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Review by manlaan2 
Posted: 3.1 years ago
member for 3.1 years, 1 visits, last login: 2.8 years ago
 Riverton,Salt Lake,UT
 $65 per month (12 month contract)
 about 7 days
 Qwest
CLEC party: Covad
 "Poor stability, Poor speed, Poor support, Higher cost, Contract"
 "Avoid"
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Speed: 1.5Mb/368kb
First, let me take you through some history.
3 years ago, I had ADSL through another company that ended up going out of business. Covad was the only other ADSL service in my area, so I moved to them out of necessity. I've been with Covad since.
With the old ISP, I was getting fantastic transfer rates and was told by the tech that installed it that this was the cleanest line he's seen yet. Of course this was 3 years ago.
I change to Covad and immediately have stability issues, which they ended up having to cap my connection at 928k so I could stay connected. I felt this was something I could live with and have been semi-happy with Covad, except for the missing 1/3 of my connection.
Anyway, fast forward to today.
Over the last 6 months, stability has gone out the window. Connection drops 2-3 times a day, usually while I'm working (I work from home). Speeds have gone down from 90K/s to 50s and 60s. Latency has been very intermittent from about the 3rd hop out (from covad to level3).
Support has been less than helpful in tracking down the problem, always blaming Qwests lines and never looking beyond a 3 year old diag.
Personally, I cant wait until my contract ends this December/January so I can switch.
Definitely not worth the extra cost for this "high" quality ISP. Avoid unless there are no alternatives.
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Review by msebesta
Posted: 3.1 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 189 visits, last login: 194 days ago
Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
$149 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
SBC
CLEC party: Covad
 "GREAT ORDER TURNAROUND...100% UPTIME....NO LATENCY PROBLEMS....GREAT SUPPORT"
"NONE SO FAR"
"IT'S MORE PRICEY...BUT YOU DEFINATELY GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!!"
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Line was up within 10 days from order. They kept me abreast of the order status, coordinated with telco, solved a line problem EVEN before the installation of the router.
The connection (up over 3 months so far) has NEVER experienced an outage. Latency is not an issue with this company. Support (when I have needed it) is provided by knowledgable technical people IN AMERICA.
All in all...they are GREAT!!! I like them.....it's pricey, but I feel that you get what you pay for!
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Review by jmelson3
UPDATED: 3.2 years ago
member for 8.3 years, 49 visits, last login: 99 days ago
Saint Louis,Saint Louis,MO
$69 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
Southwestern Bell
CLEC party: Covad
"performance, reliability"
"news server VERY unreliable"
"If you need static IP for servers, you don't have many choices at this price"
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I've been using them since mid January 2003. The line has been quite reliable,
occasionally after a thunderstorm I have to reset the modem to get the line
speed back up to the max. I am at 15100 ft from the CO (no typo, roughly 3 miles!)
and get pretty reliable 1.5/384 service from Covad's teleSOHO service.
I have had only 2 or 3 actual line outages in the DSL part, that were not caused
by construction crews digging up my phone line. The worst was a couple of
hours long. That is for longer than two years! (My previous DSL service was a
LOT less reliable.)
My one complaint is they apparently contract out the news server (NNTP) operation
to the lowest bidder, and are now saying the news server is not a guaranteed part
of the service. When I signed up, there was no such proviso that news was a freebie not to be counted on. For $70 a month, I expect ALL the services to be operational.
The news server has been out for 3-5 days at a time, several times in the last
2 months. I'm getting REALLY steamed! I really don't think I should have to
pay for an outside news server when I'm already paying $70 a month for Covad!
Thanks for reading this diatribe,
Jon Elson
Well, as of July, 2006, things started going downhill. We had some really SPECTACULAR thunderstorms this summer, and they damaged the lines somehow.
After all the crackling and hum on the lines was finally fixed, AT&T/SWB had lengthened my line from 15,100' to somewhere around 18,300', and the DSL service was really flaky. They lowered the line speed to 768, then to 384/384, where it is now.
My Zyxel router died one morning with no storms or anything at the time, and I eventually figured out it was the router, not the line. Covad now says my line is TNF, and they will do nothing for me. I'm still trying to get out of paying a $175 fee for a guy to come out and tell me my line is no good, but there's nothing he can do.
I'm now waiting to see if Charter-business can actually deliver service here. The reviews of them here are truly BAD!
Jon
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 Review by kapil
Posted: 3.2 years ago
member for 9.6 years, 3265 visits, last login: a few hours ago
West Chicago,Dupage,IL
 Business customer
$120 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
Ameritech
CLEC party: Covad
"Rock Solid Service! Low Latency, No Downtime, Quick Install"
"Pricing, Level 1 Techs, Limited Product Offering"
"I see no reason at all to pick an ISP other than Covad!"
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I have Dedicated 3.0/768 ADSL service from Covad.
Went from order to install in about 10 days.
Service has NEVER gone down, the latency is excellent...I run a VoIP server over the circuit. And usage policies are liberal...I run all kinds of servers on my DSL and Covad has never complained.
The install techs and the Level 1 support reps can be kind of stupid...depends on who you get stuck with...but they are better than Comcast and AT&T techs by leaps and bounds
Covad doesn't offer the 6.0 dedicated service directly...you have to go through a partner ISP...which I didn't want to do...so that kind of sucks because I'm in range to get the higher speed but Covad won't sell it to me.
The pricing is also higher than Covad partner ISPs...but I have been able to talk to the retention people to get a price-match.
Overall...I love Covad...the service is great and I rarely ever need to call for help and when I do, it's top notch once you get past the script reading dolts.
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 Review by NetFixer
UPDATED: 3.3 years ago
member for 5.4 years, 3070 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Murfreesboro,Rutherford,TN
$65 per month (12 month contract)
about 8 days
BellSouth
CLEC party: Covad
"Dependable and fast. Efficient routing with low lag times."
"I live too far from the CO to get 3000/768 service"
"Business class static IP for residential static IP price"
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I had previously been using BellSouth residential static IP service, but I kept having sync problems and the download speed I got of ~900kbs and upload speed of ~180kbs seemed slow for only being 10k ft from the CO. The Covad TeleSoho service has been reliable (no sync problems) and the speed is consistently in the 1250 kbs download and 320 kbs upload range. I have been using this service for 8 months, and I have only had one brief outage which I found out was a 'scheduled maintenance' outage to upgrade a router. That is one kudo I will have to give to BellSouth, they always published scheduled maintenance warnings on their web site.
07/24/05 update:
Three weeks ago BellSouth "unintentionally" disconnected my Covad DSL shared line service. After two weeks of inaction on their part to restore the service I had both of my BellSouth POTS lines disconnected and switched to VOIP with Vonage using a Comcast HSI connection (both of those providers are reviewed elsewhere).
For my primary internet connection I now have a Covad dedicated loop (dry pair) DSL service which is working very well. The noise margins in the dedicated loop are so much better than the old shared line service, that I will probably try to upgrade to the 3.0/768 service after I have tested it a bit more.
08/03/06 update:
I recently tried to upgrade to 3000/768, but it didn't work, I am to far from the CO to get reliable sync (and poor copper pairs didn't help). I did however, re-sign for another year, and got a $10.00 per month price decrease as well as a free month. I also was able to get a PTR record setup to make running an email server much easier. I probably could have done this a year ago, but I was not aware that Covad would do this for a single IP account.
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Review by Jarhead
Posted: 3.4 years ago
member for 8.1 years, 2542 visits, last login: 196 days ago
Herndon,Fairfax,VA
Contract price not specified.
CLEC party: Covad
"1.5 up 1.5 down all for free. It rocks when you get it almost free. As an employee"
"Great Ping times and consistently low. And no line share. Dedicated loop"
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Great service. Yes I work for Covad however their internet SDSL 1.5 and 1.5 are awesome especially since its almost free. Constant low pings and no shared line. Dedicated loop. I am less than 1/2 mile from the CO so it helps but its great. Zero down time so far had the service since last July I believe. So it rocks. Is this a bias review? No cause if it were not good I would have cable. And the truth would be known. All Covad employees get a discounted rate for DSL if they are within distance but some CO's are maxed out so the service suffers. this is not my case.It rocks period.
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Review by unclesmrgol
Posted: 3.6 years ago
member for 3.9 years, 13 visits, last login: 96 days ago
Culver City,Los Angeles,CA
$99 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
SBC
CLEC party: SBC
"Reliable connection very rare downtime"
"DNS less reliable than the connection itself"
"Great Service!"
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Service specs: 3000/768, one "fixed" IP, pppoe, $99/mo. "Telesoho 3.0" plan.
This review comes as my Covad experience enters its third year. During this period I've required seven interactions with Covad tech support -- once for bad provisioning (IP address assigned to another customer), two lost service calls, and two DNS problem calls (which might be more except I've figured out how to determine whether it's DNS or something else by pinging the DNS server; if the ping goes through, it's a DNS issue, if not, it's a line issue). Sixth interaction was for configuring dialup access during a trip -- the covad provided automated software is brain-dead and Covad does not intend to replace it; that's ok, it took minutes for the tech to brief me on how to do it manually.
Seventh interaction was for speed increase from 1.5/384 to 3.0/768; transition went smoothly, within hours of being ordered.
All telephone interactions with Covad tech support are professional; the level 1 people on the other end (Covad Canada Eh?) are knowledgeable, and are willing to elevate to level 2 quickly if that's needed.
Early on, my service went down about once every couple of months; I tracked the problem to my Covad-provided Xyxel modem; depowering it and repowering it has fixed the problem to date. I now depower/repower once a month to keep the gremlins off.
Rebate: The Xyxel modem cost me $199, and was supposed to be covered by a rebate. Covad did not honor the rebate; they claimed I didn't submit the rebate in time, even though it was mailed two days before the deadline, and I even had a Certificate of Mailing to prove it. I ate the cost [not having the time or energy to sue], but beware of the "Covad rebate". When factoring in your cost of operation, act as if the rebate does not exist.
I've had four previous DSL ISP's -- PacBell, NorthPoint, DirectTV, and Verio. Of the four, only the now-bankrupt NorthPoint was better than Covad, and only because their service to me was 1.5/1.5 SDSL (as opposed to Covad's 3.0/768 ADSL) using a more reliable modem than the Xyxel. Of these, I only left PacBell (my telco) under my own power -- they seemed unable to provision me after more than 3 months in their queue; NorthPoint had me provisioned with dry SDSL 5 days later.
Overall, my experience with COVAD has been top-level.
That said -- I'm about to leave COVAD -- for COVAD! My current service contract has expired, and I'm on month-to-month. I reviewed the pricing for service in my area and determined that $99/month (or even their current $79) for 3.0/768 is not cost effective. That said, their reliability counts for something, so I looked for a way to keep them as my service provider. I asked their salespeople if they could match or even come within $10 of a price offered by one of their resellers of $60 for 6.0/768 with 1 static IP; answer was a respectful NO. So, I'm about to transfer service to their reseller (DSLExtreme), and select Covad as the provider. This means that Covad will unprovision my line and then reprovision it again (according to both Covad and DSLExtreme's sales people), and will cost me a $100 up front fee, but I think doing that for a $40/month savings (over Covad's 12-month contract for 6.0/768) is worth it.
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 Review by soundtank
Posted: 3.7 years ago
member for 3.8 years, 357 visits, last login: 13 days ago
Harwood Heights,Cook,IL
$55 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
Ameritech
CLEC party: Covad
"Stable Connection - Never had a Downtime"
"I'm still thinking of one... will update if there's any"
"Has been solid from day one, has never let me down yet"
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First of all, the pre-qual on covad's site isn't accurate. I was pre-qualified for the 6.0Mbps package however when I was hooked up and everything, the only speed available for me was the 1.5 package. I had to downgrade my account since I signed up for the 6.0 package. That's the only time I was dissapointed with them.
Look at the bright side, connection is very stable though, no downtime, and pingtime is an average of 44-54ms. Speed tests range from 1.0-1.1Mbps/300-310kbps. I'm very satisfied witht he connection since I am 16000 ft. away from the CO. (According to them)
I'll update this review, as soon as issues arise.
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Review by Chamally
Posted: 3.8 years ago
member for 3.8 years, 12 visits, last login: 2.9 years ago
Pacific Palisades,Los Angeles,CA
$235 per month (24 month contract)
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"basically works"
"Never heard of anything to do with Apple Computers/not enough ports on router/can't asign ports myself."
"I'm terminating my service as soon as possible"
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--============_-1074333050==_ma============
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So get this: I called Covad (my internet DSL provider) to see if they
could help get my Mac's iSight to work. No one there had heard of
iSight or iChat. No one there had heard the name "Steve Jobs". When I
asked if they had heard of Apple, the response was, "is that a
company name?" Then I asked them if they were from the planet
Earth!!!!!
Chamally
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»www.mixthis.com
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Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
Covad DSL sucks
So get this: I
called Covad (my internet DSL provider) to see if they could help get
my Mac's iSight to work. No one there had heard of iSight or iChat. No
one there had heard the name "Steve Jobs". When I asked if
they had heard of Apple, the response was, "is that a company
name?" Then I asked them if they were from the planet
Earth!!!!!
Chamally
--
»www.mixthis.com
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Review by rushpatel
Posted: 3.9 years ago
member for 4.2 years, 9 visits, last login: 3.3 years ago
Philadelphia,Philadelphia,PA
$64 per month (12 month contract)
"Less time to contact support"
"Support cannot help, unreliable connection, slow speed, weekly downtime for 10-15min, etc"
"Nothing much good to get and they need to work better for their backbone support"
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Do not get this service until there is no option.
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Covad Communications
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