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Review by singbone

  • Location: San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
  • Cost: $74 per month
  • Telco party AT&T
n/a
Rude sales people
Despite \
Pre Sales information:

In shopping for DSL stand alone for RESIDENTIAL use, Covad appeared on
first Google page. Even though their web site says "residential" and
the resulting telephone # search ( for availability) resulted in only
BUSINESS related quotes, calling for clarification terminated in a
"disconnect" (!?!?!?). Disconnect accidental? A 2nd call finally resulted in a
quote for $74/mo for residential. The next day Covad
calls and I explain my prior experience . Another "disconnect".
Obviously not accidental.

I share this experience with anyone seeing this to not only steer
residential users elsewhere but to suggest that "business" users for DSL may want to consider doing business with a company that is in sync with its web marketing AND knows how to treat potential customers.




(review was emailed from domain att.net)
lodged 13 years ago


Review by gatzdon See Profile

  • Location: Lake Zurich, Lake, IL, USA
  • Cost: $64 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 14 days
  • Telco party Ameritech
Excellent Tech Support (but that was years ago)
Cancelled 11/18/2010; Charged credit card 3 more times!!!
They wouldn't stop taking money long after I cancelled
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

03/22/2011 Update:
Well, I had to update this.
After repeated calls, Covad refused to budge on pricing. So I switched to Launchnet.

I cancelled on 11/18/10 with Covad. 11/02/10 payment covered service through 12/02/10. So no more money was owed to them.

They continued to keep charging the credit card.
The first time in December, I called Covad, and waited for them to refund the $65.
The second time in January, I let AmEx handle the dispute.
Then they charged a third time in January and AmEx put a block on them.

Now, they have sent me to collections and I have to deal with disputing this now.
For a company that had such great customer service 7 years ago, they are horrible now.

Original Review Below:
Previously I had DSL through Prodigy DSL for over a year. The connection was great up until 10/16/2002. The line just stopped working. I troubleshooted and determined the problem to be upstream of my NID. I spent more than 15 hours on the phone before I finally cancelled my line. The problem, SBC acquired Prodigy and all Prodigy DSL customers are doomed to be migrated to SBC Yahoo DSL. Of course the migration has been delayed more than three months. SBC Yahoo DSL wouldn't handle my account, and Prodigy DSL couldn't handle my account yet. No one would put a trouble ticket in with Covad to fix my line. No point in waiting for them to do nothing. On 10/18/2002, in the evening, I cancelled with Prodigy DSL and placed an order with Covad. I figured if I had any problems with Covad, there was at least one less company involved to deal with as they are their own CLEC.

On 10/19/2002, Covad provisioned my line and then their system automatically cancelled my order. That was a mixed blessing. When they provisioned the line, my modem synced right up and I could browse the internet. Their system cancelled my order because Prodigy did not issue a disconnect order to Covad, so Covad technically was not allowed to do anything with my line without Prodigy DSL's permission. To make that 10 day story short, I got a crash course in how the politics of DSL work, learned a million buzz words and finally got a real order # from Prodigy DSL when I called their billing department, sweet talked some woman into opening a three way conversation with their non-existent provisioning department, acquired as much identifying information about the two, explained my situation to them, they started to tell me that my line was disconnected on 10/18/2002, when I interupted them and explained that I was collecting evidence for my lawsuit against Prodigy DSL for violation of the Illinois Fair Business Practices Act. I got about 60 seconds into my BS speel when the provisioning guy gave me a Covad Order # for my disconnection. I hung up, called Covad, asked if the Order # was valid, they told me that it was entered about 5 minutes prior on their website.

So, I lost my internet again (even though I wasn't supposed to have it in the first place) for about 24 hours, and then I was up again. Throughout the entire ordeal, Covad was extremely patient and helpful with me. A customer service rep kept me informed daily of Covad's efforts to get a response from Prodigy. Their tech support was very helpful in explaining to me who was responsible for what and basically gave me the correct language to use when I finally threatened Prodigy. I am thoroughly convinced based on the call backs I got from the customer service rep that she sincerely worked with her management to see if there was anything Covad could do for me.

Well enough of my crying, now for the gritty details that most care about:

Ordered:
TeleSOHO - Self-Install - 1536/384 - Static IP
comes with ZyXel Prestige 643 DSL router/line filters/and some wires

Actual Speeds: 1200/200 (approximate average of about 15 tests) I believe that the speeds are due to line quality problems on Ameritechs part.

The Good:
setup is a snap (of course I already was setup). The static IP is assigned as if it were a dynamic IP, they just assign you the same IP address every time. This means you don't have to configure anything to make it work right the first time.

The Zyxel Prestige 643 is the DSL modem and a DHCP NAT Router all in one. It also has diagnostic tools such as being able to measure your noise margins; attenuation; and relative capacity. (For those of you who always wonder if you are stuck in slow mode, the router can tell you what speed your line is setup for) The biggest plus for Vonage users, the Prestige 643 allows you to set IP Routing Policies (means you can assign preference to the Vonage data at the router level)

Customer service/Tech Support always answered within 10 minutes. Believe I called enough times that I think this is normal. The longest hold time was with Billing. I had to call them because the $5 discount for using a direct payment option was not automatically applied to my account.

Covad's turnaround for provisioning my line was less than 48 hours both times. I don't know how much that was affected by my line already having DSL once, but it still is a good time.

The Bad:
Sync problems. At least once a day, the router loses sync, but it reestablished connection immediately. Normally I wouldn't care, but I use Vonage and if the connection is lost for even an instant, the ATA 186 can take up to an hour to reconnect to Vonage's Servers. For normal internet browsing, you would never notice unless you looked at your connection logs.

$5 monthly discount was not automatically applied to my account. If you get a business grade account, they give you a $5 monthly discount for electing a direct payment option instead being billed. (Residential grade plans don't have a choice). On the plus side though, when I called, they applied the credit immediately without any hassles.

Of Mixed Opinion:
They offer a promotion where the CPE is free with a mail-in rebate. I personally do not care for mail-in rebates, but I am not going to let $200 go either. I will update my review when I receive the rebate check to let everyone know how they are doing on that.

----------------
12/15/2002

Well I receive the rebate in the mail yesterday. I guess they get a passing grade from me on the timeliness of the rebate.

-----------------
06/27/2003

Just to stay up to date. I have been using BBR's line monitoring and I rarely see an outage. Whenever there is one, it never lasts more than an hour or so in the middle of the night (IOW possibly planned maintenance). I use VoIP with this line just fine, although Vonage had to adjust the resync frequency to five minutes as apparently there are frequent "microoutages" that don't interfere with surfing the web, but cause my ATA-186 to lose sync.

To sum everything up, I'm still happy with Covad, although I wish I could get a faster upload speed for the same price.

member for 21.4 years, 1688 visits, last login: 7.3 years ago
updated 13 years ago

fastforward0
join:2002-11-21
Katy, TX

fastforward0

Member

prodigy sucks

prodigy sucks

lxAsTrOxl
Premium Member
join:2000-10-13
Chicago, IL

lxAsTrOxl

Premium Member

Re: prodigy sucks

said by fastforward0:
prodigy sucks
always and forever

Cheetah9
join:2001-01-07
Bethel Park, PA

1 recommendation

Cheetah9

Member

Make sure you get the right Rebate Form.....

I ordered Covad on July 26 and the first week of August I was up and going. Downloaded the Rebate Form, filled in all the info and sent it off. Last week I got a post Card telling me my rebate was rejected because my order was not placed within the Rebate Period.
Looked at My copy and it said the $199 rebate started on August 1, 2002. When I had looked at it on-line in July it said it ended July 30, 2002. I hadn't even noticed the date change on the Rebate Form I downloaded.

Anyways, called the Rebate Center in Mesa and they listened to my story, took a few minutes to look back at Rebate Forms they had processed, and then told me they would correct the problem and send my check out.

It's Nov 24th and I'm still waiting! My fault I guess because I missed seeing the date change, although the form was exactly the same otherwise.

Anyways, be careful! (And wish me luck on getting my $199 Rebate! )
gatzdon
join:2002-10-25
Lake Zurich, IL

gatzdon

Member

Re: Make sure you get the right Rebate Form.....

Send a letter along with your copy of the rebate telling them how long it has been since you mailed the original. Advise them in your letter that you have not received "any" response yet. Give them two weeks, then file a complaint with the BBB online. Covad is pretty good as far as customer service goes, so I don't think it will go beyond that.

Cheetah9
join:2001-01-07
Bethel Park, PA

Cheetah9

Member

Re: Make sure you get the right Rebate Form.....

I did finally get my rebate last week. The phone call I made to the rebate center did the trick.
gatzdon
join:2002-10-25
Lake Zurich, IL

gatzdon

Member

Re: Make sure you get the right Rebate Form.....

Technically, I think this is a plus for them because you used the wrong form and still got the rebate you were entitled to.

Nice to here things worked out.

LiLTizz
Back with comcast
Premium Member
join:2001-11-11
Ypsilanti, MI

LiLTizz

Premium Member

DSL looks like a hassle,upload cap lower than 384?

Yikes sure glad comcast cable is great in my area atleast. DSL seem's to be such a hassle,setup costs,slower speeds compared to cable's advertised similar speeds.
my speeds ad at 1500/256 average 1650/244 with very low pings.
Nice to be 1,480 ft. from an sbc r/t though put in OCT. 02 finally.
1200 is average for a 1500 dsl line down but under 250up at anytime shows somthing isn't kosher somwhere?
tele soho 1500/384 the clec or co may be capped at 256 up? I would check on that.
goodluck with ur rebates , I hate em to... nice extra cash when n if they do come though
[text was edited by author 2003-04-28 13:24:32]
erikthebean
join:2007-06-25
Milford, NH

erikthebean

Member

What do you think of your switch!?!?!

So what are your current thoughts of Launchnet?? Any good so far?

Review by grouhas See Profile

  • Location: Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
  • Cost: $29 per month (12 month contract)
  • Telco party Verizon
ease to reach tech support
service drops fairly regularily
OK for the price

I was switched to Covad when ATT discontinued service to my area. Even going back to the original ATT setup the service would drop almost daily. It took almost 8 months before Covad agreed to have Verizon come out to check the exterior lines. The Verizon tech repaired some kind of switch/pair off my property and the service improved about 90% but I still lose service almost every morning for a brief period. Basically I feel this is a Verizon problem but the two compaines don't seem to work together too well.

member for 14.9 years, 47 visits, last login: 11.8 years ago
lodged 13.1 years ago


Review by gatzdon See Profile

  • Location: Lake Zurich, Lake, IL, USA
  • Cost: $65 per month (12 month contract)
The Technical Support was very good.
I cancelled on 11/17/10 and they are still charging my credit card on 01/21/11
You can check out any time you like, but you can never l̶e̶a̶v̶e̶ cancel your credit card payment.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Bottom Line says it all.

In November 2010, I called to see if they would even budge on the price ($65 per month for 1.5 mbs DSL). They refused on several calls, so I gave them the boot.

I canceled on 11/17/2010 and the monthly charges were still coming through on 01/21/2011. Three times I had to call Covad to get the charge reversed. Now I'm only dealing with the credit card.

AMEX claims they have a block on them, so we will see what happens in February.

member for 21.4 years, 1688 visits, last login: 7.3 years ago
updated 13.1 years ago


Review by RC3 See Profile

  • Location: Watsonville, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
  • Cost: $371 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 30 days
  • Telco party Covad
Did Not Notice Problems for a Few Months, They TALKED THE TALK
Service Deteriorated to the Point of Not Being Usable for Days
Bad Connection, Bad Service, Deadbeat Company, They DIDN'T WALK THE WALK
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Covad T1 Connection - Watsonville, CA

The following information was provided to me:

"Thank you for your recent order from Covad. We look forward to providing you with reliable, high quality Internet services.

"Business T-1 1.5 $389 per month / 1 year / $369 2yrs / $359 3 yrs

"Installation is free and averages 20 calendar days, while we provide a free router except 3.0, 4.5 and 6.0 Mbps T-1s over one year, where there is a rebate available.

"All Covad T-1s include the following Service Level Agreements:
1) Installation within 30 days (averaging 20 or less)
2) 4 hour TTR (averaging 2 hours)
3) 99.99% Service Availability
4) 110 MS Delay
5) 99.9 Delivery"

So, as you can see, THEY TALKED THE TALK.

Installation took about a month and went as expected.

Using speedtest. net and speakeasy.net, speeds were close to what was advertised but slightly slower (1.43-1.48 megabits/second).

Obtained T1 line in order to obtain a reliable, high-upload speed connection, making using remote access software (teamviewer or logmein.com) feasible and responsive.

The T1 line served this function for maybe a month. Then the problems started. I would be logged off of the remote access software and have to log back in repeatedly (a real productivity killer). The connection would not work well from approximately 3:45 to 5 pm (which happened to coincide with a part of the day I HAD to have a connection). I would call Covad, and they would tell me everything tested fine (but it didn't work fine). Repeated calls to support were made (some Covad support personnel admitted they saw problems while others refused to open trouble tickets). Probably two dozen support requests were made. The T1 connection did not work for approximately three days on one occasion and 24 hours on another occasion. We concluded we would have to leave Covad in the rear view mirror. We knew that Covad had not met the requirements of the service agreement (99.99% Service Availability and 99.9 Delivery). When the service has been down completely for at least 4-5 days in 9 months or so and down sporadically for significantly more time, THEY HAVE FAILED TO LIVE UP TO THEIR END OF THE CONTRACT.

We replaced them with wireless ISP ETHERIC NETWORKS, which tests 9 to 16 megabits/second (we're paying half as much and getting 3 times the speed they promised).

I called Covad to cancel the service and they want a $500 early termination fee which was spelled out in the contract even though THEY DID NOT FULFILL CONTRACTUAL TERMS (speed, reliability, availability). They refused to budge, and I asked them if we would have to take them to small claims court to avoid being billed an early termination penalty. They told me to go and take them to court if I had to. I later looked at the contract and saw that binding arbitration is your only recourse in case of dispute. This is a DEADBEAT company.

They DIDN'T WALK THE WALK.


member for 14.1 years, 2 visits, last login: 13.2 years ago
updated 13.2 years ago

tdumaine
Premium Member
join:2004-03-14
Seattle, WA

tdumaine

Premium Member

Binding arbitration

Binding arbitration has been stricken as a contractual part in the fine print for a while now....

Review by maedata See Profile

  • Location: Hilton Head Island, Beaufort, SC, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
  • Install: about 180 days
  • Telco party Verizon
Tech Support never gave up with the lec where others might
I seems acceptable that VOIP is allowed to go down during rains
customer service has taken nosedive since merger

We service a customer in DC area, difficult location as LEC let wire in the area degrade till it was unusable. Spend months waiting for lec to be able to get a single working pair at the location, spend almost 6 months will T-1/VOIP going down constantly due to bad wire in the loop, LEC had to replace bad wire in the ground repeatedly, which was done one outage/service ticket at a time which sometimes took weeks to escalate to chronic so it would get repaired. At some stage the circuit reached a point where it stayed up, but we got about 1 correctable error per day average, thats now increased to 30 and during heavy rains the T-1 VOIP stays up but the VOIP becomes unusuable due to bursts of errors/retrys. COVAD under Megapaths management seems to think this is an acceptable state to leave things and does not seem willing to go to the lec to address the obvious water intrusion into the circuit issue that is developing. What really was upsetting in our latest round was the tendancy to loop for causes with the customer site like EMI, when in fact thier own people checked that earlier, and the evidence clearly indicates there is a corrosion/water in the circuit issue involved old wire in the loop that should have been replaced a long time ago.

I should point we have 2 other customers with T-1 which are completely error free month after month. This circuit in this case has never been error free.

member for 23.4 years, 344 visits, last login: 8.8 years ago
lodged 13.3 years ago


Review by cforsts See Profile

  • Location: Chicago, Cook, IL, USA
  • Business customer Business customer
  • Cost: $105 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 1 days
  • Telco party AT&T
Service consistency and customer support are good. I've been a customer for about 13 yrs
The local telco wiring appears to impact performance occasionally.
It works for me right now.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I considered cable but decide DSL was a bit better solution for my home office.

My current package is Broadband: Business DSL 3.0M/768k. At first glance the pricing seems a bit high but appears to be competitive when you net everything out. The original install was easy and there were no issues. The most recent upgrade went well and the new service was active in about 4 hours. CPE Details: System Name is Netopia 2247-02 with F/W Version: 7.7.4r3 and DSL F/W Version: DSP 7.2.3.0, HAL 7.2.1.0. I've had good experiences for the most part.

member for 17.2 years, 7 visits, last login: 12.8 years ago
lodged 13.5 years ago


Review by guhuna See Profile

  • Location: Discovery Bay, Contra Costa, CA, USA
  • Cost: $74 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 7 days
Good peering, stable network.
None yet.
Still to early to tell.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Ordered service on 11-11-08 and it went live on 11-17-08. Setup was painless. Netopia modem/router combo is nice and easy to setup. Had a problem with the remote terminal in the beginning that had to be fixed but once it was given the green light everything was back to normal.

The only draw back was that I was forced to buy the Netopia modem/router. I didn't and still don't have a need for it. I asked if it could be waived but was denied. The good thing about it is that they give you a rebate. So its technically free so I don't really mind.

Tech support seems to know what they were doing. Provisioning on the other hands needs a lot of work. It was outsourced somewhere but the tech support seems to be either US or Canadian based.

After being live for a couple of days now I'm happy so far with the service.

member for 23 years, 10501 visits, last login: 1.9 years ago
updated 13.7 years ago

tapalmiero
join:2008-06-20

tapalmiero

Member

Covad T1 for $319!!!

I was able to get a full T1 for $319/month with a Free Samsung router and Free Installation. I ordered the service 11/2/08 and it was installed completely by 11/16/2008. I have had no issues an mu sales rep even calls me to check on how I am doing. he is great and Covad is great. You should call him, he got me a deal no other company could. (866) 656-8757 X 2358. Other companies were offering T1 for $250/month with Local Loop fess up to $200. My bill is $319/month every month. Not a penny more or less. Kudos Covad keep up the good work!!!

Review by dmnall See Profile

  • Location: Goleta, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
  • Cost: $300 per month (36 month contract)
  • Install: about 35 days
  • Telco party Verizon
Super Fast, Low Latency, So Far Smooth
35 Days for a T1 to get installed
Love the T1 service so far and I highly recommend a T1
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I had Speak Easy for idsl 144 kbps down and up. I started needing a faster connection, so I looked at Covad Wireless for 1 mbps down and up but since I could not get line of site, they offered a full T1 with free equipment and free install for $ 300 a month. I would have stayed with SpeakEasy however, they were screwing around with my bill because of an RMA on an idsl modem and I wanted to get a T1 because idsl is just soo slow when you want to do voip and online gaming.

4/27 ordered a T1 service. 48 hours later on 4/29/2010 got an e-mail stating May 11, 2010 Verizon was going to finish the install.

5/11 T1 was not finished because Verizon needed a pole of theirs to be cleared of Poison Oak. So waiting status on the T1.

5/13 Verizon Techs both said the T1 was finished, so I made a call to Covad. Well after 2 - 3x calls that day Covad finally found out that even though the T1 was installed, it was not hooked up at the Central Office for Testing.

5/14 recieve e-mail that Verizon was going to go back to finish the T1 on 5/27 9 Business days when the normal time period is 5 business days. So I was still waiting and my idsl I cancelled on 5/14 before I got the e-mail. So no internet at all and Covad was trying to get Verizon to get it finished up sooner.

5/27 Verizon is finished and I called up Covad again. I found out they had a tech scheduled for 6/3/2010 but I wanted it up before that because I have some bills to pay. Soonest Date I got was 6/1/2010.. I got on the phone to see if there was a sooner time frame, they tried for 5/28 with no luck, was asked to call back on 5/28 to see if there was a cancellation to put me on the list.

5/28 Called up again No Luck.

6/1 Covad was due out between 9:00 am - 1:00 pm waited until 1:00 is when the tech showed up, set the 4 pairs to my old idsl Jack, programmed T1 Router and he tested the connection. I had to make a change from static ip to dhcp on my linksys wrt54g router since the T1 router is giving the ip to my wireless router. Tested the connection, well worth the wait in my opinion.. 12 X faster then my old idsl and took a huge amount of time from downloading some video files *332 MB = 4 - 4.5 hours on idsl now 30 minuets on the T1*... 35 day wait time was annoying, however, still better the 94 days on the idsl 5 years ago.

Cheers,

Charlie

member for 18.3 years, 5 visits, last login: 13.7 years ago
lodged 13.8 years ago

Big Hurt
join:2004-02-26
Battle Creek, MI

Big Hurt

Member

How low are your pings?

What kind of pings are you getting using a T1 line? I am very interested in getting a T1 line too and I need my pings to be very low, like sub 20ms.
dmnall
join:2005-11-20
Goleta, CA

dmnall

Member

Re: How low are your pings?

So far to LA and San Diego I am getting 15 - 18 MS Ping.. Depending on where you are wanting to ping, I am averaging 18 - 24 ms pings which I am content with.. Better then 67 ms ping I was averaging on my idsl connection. It is usable especially for some gaming even on xbl..

Cheers,
Charlie

Review by YrbkMgr See Profile

  • Location: Highland Park, Lake, IL, USA
  • Cost: $29 per month
  • Install: about 7 days
  • Telco party AT&T
Decent Speed, Decent Uptime, Decent Value
None
I'd do it again
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I've been with Covad (first through Netcom, who was purchased by Earthlink/Mindspring) for over 10 years. I've had downtime a total of maybe five times in that period. Earthlink also provides free dialup (10 hours per month) in case the system ever goes down.

Recently there have been some weird connection issues where the connection just drops. Earthlink have been very responsive, although they could not figure it out. They even had a tech come to my place and inspect the telephone wires.

Customer service has been outstanding, considering that they live in a black box and don't know what a user may have done, or may not be updated as to outtages. If you review my speed test history results, you'll see there there has been a period of very slow connectivity. That seems to have gone away.

When I started with Netcom (who uses Covad), they provided me with a SpeedStream DSL modem. When I moved within the past couple of years, in switching my location, they provided a Zytel modem. I'm still using the SpeedStream.

Except for the recent anomalies with connectivity, I've been a staunch supporter of Earthlink/Covad because they have been very trouble-free, and had responsive technical support. For the money, it's been a bargain.

member for 13.9 years, 37 visits, last login: 5.9 years ago
lodged 13.9 years ago