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Review by Goofball2010 See Profile

  • Location: Bloomington, Monroe, IN, USA
  • Cost: $44 per month
Louisville Technical Center- Very Knowledgeable and They Push For The Best
Local Insightbb Not So Good
Local Insightbb Service Gets A
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Over the last Year plus we have been calling tech line and complaining about the wild speed fluctuations here in Bloomington, IN. Bottom line no one here locally seems to have cared or even put a concern on this. Always get a "it happens" line. Well we have checked with collegues around the country who use Insightbb and they dont seem to have this continious problem. Our clients that we take care of around town also dont seem to have these problems, just this section of town. We called the tech line again just the other day and gave them some more information. By talking with the tech person in Louisville, KY we came to the conclusion that the speed issues were from after effects of a storm and water. You see the storm has been over for many hours and the speeds are back to normal. But for 48 hours they were down to 20 up and 20 down at its worse. A few other folks also had back connections and they were asking us what was up. we pointed out that this seems to be a problem every time a heavy rain shower comes through here. Put two and two together and you got moisture issues invading the amplifier station for this area. No one at the office seems to have caught this variation in speeds. This makes us wonder with all of there speed watching software who missed this bit of DATA. To have a area that is unique like this it should have raised red flags of concern.

Value of service is poor if this is the attitude of Insight.

------ Update

Just got off the phone with tech support. Its interesting that when we told the local of our findings they got interested in our problem. Why now, its been over a year that this problem has been going on. However we did get a promise from them that they will look into the issue in the next two days. Currently the problem with the speeds has gone away but there has not been any rain for hours. Will continue to post updates as needed.

-------

member for 18.9 years, 22 visits, last login: 17.8 years ago
lodged 17.9 years ago


Review by Ripperingo See Profile

  • Location: Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
  • Cost: $45 per month
  • Install: about 5 days
10/1 @ $45 (but its fake, cuz you can't even use it, really)
Throttling BT, invisible traffic limits
Insight stinks
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Canceled my service with them a while ago. Using the shared wireless in our house now, since checking email and browsing is pretty much all insight lets you do.

BT is throttled (in my area at least), they call people who exceed their invisible traffic limits etc etc. If you offer 10/1 then stand with it, and make sure you can deliver. All this marketing BS insight is pulling should be outlawed. I am glad this whimp company is leaving soon, although Comcast will likely not be much better....

Bottom line: Insight stinks

member for 19.5 years, 596 visits, last login: 16 years ago
lodged 18.1 years ago


FiberedImage
@insightBB.com

FiberedImage

Anon

service issues

If your unhappy with the price, cancel the service and have it connected in another name. You can then get the service for like 30.00 a month.

Its pointless to offer a slower speed, most of the users are never going to use it, but the speed "rating" is just like its stated, a rating. Its possible to achieve those speeds in a perfect world but it will never happen. So if you get like a meg a second down, consider yourself blessed.

Load ballancing in your area might be necessary. You might want to call your local office to make this suggestion.

I hope this helps.
Ripperingo
join:2004-09-02
Champaign, IL

1 edit

Ripperingo

Member

Re: service issues

Local office is already on it, my local node is overcrowded (Campus town, so p2p is probably thriving), causing my pings to flair all over the place during busy hours (and get me booted from my favorite gaming servers).

I thought the $30 deal is only when you have cable TV service already (package deal) which i have not. Anyway, the price comment was mostly b/c of what they offer for $45 (compared to other cable providers), not the $45 itself.

Anyway, I'm not unhappy with Insight by any means, there's just a couple of little things that have room for improvement. I'd recommend them over DSL any day though

Review by Firemission See Profile

  • Location: Louisville, Jefferson, KY, USA
  • Cost: $148 per month
  • Install: about 2 days
great responce time to fix problems
slow speeds
okay but not really worth the price
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Insights responce to service requesets are very good however the fact that I have called in at least 5 times about getting less than 1 Mbps on a 6 Mbps line is unacceptable. I understand that a network that large is hard to manage however after 5 seperate callins (where it was verified that it was in insight issue and not a pc or local network issue) about the issue you would think they would have a network engineer look at it.

member for 18.5 years, 81 visits, last login: 16.3 years ago
lodged 18.2 years ago


Review by coppercode See Profile

  • Location: West Lafayette, Tippecanoe, IN, USA
  • Cost: $70 per month
Techs going door-to-door, came and hooked me up in minutes. Port 25 not blocked, I can actually send mail!
Goes down countless times per day, speeds reminiscent of dialup...
Disconnecting next month.
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They sold me a 4000/384 with a standard TV package of some sort. I don't know whether my node is oversold or what, but I swear I've never seen this connection top 19.5kb/s! Feels like dialup all over again. What ever happened to "over 100x faster than dialup!!"

I get disconnected for several minutes at a time as many as several times during a casual surfing session. Dialup was never this bad.

I've never seen my packet loss go under 6%.

I haven't called tech support, and I'm not even going to waste my time. This is like the 4th terrible cable company in a row that I've had to deal with, so it's out the window next month in favor of DSL. Hopefully I can finally get something as advertised for once.

member for 18.6 years, 12 visits, last login: 7.2 years ago
lodged 18.2 years ago


Review by daisydaisy See Profile

  • Location: Louisville, Jefferson, KY, USA
  • Cost: $79 per month
  • Install: about 6 days
6 meg line
cost to high
fastest in town
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I have insightbb for about 6 months. I split my cable speed with another gaming pc in the home. 6 meg line I get about 2800 to 3200 meg playing games. UT2004 and City of Heros on the other pc. I was on basic cable and we were fighting over bandwith all the time. Increase to cable plus and everything fine. The cost is very high 79.95 a month. Static IP's, cable modem require. change your modem or router you have to call in your mac address for serive to work. No one told me that ....Good service .....but alot of $$$.

member for 18.3 years, 20 visits, last login: 17.8 years ago
lodged 18.2 years ago


Review by R Harbin See Profile

  • Location: Charlestown, Clark, IN, USA
  • Cost: $54 per month
Little better than dial up
Bandwith is not consistant. Good at times/Realbad at times.
Overloaded system and they want do anything about it.
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My speeds has been sufering for some time now.
I have basic high speed internet.
Tech has been at my house 4 times and they
say everthing is ok. Its not ok my speads range
from 714/315 kbps -------------> 3341/360 kbps just
depending on the time i check it. At peak times
speeds are real low. At off peak times it ok.
Ive tried everything with no results.Tired of trying
all i can hope for now is DSL comes my way someday
and hope there service is better.

member for 19.4 years, 69 visits, last login: 17.2 years ago
lodged 18.3 years ago


Review by nrvespa See Profile

  • Location: Chatham, Sangamon, IL, USA
  • Cost: $34 per month
  • Install: about 4 days
Very Fast. Hardly no down time!!!
Hard to install. Slow uploads.
It is a good deal if you already have cable TV w/ them.
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This is pretty fast and reliable service. The speeds I get are usually around 4500DL/350UL. I rarely ever have any down time. I also have digital cable with Insight so my Internet service is $34.95 instead of $44.95. It is a better deal if you have their cable service as well.

member for 21.4 years, 1010 visits, last login: 13.8 years ago
lodged 18.4 years ago







Review by flw See Profile

  • Location: Byron, Ogle, IL, USA
  • Cost: $35 per month
  • Install: about 7 days
Reliable connection
Lousy customer service and mixed on site tech knowledge
If Insightbb is your only choice, you have none. Otherwise choose another ISP.
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I have used numerous Internet service providers through the years. I’ve used many of the national Internet providers such as AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, and MSN. I’ve also used local providers (Rockford area mostly) such as Rockriver Internet, Inwave, AT&T, Byronil.net and Insightbb.com.

Its somewhat of a debate about Insightbb.com being local since the parent corporation of Insightbb.com is AT&T. So their not really as small or as local as we may think. The financial relationship between the two is unclear as far as support from AT&T for Insightbb infrastructure (stuff you can’t see that makes it all work) and direct customer service. I’ve directly asked Insightbb.com for clarification on this and was given an answer that clearly showed they really didn’t know or were unwilling to provide any details.

Getting back to insightbb.com as an Internet provider, they are the only high-speed connection to the Internet method a home user has reliable at a reasonable cost outside of Rockford. We do have the option of using Satellite Service providers. They are generally twice the cost of a cable service provider like Insightbb.com. So were back to having only one practical choice for using the Internet without the long delays with a traditional dialup providers like AOL, Inwave.com or Rockriver.net

What are the precautions or warnings for any always on Internet connection? This high-speed (always on) connection comes with some risks that are not always made clear. Since the connection is always on, whenever your computer is on, it is vulnerable to Internet hackers and viruses. So using an example, if you start your PC and use the word processor you wouldn’t think of your Internet connection but hackers and virus’s will because your still connected the Internet just like your TV is to the cable. So you will need a personal firewall (deters hackers) like the one built into Windows XP or the free version of ZoneAlarm (I like free). You’ll also need a current Anti-Virus (It’s a preventative action, just like the shots you may have received as a child) that needs to be updated regularly so your protection is up to date.

What is the cost of this for an always on Internet connection? The current cost is approx. $35 to 45 per month not including a one time setup and a cable modem cost. So for this you get high speed Internet access but you are not allowed to run any network services. Services like an Internet web server from your home etc… Even though they have taken some precautions to discourage this, it still exists. If they discover you are using your PC as a Web server you’ll typically be given a warning before loosing your service. They also have the right just to turn your account off. So don’t bank on a warning.

How’s the service? Service for outside Rockford is less than desirable but minimally acceptable. The main problem is two fold:

First the accounting and customer service is based out of the Dixon office, we are not in or right next to Dixon.

Second the service technicians are based out of Rockford along with the equipment our home PC’s end up connecting to before they get out to the Internet. So by Insights design we are split up. I have run into numerous situations where I was having service problems that Dixon would deny any knowledge of. Yet later, after I called back I’d get what seems to be a standard reason for an issue which is "Rockford’s doing some network maintenance that they didn’t tell us about". This was not the first or last time I would hear this basic statement. To be fair both Rockford and Dixon Insight personnel have blamed each other rather that taking the issue as a larger Insight issue.

The Customer Service out of Dixon is especially poor because the Insightbb mgt. doesn’t require any knowledge of how computers work or what is required for a successful Internet connection. I base this off of several calls over the couple years I’ve used Insightbb.com myself. You see, by day I’m a computer network administrator, which is just a fancy term for, "I fix computers and the devices they connect to". This is the part where one computer can talk to another computer. Both out on the Internet and private networks like the kind inside of a building or buildings. Back to the Customer Service being poor; is that they listen to the problem and then seem (this is unconfirmed and yet not denied either) to read possible solutions off a computer screen having no idea about what they are actually reading.

The technician service out of Rockford runs hot and cold. I’ve moved around Byron and met with several Insightbb.com technicians. They have run from almost incompetent (they were not able to complete the job which required another tech to finish) to truly knowledgeable about their own network and can answer your simple as well as complex questions for new users or old hats like myself.

Based off my own experiences and that with other Internet cable users from across this country, I believe that Insightbb.com does provide a minimally acceptable level of service for an okay but at a slightly high cost. Unfortunately, we don’t have another choice so there is no real pressure on Insightbb.com to change or improve services or prices. That is at least until DSL (high speed Internet connection that uses standard telephone wires) reaches outside Rockford. We won’t see DSL for sometime (I do hope I’m wrong), if ever, because we use older telephone equipment. This would require a reinvestment by our local telephone company into a system that works fine for normal telephone services. So, there is little incentive for them to upgrade our telephone systems.

I just switched to Verizon DSL based on cost. Insightbb in my area was charging $35 for those with digtial TV and $45 for those with analog cable. Verizon, which just started in my area, was charging $29.95 per month for 1 yr contract and had a special for new customers of $15 per month for a one year contact. Getting just over 800 down and 128 up.

Install CD failed even with tech support Remote control of my PC to get it to work.

It installed with similar number of overall problems as compared to Insightbb.

member for 20.2 years, 545 visits, last login: 12.9 years ago
updated 18.4 years ago


Review by nba30 See Profile

  • Location: Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
  • Cost: $75 per month
When it occasionally works, it can be fast
Customer service, poor bandwidth, connection issues
Network needs work
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Insight Communications customer service is horrible! Their call centers have no technical knowledge at all. Everytime I call to inquire about outages or serious latency (takes 60 seconds to load ONE single webpage) I experience long hold times or "all circuits busy". We have experienced numerious service outages and extremely slow connections and Insight has not been able to correct this problem for over 3 weeks now. I am seriously considering switching to a DSL or wireless provider.

member for 19.7 years, 28 visits, last login: 16 years ago
lodged 18.4 years ago


Review by bigstig See Profile

  • Location: Westfield, Hamilton, IN, USA
  • Cost: $40 per month
  • Install: about 8 days
When it works I can access the internet
When it doesn't work I can not access the internet
Too many outages/down time
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Update 8/21/2005: down time is now far more than up time. Unfortunately I have now where else to turn . . . Insight has sent their "crack" team out to my house to investigate on three different occasions. Believe me, not my house, it's the fact they keep expanding their coverage area due to new construction and don't understand how to run their own network.

Won't talk about all the stuff you know about, I want my internet service to do one thing - connect to the internet, all the other stuff about speed, etc. quit being an issues three years ago.

They are a typical cable company providing typical cable service. Nice people but do not provide answers or help for any issues. My service worked great for 9 months (had it for 1.5 yrs now) but then we started having outages. They will happen at least two or three times day, but sometimes as much as 10-15 -- service will be down for 5 to 20 minutes. House is brand new & guys have been out twice to 'look' at the lines. They tried to blame my equipment and question if I had things set up correctly (I love when they do that). Still not resolved, they now want to get someone in the house to 'check it out'. Been too busy and I'm not sure what they hope to find inside. They really are a pain, also have screwed up bill 8 times because we have the package deal and they can't get the charges straight. As usual I don't have any other choice so I put up with it.

If you have another option I'd say try it before using Insightbb.

member for 19.3 years, 1 visits, last login: 18.6 years ago
updated 18.6 years ago


Cable_man_can
@insightBB.com

Cable_man_can

Anon

Outages??????

seems to me you have issues at your house, if there were "outages" then it would effect more then you, i am guessing you are a customer who says its not in the house and can never be home for the service techs to fix it, i have been an insight subscriber for 2 yrs, in the same area as yourself and i have only been down once. as a matter of fact i have 6000kbps down/512kbs up show me a competitor that can give you that kind of service

caleet
Radio X - Usradiox.Com
Premium Member
join:2002-05-29
Middletown, OH

caleet

Premium Member

Re: Outages??????

You also probably work for the company and get it free. I worked for Insight for a year in Louisville and did Quality Control in Southern Indiana as well as Louisville area.

The service given by Insight is not all that great .. let the guy vent without jumping in about how great your connection is. seriously.

Cable_man_can
@insightBB.com

Cable_man_can

Anon

Re: Outages??????

I used to Work for Comcast But i am no longer in the biz, but i moved to westfield two yrs ago and have never had any problems, Atleast not as much as other companies. as far as the service.. do a price compare "comcast" is 55.00 a month for 3000kbps/256kbps and Verizon "dsl" is 40.00 for 1500 MAX downloads Insight is well below industry standard (as Far as High Speed Internet)and Are giving great speeds
CamG
join:2003-07-30
Westfield, IN

CamG

Member

Huh?

Rarely if ever see any outages in Westfield myself either! Had one major outage a year or so ago, and Tech Support was more than helpful in resolving the issue.

I agree from above, there must be something else that is the problem with your connection.

tyler83
@insightBB.com

tyler83

Anon

Re: Huh?

I've been an Insight customer for just going on 4 years now and have had only 2-3 outages in that time period(all in the first year). For the record I don't work for them and I also live in Westfield. Now as far as customer support, nope, don't like it. Email issues, well, let's just say I quit using my Insight email and piggyback a friend's Comcast for my email. I get tons of spam on the Insight and none on the Comcast. Other than that, it works well and my RCA modem has been flawless.