ISP here is Time Warner - it's way faster but it's owned by the recording industry and too far to service me anyways.
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Review by Stimpy
member for 71 days, 1 visits, last login: 42 days ago
lodged 71 days ago
- Oberlin,Lorain,OH
- Contract price not specified.
- "# of hops, speed constant, few dropouts."
- "others in my town mention problems, other's stories."
- "I love Frontier. As far as personal experience, they've been perfect."
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I've started on Verizon and recently went from a single 768kup/6Mbdown to 2Mb up/12Mbdown bonded service. I use Second Life, which is sensitive to packet loss and latencies. I've had a few more packets dropped with the bonded ASDL, but its literally been from a few hundred dropped packets out of millions to a % or two.
The service, from the operators from the techs who've come to the house, has been outstanding. I came from AT&T which used Indian operators who were nice, but seemed pretty powerless. Verizon and now Frontier seem to have happier workers.
tl;dr: Frontier is great!
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