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Review by rayjan 
member for 10.4 years, 4 visits, last login: 10.4 years ago
lodged 10.4 years ago
 San Diego,San Diego,CA
 $49 per month- (12 month contract)
 about 120 days SBC- CLEC party: Covad
 "PRE-SALES" "THEY SUCK NOW" "DONT EVER CALL OR TRY TO CALL THESE PEOPLE"
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The sales department was very good, they knew what they were talking about. I am not sure what happend to them but there in NOTHING good about this company now. The sales department is not even there now. They dont return phone calls, I cannot get my money back from them. I dont know how they are still in business! I have never seen anything like it.
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Review by lbrown
(review was emailed from domain littlehouseontheweb.com)
lodged 11.3 years ago
- Aurora,Arapahoe,CO
- $119 per month
- (12 month contract)
- Qwest
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Friendly and flexible with account setup, willing to waive hardware and installation fees since we had a compatible router."
- "(Sung to Foreigner) Ah been waitin' for a call from you, for sucha long long time... Then"
- "A massive waste of time, and a disappointing loss of three months. Back to square one with new ISP. Look elsewhere."
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We had put in a request for DSL services for my church back in
December. They lost our request, and then after Qwest failed
to show up to prep a line for our DSL service, they turned around
and canceled the account and refunded our money. Points for
owning up to their mistake, and refunding us, negative points
to them for making us wait 3 months and then dumping us.
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Review by erazo
member for 11.3 years, 95 visits, last login: 244 days ago
lodged 11.3 years ago
- San Diego,San Diego,CA
- $50 per month
- (12 month contract)
- SBC
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Flawless service for five whole months!"
- "Civil war between Ixpres and Covad leave subscribers in the cold during the holidays"
- "Another Ixpres refugee jumps ship to Speakeasy"
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I received an cryptic e-mail in mid-December from the CEO of Internet
Express (Ixpres) alluding to their dispute with Covad. This was followed a
few days later with a warning that I had to perform a DSL switch by the end
of the month or lose my DSL line. Then an article appeared in the San Diego
Union-Tribune which finally explained what was going on. So I called my
contact at Ixpres who explained to me that indeed I had to perform a switch
to another Covad reseller or lose my line, and if I wished to remain with
Ixpres, I had to go through the entire (arduous, lengthy and costly)
installation process with the new CLEC all over again.
This happened only six months into my one-year contract. But neither Covad
nor Ixpres will take responsibility for customer contracts, each faulting
the other party.
So I used the Covad SafetyNet procedure as advised on Dec. 22nd. A few hours
later my static IP address was withdrawn, effectively cutting off my
connection to the Net. (This was not supposed to happen without advance
notice.) I called Ixpres tech support but they said it was out of their
hands, as they no longer supported the line. Since this happened during the
holiday season, I was unable to immediately contact anyone at Covad by
telephone for assistance. After hours of trying over two days (e-mail
inquiries went unanswered), I finally learned that my account had been
transferred to Covad.net, who does not offer a static IP address. I then got
Covad to agree to transfer my account to Speakeasy, who still offers static
IP to residential subscribers (the SafetyNet procedure did not provide a
choice). Speakeasy gave me a dial-up POP account at no charge to use in the
interim until the transfer could be performed.
Another complication arose relating to the "DSL Plus IP" service that I had
been originally switched to without my knowledge. It seems that this is
Covad proprietary DSL software which prevented switch to Speakeasy without a
software fix (sorry, that's all they could tell me).
Want to hear more? (Skip this paragraph if you're already disgusted.) Covad
wanted me to go through the full "ISP Switch" procedure established for
voluntary switchers (although my switch was involuntary). It involves
downloading a consent/circuit ID form from the Covad web site, faxing it
(without filling anything out) to Ixpres for them to fill out, ask (and
wait) for them to fax it back to me, then fax it again to the new ISP. Now,
since the subscriber has no responsibility for any of the information on the
form and does not even have to sign the form, why all the faxing? Why can't
the ISPs communicate directly without the subscriber having to act as a fax
monkey for 2-3 or more days? The entire process is ludicrous, and must have
been invented by an FCC official and half a dozen lawyers. Not to mention
that Ixpres, my "old" ISP, was unable to receive any faxes over the holidays
because no one was reading them and their fax machine memory was full!
Wait! There's more! (Hang on, I'm almost done.) Ixpres continued to bill me
for service I didn't have! I tried calling them and was shunted by a rude
receptionist to a voicemail box which was full and not accepting additional
messages. My contact at Ixpres stopped answering his phone messages and my
e-mail to him, even after the holidays. So I informed my credit card company
and disputed the charge.
The good news is that I was treated courteously and helpfully by Speakeasy.
Their "Ellis Island" section (clever name, huh?) informed me that the
nightmarish fax procedure was not required for "refugees" from Ixpres. I was
apparently one of a teeming mass, but after a month, I was back on line with
my own IP address again. Their cost is $10 more than Ixpres was, but this is
not unreasonable, since apparently the lower rate was not sustainable for
residential customers. I'm sure the ISP resellers can make better profits
from the business subscribers, and residential customers should feel lucky
to get a static IP at reasonable rates nowadays.
Now I wish someone could tell me if I have any recourse in recovering
damages from the breach of contract and the fact that my web server was 404
for 33 days. Any ideas?
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Review by Just4Fun2
member for 11.3 years, 42 visits, last login: 4.1 years ago
lodged 11.3 years ago
- Puyallup,Pierce,WA
- $67 per month
- (12 month contract)
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Covad.net seems to be trying to get things working properly."
- "Internet Express Was Great---err, while it lasted. Too bad they didn't pay their bills to Covad and thus let us all down."
- "Ixpress let us down by not paying covad. Covad is not honoring ixpres customer contracts and has raised our prices."
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I am one of those customers that was involuntarily switched to Covad.net when ixpress failed to pay their Covad bills. What a shame because ixpres was a wonderful service and worked well with Covad. The price was also fair as far as isdl goes. I feel that ixpres let me down by not paying their bills. Inspite of the fact the service "rocked", I think that if they had really cared about their customers, they would have been responsible about paying their bills.
Covad.net, on the other hand, is attempting to fill the void and, at the same time, make some extra money over the situation. I don't have a choice for providers. Covad.net is about it. They are not honoring my ixpres contract and they have raised my monthly fee. I don't have a static ip any longer. The newsgroups offered are not as all encompasing as those on ixpres. The support has been difficult to get.( ie long telephone wait times no replies to emails, etc). The change left me with irratic line speeds that were sometimes less than 28k. However, recently, covad.net has shown a marked interest in my support. I have been contacted by telephone by a technician to see if my issues have been resolved. When I called in last night, I was able to talk with a tech immediately with no hold time. Since that last conversation, my connect times have been great. The original problem that was with the actual trunk lines. Covad work crews seem to have fixed that issue. The next problem dealt with a conflict between Internet Explorer 5.5 and the covad software. I had to install Netscape, but that looks like it took care of the problem. The tech stayed on the line with me and really worked me through it all. I don't think that people should have to deal with such conflicts in software choice, but at least, things are now working. It may be that the huge influx of new customers simply swamped them. I am willing to reserve judgement to see what happens. Covad.net does give one free month for a customer to review the service. I will revise this evaluation in a few days if things stay as good as they have been recently.
My bottom line is that I WANT Covad to survive. They fill the nitch for many of us that would be without service. I also DON'T WANT a monopoly whereby I have to pay higher prices for less service. I am not sure that Covad.net is there yet, but I am willing to give them a chance and see where they go within the next month. It could be that they will decide to revise their stance on some of the contractual issues related to their 'switch' program. I am wondering if what they are doing in that department is legal. Hmmm, any attorney's out there?
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Review by xaclyn
member for 12.4 years, 194 visits, last login: 3.5 years ago
lodged 11.3 years ago
- Morrisville,Bucks,PA
- $79 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 3 days
- Verizon
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Internet Express Service Good"
- "Covad.net BAAAAAAAAAAAD!!"
- "Stay away from Covad.net. Explore your other options"
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I emailed this to DSLReports.com as a review for Covad.net but I'm posting it under Internet Express too since that's who I switched from.
Highlights:
~ No speed guarantee if service is operating at 128kbps or higher.
~ Tech support with 0 answers.
~ Long turn around times for callback.
~ SLOW-ASS Service with no ideas for repair plan.
Well, I am going to start this review off with the fact that I am apparantly an idiot. I switched to Covad.net from Internet Express via the Safety Net program. The service has been installed for almost one month. After waiting 3 days for my service to go back online and I found that I don't have a static IP, my service is now using PPPoE (spit). So I get everything all setup and configured and my lights on my Speedstream are blinking and happy and I go to do a test download. My eyes almost bugged out when I saw the download speed. Here I was dowloading files at 25 KB/sec (compared to 140-145 KB/sec with Ixpres). So I called Covad.net tech support and they said ok ok ok, we'll work on it and call you back within 24-48 hours. 48 hours comes and goes and no call. So I call them and they say that they'll escalate the problem, you'll get another call back within 24-48 hours. I said wait. I still didn't get my first call back. They said sorry, you'll have to wait. So with no improvement in service, I waited patiently. . .approximately 168 hours worth of patiently (that's 7 days for you math impared folks). They called back and left a message on my answering machine that stated "We just wanted to know if you're still having problems". So I call them back today (1/6/01) and they pull up my records and they said well we have people working on this and there are a few people that are having this problems, we have no ETA on when this will be resolved. Ok, fine. I return with, "Are you able to credit my account since I my service is running at 20% of the speed advertised (TeleSurfer 1.5/384). They said no. According to the service agreement, they consider DSL service successful if the speed provided is 128kbps or greater. So basically, I could go out and get a new modem and dialup service and pay less than the $75 bucks that I'm paying now and get consistant service. So basically I'm screwed. . .I'm stuck in a year contract paying 75 smackers a month for service that's running at 20% of the advertised speed. But what really irritates me is that the Ixpress speeds were SMOKIN! So here I am. God I wish I switched to Verizon DSL. At least with them I know they're morons going into it. I thought that Covad.net was going to be the saviour. I highly recommend everyone to stay away from them. If you need to participate in the safety net program, go with one of their partner ISP's. I should have switched to Speakeasy.net.
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Review by JohnBiundo
member for 11.3 years, 11 visits, last login: 8.6 years ago
lodged 11.3 years ago
- 94598
- Contract price not specified.
- "WAS a fine ISP"
- "Are they the villains? Or Covad?"
- "Any info on class action lawsuit?"
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Hopefully everybody else who was abruptly dropped by IE (though I assume many of you have been disconnected and don't have as easy access to the internet any more) is as upset as I am. I was perfectly happy with my IE service, and happily paid all my bills, including buying a NOW USELESS IDSL modem from them for $395!!!!! Since IE was the only provider of IDSL to my area, I was happy to go with them at the time, though that should have been a definite warning sign! Covad is now offering to "rescue" me at a jacked up price and a reduced service (no static IP address).
Every time I talk to IE, they seem sympathetic, angry with Covad, and disavow any blame. (IE even offered me free dialup service for 6 months. Gee thanks - I'm excited about going back to the stone ages! But I guess if all else fails, it's better than AOL until SOMEBODY comes up with a good broadband solution for my neighborhood). Covad is obnoxious, and blames IE. We're stuck in the middle. I've been sufficiently baffled by the BS on both sides to not know who to go to to seek recompense.
What are others doing? I hear rumor (from IE!) of a class action lawsuit, but can't find any place to get more info about joining one. Glad to hear any suggestions or info on joining a lawsuit.
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Review by Bunky8
member for 11.3 years, 2 visits, last login: 11.3 years ago
lodged 11.3 years ago
- San Diego,San Diego,CA
- $49 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 20 days
- SBC
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Internet Express OK until they didn't pay Covad bills"
- "Covad's financial situation made cutoff a desperation move"
- "How about a Class action lawsuit against both these companies?"
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Since IE and Covad have gotten into this tussle, only the customer is being penalized. IE is great, but maybe they should have paid their bills. Covad is great, too - they spent hours at my house tracking down a short in the phone line. Nice folks who solved the problem. But leave it to the bean counters to SCREW it up. I don't think we'll ever find out the truth from Covad, a company fighting to survive.
Covad should have not pulled the plug at the holidays and not been ready to seemlessly cutover service. The service their Covad.net offers does not have static IP address - so they're are not an option. Other ISP's can never sign you up and cutover fast enough.
Hey, Covad and IE - don't place your dirty laundry in e-mails that are half-truths or outright lies. How about solving the problem.
----Covad - how about working with IE to continue service - I'll pay you direct until IE pays their bills to you. And to do this over Christmas is the cruelest of all - when we can't find an alternative and you have reduced crews working - even 800 fewer workers due your layoffs - again at Christmas -
congratulations and Bah Humbug. Covad is the real Grinch
----IE - we know you didn't pay the bills and must have hung too tough in negotiations with Covad that made them pull the plug. Admit you knew this was coming!
I hope your both ready for some bad PR on this issue, not just in DSL Reports!
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Review by hbograd
member for 12.6 years, 23 visits, last login: 2.7 years ago
updated 11.4 years ago
- New York,New York,NY
 Business customer- $129 per month
- (month by month)
- CLEC party: Covad
- "I had good service for a while."
- "They are canceling service in New York as of 12/31/2000, and didn't notify us of this."
- "No longer available in New York! (and maybe not in most other states except Southern California)."
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12/28/2000 I'm leaving my previous review intact below. However, I just found out, by chance, that Internet Express has had some kind of dispute with Covad, and the upshot is that they will no longer provide service to us as of 12/31/2000. I did not get any notice from Internet Express about this. I got a notice from Covad.Net saying "welcome to our service" but they also did not explain what was going on. It looks as if we might simply have no service if we do not take action.
Harriet Bograd
(review from 1999):
I'm in the midst of getting DSL working for our synagogue. I've been pleased with the prices and the responsiveness of the Internet Express staff, though there have been minor bits of confusion. For example, when I first called (in the middle of the night), I got a tech person who attempted to answer my pre-sales questions. When I read back my notes to a salesperson the next day, I found that the tech person had given me some misinformation. But no harm was done.
I first called Internet Express on September 16. I can't remember when I actually mailed in the contract with our payment ($129 per month for 192K business service), but I was surprised that Bell Atlantic and Covad came so quickly. They said I could expect a 4-6 week wait, but it was less than that. Bell Atlantic came last week, and Covad came on Tuesday (they had given us an appointment for a week later, and then called to say they were on their way over).
The Covad person was able to verify that the Flowpoint 2210 router worked with his laptop, and then I was able to verify that it worked with one of our computers - the tech support people talked me through the Win 98 network configuration. It seemed silly that they didn't have the Win 98 configuration instructions (with screen shots) on their Web site - this would have saved their tech person a lot of time. But he was very helpful. We had trouble getting it to work, and finally I tried substituting a different cable for the one that Covad had delivered, and then it seemed to work.
I now have to figure out how to get Domain Name Service, and how to get the DSL working over the network. I'd like a firewall, and am considering either the SonicWall/10 or Sygate (www.sygate.com). For Domain Name Service, I'm thinking of using Internet Express (for $21 per month), but would like to know whether their hosting service is reliable.
There may be a problem with whether the router works only with Ethernet 10 and not Ethernet 100. I read about this in another message, and the question came up when we were testing our service. I hope to figure this out soon.
Harriet Bograd
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 Review by Taz72
member for 11.4 years, 290 visits, last login: 6.7 years ago
lodged 11.4 years ago
- 92801
- $49 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 10 days
- Covad
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Customer Service is the Best I have ever experienced!"
- "Communication with Covad (or Covad's response time?) Sucks!"
- "Excellent ISP!"
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I could not get DSL or cable modem service in my area, IE sympathized and gave me a 608 SDSL solution with a Static IP for the price of a 384/128 ADSL solution. I never had 608 sustained, but 420 was average. Being beyond 56K was a dream!
After spending many hours with INTERNET EXPRESS Technicians and COVAD Technicians, I am convinced that the IE technicians were the ones solving the problems. (as it should be?) COVAD is lost! I had to wire my house myself, because the COVAD technician did not know how to use a tone generator. When I first got my DSL up, I actually had telnet access to the switch on the other end of my segment. (Scary!)
INTERNET EXPRESS is an Awesome company from a customer Service perspective, they bent over backward to fix COVAD's 'outages.' Refunded money, because COVAD had no one 'available' to support INTERNET EXPRESS. One day COVAD apparently screwed up a route entry and didn't test it before going home. My DSL was down for 12 hours! IE set up a temporary Dial-up and made sure I was up and running in the morning. 12 hours later an IE CS manager who had access (on a weekend) fixed it remotely. COVAD wasn't willing to fix it 'til Monday morning.
INTERNET EXPRESS has told me that they are looking at other solutions, possibly wireless or alternative providers in my area. I look forward to working with them to find a solution that fits MY needs. Not COVAD's solution: 'a cookie cutter all or nothing solution for 1 year, and if you don't like it... tough.'
Now COVAD wants to charge me 109.00 for the service I was currently paying 49.00 for. And they won't even give me a Static IP or guaranty ANY speed. And have you ever tried to contact COVAD for questions?
Support the customers! INTERNET EXPRESS is doing it right! They are looking for ways to improve the current service and if the services don't meet the need, replace 'em! However things transpire, they are better off with out COVAD!
INTERNET EXPRESS is an asset to the Internet! I will continue to do business with them as much as possible!
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Review by feltz
member for 12.2 years, 6 visits, last login: 11.3 years ago
lodged 11.4 years ago
- 22031
- $49 per month
- (24 month contract)
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Great service, while it lasted..."
- "Covad sucking my wallet dry"
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Merry Christmas, DSL users... :-(
Internet Express is getting out of the business, and Covad wants to charge me $130.00 a month -- I think $50 is too high for my 144/144 service, but it's all I can get due to distance from the CO.
Both companies are being childish about this, pointing fingers and giving VERY LITTLE TIME to make the swich. Email today from Covad (12/20) informing me I had 8 days to make the switch. Over the Holidays! This is ridiculous.
Covad's "safety net" program only allows me to switch to their ISP service - no idea when, if ever, a "designated ISP" will contact me with alternatives.
The whole thing stinks.
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