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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 3.1 years ago
(review was emailed from domain cablespeed.com)
 South Beach,Lincoln,OR
 $45 per month
 "Faster than Dial-up"
 "Upload speeds and lost packets"
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My service from Millennium Digital Media has been far from
satisfactory. I have been on this ISP for close to three years and am
seriously thinking of leaving if I can find something better. They
originally set me up with a Motorola Surfboard modem which seemed to
work fairly well. Then we were suspecting the modem might be bad about
6 months ago, and they changed it to an Ambit modem. About that same
time MDM seemed to be having a lot of trouble, and I was cut off the
Internet repeatedly. Many calls were made to their service people (who
by the way at least seem to be reasonably courteous to work with) but
nothing seemed to correct the problem they were having with some of
their equipment. Speed tests were wildly fluctuating and my 3MB ISP
service often only gave me 600 to 800 Kb/s. Over a period of several
months this was corrected, and I now get average download speeds around
2700 Kb/s. At best, however, my upload speeds were only about 220 Kb/s
and about a month ago these started to drop to an average of only 150 to
160 Kb/s. I will say they readily agree to send a tech out to check it
out, and have done so at least 8 or more times in the last few months.
This poor upload speed has seen a tech out here three times this last
month, but apparently they are unable to correct the problem. I have
also been having a problem with "lost packets" and now am averaging
about 1.9% to 4% lost packets. I use my broadband a lot for audio
conversations with friends in another state and something (I suspect it
is the packet loss) causes frequent and very irritating breaks in the
conversation. We get these frequent breaks using both Microsoft
Messenger and also using Skype so it is not the software program causing
it. I would not recommend MDM to anyone if a better service is available.
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Review by bobcoolos 
Posted: 3.2 years ago
member for 3.2 years, 3 visits, last login: 3.1 years ago
Clarksville,Ionia,MI
Contract price not specified.
"Great when it works. :)"
"Completly un-usable at many times a week. :("
 "If you have other ISP options take them!"
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Review by skeptic23
Posted: 4 years ago
member for 8 years, 15 visits, last login: 2.9 years ago
Kenmore,King,WA
Contract price not specified.
"Good reliability, OK customer service (better recently)"
"Ma and Pa operation, no customer service after 7:00 PM, almost 2 years behind in technology"
"I only use them because I have no alternative--too far for decent DSL, satellite speeds too slow..."
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I've had MDM for over a year. No other cable available, and DSL and satellite are too slow. A couple of outages in a year, several problems, but the techs have been OK and gotten them resolved. Speed has ranged from great to painful, depending on 'net activity and probably other factors (see horror story below...) Advertised speed 3M down 768K up, I probably average about half that.
My biggest beef is that the company goes to sleep at 7:00 PM. Absolutely NO customer support at the time of day I use them the most!!! I guess when you have a captive customer base you can do whatever the hell you want.
Horror Story:
I'm being stonewalled (so far) on a pretty bad problem at the moment, though. The last to handle my inbound traffic (and the first server I hit outbound) is consistently dropping over 50% of the packets it gets. One thing if it started only recently. As far as I can tell, it's been going on for weeks. Who is minding the store? If the service level for anything I provide dropped to 50%, I'd be on it. I wouldn't need a customer to:
1. Notify me of the problem
2. Convince me there is a problem 3. Listen while I told him there is nothing I can do
4. Finding no support from me, contact Verio (it was a Verio server)--MDM could have taken a little initiative, don't you think?
5. Inform and convince me that it really is my problem, since the Verio server in question is leased by MDM and in their control
6. Listen again while I tell him there is nothing I can do until next week because all of my engineers are gone for the day--at 1:00 PM on a Friday!!
Server in question: fa-5-11.a11.sttlwa01.us.ce.verio.net Check it out for yourself...
»/quality/nil/1906272
I'll revise this review with the outcome when I know what it turns out to be.
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Review by Lunatics
Posted: 4.1 years ago
member for 4.1 years, 17 visits, last login: 3.6 years ago
Lakebay,Pierce,WA
Contract price not specified.
"Every day the line gets slower"
"This is a 1500/256 line and when I called to find out what the problem was they said the speed I was getting was in specificatio"
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This is the tests for four days I think they speak for them self!
2005-10-28 22:18:46 EST: 650 / 72
Your download speed : 650 kbps or 81.3 KB/sec.
Your upload speed : 72 kbps or 9.1 KB/sec.
2005-10-29 16:50:30 EST: 553 / 202
Your download speed : 553 kbps or 69.1 KB/sec.
Your upload speed : 202 kbps or 25.3 KB/sec.
2005-10-31 02:55:18 EST: 632 / 155
Your download speed : 632 kbps or 79 KB/sec.
Your upload speed : 155 kbps or 19.4 KB/sec.
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Review by fluffy18
Posted: 4.3 years ago
member for 4.3 years, 0 visits, last login: 4.3 years ago
Seattle,King,WA
$91 per month
"They were able to cancel it quickly"
"Never worked, rude techs, billed me for service I never got"
"If you're stuck with these guys, get DSL instead"
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MDM is one of those providers which seem to contract on an individual-building basis, so either you're stuck with them or you don't have to deal with them at all. My apartment building (Wall Street Tower) contracts with them. So, I decided to try them out. The installation was quick, but it was far from painless - the signal quality in my apartment was so bad that it couldn't even find the modem's RF carrier. Their technicians were pretty rude in trying to diagnose things and treated me like an idiot, and so rather than bend over backwards to keep on missing work to have them show up only to say, "The problem is in your apartment's wiring, we'll need to come back some other time to fix it" I asked their billing department to cancel the service and for a refund for the entire period, since it never worked for me, which they agreed to. (I don't blame them for the poor cabling quality in my apartment, as it's a pretty old building; what I take issue with was their condescending attitude and their unwillingness to actually be helpful in getting it working.)
Fast forward a couple weeks, and I get a bill from them for another month of service, and no indication that the service was cancelled or that a refund was pending or whatever. So I called them up (and had to deal with their obnoxious menus which made it hard to even get to a CSR - the obvious "ask a billing question" path caused it to just VERY SLOWLY recite my balance due and then hang up). When I finally got a CSR, she said to ignore the bill because I would actually be getting a refund for $43. Which is pretty neat because even if you remove the $10 installation fee they still owed me about $81. I asked where the other $40 went, and she said it was for the period of service that I had. I told them that the service never functioned during that time and I was told I'd get a refund for that period, and the CSR told me that the refund was already in the billing system and to have a nice day, and then she hung up.
So, they prorated the refund based on a service period which I NEVER GOT.
If you're stuck with these guys, do yourself a favor and get DSL instead. They don't respect you as a customer; a successful business charges you money for providing a service, but MDM only cares about the first part of the equation.
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Review by JethroXP
UPDATED: 4.9 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 59 visits, last login: 3.7 years ago
Duvall,King,WA
$49 per month
 about 1 days
"1.5M x 256K is what they promised, and they gave me 3Mbps!"
"Dynamic IP, costs $30 more per month for a static IP"
"Good customer service, and the speed is exactly what they claim"
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Updated 12/27/2004
Updating this review to say "WOW". In fact, it needs to be said again, "WOW". I ordered the 1.5Mbps residential service six months ago. Been very happy with it. Lately I've noticed my downloads going faster, and it was really noticable when I downloaded the Half-life 2 demo, which weighs in at 700MB+. It was downloading at about 2.5Mbps. I was thinking maybe I was just getting lucky, but today I checked the MDM webpage and saw that they now offer 3Mbps connections. So I called and asked what that would cost me. They told me I was already upgraded and it wouldn't cost me anything.
Can you believe it? They doubled my download speed and didn't raise the price. Talk about caring for your customers. I'd like to see any of the big guys do that. I'm now totally sold on Cable, I can't see ever going back to DSL, not considering all the hassles I had with Telcos and CLECs being unable to corrdinate, so that install, and any service call, takes days or weeks to resolve. I was hooked up with MDM within an hour of calling them. This is highspeed Internet as it was meant to be.
-----------------
I was very reluctant to go with Cable, because I've heard so many horror stories about over saturated lines, and wide open security holes. However in the new neighborhood I just moved into, the best I could get for DSL was 768K x 128K and that was $39.95/month on a 1 year contract. I had just moved from Silicon Valley where I had a 6M x 600K line with 8 static IPs that I paid a total of $75/month so the thought of 768K simply was not acceptable.
The local cable company, Millennium Digital Media, offered 1.5M x 256K for $49.95/month and no contract. So I decided to give it a try, and luckily there was no wait. The previous owner of my house had the same service, so it was already hooked up, they simply transfered the billing information to my name and I was online within an hour of calling them to first inquire about service (after a quick run to Best Buy to pick up a Cable Modem).
I've had the service for 4 days now, and I've run multiple speed tests, both download and upload, at all times of the day. Each time I've consistently averaged 1.5M downloads, with speed variances from 1.2M spiking up to 2.0M. Uploads have been fairly consistant around 220-240K.
Overall I've been quite pleasently surprised. Not only at the speed, but also at the customer service. They didn't try to hard sell me into TV service. They initially asked, and when I said no, they didn't mention it again. They also were very good about recommending that I buy my own Cable Modem. I think the CS rep said something to the effect of "you can pay us $7.50/month to rent one, or go buy one and it will pay for itself in 8 months." I appreciate that kind of honesty.
My only disappointment is that I get a dynamic IP. To get a static, I have to upgrade to business class service for $30/month more ($79.95/month total) but the speed stays the same. For now I'm sticking with the residential service to see how this works out.
Here are the details:
Speed: 1.5M x 256K
$49.95 / month
No term contract, it's simply month-to-month
Cable modem is $7.50 / month if you rent from them
Installation and setup is $90, but that was waived from me since it was already in use by the previous owner of the home.
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Review by Dalton3
Posted: 5.7 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 0 visits, last login: 5.7 years ago
Seattle,King,WA
$25 per month (12 month contract)
"It was a cheap 12 mo. deal"
"It sucks....reallly slow"
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It really sucks, The speed is slow and 9 times out of 10 someone is hacking your service. there is no other cable or dsl company you can use here in seattle for this area so they have you in between a rock and a hard place. The tech support (mainly the aliens) get smart with you over the phone. the american tech support guy was the only nice person to talk to.
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Review by ashtoreth
Posted: 5.8 years ago
member for 5.8 years, 17 visits, last login: 4.2 years ago
Seattle,King,WA
$49 per month
"Speed is good when it's up"
"Cable modem resets ALL the time, spotty connectivity"
"Get DSL"
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Had a few problems with Millenium at first, just with getting set up here in Seattle. REALLY RUDE customer service people when you have a complaint. Initial CS didn't give full information on what we had to do to get hooked up: seems the "self install" isn't self install, since the cable guy has to come to remove filters etc from the lines. Would have been nice to be told that since we live in a secure condo.
When the service is up, it is OK speed-wise. Not as good as our previous speed and service with Comcast at our last address, but adequate.
The big problem is that every 10-30 minutes the cable modem resets. It doesn't matter whether you're using the connection or not (since another 'great' feature is that unlike all other broadband providers, Millenium is NOT an 'always on' connection.) So you'll start using the internet and suddenly your email server times out and pages don't load. You look at the modem and, guess what? It's resetting.
Calls to customer service have no effect.
Since Millenium do a lot of condos, the net effect is also that in peak times when everyone in the condo block is home, speed goes down the drain. At least with Comcast they seem like their infrastructure is built to deal with a little load. I wouldn't be surprised if Millenium used little D-Link routers in their network with the performance at times.
Bottom line is, when the service works, it's adequate and worth the price. Comes in at less than the equivalent DSL price. However, the modem resetting and the spotty connection speeds mean that if you want reliable internet access, you're better off calling Speakeasy.
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Review by jandsdoyle
Posted: 5.9 years ago
member for 6.2 years, 28 visits, last login: 4.9 years ago
Napavine,Lewis,WA
$42 per month
about 2 days
"MDM SMOKES"
"GET IT"
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I have three xp computers surfing and gaming all the time. I have recived very good service, get very good and consistant speed, and very good prompt tech support when needed (not very often) all for a great price from millenium. I am very happy
John Doyle
Napavine,WA....
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Review by HE Gunner
Posted: 5.9 years ago
member for 5.9 years, 6 visits, last login: 5.8 years ago
Hastings,Barry,MI
$61 per month
about 14 days
"none"
"the tech is not knowlegeable about the service ,service always says nothing is wrong with the line"
"connection always goes down, horrible pings to game servers"
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This is the most horrible srvice i have ever had with an isp.My connection worked better on the dialup i had before.I pay $61 a month for the residential cablespeed(up to 1.5k)In my honest opinion it isnt worth the money.I would get myself another connection if one was available in this area .
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