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Review by bassrck4 
UPDATED: 2.2 years ago
member for 3.5 years, 275 visits, last login: 5 days ago
 Berwick,Columbia,PA
 $29 per month
 about 5 days
 "local office"
 "goes offline-reistall cable,fix box on pole"
 "it's what we got"
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verizon DSL is available-(up to 768-1/2 the speed of pa.metrocast) + verizon up-to speed means 300kbs-no value
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Review by bassrck4
Posted: 2.2 years ago
member for 3.5 years, 275 visits, last login: 5 days ago
Berwick,Columbia,PA
$29 per month
about 5 days
"local office"
"goes offline-reistall cable,fix box on pole"
"it's what we got"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings above consensus)
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verizon DSL is available-(up to 768-1/2 the speed of pa.metrocast) + verizon up-to speed means 300kbs-no value
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Review by comp
UPDATED: 2.2 years ago
member for 8.2 years, 3405 visits, last login: a few hours ago
New Durham,Strafford,NH
$50 per month
"It's There"
"None Really"
"Not Horrible for the only choice"
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Not horrible for the only service up here. Just got the 6mb package upgrade and it is eh. Coming from an old OOL area and a Comcast area with higher speeds i swear there is a lag delay with metrocast but i cant put my finger on it. I think it is whoever they are using for a backbone
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 Review by billh491
UPDATED: 2.3 years ago
member for 8.3 years, 2706 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
Pomfret Center,Windham,CT
$67 per month (month by month)
about 1 days
"Small company with great Tech Support"
"News server speeds are capped all right for text only"
"They offer the fastest speed at my location"
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I have used this service from the first hour it was available and the speed has always been right there. The service is a 1.5 down 128 up and clocks as such here at DSL Reports. One of the customers of the service set up a web based forum for Myeastern users »www.connforum.com and we are lucky to have two of the top Techs form Myeastern as regulars so no problems of which there are few go unresolved for long. I pay for premium email and news server so all I need from my ISP is a fat pipe that works and you get that from these folks.
I was with @Home before the shut down via the Eastern Ct Cable system. When it happened ECC did not pay @Home to stay hooked up until Feb 28 instead they took that money and built their own network. And while there was some tense moments of broadband withdrawal during those 85 days. The wait paid off and at about 8pm Feb. 28th the network went live. And it has been broadband bliss ever since.
August of 2003 The above is still true but they started capping downloads at 30 gigs. So if you use less fine. * update as of May 2004 I have not hit the cap*
Feb 2004 While most cable ISP's are giving you 3.0/256 service for no extra charge MyEastern has no plans of upgrading the service to compete. I was told by the general manager that they built a basic service for customers with basic needs and have no plans to offer more speed either for free for for a fee with tiers.
April 2004 good news plans have changed and by popular demand speeds have increased. We now get 2500/256 at no extra charge.
August 2004 speed is bumped to 3000/256 same price.
March 2005 they have added Tiers. The basic tier is 3000/256 capped at 30 gigs for 37.95. For 20 bucks you can double your speeds and caps. There is a few other tiers no better speed but extra Ip's and larger caps and they allow servers.
August 2007 last year at this time Eastern was purchased by Metrocast and I would say things have gone well. The network techs stayed on and I have seen better speeds. I am getting a bit over the 6000k down I am paying for and they just doubled the upload speed to 1000k.
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Review by imaref
Posted: 2.3 years ago
member for 2.7 years, 3 visits, last login: 255 days ago
Lexington Park,Saint Marys,MD
$41 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Broadband availability in the St. Mary's County Maryland area."
"Serious quality and speed issues."
"If you're not a patient person, find another provider"
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I have the 6mbps service. Have never once reached this speed.
When things are going well, it's great. No limits on downloads, uploads, etc. However the network has been spotty the past year or two. On some days speeds can be as low as dialup.
My biggest gripe is that when there is a technical problem with the network, the tech support people have no idea so you get the old "unplug the modem and reset it", etc. when it's a network issue and not an issue at this end.
When it's up and running it's a pleasure. I just wish they could keep it up and running on a more regular basis.
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Review by shaw70
UPDATED: 2.7 years ago
member for 3.7 years, 26 visits, last login: 2.3 years ago
Franklin,Merrimack,NH
$49 per month
"None"
"Everything"
"Future looking better?"
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Metrocasts parent company sold out to Comcast. So just maybe we can begin to get better service/treatment?
Followup comments:  
tenpin784
I Went To The Dark Side?
join:2001-03-30
New Durham, NH | huh Where did you hear we got bought by Comcast??
Thats news to me, and everyone else that I just asked. | |
| | Hankthecat
join:2004-09-30
Gilmanton, NH | Re: huh That is a completely false statement. MetroCast is growing, not shrinking. | |
| | | comp
Premium
join:2001-08-16
Concord, NC
clubs: | Re: huh PLEASE tell me the Comcast thing is true. I would LOVE 8/768 speeds with powerboost!!!!!!!!! Plus TV is cheaper!!!!!!!! | |
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tenpin784
I Went To The Dark Side?
join:2001-03-30
New Durham, NH
1 edit | Re: huh Only thing I can find in relation to Metrocast and Comcast is this:
»forums.somd.com/archive/index.ph···912.html
We (as in me, you, and the other 2 who have posted in this thread) are quite a bit away from Maryland.
Also, does Comcast have powerboost in New Hampshire? I have been to a couple of my friends/relative's houses, and honestly, I can never get more then 300-350KB/s downloads, and speedtests end around 3500/300. | |
| | | | | comp
Premium
join:2001-08-16
Concord, NC
clubs: | Re: huh When i lived in Newmarket and had comcast i had powerboost, so yes it appears then do. I had the 8/768 pack and hit about 20k on my bursting | |
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jrobert69
How High?
Premium
join:2001-05-19
Rochester, NH | Id love those speeds also, but they dont mean crap if you are capped. Im happy with the 6/384 that I can use to my hearts content.
--
Spring at last | |
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tenpin784
I Went To The Dark Side?
join:2001-03-30
New Durham, NH | weird,
i even went to a town where there is FiOS (Epping) and that was by far the slowest Comcast connection I have been on. | |
| | | comp
Premium
join:2001-08-16
Concord, NC
clubs: | Re: huh hmm might be a site issue. i had perfect speeds in newmarket... i miss it  | |
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 Review by N3CAL
UPDATED: 2.7 years ago
member for 4.5 years, 1762 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Lexington Park,Saint Marys,MD
$54 per month
about 14 days
"None so far!"
"Terrible download speeds, Billing errors monthly, Poor 24/7 support"
"Not worth the money! Avoid if all possible."
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July 2005 we purchased our home and ordered service. At the time the local cable/internet company in St. Mary’s County, Maryland was GMPEXPRESS. The customer service order went okay and after a two week wait service was installed. I am leasing the cable modem: Motorola SB5101 @ $2.95/month. No problems except the modem would require a power reset several times a week. My GMPEXPRESS service "Residential Gold” was 3.0mb down / 384kb up. Our previous home we had Verizon DSL at 1.5MB but DSL is not available in this area so I have no other options. GMP offered the DSL modem buyback at $8.33 credit each month for 12 months. July and August went fine with download speeds always above 2.0mb each day. September 1, 2005 GMPEXPRESS was acquired by METROCAST. I received a letter from METROCAST detailing my new exciting premium High Speed service at 4 MB /384K for the same price! Since METROCAST took over the download speeds has dropped to less than 400kb day - night. The only time I can even get over 1.5 mb down is in the early morning hours. That’s no where close to 3.0 - 4.0 mb down! I've have called several times and have had several trouble tickets which they close out only after sending a Tech out to check the line. Techs always say my signals are fine and the problem is with the Head End. They are overloaded and can't handle the # of customers. This has gone on for the past 3 months. The local office has admitted their system is overloaded and they are adding more equipment to handle the load but to date the service/speed is far below what I feel I should get for my money. Tech Support doesn't know the status of the companies equipment upgrades and only insists on sending a tech out each time to check the line. They did replace my leased modem a week ago with another Motorola SB5101 which had a newer release firmware but the download speeds are still terrible. Billing each month has been painful also. Each month they forget to include the $8.33 DSL buyback credit. That requires another painful call to their Tech Support line. It's the end of January 2006 and still waiting for some decent download speeds. I wish they would reduce the monthly fee until this problem can be resolved. My advice is steer clear until they can improve their service. It's not worth the headache.
Update: 6 April 2006
It's been 10 weeks since I wrote my review. Nothing has changed except Metrocast continues to take on additional customers and has been unable to resolve any of the issues. It's been a month since they added another CMTS but service has not improved! It's gotten worse! My download speed this evening is less than 100 kbps and upload only 200 kbps. Broadband Reports.com packet loss test shows 25 -27 % packet loss between my modem and first node, all hops after the front end shows no loss at all! My call to Tech Support tonight confirmed the packet loss however they can only report the issue to the local St. Mary's County Office. My calls to the local office go unanswered. I guess they are tired of hearing the numerous complaints from their customers. My frustration could be less if only Metrocast had the decency to inform their customers of the situation and what their plans are to resolve it. It sounds like they need additional equipment besides the CMTS? I really would like to drop this nightmare but this is my only option! IOW I'm screwed and pissed all for 52$ a month! ARGHHHH
Update 2, May 03, 2006
Management called me May 1st in response to my Better Business Bureau Complaint. Metrocast gave me a one month credit for service but no apologies or answers. Since this was a management type employee she was unable to answer any of my questions. She wanted to know if my service had improved lately which my response was the average 200-500K download during the afternoon and evening hours along with 10-35% packet loss had only improved to 1000-1800 kbps download and about 7-10% packet loss. Yes there is an improvement but not up to my expectations. Early morning hours have improved to about 3500 kbps down. Her only response was to send another Tech out to my house again! The Tech was here yesterday and I was able to get some of my questions answered. The Tech called Leo and Bobbie and they indicated they were still working the issues for my area (Greenbrier) and it could be another month at least! From what I was able to get out of the Tech is the OTN site I get my service from (Ridge) needs another fiber optic line run from Leonardtown (Head End) to handle the customer base. Till then it looks like afternoon and evenings will be well below rated speeds. To sum it all up, Metrocasts Network was designed around a customer base of approx 2000 but they have at least 8000. They need allot of work to get where they need to be. BEWARE.....
Update 3, Aug 16, 2006
After about 2 months of decent download speeds (3200 kbps) Metrocast is back down to being overloaded during the afternoon and evening hours. The last week my download speeds have only been around 150 kbps. My upload has been solid at 384 kbps. Tech Support waiting time is in excess of 100 minutes. I still get the same old acknowledgement of "we have had allot of calls about the terrible speeds" and "we will have someone come out and check your line". I've had to put up with this terrible service for a full year now! The only thing Metrocast is reliable about is sending you a bill every month! Metrocast is the worst ISP I have ever had to deal with! Avoid if at all possible.
Update 4, Dec 26, 2006
Most of the problems over the past year have been resolved since MetroCast has updated their equipment here in St. Mary's County, Maryland. I can honestly say service has been reliable throughout the day and evening hours with avg download speeds of about 3900 kbps over the last three months (Oct-Dec 2006). November 15, 2006 I received a letter from Metrocast saying they were increasing their rates. High Speed Internet was going up $2.00/month and they were going to increase download speed from 4 MB to 6 MB. Well my December bill has already arrived and they held true to the $2.00 increase but I have not seen the speed increase yet! A call into the office today indicates the speed increase will take effect on 1 Jan 2007. I'm not holding my breath! I'll update again in the near future. Lets see if they can do it? I hope the new year is not another repeat of the last year!
Update: January 13, 2007
Metrocast's Download Speed increase to 6 MB has been very painful here in Lexington Park, Maryland. The supposed increase took effect 1 Jan 2007 however the reliable speeds I wrote about in my last update (over 3000 kbps) have disappeared. My download speeds have dropped way down to only 600 kbps or less during the day and evening hours. I've placed a trouble call to Metrocast which has been outstanding for 13 days. To date they have been to my house and verified the cable and modem are good but the problem is still unresolved. After providing the Tech with download data for the last 15 day period he agreed there is a problem on the Metrocast side.
I can only conclude that Metrocast is using deceptive advertising tactics and they "throttle their bandwidth" to the extent of 80% or more during daytime and evening hours. 600 kbps or less for a 6000 kbps service is plain wrong! Customers are not getting what they pay for!
Update: Feb 15, 2007
Metrocast still has not resolved the poor download speed issues for my area (Greenbrier). I have spoken with the local office several times since January 1, 2007 when the upgrade from 4 MB- 6 MB took effect. Metrocast has told me that several Nodes in my area are overloaded. They say a normal Node has around 200-250 customers on it. Metrocast tells me the node I’m on has over 500 customers on it. This is the same thing Metrocast told me back in the spring of 2006! It took several months to add equipment to fix that previous problem. I was led to believe the overloaded nodes then were updated to handle the number of customers in the area and also allow for additional growth! What I don’t understand is how a Node can work fine at 3500-3900 kbps download speeds, 24 hours a day from August 1, 2006-December 31, 2006, then overnight it becomes overloaded again and speeds drop to only 600 kbps? It doesn’t make sense!
Over the past two months Metrocast has said they were going to split up the Nodes again. The magic date was supposed to be Feb 13, 2007. Well it’s Feb 15th and download speeds are only around 700-1200 kbps from 3:00 pm through 12:00pm (Midnight) which is only a couple 100 kbps improvement if that. I’m also still on the same node and wonder what will happen when folks start to move into the 100 or so homes in the new section and are brought onto the same node?? I just doesn’t look like there is actually any equipment upgrades happening.
I can honestly say Metrocast can only provide a 700/384 service reliably to this area. It is not a 6000/384 service they advertise and it’s not worth $54.00 per month! Beware!
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Review by mikecarno
Posted: 2.9 years ago
member for 4 years, 106 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Rochester,Strafford,NH
$39 per month
"Connectability"
"Some NOT ALL Tech Support."
"Outside of that 1 bad experience, VERY GOOD SERVICE."
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The only real problem I had was with my first Modem. I would go to a certain site and my modem would lock up and kick me offline. I would have to unplug my modem, wait a few minutes , and then plug it back in, and it would work. Well when I called Metrocast about this problem and that I needed a new modem, they said it was impossible for it to be the modem and it was probably my PC, the guy said he tried it at his end and it was OKAY. Right then and there I Knew this guy didn't know squat, because of course HIS modem was okay. After that I finally got a Tech. to the house and what do you think happened when he hooked up a NEW modem? yep your right the problem was solved, it was fixed. I think before Metrocast puts anyone in the position of giving tech. support they should test these people. Not all thier techs. are bad just that one.
P.S. THANK YOU for upgrading us from 4000 Kbps to 6000 Kbps.
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Review by tenpin784
UPDATED: 2.9 years ago
member for 8.6 years, 1990 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Northwood,Rockingham,NH
$39 per month
about 100 days
"Decent speeds, decent uptimes"
"None lately"
"Much better then they were 3+ years ago"
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Well, where to start. First, ordered the package well in advanced. I moved from Raymond, NH which at that time had mediaone road runner. Was expecting at least the same service from metrocast. Boy was I off. First, it took well over three months to get the service (the cable wasnt even "laid out" yet  ) At first when we did get it, it was ok, but I realized right away it was a hell of a lot slower than mediaone. One thing that wasnt fair was that users on their Rochester, NH system were getting speeds of 3mbit down and about 1 mbit up, while the rest of us were stuck with the ugly 512/128 speeds. Then came the problems of frequent disconnects, and horrible ping times. I even emailed the head tech support with a copy of my pings, and he explained that nothing was wrong. Nothing was wrong? As soon as I hit their routers, i got 300+ ping. This was making browsing slow as hell, not to mention gaming. They finally fixed that problem, but now, whenever it rains or snows, the internet goes out, although the TV works fine. Their QOS is horrible. After years of promising speed increases, im still stuck with the 512/128 speed, which is pathetic for the price. They were claiming an increase at the end of march, but it is now May, and still nothing. I seriously hope that DSL becomes available in this area. Major Thumbs Down to them.
Update: 11/25/03
Well, my good friend who has always Metrocast as much as myself showed me some great news. Apparently, they did a speed increase, and all you have to do is reset the modem. I did this, and was surprised, 1.2mbit down, 246kbit up, or something like that. Now what took so long? And how long is it going to last? Comcast got yet another speed increase, and they are kicking ass. Im more neutral now, CS still stinks.
Update:
whoo hoo, got another speed increase, looks like its around 4mbit/380, for the same price. not to shabby now
Update 12/26/2006
Ok, so I haven't updated this in a LONG time.
As of now, I currently work for the company, so you may think its biased, but I am trying not to be.Even though I work for them, I still experience all the same outages (if there are any) as anybody else, and honestly, I can not recall the last time they had a major problem. They have definantly stepped up to the plate and have been delivering. Speeds are consistent, even during peak times, and now they are increasing speeds as of 1/1/2007, so we will see how that goes now. Overall, they went from a pretty bad company to one of much higher quality then I would have expected from three years ago. It took a little while, but it was worth it the wait, and I say that from a customers point of view, not from an employees, when they upgraded to 4mbit (i forgot when, sometime in 04 maybe?) they started getting their act together. In fact, I think the last major outage was when I first started working for them, when they seperated from GWI, after that, I can not recall anything major (August of 04 is when that happened).
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Review by pantag
UPDATED: 2.9 years ago
member for 3 years, 255 visits, last login: 12 days ago
Waterford,New London,CT
$49 per month
"I am happy again !"
"Changed to none... !"
"Slow connection issue resolved."
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It looks like that after MyEastern.com merged with MetroCast Communications, my internet speed went from 2800KBps down to 700-800 Kbps. After the merge I am supposed to have a 4000Kbps connection but I don't even hit 1000KBps. I use SpeakEasy SpeedTest website to measure the speed which is a tool that the MetroCast Communications tech support is using. Any time I call them they are willing to help but we don't get anywhere. They just verify that my connection is slow (something that I already know) and they say it is because the servers are loaded... ! I live about 5 minutes away from their building in Waterford, CT. I even took my modem to them to test it and they said it was fine. I replaced my splitter to the ViewSonic (I think it is called...) brand which is what the techs use but no difference. I really don't know what else to do... Saturday nights I cannot browse any websites (forget downloading or uploading) and I have to use dial-up. Yes, it is sad to pay $50/month and use dial-up but after so many phone calls to tech support with no results I don't know what else to do. Maybe my modem is faulty? I have the high-rated Motorola 5100.
I hope that some techs from MetroCast Communications might be reading this. Please let me how I should proceed. The slow connection really affects my job. ~ Thank you!
Update: Well, the issue has been resolved ! It looks like some tweaking had to be done on the back end on my connection. Now the speed is were it is supposed to be and it is fast again. All this thanks to a dedicated MetroCast Communications tech who was browsing this website and offered me his help.
Thank you odog !!!
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Metrocast Communications
