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Review by LifeIsJust07 
Posted: 2.2 years ago
member for 2.2 years, 0 visits, last login: 2.2 years ago
 Goshen,Orange,NY
 $72 per month (12 month contract)
 about 14 days
 "Fast and reliable service for your money."
 "Sometimes service can be a little flakey."
 "You get what you pay for 90% of the time."
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I'm on the Earthlink Premium Service package getting speeds of 10 Mbps download and 768 Kbps upload. Had no problems with the order and install process. Was provided with an RCA modem but later on purchased my own Linksys modem for the satisfaction on not having to return one to them. Earthlink seems to be more reliable then Road Runner and in some area's it is cheaper.
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Review by justDave
UPDATED: 2.2 years ago
member for 9.7 years, 1712 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Brooklyn,Kings,NY
$42 per month
about 30 days
"Fast, stable, reliable, no phone or cable tv account required"
"Installation (of anything) is tricky in these parts :-("
"Get it!"
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I was an Earthlink/Covad DSL customer for over 2 years. I wanted to make changes to my local service but was afraid Verizon would use it as an excuse to disrupt my DSL. I saw mostly favorable reviews of Earthlink/Time Warner Cable, it was a bit cheaper, a bit faster and it wouldn't be tied to my phone service. Best of all, a cable TV account was not even required.
I ordered through Dell Home. Deal was $30/mo for 6 months, $42/mo afterward. Free install, $80 rebate, no minimum commitment.
Install was fairly painless. Getting access to the utility pole in my neighbor's yard took a second visit and Earthlink went and cancelled the order but I just opened a new order. I made sure we had access the next time and the install was done in a few hours.
Speeds are much better than I was getting with DSL. Just as consistent. Still no downtime to speak of after 6+ months.
(... and now I can switch my phone to Vonage  )
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 Review by MsTerra
UPDATED: 2.2 years ago
member for 7.2 years, 2714 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Somerville,Middlesex,MA
$42 per month
about 14 days
"Privacy policy, spam filtering"
"None apparent yet in the new location"
"I wish Earthlink customers had more options for cable providers!"
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My husband and I had had Earthlink dialup accounts for some years, and we were satisfied with them so we didn't have to think too long and hard before going with Earthlink cable the first time we got broadband. (Besides, we couldn't get DSL at our Brooklyn apartment, and our only other cable option would be RoadRunner.)
The cable service started out as painless as we could have hoped it would be. It was only a couple of weeks after we placed the order that the Time-Warner guy came to install the cable (we didn't have cable TV) and bring the modem. There were no sync problems, the service worked right from the start. We had gotten an Asante router so that we could share the service between our two Macs, and that was also pretty much plug-and-play. The service started out reliable when we got it in autumn 2002, with good speeds.
However, eventually we found ourselves plagued by signal problems both on the broadband and on the TV. We called for service repeatedly, had numerous service visits, and the techs either tested our line, told us the signal was fine and left, or they tested our line and told us the signal was weak and needed to be fixed "at the plant". A couple of modem swaps seemed to solve the issues temporarily, but they always came back. I was reluctant to implicate Earthlink, as I'd been a satisfied user of their services for years. I suspected that TWC of NYC was the weak link in all of this. There seemed to be a great deal of resistance to do what needed to be done with lines and equipment to get our services running at an optimal level. Eventually, after far too many missed days of work waiting around for cable techs, in July 2006 we finally got TWC of NYC to re-run our line - which got us acceptable service for the next nine months until we left New York.
When we moved to the Boston area in March 2007 we chose Earthlink/Comcast as our cable broadband provider, having decided not to get a landline with Verizon. The installer got us set up the day after we moved into our apartment, and six months later, so far so good!
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 Review by JAXx
UPDATED: 2.2 years ago
member for 9.6 years, 2276 visits, last login: 1 days ago
New York,New York,NY
$41 per month
about 4 days
"Fast enought, and dial-up is included"
"unstable connection. Router goes offline several times a week forcing reboot."
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None of this is an earthlink issue, i shouldn't even be reviewing them, and in fact i'm not. This is all about Time Warner. ELN just resells the service but otherwise have nothing to do with it, including tech support. The problem now is that i also have VOIP through AT&T, that i have unacceptable packet loss (causing hiss on the line) and i need to get time warner to fix this. SO far I haven't, there seem to be so many hoops to jump through. Time warner is not responsible for hiss on AT&T's voip line, so........
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Ok so i was bugged to make an update
Speed has gotten much faster due to upgrade, close to 3000k/400k. Since my first review slow moments are now very rare. there are very rare outages, maybe 3-4 in the past year, lasting a few hours at most, with one exception.
The exception occured when i order a TWC DVR and they messed with some codes and killed my service for a couple days until we finally figured out it was the office that killed it. I got a pay channel free for a month to compensate me.
I'm still very happy with it.
Tech support through earthlink doesn't really exist - you have to deal with TWC but that's ok.
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This is a preliminary review - I'll come back and add to it after spending more time with it. Pre-sales was a bit confusing because if you order EL through TW you get one price ($45.95) but if you order directly through EL you get the better price ($41.95) and not all the reps at TW knew this. But it got straightened out. Once I got my order number I picked up the self install kit, and initially the modem couldn't sdee the cable connection to TW. I made a call and found out they hadn't set up the modem yet (I got the self install kit before they notified me it was ready, although i knew it was ready because time warner had the order #). So the tech activated the modem on the spot, and then it installed wonderfully easily.
The speeds have been great, execept at around 5pm on 2 sucessive days where the bandwidth droppped to basically nothing for a while. I will keep checking speeds and report back later with more info.
My neighbors in my building report that cable has become much more stable in NYC in the past year or so.
If it stays like this i will cancel my dsl account (which cost $50/month)
I haven't given a rating on tech support as I have not needed tech support yet
I did NOT install the EL software at all as it is not needed and I don't want them customzing and messing with my browser etc. The modem shipped with an outdated EL software anyway, EL 5.0. There is something newer.....
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 Review by signmeuptoo
UPDATED: 2.2 years ago
member for 8 years, 3803 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Ithaca,Tompkins,NY
$42 per month
about 30 days
"Good speeds most of the time (2MbtDn/384KbtUp) Major Company & the benefits of being with one without being like a major cable.."
"No Tech support except between 9AM-4PM in my area! Union workers with a Union attitude, as well, YUCH!"
"A breath of fresh air after my ELNK/Verizon/Genuity DSL Horror story. One of the best out there!"
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I have been with Earthlink since around, err... 1993(?) Via Dialup. Back in early fall, 200,1 I orderd DSL BBD from them and it was to run through Verizon Ex GTE lines/Genuity Routers. Verizon was, and still is, in my opinion one major piece of work (read that as very bad). The coordination of setting up my lines took over 45 days! Then my hardware never arrived. In fact, it took MORE THAN 70 Weeks for me to get my hardware. I only GOT the hardware after literally 40-50 telephone calls, seven of them with supervisors. It took an "executive relations officer" to fix things, and at that, I had to talk to him 3 times over a period of 16 days before he finally got pissed and forced the order through somehow.
For brevity I am skipping my billing horror story which is worse!
Well, things worked after I was up and running, and then, after only 3 weeks my DSL gateway box died on me! They sent me a replacement, but it took 2 weeks or so, and it wasn't packed in the box, it was just thrown in it with no packing, no instructions, no cables, no adapters, nothing. I got an adapter and tried to get it to work.
After a dozen calls with tech support agents (yes, upper tiers) I gave up and DEMANDED, by SCREAMING, that I wanted things fix once and for all or all sorts of hellfire and all (you know the drill, heh heh)...
They sent out a new one, but it took 3.5 weeks to get to me. It worked, but it was a sucky model, forget which one. Then I discovered, with some help of an agent, that the second one, although it was used and banged up, would be better and all that was needed was a telephone line 1 to line 2 exchanger. GEEZE!!!
Anyway, only days later they cancled my DSL service, can you believe it!? But they offered to put me on Time-Warner Cable/Earthlink Broadband. I turned green. Because I care about my email address a lot I finally agreed and I had DSL service until the cable went on.
Well, they still screwed up where I lived (they had me living in a city over 150 miles away), my email addresses, my billing information.
After about 6 more calls things smoothed out and, other than this last 3 weeks, things have been wall to wall great 97% of the time. 2.8 % of the rest has been minor slow burps and all. Now things have been really flacky at night, but I understand that they are working on my node and the area, so I am cooling my heels.
I highly recommend Earthlink/Time-Warner Cable Broadband. I have been seeing speeds of around 1.97 - 2.2 Mbit Down/340 - 370 Kbit Up, reasonable latencies around 65mSec +/-- to DSLR from here near Cornell.
News Servers are a little bit better, but still leave some to be desired. Customer support pages and the no-nonsense Personal Start Page with added Local Time-Warner buuilt in links is a nice effort.
Email works reliably but the Spam system doesn't do so well so I use a spam killer locally.
The price is fair.
Earthlink Customer Service is there at night but the Time-Warner People go home at 4PM so I had to give a lower rating there.
If you look close enough, ELNK Cable BBND can look just a little bit better than Road Runner, who shares the system and partly runs things.
Good luck to you!
UPDATE:
It is now quite a while since I originally ordered broadband from ELNK as DSL from Verizon. It was so terrible an experience that I still knash my teeth when I recall the treatment that I got. 6 months of little to no service and absolutely abyssmal service.
Well, since getting online through Time-Warner Cable/Earthlink, my online life has improved to where I have sanity again. If I ever loose this service I will be really bummed out. Fact is that this service is one of the best, for the most part. I still wish that I had DSL (if I could have it, and have it at as high a speed, so that I could be more secure).
However I have changed my scoring to reflect current issues:
I have dropped the tech support grade from 3 (average) to 2. I did this because of where I live and how ELNK and Time-Warner treat me at night, when I am usually around to get support. There is no support at night for me and it takes usually anywhere from calling 3 different phone numbers to 6 or more to get to who I need, only to find that they are not available except from 10 AM or much later until about 4 or 5 PM. That is pitiful. Cost cutting is customer and employee cutting, both loose an enterprise business, they just do. I still partially blame the union here in town, for I have heard that it has proven to be the cause of a lot of problems in how customers get service treatment.
I don't care if you union brothers blow your top at me, I used to be in the IBEW and all it did to me is put me out on the street, with the brothers laughing at me. They hated me because I worked as hard as I could and that raised the bar and they hated me for it. Screw the IBEW and all in it, I hate them with a passion.
Now, I did raise the servies score to 5, best, from 4, though I do think that they, and all ISPs should be doing much much more. I did the score change because Earthlink is trying to earn my money and trying to be good to me now, I didn't see that before. I wanted the total score to stay the same, so there are my changes. They are at least making some attempt at innovating...
MY ADVICE?
Get Earthlink Broadband cable and at least try it. There is usually no risk, you can dump them if you are not happy, but beware that if you dump them, then you have to pay for the next install. We are getting 3 Mb down (mega-bit, not to be confused with MB, mega Byte based upon 8 bits per) and 384 Kb up. I am hoping that the up speed is improved within 6 months or so, and that within 2 years our download goes to at least 5/6 Mb down. In Europe and Asia they are so way ahead of us that it is shameful.
One other note is that the anti-spam efforts have worked with mixed results, not so good as I would want.
As far as uptime, there are indeed times when the system is down, but that has mostly been a local issue, and the local reps are honest and open about what is going on, which impresses me, it makes me feel that they are treating me like a intelliget adult who deserves the information.
Thank you Earthlink for moving me to BBD cable from stinking Verizon DSL, and thank you even more, Time-Warner/RoadRunner for working hard to earn respect.
I am happy, like after I've had a decent steak, not a steak from Ruth's or what have you, but still...
UPDATE:
Time changes so many things, and adds to a soul's perspective. I am glad I am no longer with Earthlink, it is as simple as that. The company is divesting in America, treating their people like dirt, and the exectuves are gutting what was once a good company. This is so typical of corporate idiots. Sadly, they run our country, these corporate idiots.
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Review by geekette5
UPDATED: 2.3 years ago
member for 2.3 years, 71 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
Cary,Wake,NC
$45 per month
about 2 days
"Stable"
"low upload cap"
"I ain't changin'"
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I got the nag screen, so even though I've had service for years...here it is.
Stable, fast, stays up even during extended power outages. 5M down, 44.5K up. Stable. Did I mention stable? Very important, that stability. I don't remember having to call for service in...forever.
We switched from Roadrunner to Earthlink and the transition was seamless, if a little too fast. One day we were with RR, the next, our email was just dumped and we were with Earthlink. Other than not getting any notice...it was great.
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Review by adamwhoopie
Posted: 2.3 years ago
member for 2.3 years, 4 visits, last login: 1.8 years ago
Kew Gardens,Queens,NY
$35 per month
"Good speed, good price."
"Price could be lower, and a few more features would be nice."
"I'm probably going to stick with them for a while."
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I signed up for the service less than half a year ago, and they had a promotion of 6 months for $30 for a 5mbps line, no contract, meaning no cancellation fee. I thought that was great, so there I was. 6 months later, I went down to a light package- 768kbps (I think), and stayed with it for a month or two. Then I decided to go to RR to use their 6 month promotion for 5mbps line. When I called Earthlink to cancel my service, they said they will give me another 6 months of the 5mbps line for the same offer I had before!
I'm a happy man with them. And well, I can't really switch can I? With TimeWarner in my area, I only have EL or RR to choose from. And I wouldn't mind jumping from either one on their 6 month promotions  .
And... the 5mbps line is actually more like 7-8mbps.
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 Review by rsmith7
Posted: 2.3 years ago
member for 6.7 years, 814 visits, last login: a few hours ago
San Diego,San Diego,CA
$41 per month (month by month)
about 10 days
"Great service for the price"
"none"
"I am saving $8.00 per month by using Earthlink vice Roadrunner"
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I am save using Earthlink vice my traditional Roadrunner with I had used for 8 years. I did not like the fact that RR raised my rate by $5 due to the fact I do not have any cable services.
Earthlink has worked out pretty good so far. I like having more email space on their servers and the free 1GB drive storage.
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Review by psoas
Posted: 2.3 years ago
member for 2.3 years, 1 visits, last login: 2.3 years ago
Lakeland,Polk,FL
$41 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Quick installation and fast service. Never once noticed down time on the network. Uprate is ~680 kbps, advertised 512 kbps"
"Downrate advertised at 5.0 Mbit/s and is ~3.9 Mbit/s at peak hours (after tweak). Still not bad."
"When earthlink tells you what you will be getting, that is what you will get. They don't false advertise their service. +VALUE+"
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I ordered 5.0 Mbit/512 Kb per second rates and at peak hours i run 3.9Mbit/s down and 680 kbps up. the upload boost makes up for the download loss in my opinion. I have never, in the five years since i purchased service, had a connection problem or had down time. The only time my connection was severred was when my neighbor cut the cable while rotating the dirt in his yard (my cable box is right behind his yard, hard to explain). And it was fixed by Bright House the VERY NEXT DAY. I was amazed by that. Overall i have been extremely satisfied
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Review by mprogers
Posted: 2.3 years ago
member for 2.4 years, 48 visits, last login: 25 days ago
Nashua,Hillsborough,NH
$49 per month
about 7 days
"Comcast cable at a discount"
"Intrusive DNS redirection, Packet loss above expectations"
"A good choice for most purposes"
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Original order placed for Comcast in 2000 - VZ DSL not available - they could not make the math work although the CO was within 2 miles.
Switched the service to Earthlink about 2 years later - same service, $10 less.
DNS and "value-added" features provided by Earthlink, underlying service, billing and tech support by Comcast.
Earthlink's DNS redirection is annoying enough that I have static alternate servers listed before theirs. (If I type it wrong, I want my browser to act like I'm dumb, instead of the ISP subjecting me to their best guess and a bunch of adverts.)
Comcast tech support fair - when a tech is sent, they are generally decent, cheerful and competent, but fighting the machinery to get their attention can be harder.
Original service was 3Mbit/S down, 256K up - evolved over time to almost 10Mbit/S down, nominal 384Kbit/S up.
Original modem was Surfboard 4x00 (I think 4200) - when the service was upgraded beyond what it could handle, I bought a new SB5120, which operates much better.
Problems with (AT&T) VoIP were traced to:
1) Crummy Linksys RT41P2 TA - replaced by AT&T with a D-Link DVG 5102S.
2) Sub-par Signal quality at my home - patiently fixed by Comcast Tech.
3) Packet drops, mostly upstream, and mostly beyond my Default GW (EG between Earthlink/Comcast and the broader Internet) - Simply cannot get Comcast to grasp this one.
Bottom line - I'll stick with Earthlink/Comcast when I move next month.
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