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Review by clamps 
Fair warning: reviewer joined this week
updated 1 days ago
 Monroe,Snohomish,WA
 $82 per month- (12 month contract)
 about 8 days Verizon "Consistent speed and reliability, non-offshore support, short wait times" "Some order confusion" "Generally positive"
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We've had DSL from Verizon (now Frontier) for about 7 years now, and it has generally been problem-free. During the Verizon-Frontier transition, the DSL went out once, but it was resolved quickly by tech support.
We also had some ongoing issues with the modem losing sync, but it turned out to be internal wiring and not Frontier's fault at all; we ran new CAT5 directly from the NID to the modem and disconnected the house wiring completely. The problems vanished, with a consistently good noise margin.
I recently called to upgrade our service from 3mbit to 7mbit and it was switched over 5 days later (at 9pm on a Sunday -- weird).We have a downstream attenuation of 45dB, so I was not sure if 7mbit service would work; however, the line must be of high quality since we still get a good 16dB noise margin after the upgrade (was 22 before). Based on the attenuation, we are probably about 3.3km from the DSLAM. Google Maps says we're more like 5.5km from the CO, so we must be fed out of a remote.
Last week I ordered a second 7mbit line via their SecondConnect offer. The tech showed up on time and connected the line, but there was no DSL signal after he left. There was a dialtone however. I called the next day to report the issue, and they will be sending out a tech today or tomorrow to look at it; although I expect the problem is at the CO. Neither modem syncs up on the new line, and they both sync on the old.
My intention is to bond the two lines together using a GRE tunnel with a Linux box as a router. The Linux box has multiple NICs, one connected to each modem and one for the LAN. The GRE endpoint is a Linode VPS in a datacenter somewhere. Aggregating the bandwidth should let me achieve approx. 14mbit download speeds. I will route bandwidth-intensive protocols like HTTP through the tunneled connection and route latency-sensitive ones (gaming, DNS) through one of the DSL connections directly.
There was a mix-up regarding the second line's phone number; they one they gave me was different than the actual number I see on caller ID when I call out. This may or may not have something to do with the DSL not working on that line. I'll update this review with the resolution.
Some people have reported billing problems with SecondConnect; obviously I haven't seen the first bill yet, so I will update the review if there are any problems.
Overall, I'm happy with Frontier. Despite the installation mix-ups (assuming they are resolved shortly) I'm glad that somebody provides broadband at my location. Satellite barely counts as broadband, and Comcast would require thousands of dollars to run cable up the street, and neighbors have reported that it is slow in this area.
We have luckily not had any speed issues that others are reporting; however, I would like them to improve their routing in the Seattle area. It seems that connections often get routed down through CA and back when connecting to other servers in Seattle. This is a bit inefficient with regards to latency, but it's not a show-stopper.
[Update 2/10/2012] No tech visit, but the DSL started working on the second line this morning. They must have finished the work connecting me at the CO. My first speed test on the bonded connection showed this result:
Download Speed: 15652 kbps (1956.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1415 kbps (176.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
A few downloads show a pretty consistent speed of about 1,500K/sec. Needless to say, I'm pretty happy!
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 Review by Smith6612
member for 4 years, 2239 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 10 days ago
- Sanborn,Niagara,NY
- $45 per month
- about 7 days
- "Decently fast, Great support, ok routing"
- "Throughput not consistent as it should be, low upload, rather expensive for speed"
- "It's a good service to use overall, but keep in mind the potential for peak usage hours to underperform"
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I subscribe to Frontier MAX, which only delivers 3Mbps/384kbps.
Here's a revised review of the Frontier review I've written earlier. I've had this DSL line for roughly 4 years now, being one of the first people to be hooked up out of our particular CO. We started off at 1Mbps/160kbps where a few weeks later, once Fiber was finally hooked up to the remote rather than having several T1s feeding it, we received a boost to 3Mbps/384kbps where the line has been since. The techs have been friendly people, always willing to help as well as to solve a problem to satisfy you, whether it'd be the field techs, or the phone support agents. The techs after a tech visit also give you their cell phone numbers to contact them should any other issue arise, something I find very kind about the support with Frontier as I've been able to get issues solved quickly by calling the tech when I know something is up on their end. An example of this is with my POTS line when a line card went bad. Couldn't dial in or out to that line and a simple call to the tech resulted in a working line an hour later when he replaced the line card. Anyways, the service for the most part is consistent, is very reliable in terms of connectivity and overall performs pretty well considering the size of Frontier. While the service does support games though, the equipment that Frontier hands out (SpeedStream/Gigaset equipment) doesn't tend to play nice with game consoles. Usually you have to bridge the gateway to another router or pick up your own modem. Lately, Frontier's been handing out Westell 7500s, which should work much better for game consoles.
I use the DSL connection like any other person would; playing online games, streaming music and uploading and downloading data. For the most part, transfer rates are where they should be, however, Frontier has huge issues with underplanning capacity for COs or regions, which is my biggest issue with them. The issues I get at night with slow-downs seem to be a yearly occurrence, and always correspond with increases in demand for bandwidth. I'm glad Frontier is remaining cap-free, so I'll put this on the table right now. My congestion woes with Frontier started up a few years ago, when our local CO was running dry of bandwidth during the night time hours. They solved this within a few weeks of reports (they got hundreds of tickets in regarding the speeds, even though they were really cut in half) by installing a brand new fiber circuit into the CO. Fast forward later on to more current times, and now the congestion we see isn't with our local CO, but is instead with the network out in Rochester. I can peg my line at a solid 3,200kbps with nothing more than 64kbps of variance (normal for any line) to the initial portion of their network in Rochester. Once you start to transverse through their network towards the rest of the Internet however or other Frontier lines, speeds, jitter, and latency go down the drain. I can still hit speeds ranging from 400kbps to 2.6Mbps during congested times, but there is most certainly a notable performance hit for loading web pages and gaming. I just wish they'd fix their network out in Rochester as it's REALLY a problem with how often it occurs. A good network operator would never let such things happen to their network due to demand, especially with the loading values I've seen on their network (They are not good values at all. I won't say how bad they are, that's how bad they are). They'd grow both the network and service by expanding capacity and optimizing routing to cut down on congestion on a single link or router.
But away from congestion, the line is a performer for what it is. Gaming's smooth, speeds are semi-solid (not flat line 95% of the time, transfer speeds canyon based on where you're downloading from but still maintain an average of 370KB/s) and latency while downloading is rather good for saturating a DSL connection, 40ms extra latency. My line seems to have an issue with downloading and uploading, where the slightest hit on the upload takes the line down to 50KB/s for downloads. Since I tend to transfer data in both directions at the same time, I've set up QoS like I have for my Verizon line, however it seems that no matter what value I do on this line, speeds will drop if I add any more than just ACK packets outgoing. Almost seems half duplex in nature. Going to see what the deal is with this as I should be able to max the download and upload out at the same time, as I can with Verizon. I just wish that besides fixing the congestion, Frontier will offer more upload to us and also perhaps consider bumping the download speeds up higher. 3Mbps is a rather old speed to be with for DSL these days, and 384kbps, while it suits Frontier Lite pretty well, is just a huge dinosaur for 3Mbps. 768kbps is where it's at.
Overall, if Frontier can improve the consistency of their service, cut down on the congestion other areas tend to see as, boost speeds, make service cheaper (while remaining uncapped and throttled like it is), and hand out more device-friendly equipment, they can very well be a very good ISP. For now, the only thing bringing down my rating of Frontier is the Value for money due to the lower speeds and inconsistent throughput. Everything else is good in my eyes, and I hope Frontier keeps it up.
On a final note: The service performs better if you use 3rd party servers, like OpenDNS or Level3 DNS, or even Google DNS. The Frontier servers don't exactly take you to servers, mainly with CDNs over the shortest routes, which on Frontier's network really kills your speed (again, due to congestion).
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Review by Dyrnwyn
member for 1 year, 12 visits, last login: 12 days ago
lodged 12 days ago
- Blomkest,Kandiyohi,MN
- $84 per month
- (24 month contract)
- "Field Techs."
- "Everything else - & just getting a field tech out is horrible."
- "If there's anything else available besides sat & dial-up, take it!"
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6 years with Frontier, & nothing but trouble. They were the only broadband provider for our town until recently, & I will be changing. Only reason I've waited is because our landline phones are with them too, so I've built a PBX to take care of that issue, just need to finish tweaking it & it's bye-bye Frontier, hello MVTV.
Most recent complaint would be this past week, when most of the entire Frontier network went down, & it took 1 hour & 34 minutes with a phone tech & her supervisor to finally decide it wasn't just my computers & then sent a tech out to replace the modem. As soon as the modem was replaced, internet was back. No way in anybody's business that should have taken more than a few minutes, given the widespread problem (I called two hours after they told my wife's business that the entire state was down & they had over 80 calls at that point) (also, turns out they were down all over the country, not just MN), let alone more than 20 minutes!
Before that, one other major issue of the line being "grazed" a block away took 3 months to get fixed. The tech had to dig down through snow to get to the sliced wires. Had they heeded my complaints about the quality of service three months before, there wouldn't have been any snow, & I wouldn't have had such poor internet.
I could go on, I have several customers I do tech work for that "used" to be Frontier customers.
Look at their S&P stock downgrade last week to "negative". Not a company to do business with, let alone invest in. Get as far away from them as possible.
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Review by robbiej38
member for 30 days, 1 visits, last login: 12 days ago
lodged 12 days ago
- Monroe,Orange,NY
- Contract price not specified.
- "Pony Express is faster"
- "If the is another option available, take it."
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The service in Monroe, NY was bearable before the first part of December 2011. Since then its gone from bad to worse. Download used to be 1.5MB or better, now it varies from 500KB to around 1.3MB with most tests I have done in the lower range. Dealing with the company is OK, they are cordial & sympathetic.
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 Review by scottymead
member for 4.5 years, 1598 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 14 days ago
- Post Falls,Kootenai,ID
- $36 per month
- (24 month contract)
- "ALL IS GOOD. LOVE IT"
- "NONE"
- "LOVE IT"
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I love it, the installer was great, I have two choices, Time Warner or Frontier.... Frontier is far better then Time Warner. No Problems!!!!
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Review by Chawk12
member for 47 days, 54 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 15 days ago
- Everett,Snohomish,WA
- $40 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 2 days
- "No more waiting for a web page to load."
- "Am only 8 blocks from the CO. Should be getting 7 meg consistantly."
- "Satisfied for now."
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Ordered DSL Turbo. Supposed to be 7 Meg max usually runs around 5 Meg. Am not paying the modem fee since I already have my own. I watch a lot sports and use this mostly for video streaming.
Would rather have FIOS but this seems the best deal for now. According Comcast's website 40 bucks a month would only get me 1.5 Meg.
»www.speedtest.net/result/1732983455.png
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 bn1221
join:2009-04-29
Cortland, NY | Modem Fee How did you get around that? I have my own modem and they sock a "modem support fee" on my bill. | |
| | Chawk12Premium
join:2011-12-26
Everett, WA Reviews:
 ·Frontier Communi..
| Re: Modem Fee I'm in a former Verizon area that Frontier took over. We never had a modem fee. Instead Frontier has tried to get us to "upgrade" to a Westell 7500 modem for $6.99 a month. At that price the modem's paid for in about six months.
Have you alerted your state's attorney general or utilities commission about the fee? You shouldn't have pay to for something you're not getting. | |
| | | | | Re: Modem Fee They get around it by calling it a "modem support" fee if you use your own mode. | |
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Review by dwill6907
member for 46 days, 3 visits, last login: 20 days ago
updated 20 days ago
- Franklin,Macon,NC
- Contract price not specified.
- "There isn't any"
- "disconnects every 2 minutes"
- "Frontier internet is horrible"
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Since Frontier has taken over for Verizon in my town there has been nothing but headaches. Internet kicks out every 2 or three minutes and stays off for about 5 minutes. When you call them (if they answer) they claim that it's Verizon's fault because of bad lines. Never had a problem before. Was told that they were going to do upgrades but haven't seen it yet. Even as I try and type this the internet has gone out 4 times. I still stay connected to my router so I know that it's not me which they have tried to tell me before. If you have other choices (which I don't) DO NOT pick Frontier. All they will do is make you want to pull out your hair.
If anybody wants to know what my speeds are I have included the link
»www.speedtest.net/result/1722389108.png
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Review by jameswade
member for 10.1 years, 2488 visits, last login: a few hours ago
lodged 26 days ago
- Marshall,Madison,NC
- $29 per month
- about 36 days
- "Fairly reliable"
- "Poor, poor intra-company communication"
- "OK rural Internet access"
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Very confused company, constantly telling people that they cannot get DSL even though they're right next to someone who has it. Fortunately they have contact information for the local manager on their web site. The local managers are more competent.
We had only satellite, cell, and BPL in the area and DSL just became available.
I was told that the fastest speed I could get is 1Mbs down, I forgot what the upload speed is. And NO monthly cap!  We're just about exactly 3 miles from the DSLAM as the phone lines run.
When ordering I was told that there is a $6.99/month "modem rental" charge that is mandatory. The bill says that the modem rental is optional. I haven't called them on this yet. The transceiver does include a router and wireless access point.
The bill also had a bogus "HSI fee". Apparently they got in some legal trouble about this so the "HSI Fee" was zeroed out.
Frontier took over Verizon's territory in this area (Western North Carolina). Verizon was terrible about servicing the phone lines and were completely uninterested in providing Internet. Frontier's web site and billing system in still infested with Verizon. The changeover to Frontier caused month-long delays in billing.
We got a solid 1 Mbps down and around 760kbps up. We had one day of outage, otherwise it's been pretty reliable. Frequently we have a two to three minute outage around 7:30pm when we're streaming Netflix.
About a week ago we started getting download speeds of 2 - 3Mbps off and on. We heard stories about Frontier's backhaul problems, but it looks like this was solved before service started here - we never have less than 1Mbps download.
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Review by don544
member for 8.8 years, 80 visits, last login: 7 days ago
updated 31 days ago
- Ortonville,Oakland,MI
- Contract price not specified.
- "NONE"
- "You name it, service line BS"
- "It might be good if they ever got there act together"
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Started after local Verizon land line was sold to Frontier, had canceled Verizon land line when they did not make it out to repair downed drop to house after three days did not use anyway so why continue?
Frontier starts sending adverts saying can get DSL now, call, say can , say can not , say will check and call back,never call us back, we call they say can but have to pay install can not self install, say you are offering self install package in advert, say but we have to come fix wire we never fixed three years ago DUH.
All in all it is the same run around we got from Verizon and comcast, advertise great but service lousy, maybe if they put about 25% of the advertising budget into the service department they would have a decent product.
I do care that they have all U.S. staff but it does little good if you can not do anything with it.
01/11/2012
Have now spent about a week on and off with their service people and yes they can get line repaired they say but was told by tomorrow and then was told no not until next Thursday the 19th so we shall see.
Generally seem like a confused bunch of folks, although pleasant enough to talk to nothing seems clear cut with them, no yes or no answers just maybe or we will see.
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 Review by guypd
member for 3.7 years, 1560 visits, last login: 1 days ago
updated 31 days ago
- Silver Springs,Wyoming,NY
- $36 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 7 days
- "First year is free"
- "We lose our connection every time it rains"
- "Switched back to RR"
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(update 2010-09)I am still glad that I switched back to Road Runner. However, my mother still uses Frontier's DSL. She consistenly gets bandwidths around 3.5 Mbs on her 10 Mbs service. The latency is usually around 50 ms. It can be frustrating to work on the computers at her house and attempting to use the Internet, after getting used to Road Runner at home.
We decided to get rid of our telephone service with Frontier, too, and switch to Time Warner's Digital Phone. Frontier wanted to charge us $200 because they said we had entered into a 2 year contract with them for the Telephone service. The two years for the DSL when we had it, ended back in May of 2010, and we never agreed to a 2 year contract, so I guess they just automatically put us on one.
My wife called the service department and complained and the customer service representative, said that they would cancel the $200 charge.
(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.
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.
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