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Review by jerrydj See Profile

  • Location: Ellijay, Gilmer, GA, USA
  • Cost: $69 per month
  • Install: about 6 days
Available in the rural mountains
Costly, but less so with services bundle
Service is improving, speed is up
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Conversion from DSL to Cable completed this morning by competent tech who was very efficient. Immediately increased to advertised 10Mbps down and 1Mbps up, plus a 10% margin over most of the time. Arris WBM760A modem installed. Requested the upgrade 6 days ago. Only complaint would be that I had to ask for it three months after the email below announced it.

___________________________________

ETC is excited to announce faster internet speeds for most customers. A new offering of 50Mbps will be available. Internet speeds for existing customers will double or triple in most areas over the next year at no additional cost. The upgrade utilizes next-generation DOCSIS 3.0 technology. Upgrades to ETC's infrastructure began in December and will continue throughout 2011.



With this upgrade, ETC will offer the fastest residential service available in the North Georgia area. The new 50Mbps download will be available with upload speeds up to 5Mbps. ETC is also excited to be upgrading most high-speed internet customers. Please note the chart at the right for new download speeds. The new standard upload speed will be 1Mbps.



Current Internet Speed New Internet Speed

3 Mbps 10 Mbps

6 Mbps 15 Mbps

10 Mbps 20 Mbps

15 Mbps 30 Mbps

New 50 Mbps

*All speeds not available in all areas; downstream bandwidth

Jason Smith, VP of Operations stated, "The new Broadband speeds will utilize our fiber optic and coaxial network that is already in place across most of our footprint. With this next generation of service, our customers' online experience will be dramatically enhanced. The way people use their Internet is changing and ETC is giving you more speed to download more movies, music and videos than ever before. However, this is just the beginning, DOCSIS 3.0, combined with our fiber optic and coaxial network, will give us the capability of meeting the needs of our customers for many years to come by offering even faster speeds in the future."

member for 22.4 years, 150 visits, last login: 3.1 years ago
updated 3.1 years ago


Review by boogieman77 See Profile

  • Location: Ducktown, Polk, TN, USA
  • Cost: $80 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 14 days
SPEED BABY SPEED
Price
Great Value No Cap!!!
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I had dsl for several years and just couldnt get the speeds netflix and other sites need now and decided to go with cable. I also have a Verizon Network Extender that lets me use my cell phone at home where I dont have service if I dont have it going. With the DSL I couldnt even surf the net and use the extender. Ordered 50mb/5mb and was hot in two weeks. Construction of the cable took some extra time to complete. The techs and engineers was all excellent and kept me very informed of the whole process. Now after two weeks of usage I constantly get on speed test that can test that high well above what I am paying for. The price is kinda high but with speed comes a price. I can now stream netflix from 3 devices all in X treme hd and use the cell phone and surf the net without any problems.

Update: 10-8-2020

Got our first speed increase in a little over 4 years. Now getting a constant 300/30 on speed tests. Pretty dang good for living in the middle of no where! Line is solid with very very few outages.

member for 19.8 years, 1151 visits, last login: 3.4 years ago
updated 3.4 years ago


Review by herebyproxy See Profile

  • Location: Ellijay, Gilmer, GA, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
Terrible

Only DSL available in my area. About 3 meg on a good day. Takes forever just to load a page of data. Family owned private monopoly that will not invest in expansion.

member for 5.2 years, driveby review (so far)
lodged 5.2 years ago


dxlirixus
join:2016-01-31
Rockwell, NC

dxlirixus

Member

Do they service cable to you?

If you're talking about the Ellijay Telephone Company, I know for a fact they have both cable and dsl. I know in the coosawattee where my uncle lives as well as my grandmother's house, they have cable.






Review by Omicron See Profile

  • Location: Ellijay, Gilmer, GA, USA
  • Cost: $50 per month
Tech support is good, no caps.
DSL system needs upgrading.
Great if you are on their Cable, not so much on DSL.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I've been on ETC for well over 10 years, and I can say that they have improved services significantly since 2004. However, it's very easy to have a love hate relationship with them.

First thing's first, their tech support group is very responsive and are willing to tolerate a significant amount of questioning. AT&T and Comcast are not even in the same tier and are not even comparable. The problem, like many other large companies and smaller monopolies, is the upper level management.

If you are on their cable "DOCSIS" system, then you're clear sailing as they offer baseline speeds of 20Mbps/2Mbps for $50 with 9ms average latency to the first hop. A little more expensive than most, but the quality is decent and is fairly consistent. People on their cable also have the option for upgrades to 150Mbps/20Mbps just from their advertised packages.

The only issue though is they still have quite a few areas that still use older ADSL tech and lines, and upper level management has no plans to actually upgrade the equipment. This then means the average person on their ADSL network still pays $50, gets 6Mbps/768Kbps, and an average of 15-20ms to their first hop.

Again, $50 on cable means 20Mbps/2Mbps, $50 on DSL means 6Mbps/768Kbps.

This seems to be the plan for the foreseeable future even for those with shorter loop lengths to the DSLAMs, the core routing and aggregating equipment just cannot tolerate higher speeds for everyone. VDSL2 8 or 17 could even be used in place of the older ADSL for some.

If they absolutely cannot work with VDSL2 either due to cost or sheer distance, the phone lines can still use ADSL2+ for 24Mbps down and 1.4Mbps up, and increase upload speeds with ADSL2+ Annex M with 3.3Mbps up, or ADSL2+ Annex J with 3.5Mbps up for those with no POTS on the line. If two lines are available, ADSL2+ Annex M bonding could be used for 48Mbps down and 6.6Mbps up. Even last decade ADSL tech does not need to be slow.

All in all, they are actually good provided that you have access to their DOCSIS networks. If you are one of those stuck on DSL here, you'll probably be on it at 6Mbps/768Kbps speeds for the foreseeable future. They have last mile infrastructure that can do more in terms of their phone lines, they just refuse to make DSL customers equal to their DOCSIS customers who pay the same amount of money per month.

member for 7.6 years, 37 visits, last login: 159 days ago
updated 7.1 years ago


Anon313b4
@207.89.1.x

Anon313b4

Anon

ETC cable speeds

I'm showing 40mb/4mb since the last few days on cable.
Omicron
join:2016-07-21
Ellijay, GA

Omicron

Member

Re: ETC cable speeds

Entry cable speeds are at 20Mbps/2Mbps, and go up to 30Mbps/3Mbps, 40Mbps/4Mbps (what you have,) 60Mbps/6Mbps, 80Mbps/8Mbps, and 150Mbps/20Mbps. That's not an issue.

The average person on DSL still has 6Mbps/768Kbps for the same price as 20Mbps/2Mbps cable, that's the issue. DSL also is stuck in ADSL-ADSL2+ tech, they're not interested in anything beyond that.

Review by brian.cagle

  • Location: Blue Ridge, Fannin, GA, USA
  • Cost: $99 per month
Fast, reliable, consistent speeds
Pricey
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

ETC - Blue Ridge, GA, Fannin County

I had ETC install their fastest DOCSIS 3.0 cable Internet service for me about 2 weeks ago. I have the 50Mbps/5Mbps plan. So far, I am exceptionally pleased with it. I consistently get at least or better bandwidth than I am paying for, even though it is pricey. I moved from a neighborhood in Atlanta that could not get faster than 30Mbps, so ironically I get faster service 100 miles away from Atlanta than I did in town.

The service technician that installed the service was very friendly and easy to work with. He took extra time to route the cable exactly as I wanted. I work from home pretty much full time so having reliable, fast service is a necessity. I will update the review with regards to overall reliability once I've had it longer.

I wanted to write this review because there aren't many reviews for services in my area and hope that this may help someone in making a choice in the future.

-Brian Cagle

(review was emailed from domain gmail.com)
lodged 11.3 years ago


Review by tb01 See Profile

  • Location: Blue Ridge, Fannin, GA, USA
  • Cost: $50 per month
  • Install: about 10 days
only option to AT&T/Bellsouth ADSL
pricing, drop-outs, lack of expertise and knowledge, RUDE customer service reps
would not recommend
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I don't have phone service. Only options for broadband internet service are DSL through AT&T/Bellsouth (not a chance!) and cable internet through Ellijay Telephone Company.

I previously had ETC Cable Internet @ $50/mo for 3mbps -- outrageous (as seems everything in rural areas). When I was late by 1 day paying my bill, in person, and assessed a $25 'late fee' -- I cancelled immediately. Had service for about 2-1/2 months. Don't remember the equipment, but I noticed several times my service just 'didn't work' for a few hours at a time. Probably three or four times I noticed this.

Also, I continually had horrendous problems using their DNS servers. Tech support was absolutely no (useful) help, left me on hold for way too long, and nothing they suggested actually fixed anything. When I started looking elsewhere online, I found public DNS servers (I think I started using Google's at that time) and voila! No more DNS problems! Unfortunately, the network still would go down from time to time.

Overall, I would not recommend ETC because of their pricing, service drop-outs, and (apparent) lack of expertise and knowledge in maintaining a reliable internet access network.



member for 16 years, 95 visits, last login: 4.9 years ago
updated 12.3 years ago


Review by Mr Stone See Profile

  • Location: Ridgeland, Madison, MS, USA
  • Cost: $46 per month
  • Telco party Qwest
  • CLEC party: Qwest
I DON'T use ETC any more!
It has really bad tech support. It is not consumer friendly.
Life has been NICE since I have moved and don't use ETC!
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

There is no lease on DSL equipment and no contract for DSL service with ETC. There is a one time $85 setup charge for all DSL accounts. 768k/256k (2 email accounts) $49.95. 1.5mb/384k (2 email accounts) $79.95. You can add an additional dialup account for only $12.50 per month.

They provide no web hosting service. They will tell you if you want web hosting space, to go buy it from Radio Shack or one of the mom and pop shops in town.

An up-date: Today 04/01/03. Today they have started a personal web space! Every ETC internet account will be entitled to get 5Mb of personal web space. You may use this space for a personal page or other needs you may have.
Woohoo a whopping 5Meg.

Free Dial-Up Account with DSL!
ETC DSL accounts get a free dial-up account with up to 15hrs of free access time per month. This gives you the flexibility of using one account for home and travel.

Now why would I want to use the dail up account when I have DSL and when I travel why would I want to use my account with ETC? Do they think that they are the only ISP in the world?
End od up-date:

When you call tech support after hours, you get routed to a third party tech support company which does not support DSL service, only dial-up.

You cannot tell these people that you play games on the internet or they will place you on the lowest level of the totem pole as far as taking care of your problems. When DSL service goes down and you call the main business office, the operator will tell you that they are not taking calls and there is no word as far as status or service being brought back up. This has gone on for days on end.

From experience of helping other people in town set up their DSL on their computers, I am told by these people that ETC will not provide any help on setting up your modem or helping you get on line. So they sell the service and the equipment and leave you holding the bag.

This company really needs to strive to be more consumer oriented and not to blame the consumer for the problems that the coompany has.

There is no other choice for internet service in this area because they will not sign a contract with any other company to allow them in.

Instead of trying to make things better for their consumers, they send everyone and me a package of seeds. Gee............


Update....................................................................


I left Ellijay last Feb. 05. Life has been so nice. I now have internet from people that know what internet service is all about! I have 5.0 down and pay half as much as ETC was sucking out of me.

Since last Feb my service has been down 2 times just for a few minutes.

I have called Road Runner two times since last Feb. 05. I forgot my password to my email account.

I do feel for the people that still have to have money sucked out of them from ETC! I still talk to people that I know and things HAVE not changed since I left.

member for 22.7 years, 3276 visits, last login: 4.5 years ago
updated 18.2 years ago


chrisf8657
join:2002-01-27
Glendale, AZ

1 recommendation

chrisf8657

Member

Sounds Typical...

Since the ISP is located in the same town as you (has the same name in it's Company name as your town), you can expect them to route the calls to other companies to handle (this is called Outsourcing). Some companies provide their own support, others outsource, so really nothing out of the ordinary here.

However, I definitely wouldn't choose this ISP - when I call up for Service I want Service from the ppl who control the equipment on their end - not some bozo working for Super Support 4 U Co. 1600 miles away, so I do understand your pain.

Put pressure on them to hire their own Tech Support ppl, it may work if you can find a few other customers to help nag them to do it - power is in numbers
adsldog
join:2000-12-01
Woodstock, GA

adsldog

Member

chrisf8657 is right

If you can get as many people as you can that use the service to approach the ISP as a group with your issues it will carry a lot more weight (hopefully) and if there is a cable company in that area approach them about this group switching to cable modem access. If a cable company can see a profit in it they are more likely to offer the service, but the customer base has to support the cost of doing business. One thing I have found out in 5 years of working in the ADSL field is that competition for business always improves the service that you have because the consumer will always go with the better Tech support and better customer service even if it cost more and they know this, you have to hit them in the wallet, sometimes with a 2X4, to get them to pay attention. Also get them all to post there experience here on DSLReports.com. Good luck.

[text was edited by author 2003-04-02 21:40:43]

roamer1
sticking it out at you
join:2001-03-24
Atlanta, GA

roamer1

Member

Re: chrisf8657 is right

said by adsldog:
If you can get as many people as you can that use the service to approach the ISP as a group with your issues it will carry a lot more weight (hopefully) and if there is a cable company in that area approach them about this group switching to cable modem access.
Unfortunately, ETC also owns the cable company in Ellijay.

-SC
adsldog
join:2000-12-01
Woodstock, GA

adsldog

Member

Re: chrisf8657 is right

They can also check with the city government ETC has to have some sort of contract with them. Here in Atlanta if I'm not mistaken local city governments have actually fined cable companies for bad service and in some cases approached other providers to come into the area and bid on the local contract. Not sure if the would work but at least it would shake things up.

Good luck
ADSLDOG

Mr Stone
stupid should be painful
Premium Member
join:2001-06-20
From hell

Mr Stone to adsldog

Premium Member

to adsldog

ETC also owns the cable company, the phone company, and the internet service, which, from what I understand, they also own the phone lines within their area of service. This avenue will not work.

Due to the post that follows this written by an anonymous person using my real name, which should have been Mpenland, a member of DSL reports, which is an IT member and employee of ETC, I will be making a call to the Georgia Utility Commission Monday morning ASAP to report their activities. I am fixing to hang this company out to dry with any federal, state, or local agencies that I can get in touch with. As I see it, the battle has probably begun. What I posted in my original post is true and I can prove every word of it.
Mr Stone

Mr Stone to adsldog

Premium Member

to adsldog
Just one more thing that all can read about here.... »pub46.ezboard.com/fdslse ··· rgiafrm1 Does have "popups"


etc_ip
@66.44.x.x

etc_ip

Anon

This is a bad review...

This is a poor review of ETC.
Here are a few misconceptions cleared up for Heshup:

ETC support is provided by a company that works very closely with them; the Support company is a mere 15 minutes away. It is 24 hour and they support dsl, dialup, email and more. Trust me, I know.

5mb of space is more than enough. If you want more space, why not spend $10 a month and get some hosting? Stop being so cheap!

ETC delivers the router (they don't sell modems anymore, only ethernet routers) when they hook up the service. They don't leave until the customer is online. They leave a flyer that has detailed instructions for setting up a lan, email and NAT.

The free dialup is for people that have jobs (unlike you) and need to dial in occasionally from work or from a friends house.

There is no competition because no one has moved into the area yet. It isn't up to ETC as to who can compete with them; it's a matter of another company filing for CELEC rights with the FCC. ETC has nothing to do with it. Look into the laws governing telecom regulations before you get up in arms.

Overall, considering that the area population is about 15,000, that the company is privately held and family owned, and that the entire internet staff is only 10 people or so, I think we should consider ourselves lucky that we and about 1000 other people can have DSL in what is essentially a backwoods mountain town.
DSL costs about $2 million to roll out at over 100 wire centers. At $49.95 a month...well, YOU do the math.

Perhaps a word of encouragement is what is needed; not bad mouthing on an internet forum.

Mr Stone
stupid should be painful
Premium Member
join:2001-06-20
From hell

Mr Stone

Premium Member

Re: This is a bad review...

It is real sorry that this person had to log on as anonymous under my real name, Stone as StoneDuncan anonymous
66.44.204.x when he should have logged on as this person, »mpenland and that is Mat Penland who works for ETC in the internet department. What some people will do. gee......... same IP address as mine hum........... I will be in touch with the proper authorities to see what can be done about this. As I have said this company or their employees have no pride in customer relations.

See you in court, Mat!
Mr Stone

Mr Stone to etc_ip

Premium Member

to etc_ip
This is how they talk and the kind of emails that they send to people that make them money

"----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott [ETC]"
To: "Heshup"
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 2:57 PM
Subject: Re: MyETCMail Poll Results

> Hello Stone.
> Are you having service problems of some sort? Your comments certainly make
> it sound like something is wrong in a major way.
>
> As you know, we have bent over backwards to make certain that your problems,
> which are just that, *your problems*, get solved in a timely manner.
>
> Please let us know if there is something wrong with our service (not with
> your games or computer) so that we can remedy the situation.
>
> Sending silly messages on our website is not the proper way to indicate that
> you have a service problem.
>
> Have a pleasant weekend.
> Scott McDaniel
> ETC IT Group
> www.Ellijay.com

TimTomTim
@66.246.x.x

TimTomTim

Anon

i don't understand this

i dont understand what this isp is doing wrong that would cause you to call the police on them. it sounds like thy are a rinky dinky isp that is trying to defend theirselves.

i would use someone different if your so unhappy with their service.

Mr Stone
stupid should be painful
Premium Member
join:2001-06-20
From hell

Mr Stone

Premium Member

Re: i don't understand this



It is real clear that you didn't read everything that was posted here.

spy900
join:2003-06-20
Jasper, GA

spy900

Member

etc = crappy

yeah I agree ETC sucks.. it sucks that tech support is lame, I have called before to ask a question, but it will not get answered because "tech support is only here to assist people to get on the internet" the speed sucks on comcast cable that I had in FL I was at 1.5m, I move up here and get 600kbs.. yeah it almost felt like I was on dial up again.... and just a side note.. their cable doesn't have speed vision and a few other channels, well unless you get the digtal package... comcast will you please come to jasper?? please haha
Skeeve1
join:2003-02-13
Jasper, GA

Skeeve1

Member

How is ETC doing now?

Hey guys,

Still the same situation with ETC? Just curious to see if the company has made any improvments to their image and their service. It appears they are still digging up my neighborhood adding their own phone/DSL lines. Now that I have two "choices" maybe they will lower their high prices for DSL since they willl be competing with TDS.

Skeeve

Review by DiscipleMike See Profile

  • Location: Ellijay, Gilmer, GA, USA
  • Cost: $79 per month
  • Install: about 14 days
  • CLEC party: Covad
Locally Owned Company
PPPoA DSL Connection?
They are the only game in town
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I ordered the residential DSL instillation around the middle of December and was installed on the 6th of January. This was part of a special that was being ran at the time, waived the $85 instillation fee and 1/2 price DSL service for 6 months. (The 1/2 price service covered the cost of the modem/router)

The IP is PPPoA, I don't know enough about this to really comment. Except for the fact that I have not been able to find any equipment off the shelf that will handle this type of connection.

The few times I have contacted the tech support people, they were helpful and courteous. They quickly comprehended my user/knowledge level and we were able to solve any problems quickly, which have all been minor.

If I had multiple ISP's available to choose from, cost would probably be the deciding factor.

12/18/04
On 12/16/04 ETC increased my connection speed, at no additional cost to me, from 768/256 to 1.5/384. Not a bad Christmas present.

7/12/05
Still the only broadband ISP in the county, and probably the only thing to make me switch would be cable broadband.

member for 21.2 years, 101 visits, last login: 11.5 years ago
lodged 20.8 years ago