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Review by PsychBiller 
Posted: 5.7 years ago
member for 6.7 years, 28 visits, last login: 1.8 years 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: 6.6 years ago
member for 6.7 years, 2 visits, last login: 2.1 years 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 natgild
Posted: 7.2 years ago
member for 7.2 years, 17 visits, last login: 145 days 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: 7.5 years ago
member for 7.7 years, 19 visits, last login: 237 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: 7.6 years ago
member for 7.6 years, 1 visits, last login: 7.6 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: 7.8 years ago
member for 7.8 years, 3 visits, last login: 2.7 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: 7.9 years ago
member for 8.1 years, 42 visits, last login: 255 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: 8.1 years ago
member for 9.4 years, 85 visits, last login: 3.7 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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Review by rgfritz
Posted: 8.6 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 25 visits, last login: 3 years ago
Gaithersburg,Montgomery,MD
Contract price not specified.
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"Good sales support and personal service"
"More expensive than some"
"The extra cost would likely buy better service and reliability."
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I have been trying to get DSL for over a year. I was getting set up with Phoenix when Megapath bought them and dumped residential customers. I contacted AT&T, but their sales people knew nothing about what they were selling and couldn't answer a simple question unless it was included in their FAQ's--and then all they could do is read it to you. After signing contracts with several other ISPs, I was simply told I couldn't get DSL without any further explanation available. I contacted PatriotNet and was amazed at the knowledge of the sales people. In one case, I had a technical question the sales person couldn't answer and she immediately connected me to a techie who was quickly able to answer it. The bad news and good news of this experience is that I could not get DSL because my circuit length runs over 18,000 feet (in spite of the fact thata various online estimators shows that I was between 12 and 15 thousand feet.) . But this was the first time in working with half a dozen ISPs, that anyone was willing to talk to me and tell me what the problem was. They even offered to take an order on my second line to see if it came up any different (unlikely, but desperate DSL shoppers to desperate things). At $59 per month for ADSL (608/128), Patriot Net was more expensive than the high volume guys like Telocity. The installation/equipment was going to run over $400 until I pointed out that Telocity and others are throwing that in free. They said Covad had recently stopped providing the rebates which used to take care of most of the equipment costs. However, when I asked, they did offer me a discount on the equipment. My opinion, based upon my experience with them to that point and the other reviews I have read, is that their service and reliability would have been worth the extra money.
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Review by tanwyll
Posted: 9.1 years ago
member for 9.1 years, 8 visits, last login: 5.7 years ago
Fairfax,Fairfax City,VA
 Business customer
$299 per month (12 month contract)
about 30 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"reliability, tech-support, Linux-friendly, lots of features"
"news server connection bandwidth limited to 144 kbps"
"Excellent service and value"
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My company has been using PatriotNet for the past 4 years (DSL for the last 2). Can't say enough good things about them.
We get 384 kbps @ $299 month, and the connection speeds operate as advertised. We get 30 static IP's, and USENET, but USENET access is bandwidth limited to 144 kbps :-(. They will provide you with web hosting and email, but since we got DSL, we now do that in-house, so I can't comment on the quality of those services. However, I would imagine it's equally as good based on previous experience with them doing our email and web hosting in the past (pre-DSL). We opted for the Efficient Networks DSL bridge/modem options rather than a Flowpoint router (saved us a few hundred bucks), and utilize an in-office Linux gateway/router/server for the comapny's internal network. This setup has worked flawlessly(knock on wood!)
Their tech-support is top-notch: somebody ALWAYS answers the phone, and if they can't answer right there on the phone, they'll continue to look at the problem and get back to you ASAP. No hang up the phone and hope you go away.
They're Linux-based: great reliability and they've really helped us integrate our Linux based email/web servers into their Internet access. In 4 years of using them (pre-DSL and current DSL service), we've experienced nothing but rock-solid connectivity. The worst business-hour connectivity problems we ever had are 5-10 minute outages that occur 2-3 times a year, usually due to their backbone provider connectivity problems.
The occasional billing question/issue are answered promptly and politely.
The install was a typical Covad/Bell Atlantic flail, but PatriotNet's tech support helped do the end run around them and worked out the routing issues on their end without getting Covad and BA too involved. Probably saved me a month of haggling with Covad and BA. What we expected to take 2 months only took 1.
Based on our experience, great reliability and excellent quality of service. Thanks Ann and Chris for a job well done.
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