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Review by DurhamDanger 
member for 67 days, 3 visits, last login: 54 days ago
lodged 67 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 10.2 years, 87 visits, last login: 74 days ago
updated 74 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.
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 | | 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 102 days, 23 visits, last login: 1 days ago
updated 87 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 147 days, 135 visits, last login: 1 days ago
updated 88 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 107 days, 2 visits, last login: 101 days ago
lodged 101 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 7.2 years, 5 visits, last login: 106 days ago
lodged 112 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 113 days, 1 visits, last login: 85 days ago
lodged 113 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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Review by taighitu
member for 6.9 years, 1026 visits, last login: 10 days ago
lodged 114 days ago
- Arlington,Snohomish,WA
- $35 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 1 days
- "It is more consistent than when we had Verizon."
- "High latency and ping times every now and then."
- "Not bad for the money."
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We got Verizon when we built the house. Had problems with Comcast.
We have a bundled package, DSL, phone and Directv.
3 meg download and 768 upload, we're not heavy streaming movie users, mainly e-mail, news and chat rooms so no need for high speed.
They supplied Actiontec router/ modem which has been changed 3 times now and latest one has been running for two years without problems.
Tech support is good, friendly although not always able to come up with solutions especially high latency and ping times to our local office.
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Review by MrBungle87
member for 122 days, 49 visits, last login: 86 days ago
updated 115 days ago
- Durham,Durham,NC
- $80 per month
- (12 month contract)
- "VDSL is great; better modems and hardware on VDSL."
- "ADSL is still terrible. Customer support is hit and miss."
- "If Frontier's VDSL packages are available in your area, they become a lot more compelling. ADSL, however, is still mediocre."
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UPDATE, 1/24/2013: VDSL (25/2) is installed using the Actiontec V1000W modem/router, and speeds are great. 30Mbit down, typically, and roughly 1.3Mbit upload, which is less than I expected, but still double what I was seeing on ADSL. The only problem is ping times are higher now, at about 80ms (probably due to interleaving instead of fastpath). Will update if and when anything changes.
If you're relocating to the Triangle area of North Carolina and value a fast Internet connection, avoid Durham at all costs. In this area, Frontier and Time Warner have all but cornered the market on broadband (though, Frontier has no real claim to call what they sell 'broadband'). Time Warner will offer you up to 50Mbit/5Mbit service (down/up), provided you pay them $7-11 per month for their modem/router on top of the $99 standard (non-promo) rate you'll pay for their highest speed tier. By all accounts, Time Warner is a ripoff--though, in all their beneficence, they've deigned not to cap your usage, yet. The nominal pricing for TW's 20/2 tier is about $55 a month here, and you can use your own modem in this instance (read: no monthly modem rental fee to line their pockets). So, that might be more attractive, value wise, but still expensive.
Then, your only other option: Frontier. Ah, Frontier. When Verizon sold their decrepit copper infrastructure to Frontier in mid-2010, we didn't know what we were in for. It turns out, my worst suspicions about Frontier were realized. From the very beginning, the changeover involved Frontier taking on aging equipment it couldn't or wouldn't maintain, overselling DSL, delivering infuriatingly slow peak time speeds, and engaging in highly questionable customer service practices. We were on Verizon's 3Mbit/768Kbit plan and, for the most part, we got the advertised speeds and decent ping times (even during peak hours). Amazingly, Frontier managed to shoot that all to hell with their mere presence. Download speeds plummet daily to sub-1Mbit, and any sort of Youtube/Hulu/Netflix/ESPN3/Skype activity is out of the question. This goes on for HOURS.
I'd spoken with so many different customer service reps and technicians at Frontier that I had a better handle on their problems than they did. Being the aficionado for networking that I am, I got tired of their piss poor answers and decided to take this to Frontier's General Managers for both my county and the state of North Carolina. Finally, a GM was giving me some concrete answers. I live 4224 feet from the CO and according to technicians, our line quality is great, as are the SNR/attenuation numbers, yet we're still stuck on 7Mbit service that suffers nightly and drastic slowdowns. The GM tells me I am easily eligible for the 12/2 "Ultra" package, and I should be eligible for the 25/2 "Ultimate" tier. But he's still researching things at our CO, and I'm waiting for the final word on where we'll go from here.
So to all of you weighing Frontier as an option, I would suggest you do your homework before pulling the trigger, because their VDSL deployment seems spotty at best, and you probably won't be able to get the information you need from call center people in Washington state. Considering we pay $35 a month for Internet, we definitely don't get $35 worth of service. I'd gladly pay another $10 a month for consistent 12/2 speeds, and the GM claims the VDSL network runs on different hardware and isn't oversold like the lower speed tiers. Time will tell. I'll be updating this when we move to a higher speed tier.
But take this as a cautionary tale for broadband in the Durham area. Many other points around the Triangle have AT&T U-Verse as an option (like Cary), but U-Verse is also highly localized to various towns and neighborhoods here, and if you live in a rural area, your options will be even more limited. The price you pay for living in a "less profitable" region.
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| | In regards to VDSL availability To be sure, VDSL availability is typically when available when you are withing 8000 feet from the central office to be capable for speeds up to 25mbps, we have been doing a lot of work since verizon was around, keeping in mind it has only been 2 1/2 years since we took over and started improving upon Verizons Antiquated networks. I apologize if you didn't get good answers from here in the Washington Call Center, I am extremely proficient in the systems and can definitely assist in this as well. If the issue has been addressed and investigated, then you should be good to go (at the very least being able to get bonded DSL for the 12/2mbps speed), I've checked the terminals in Durham/Raleigh area and do see that the Central office is equipped for VDSL (up to 40mbps for Business, 25mbps for Residential). We have a number of people available for VDSL but like with all internet providers (except wireless) it is distance related. | |
| | Reviews:
 ·Frontier Communi..
| Re: In regards to VDSL availability Thanks for your reply. The technician who installed VDSL (25/2) told me he wasn't sure whether VDSL or bonded ADSL2 would be used since we were the second house in the area they've installed VDSL. But, it seems to be working well. I also have to give credit to the technical supervisor for our area who called me and gave me information about our true total loop distance (which was longer than I thought due to a large cable loop on another street), but they either removed or replaced a tap and loop length decreased.
I do have one question for you, though: I'm seeing a lot of errors (presumably) under "30 Minute Near End FEC Interleave" and some under "30 Minute Near End CRC Interleave". Fastpath is disabled so I guess there must be a distance consideration in still using interleaved mode on VDSL2? Either way, my download speeds are great, so I don't know how accurate the SNR and attenuation stats the modem is reporting are. I've attached a screenshot for your perusal. Hopefully, you can make some sense of the FEC numbers.
I'm also seeing higher pings than before (75-100ms), which I'm guessing is due to interleaving. Is there a way to test whether fastpath would cut ping times? | |
| | | | | | I have Frontier DSL on Camano Island, WA zipcode 98282. Do you know if anything can be done to improve speeds? I am on the south end of the island, so I imagine I am far from the CO, and it looks as though we're routed through the Everett, WA pop. Do you know if VDSL is available, and can I bond two DSL channels together if I add a second phone line with Frontier? You can write me back at jakej1978 AT g mail dot com
Thank you. | |
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Review by Aranarth
member for 1.5 years, 415 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 135 days ago
- Stanwood,Mecosta,MI
- Contract price not specified.
- (24 month contract)
- about 12 days
- "Cheap and available"
- "DSL is not as fast as cable"
- "If your choices are Satellite or DSL, DSL wins!"
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Finally got it in the area after almost 9 years of promises.
Definitely better than Wildblue 500kbs service.
There are some coordination issues where everyone I called said yep its all hooked up but when the tech went to the NOC he found out it was not hooked up yet.
Price is decent.
Provided modem is a bit weird... may decide to ditch it early and get a better one form Netgear etc.
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Phone and internet service and customer service
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Frontier Will Not Help Us.