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Review by bfwebster 
Posted: 3.7 years ago
member for 6.5 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
 Washington,District Of Columbia,DC
 $159 per month (12 month contract)
 Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
 "Great download speed; usual great PatriotNet service"
 "Brain-dead DSL gateway from Covad won't mix static, dynamic IP addresses"
 "I remain loyal, but be wary of this package if you need static IP and DHCP"
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As you can see below from my earlier review (dated 1/24/2002), I've been a PatriotNet customer for nearly five years now. My existing PatriotNet service was SDSL 384/384, with 15 static IP addresses (again, see previous review), and all was well.
During the past year, I have been upgrading my home office network, which now comprises five (5) desktop computers, two laptops, two network printers, and at least one network hard drive, all on a gigabit LAN. I have been quite happy with PatriotNet over all this time, but I decided to see what services (and pricing) they now offered.
Well, as it turns out, for less than I was paying, I could get 3.0MB/384KB ASDL service, increasing my download bandwidth by nearly an order of magnitude. I signed up, even though it meant giving up my block of 15 static IP addresses and just having 5 static IPs instead. However, since I really wasn't making much visible from the web, I didn't consider that a big deal.
Installation went worse than last time. The Covad tech showed up on schedule (two weeks after I placed the order), but Verizon had not yet provisioned the circuit, so the Covad tech left. Unfortunately, I had to be out of town on short notice and wasn't there when the Covad tech did his work. Instead of using my existing DSL line coming in, he set up the DSL circuit on my office phone line, which meant that my business line voice quality dropped significantly. I complained to PatriotNet, but they said there was nothing they could do.
Covad came back out on November 3rd, and this time I was home. I explained the phone problem to the Covad tech and pointed out the existing DSL line to him; he switched over to that line, and the phone problem went away. He finished setting up the modem/router (a BritePort 8120), then left. I went through my five desktop systems and gave them each a new static IP, and it all worked just fine. Download speed improved tremendously (at least, for those cases where the download time was bandwidth-limited, rather than server-limited).
The next day, I tried to get my printers back on line...and that's where I started running into problems. The DHCP configuration on the Briteport was set up with exactly the same IP range and subnet mask as my static IP range...and any attempt to modify it resulted in an error page from the Briteport. I googled the problem and discovered similar complaints. I e-mailed PatriotNet tech support last night; they got back to me today to tell me that the BritePort 8120 "has limitations" and that I would need to buy/install other equipment on my network to act as a DHCP server.
Needless to say, I am not amused, and I wrote my sales contact at PatriotNet to let him know that. I am also posting this review here to warn off anyone else who might be considering the TeleSoho 1.5/3.0 ADSL packages from PatriotNet and who would need to mix static and dynamic IP addresses. I would even consider going elsewhere, but I have been otherwise so satisfied with PatriotNet that it will be cheaper to get and set up the extra equipment than to change DSL providers. FWIW, YMMV.
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Review by PsychBiller
Posted: 4.3 years ago
member for 5.4 years, 28 visits, last login: 200 days ago
Clifton,Fairfax,VA
$79 per month (12 month contract)
 about 6 days
Verizon (ex GTE)
CLEC party: Covad
"Fast, top notch technical support by accessible, knowledgable humans"
"More expensive compared to other providers"
"Worth paying for reliability, quality, and better technical support"
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Prior to ordering, I had several technical questions about the service, the supplied Zyxel 645M bridge, and how to configure it all with the Zyxel firewall I was about to purchase. I received excellent advice from both sales and technical support personnel that helped me choose the right DSL package.
I ordered the TeleSurfer Plus ADSL package on 02/19/2003. This gives me a one static IP address, no PPPoE, a Unix shell account, and 1.5Mb download/128Kb upload speed. Covad shipped the self-install kit to me the next day. The service was live and fully functional on 02/25/2003, a mere six days later! Verizon and Covad appeared to work together very smoothly and promptly on the order. There was no need for a Covad technician to visit my site, or if anyone did, it was outside and I never noticed!
The service is very stable and reliable. I've had to reboot the bridge maybe three times over the past year when it seemed that the connection had gone dead, and that has always cured the problem immediately.
I can recall only two major ISP outages. One was caused by a Covad technician accidentally working on the wrong equipment upline from PatriotNet, and the other was the failure of an e-mail server's system hard drive (no data was lost). In both cases, PatriotNet broadcast an e-mail message to all of their customers, explaining exactly what happened, when it happened, and what was done to fix it. I am very impressed with the openness and level of detail in their communications to customers.
The cost is on the high end, which is probably the only downside to this company. PatriotNet has added a lower cost service with the same speed and features, but it uses dynamic IP addresses instead. But you have to pay for true quality service!
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Review by ebedsworth
Posted: 5.3 years ago
member for 5.3 years, 2 visits, last login: 296 days ago
Alexandria,Fairfax,VA
$79 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"DSL Perfection - Well Almost"
"None! None! None!"
"As close to perfection as I could ask"
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I moved into my home in late December 2001 with Verizon promising DSL service within 2 weeks. Two weeks later Verizon contacted me telling me no DSL service was available at my location. I contacted several different DSL providers getting more than a run around. Patriot.net was clear, informative and quick. Less than a week after I ordered DSL service I was up and operational.
The Patriot.Net tech support helpped me work through a bad phone jack (house wiring issue) and some minor problems I had with the self-install process. Since then, they have been extremely helpful whenever I've had any issues -- mostly due to setting up various PCs to work with their service on different OS.
They do have a maintenance window on Sunday mornings 4 am to 8 am typically, and they do provide warning of those windows. Other than that I've had no real outages in over a year of usage.
I pay a higher price for their TeleSurfer PLUS ADSL service -- up to 1.5 Mbps/128 Kbps. Based on several different speed checking web sites I normally get 1.1 to 1.4 Mbps so I'm very happy.
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Review by captain_kirk
Posted: 5.5 years ago
member for 5.5 years, 3 visits, last login: 4.5 years ago
Sterling,Loudoun,VA
$85 per month (12 month contract)
about 14 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"Fast, prompt service, efficient installation"
"none so far"
"looking good so far"
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Just changed service from dsl.net (business IDSL) to Patriot.net (home user IDSL). A painless process so far. My questions were answered promptly and I had all the info I needed to prepare my home network before the engineer arrived to install the router. Haven't used an efficient networks IDSL router before so I can't attest to it's performance, etc. yet. Hopefully the service won't suffer the same 5-10 minute outages a couple of times a week that I had with dsl.net. Although I suspect that may be down to Verizon.
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Review by natgild
Posted: 5.9 years ago
member for 5.9 years, 10 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
Friant,Fresno,CA
$55 per month (12 month contract)
"This is a local telphone company with it's own DSL service. I have it installed in two locations. Self install was seamless."
"Nothing so far"
"Excellent DSL service, even in my rural location!!!!"
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Review by fredfoo
Posted: 6.1 years ago
member for 6.4 years, 18 visits, last login: 87 days ago
Springfield,Fairfax,VA
Contract price not specified.
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"Connection,Tech Support"
"Tech Support Hours"
"They Rock"
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I live about 14700ft from the CO. Started using Patroit.net over 2 years ago with SDSL/12 static IP's (woohoo). Recently my needs have changed and I downgraded to a residential account with 1IP and a faster connection. When I had the business connection (for over 2 years). I expirenced only 1 major outage (IMO over 3 hours). Minor outages during that time frame I could count on one hand. Moving from the business class to the residential class service had its minor problems (Verizon/Covad issues not Patroit.net). Once Patriot emailed saying I was all set and gave me details (less then a week delay due to Covad/Verizon). I disconnected my computers from the business service and hocked up the residential service. Which did not work???? When Tech support opened (it was a weekend when I switched so I had to wait a couple hours) I called. Once I told them about my problem, what I did etc. first level support turned me over to Greg who jumped in identified the problem corrected it and I was good to go. (30 seconds after I hung up I started getting ping replies from an Internet address.
To me (besides the weekend support hours) Patroit.net is a first rate ISP. I have been with them during 1 DSL hookup and 1 DSL service change over 2 1/2 years. I do not know of or ever heard of a better DSL provider in this area.
I did not rate Mail/DNS/News because I supply or need to go elsewhere due to other/business reasons.
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Review by rc20175
Posted: 6.3 years ago
member for 6.3 years, 1 visits, last login: 6.3 years ago
Leesburg,Loudoun,VA
$129 per month (12 month contract)
about 15 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Network Access Solutions
"customer centric sales and support"
"it is a little pricey for IDSL"
"a pleasant experience"
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I had initially had contracted to have service turned up thru rythms early last year. I spent 3 months clearing issues between the CLEC and the LEC finally to arrive at a point of connection. Rythms decided that there was insufficient bandwidth to service my needs (IDSL). At that point in time i was unable to convince any other provider (including verizon) that service would reach my premise (even though i had an acitive link to the CO). It was a breath of fresh air to work with Patriot Network and have them put in the due diligence not only to see me thru gettting a conncetion but to following up afterwards on a regular basis to make sure I was happy. I have had only 1 outage and it has not diminshed my respect for the service or the company. I currently have 128 IDSL @129/month, with one static IP that terminates on a Cisco 804 router (NAT and Firewall Feature sets enabled). My only hiccup was the transition from the CLEC provided equipment (Lucent ) to my own, but Patriot was very supportive and it was finally accomplished.
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Review by bfwebster
Posted: 6.5 years ago
member for 6.5 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
Washington,District Of Columbia,DC
$189 per month (12 month contract)
about 14 days
Verizon (ex GTE)
CLEC party: Covad
"Great to work with; great response on problems"
"Getting Covad and Verizon to do their part"
"I'm a loyal customer; stayed with them through a move and an upgrade"
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I signed up with PatriotNet when I moved into the District (DC) two years ago. They have managed to stay up and running in spite of Covad's bankruptcy and Verizon's general ineptitude. When a problem occured last August, they did on-line/over-the-phone troubleshooting, then sent someone out right away who swapped out my DSL modem (no charge).
When I moved within the District a month later, Covad (still in bankruptcy) wasn't provisioning for residential DSL in my new neighborhood. I thought about Verizon DSL or Comcast Cable...for about a nanosecond. Then I went ahead and upgraded to business DSL since I was now working out of my house anyway. There was the usual coordination problems among Verizon, Covad, and PatriotNet, but most of the problems were with the first two. Service and performance since getting hooked up as been just ducky, and I've got a router, an SDSL 384/384 connection, 15 static IP addresses to play with. (Whee!) I pray regularly for their continued existence, because I fear the alternatives. ..bruce..
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Review by ClintJCL
Posted: 6.5 years ago
member for 6.8 years, 40 visits, last login: 95 days ago
Alexandria,Fairfax,VA
$80 per month (12 month contract)
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"awesome ISP. No fuss. Static IP. Great pre-sales & seemingly 24-hr tech support."
"extra IPs cost a bit too much"
"if you were capu.net, and were switched to earthlink.net, you are better off at patriot.net"
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My experience mirrors that of many people above so I wont write TOO much here.
I had capu.net DSL for 2 years and was then told I would be switched to earthlink against my will. After being given 3 incorrect migration dates, I was finally migrated to earthlink (on a different date than the 3 given). It took no less than 2 hours on hold just to find out my IP address.
Earthlink was the absolute worst ISP, DSL or Dialup, that I have ever had (I've had 3 DSL ISPs and at least as many dialup ISPs). They were so terrible, that I would place them as being about 2 orders of magnitude worse than the next-worse ISP (which would be Virginia Tech with their wonderful single-point-of-failure-through-sprintlink:)).
Anyway, I switched to patriot.net and got all my old service back for about the same price -- *real* static IPs, 786K SDSL, no more PPPOE, no more earthlink B.S., no more long hold times
I never sit on hold with patriot.net. They are a beautiful ISP, and their sales rep Bob Adams is doing a great job.
Kudos to patriot.net as long as I have no problems!
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Review by jweisen
Posted: 6.8 years ago
member for 8.1 years, 85 visits, last login: 2.4 years ago
Arlington,Arlington,VA
$95 per month (12 month contract)
about 3 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"So professional, so quick, so hassle free that my pants are all gooey"
"Every ISP isn't like Patriot"
"As long as Covad doesn't drop dead, I'll be with Patriot for the forseeable future"
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I have been through just about every DSL hassle known to man. I was a fairly early adopter (early 1999), went through the hassle of a failed Bell Atlantic installation before switching to Covad/Capunet. That was a winning combination until Capunet left the ISP business in July of 2001.
As a group, we were sold to Earthlink, the saddest excuse for an ISP. In the two weeks they tried to move me over, I spoke to close to two dozen people (half a dozen of them supervisors), and sat on hold no less than 8 hours. Finally, I got fed up and fought them for a release.
A friend recommended Patriot, so I figured I had nothing to lose. I sent an email to sales@patriot.net, which never got answered. Someone else on DSLReports read of that plight and referred to Bob, a Customer Service-type person there. Bob apologized for the snafu with sales@patriot and quickly dealt with all my stupid little problems (Earthlink almost got my circuit disconnected, which would require it to be reprovisioned, so he hooked me up with Covad directly to insure it didn't get snipped).
From the time I faxed them the circuit release from Earthlink to live was three days. No muss, no fuss. I was (and still am) delightfully astounded.
[BEGINNING]
From: Bob at Patriot
To: John Eisenschmidt
Subject: Re: Application for Residential DSL service; form completed and contract approved by client, John Eisenschmidt
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 11:27:02 -0400
Got the fax and this. We'll order the switch today.
Thanks,
Bob
[/BEGINNING]
[END]
From: Greg at Patriot
To: John Eisenschmidt
Subject: DSL info
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 10:34:54 -0400
Your ISP switch was completed last night and here are the settings needed to configure your computer.
...
[/END]
The important stuff:
-Speed Ordered: 1500/384
-Actual: 1231/313 (Almost exactly what I got from Capunet)
-Static IP (which rocks)
-No PPPoE =)
I couldn't be happier right now. Thank you Patriot!
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