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Review by zean See Profile

  • Location: Lexington, Fayette, KY, USA
  • Cost: $50 per month
Cost, Speed, Local tech support
(phone)Tech support
Best Broadband option in Lexington, KY
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
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Tech Support:
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Value for money:

I have had service with Insight Cable for a long time now and the quality of service has remained the same. The tech support is my remaining major gripe with this company.

The speeds I see are close to the cap, usually hover around the 10000/1000 cap.

No problems what so ever, with E-mail, or news servers.

InsightBB is still the best bang for your buck around the Lexington area.

member for 23 years, 2960 visits, last login: 3.3 years ago
updated 13.6 years ago


Review by kalone See Profile

  • Location: Lexington, Fayette, KY, USA
  • Cost: $48 per month
  • Install: about 3 days
Great Speed
Speed can be up and down
Great service
Pre Sales information:
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Have had Insightbb for a long time was with @Home. Best game in town.

member for 21.7 years, 3388 visits, last login: 5 years ago
updated 13.6 years ago







Review by carbon2008 See Profile

  • Location: Evansville, Vanderburgh, IN, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
fast professional install
advertised speed upgrade
still better than dsl

Cable internet and tv was ordered and they were out next day to install.

installation was quick and painless

I ordered the 20mb upgrade thinking it would be comparable to comcast or time warner, where speed tests were as advertised or very close, thats where i was wrong. currently every speed test known to man nets about 7mb/1mb on the supposed 20mb package. I had a tech come out to check everything out and he said the 6-7mb was within spec, and said that running "insights web based speed test" will render the advertised speed. well I have no doubt thats true, if I ran a speed test between 2 computers on my LAN im sure they would be maxed out.

to sum it up i am downgrading back to 10mb, if I am only going to get 6-7mb I my as well save 10 bucks. I am considering contacting the local news stations to try to keep others from paying more to get the same speed

btw all tests were ran on one machine(no other machines connected), the very same that was connected to time warner cable one month ago at advertised speed.

member for 13.7 years, 4 visits, last login: 13.6 years ago
updated 13.6 years ago


dereknc
@charter.com

dereknc

Anon

Insight BB 20.0 review

I have had Insight services in Louisville for 5 years now, all 5 years at the fastest speed they offer. Since I have had the 20mbps speed, all speedtests I have ever run have registered at least that or higher.

A few points:
1)The technician stated 6-8 was in spec, this is incorrect for the 20mbps package. You should be getting at minimum 16mbps at all times. If you were subscribed at 10mbps, then 6-8 would be acceptable, maybe not to you, but to people who truly understand cable IP traffic and bandwidth.

2)Your internet provider's speedtest is the only one you can trust. Reason being: speeds that are advertised are only guaranteed from the server or headend you connect to - to your home. They do not guarantee you can access any web pages on the internet or download any type of file or data at that speed. It would be ridiculous for any ISP to guarantee that, as they can not control that. For that fact, a dedicated server from your isp's network is the only true way to determine your current speeds. There are about a million other factors that can slow down internet speeds after it leaves your provider's network that Insight can not control.

3)Your speeds were slow. I'm not saying anything to the contrary. But perhaps your modem wasn't provisioned correctly or perhaps there were software issues at the headend causing slow speeds. No one knows why, but I can promise you it's not something that isn't fixable. When installing anything, be it cable services, a piece of equipment in a car, a new air conditioner...there's no way to know how it's going to work until it is turned on. To say something is a scam is saying they had the intention of giving you slow speeds and charging you for faster ones. I can guarantee they would face a fine of up to $250,000.00 or more if they were doing such a thing, on top of hefty FCC fines. Risking things like that could easily bankrupt a company, so I doubt they were doing any such thing.
carbon2008
join:2010-07-15
Evansville, IN

carbon2008

Member

update

As of today speed has returned to 20/1.5 and things appear to be back to normal. my hat off to the fast response here in the forumns from the insight tech support, even if i didnt need to do anything. at least i know someone cares about thier customers.

Peace!

Review by acadiel See Profile

  • Location: Bloomington, Mclean, IL, USA
  • Cost: $25 per month
  • Install: about 5 days
Great realiability, Super fast speeds!
Not really any....
A great bang for your buck!
Pre Sales information:
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Note: Insight got bought out by Comcast. So, this review is no longer valid.

member for 21.7 years, 6507 visits, last login: 3 days ago
updated 14.1 years ago


v_vv
@charter.com

v_vv

Anon

i agree

i have had insight for years now. was ify at best when upgrading. when they got the kinks out of that had smooth sailing, i would say its pretty well priced for what i'm getting reliable and fast. and tech support is ify at best but i hear its getting better






Review by MIRV See Profile

  • Location: Louisville, Jefferson, KY, USA
  • Cost: $40 per month
  • Install: about 5 days
dl/up speeds are as advertised. great latentcy, great price
best broadband for the money in louisville
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47.95 a month for 10/1.5 package.
The install was on time & smooth.
I have no complaints so far.

member for 23.3 years, 8999 visits, last login: 58 days ago
updated 14.1 years ago







Review by tlcir2 See Profile

  • Location: Louisville, Jefferson, KY, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
good tech support
seldom get advertised speed
does everything a novice like myself needs
Pre Sales information:
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I've had cable since the day it was offered. They started out as AtHome which was as bad as it could possibly get. The service was down more often than up.

They then went to Storer, better but nothing to write home about.

Now it's Insight Broad Band. Since they took over,at least in my case, it seems that the reliability and customer service by leaps and bounds. I'm sure the service could always be better but to me it seems like a good service for the money.

member for 14.4 years, 12 visits, last login: 12.4 years ago
lodged 14.1 years ago


Review by jeckyl See Profile

  • Location: Melbourne, Campbell, KY, USA
  • Cost: $35 per month
Great speed and service

Great speed and service

member for 14.1 years, driveby review (so far)
lodged 14.1 years ago







Review by DFBSKO See Profile

  • Location: Louisville, Jefferson, KY, USA
  • Cost: $30 per month
Fast, seems stable, price is OK
switched from BellSouth with no regrets
Connection Reliability:
Value for money:

10 mbs is just fine.

member for 14.9 years, 16 visits, last login: 13.9 years ago
lodged 14.2 years ago







Review by RedRSX049 See Profile

  • Location: Erlanger, Kenton, KY, USA
  • Cost: $55 per month
  • Install: about 1 days
AMAZING Speed
Cost
LOVE IT!
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
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We currently have DirectTV running on the coax line in the house. Prior to this purchase/install, we were subscribing to Cincinnati Bell (fuse.net) DSL, but were never able to obtain more than 1.5 Mbs on the advertised 5 Mbs service. The cost for the DSl was $30/mo. Called Insight to switch to cable based broadband. Purchased their 20 Mbs package for $55/mo, plus $3 cable modem rental. Since DirectTV was already running on the coax installed in the house, the Insight installer had to run a second coax cable from the pole to the house (not a fun job on New Years Eve in 20* (F) weather.) Once installed, we are now recv'ing an avg speed of 23 Mbs and I couldn't be happier with the service (just not the cost.) I've yet to ever eperience internet service faster than this, the speed of the 20 Mbs service is simply amazing!

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member for 15.4 years, 47 visits, last login: 12.9 years ago
updated 14.2 years ago


Tim1983
@insightbb.com

Tim1983

Anon

Is it still that fast?

I just went with Insight and the installer just finished about 2 hours ago. I'm paying for 20down/2up, but I'm only getting around 16down tops (usually 10-12) and /1.5up tops.

I haven't been able to hit 20 or 2 on any speed test I find. So I'm wondering if maybe my area is saturated with people on Insight connections or if it's just me.
Tim1983

Tim1983

Anon

Re: Is it still that fast?

In fact, as of right now I'm getting exactly half of what I'm paying for. 10/1.

RickM.Net
join:2000-09-01
Louisville, KY

RickM.Net

Member

Re: Is it still that fast?

I have the same service from Insight. 20 down, but it's actually a 20/1.5 service. If you test against the internal servers, you will get a true check of what your speed is on Insight's equipment and network. I have seen a highest speed of 28/1.34 Mbps and have never seen anything lower than the advertised (well, except for when my firewall went wonky)
If you use DSLreport's servers you will then see what the speed is in what's considered real life surfing. That will probably never be faster than what you are paying for.
Insight's a great deal, but still kinda pricey.
I'll be checking out AT&T's Uverse since they say I can get FTTH. That ought to be interesting

Review by ep1taph See Profile

  • Location: Erlanger, Kenton, KY, USA
  • Cost: $45 per month
Amazingly fast and stable
Routing and network infrastructure issues
A good experience
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I am reviewing Insight, but I have been using the cable internet connection here since it was @home beta. Thus I cannot accurately comment on how pre-sales information, Install coordination and I have not had to use any tech support.

Originally, with Insight, the service as 4mbit/384kbit. Insight rolled out their 10mbit/1mbit and things were shaky at first. After some research, I determined that the modem I was using (an old RCA) was not compatible with the upgrade. I took it down to the local Insight Office and they replaced it completely free with a new webstar modem. I had bought the original Cable Modem when the company was "InterMedia" and they had no problem replacing it. Once I had the webstar up and running I was cruising along at 10mbit nearly all the time.

Insight obviously has some restrictions on users who utilize excessive bandwidth. See the Inside Insight forums for more detail. I am not one of these users. I have noticed that they seem to be making an effort to hinder peer to peer technologies, and my torrents often seem to drop outgoing connections. Over all this does not concern me, and I believe that the network is more stable because of this.

What does concern me is that Insight obviously has not spent much time or thought into their metrics and routing. From my limited sources of information, I have gathered that the way you are routed is entirely dependent upon your geographic location. For example, I am always routed through Atlanta, GA. Atlanta is a linear distance of approximately 600km from where I live. Chicago, IL is approximately 400km in linear distance from my location. I play a lot of online games where ping has a sizable impact on deciding the winners and losers of matches. Part of Insights service area (the area blatantly next door to Chicago, IL) is indeed routed to Chicago. I have even seen a post of someone in IL being routed to Kansas City, MO.

All in all, I think Insight should have set it up so users are intelligently routed the most efficient way to the final destination. Chicago is a huge infrastructure hub and is where most servers are hosted for the games I do play. Even in server in Atlanta, where pings are obviously the most optimal for me, I still ping higher than many others that live further away. Having to go all the way down to Atlanta and back adds a lot of unnecessary latency.

Bottom line is, if you're overly concerned about your latency and you live in my area I recommend zoomtown/fuse. They have multiple direct routes with lower latency to Chicago and peer at much closer locations to their service area which give you much better pings. A friend on fuse pings lower than me to Atlanta, Chicago and anywhere else. If you need the bandwidth, on the other hand, look no further. Insights 10mbit service really does mean 10mbit for me -- even at peak times where latency skips up 4-8ms, the bandwidth is solid.

I will attempt to keep this post updated with further info on routing changes and speed issues. Don't hesitate to ask me questions in private message or email, or post in the Inside Insight forums since I frequent them.

[ Interesting point #1 ]

Often, routing changes. Insight has sprintlink and level3 bandwidth available at Atlanta. At the start, routes were quite balanced between the two. Over time, changes occurred on strange intervals. Routes would change from using a balance of sprintlink and level3 bandwidth to using almost entirely level3 bandwidth. In my experience, the latency using routes on sprintlinks network was superior and thus preferred by myself. Changes in routing changed between level3/sprintlink to a majority of servers over the course of time since the 10mbit/1mbit change. Now, it is rare to find any routes that use sprintlink. I can only wonder if, once again, it will eventually revert back to using a combination of sprintlink and level3. Routes from servers back to me commonly use sprintlink rather than level3 -- a good indicator that those servers have a much smarter routing configuration than what seems to be in place now at Insight.

[ Update on 07/22/07 ]

There was a very short (few hours) outage that occurred between Level3 and InsightBB for Atlanta-bound traffic a few weeks ago. There has been no change in routing, all traffic still goes south to Atlanta. Service has been reliable and stable with nothing to complain about. The experience with InsightBB has been amazing and if you live in the NKY area and desire speed, look no further.

[ Update on 09/18/07 ]

No real problems with service. It seems that sprintlink inbound routes have been disabled. Normal users won't notice a change, but it has a pretty negative affect on any Usenet providers that resell UseNetServer services. Insight provided Usenet access (through Giganews) is amazingly reliable and consistent. Insight customers are lucky to have it.

[ Update on 10/31/07 ]

Continued good service. Two nights ago I was having trouble accessing my email and many websites. Running some tests I saw that the routing was changing almost every 10 minutes. For a bief period of about 60 minutes everything was perfectly optimal, including direct routes to both Atlanta and Chicago. Routes were intelligently taking logical paths (Dallas servers would route through Atlanta, Seattle through Chicago, etc) but when I woke up the next morning all traffic was forced through Atlanta again. Sprintlink inbound is still nonexistent, routes only take sprintlink outbound. There are rumors of another speed upgrade for InsightBB customers. Numbers being thrown around by someone for the Evansville market were 20mbps download speeds. Will update if anything changes. I have changed my rating for Services to a 4 since provided Usenet access is reliable and very consistent. Tech support moves to a 4 also as I was contacted about issues happening with the connection late in the night.

[ Update on 11/07/07 ]

Almost all routing is using Chicago (Level3) now. There are a few routes that are still taking inbound Atlanta (Level3) but nearly everything outbound goes through Chicago (Level3). Some outbound routes still take Atlanta (sprintlink) and Atlanta (sprintlink) inbound continues to not exist. Perhaps they truly are phasing out the Atlanta bandwidth they have (had?). As the changes are made the service sometimes degrades but it's worth it to me -- great ingame ping to a majority of the servers in the games I play. InsightBB started taking over DNS not found pages (or whatever they are called). If you go to a non-existent domain/url it forward you to a page with advertising on it. I am using Level3 DNS servers as I think this is a poor practice and dislike it.

[ Update on 12/29/07 ]

Things have taken a turn for the worse. I am getting dialup speeds and contacted InsightBB on friday. They promised that I would receive a call before 6pm on friday. I received no call. Perhaps I was capped (why, I have no idea. I have transferred 32GB in this month of december and that is all) seeing as how it's exactly 7KB/s day or night no matter what protocol. Tried rebooting modem, changing my IP with a release/renew and all kinds of wire configurations. My local network is fine, there is something with InsightBB.

[ Update on 06/22/08 ]

It's been quite awhile since an update. Quite a bit has changed.

First, the routing now is quite optimal, with a direct route to Chicago being used in most cases where it should be. This satisfies me greatly.

Second, the speeds were top-notch until a little over a month ago. Since then, congestion during peak usage hours has plagued me with low speeds and horribly high latency. Insight claims this issue is "escalated" and should be resolved soon, but I am skeptical. I will try to remember to post here when it is fixed.

[ Update on 8/1/08 ]

Just wanted to say that InsightBB customer service has treated me well and the connection has been running well since the issue (posted on 06/22/08) was cleared up. Few minor hiccups, but over all it's been everything I want. I'm bumping up my ratings due to the continued service and their will to fix it. Also because they have continued to offer free access to Giganews.

[ Update on 8/1/08 ]

It has been quite some time since I have made an update to this review. InsightBB continues to be reliable, though old problems have resurfaced. Routing has been less than fantastic causing me to ping nearly 60ms to my own server hosted in Cincinnati. This is, once again, a result of forced routing through Atlanta. In spite of the routing issues, service has been consistent and I have not had notable speed issues. Free rate-limited Giganews access continues which is a huge perk for users who utilize USENET services. There has been some slight congestion issues during peak times over the holidays, but I expect that is simply a result of numerous gifts of video game consoles (xbox 360's, PS3's) and media players (iPod's, Zune's) over the Christmas holiday. I was unhappy to learn today that there would be an increase on every single service that I receive from Insight that ranges from $2-3.

member for 17.3 years, 1369 visits, last login: 12.6 years ago
updated 14.2 years ago