how-to block ads
|
»next review in page
Review by hottboiinnc 
Posted: a few hours ago
member for 4.8 years, 1617 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Toledo,Lucas,OH
 Contract price not specified.
 "$29.99 for 8Meg by 600K up"
 "none"
 "great service, local company, low cost! Beats ATT hands down."
| |
Install was set for the 19th but changed to the 20th due to I added CATV. Appointment was from 2-4pm Tech arrived at 2:15pm and was here until about 4pm due to problems. BUT not caused by Buckeye or the tech.
The coax in my home was not connected in the attic like it was suppose to be. Tech went up and connected it all. made sure all outlets worked even the one in the dinning room.
Left extra lines in case i needed them.
Couldn't ask for a better tech or service.
ATT is also available but 3.0 / 384Kbps for $40 compared to Buckeye BEX 8.0 / 600 for $29.99.
They also donate $10 to a school of your choice in the city.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of buckeye cable |
 | »next review in page (previous review)
Review by zipman
UPDATED: 94 days ago
member for 97 days, 5 visits, last login: 77 days ago
Toledo,Lucas,OH
$5 per month
"high download speeds (web)"
"P2P throttling"
"If you're a P2P nut you may get annoyed with buckeye, they're ok otherwise"
| |
I guess I should get the basics out of the way:
I am NOT an employee of buckeye BUT my mother works there so I always had the highest tier level for dirt cheap.
I don't live with my mother now and I can only afford DSL myself, but every so often I'll take my computer over to her house for a one or two week download binge.
I am a heavy P2P who maxes out his connection (or tries to) 24/7.
With that said, I am providing my experience with buckeye -mostly p2p- over the past 5 or so years.
In the beginning, all was good--albeit slow. There was no capping, and I could max out the whopping 1mb or so down/128k up connection all the time. A couple speed upgrades later things were looking a little better.
At some point-at least three years back-uploads on P2P went to pot. I was using direct connect (DC) heavily at the time and all my uploads were worse than dial-up (they were good for the first second, quickly dropped down to a few KB, then usually dropped to 0 and died). Of course I tried everything from changing ports, going from router to direct to modem, changing wires, changing clients, even using a different computer - but nothing worked. Upload speeds were piss poor except between 2 and 7am when magically the max speed was restored. As I cared more about download than upload this was only a minor headache when people complained or I get kicked from my hub (eventually I had to use DC sparingly to avoid being banned from my hubs). I should note that it was only the DC protocol that I noticed being capped, I could connect to the same users via ftp and upload just fine. I do not know if other P2P protocol uploads were capped at the time, though it is likely that they were.
At this point downloads did not have the same (7am-2am) cap, though I did notice in protocols such as bittorrent, the MORE connections you opened the slower the download became. Basically if you went above some set # of connections the speed would cap to 1/2 or 1/3 the max, so for example I'd have to set my max connections to 30 or so and hope some of those 30 had good speeds. Other times I would simply settle for the ~300KB/s I could get. (DC-with its smaller connection count-could still be regularly maxed out on downloads)
This situation continued up until I moved out (over a year ago). More recently when setting up my computer over there for one of my download binges (her line now being 10mbit) I did notice that in all P2P apps both download and upload were now capped. Connecting to 20 or so people in DC (many of them having 10 or 100mb uploads) would produce just slightly better download speeds than my home 1.5mbit connection. Needless to say this is very disappointing, who wants to be capped from 1/5 to 1/3 their max in p2p 80% of the time? Lucky for me I have an unlimited newsgroup account, which is not affected by this cap (at least not yet). On a great day I could download up to 90gb with the 10mbit. I have not tried the upgraded 12/1 speed yet.
That's all I really have to say about BEX, their bandwidth shaping methods are very disappointing-but then again I've downloaded many many terabytes with them over the years. If your fed up with p2p and can afford some extra cost a month, try an unlimited usenet service.
Followup comments:  hottboiinnc
Kyle
join:2003-10-15
Toledo, OH
 ·buckeye cable
 ·Time Warner VOIP
 ·1and1
| Have Buckeye I have Bex and do not have any problems with P2P. And if your mom always gets the highest tier for dirt cheap- she should now be on th 12Mbps plan now.
Unlimited Internet also doesnt mean you should max out our connection 24/7. I would have killed your connection long ago if I was the Block Family. | |
| | zipman
join:2008-05-15
Toledo, OH
·buckeye cable
| Re: Have Buckeye Yes she should be at 12Mbps now, I just said I haven't tried it because I haven't had my computer over there since it's been active. In fact the last time I had it over there was late January early February. And I don't actually TRY to max out my connection 24/7 I just download that much stuff. I was simply admitting to being one of those people the ISP's hate, the bandwidth hog. That is the main reason I have to download at my moms every so often, the 1.5mbit (~13GB/day) I have simply isn't enough for me. My queues get so backlogged it becomes a problem, e.g. torrents start to expire.
I'll be honest-without increasing my current download habits, I probably would NOT be able to max out a 12mbit line 24/7. Even with HD and DVDr releases I wouldn't have over 100GB to download a day.
My question to you is are you sure you are getting your max speeds when using P2P? Many other people are complaining they cannot. What type of p2p do you use and how often? It could be possible only the heaviest users are targeted. Or you may just not notice that your download speeds aren't going as fast as they could be. | |
| | | 
tater_gunz
Shoot to kill
Premium
join:2003-08-22
Toledo, OH
·buckeye cable
| Re: Have Buckeye said by zipman :My question to you is are you sure you are getting your max speeds when using P2P? Many other people are complaining they cannot. What type of p2p do you use and how often? It could be possible only the heaviest users are targeted. Or you may just not notice that your download speeds aren't going as fast as they could be. Zipman, if you are who I think you are, I hope your foot is doing well.
Just to add my own $.02 to your traffic shaping conversation, I'd like to point out that I uploaded a screenshot to DSLR a while back which showed me maxing out my 8 Mbps BEX connection with torrent traffic. Of course, that was back when 8 Mbps was the highest tier. Since then it got bumped to 10 Mbps and now currently sits at 12 Mbps as you guys discussed above. I don't do much torrenting these days, but I wouldn't be so quick to blame Buckeye for poor throughput. The only suggestion I have is to make sure you don't allow your upstream to become saturated, because that'll kill your incoming torrent performance. Since your parents' connection is now 12 Mbps down and 1 Mbps upstream, I would rate limit your global torrent speeds to 10 Mbps down and no more than 384 Kbps upstream. Although I don't have any screenshots as proof, I averaged 7 Mbps on the Fedora 9 DVD ISO yesterday using uTorrent and these settings. That was during the evening, at around 1800 EST.
I'd also like to clarify something that has been kicked around before; Buckeye does not target individual users ("bandwidth hogs"). Traffic shaping is done on a per-protocol basis, regardless of how much bandwidth a subscriber might consume per month.
Mind you, this is all subject to change -- but as of now, this is the way things are set up.
- Tate
--
Happiness is an OC-768 in your basement... | |
| 
Buckemp
@buckeyecom.net
| Traffiinc shaping I AM a buckeye employee, and I'll be the first to say that we do employ traffic shaping during peak periods, probably amounting to about eight hours a day total that we need to employ any sort of throttling. We do this to ensure QoS to all of our customers. Even at that rate, we still don't completely slam the door on torrent traffic the way that comcast does. We simply slow you down to a level that allows the network to function optimally. That being said, if you jam your outbound, your inbound will suffer. That's simply the way the system works. Leave yourself a pad and your inbound traffic will be much better. I would recommend not using much more than about 70% of your upload speed for torrent, or about 700k on a 12 meg connection. (we currently offer 1000k upload on the highest tier) | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of buckeye cable |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by Ladynaye
UPDATED: 235 days ago
member for 309 days, 4 visits, last login: 15 days ago
Toledo,Lucas,OH
$70 per month
 about 3 days
"Speed, speed, and more speed!"
"I wish I didn't have to pay for it."
"If you are in the Toledo area, you better go with Buckeye!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
I tried DSL with SBC Yahoo! (now AT&T) when I first moved here four years ago and it was nothing but pure hell until Buckeye moved into my area. I had the 2/256 package, then paid for the 3.5/256 package (this was over two years ago). Now I have the 10/800 package and I am beyond happy.
Followup comments: PaulieFresh
join:2006-04-26
Rossford, OH | Speed Sorry to correct you but your package speed is actually 10,000 down/800 up. Not 768. | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of buckeye cable |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by tater_gunz
UPDATED: 298 days ago
member for 5 years, 1054 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Holland,Lucas,OH
Contract price not specified.
about 2 days
"Very reliable (in my experience), competitive price, VoIP!"
"Upstream is only 384kbps for standard plan..."
"Only other service available to me is DSL, which BEX blows away."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
Before saying anything else, I want to point out that I do in fact work for BEX (Buckeye Express), at the helpdesk. Some might feel that makes me biased, but I was a BEX subscriber for years before hiring in. Also, I've had ADSL through SBC in the past, so I have a feel for their offerings.
Now that that's out of the way, here's the lowdown on BEX:
In the four years that I've had BEX, I think my total downtime is somewhere around two days. Compared to my spotty DSL connection, which I only kept for a year (contract), that's pretty reliable. Like any other service, BEX does have downtime. Usually it's for maintenence or upgrades (early morning hours). My hub, Springfield, seems to be very solid, but we do get occasional outages in the other more densely packed hubs. The good news is that since working for BEX, I have yet to see any hub or node down for more than a few hours. Subscribers with standard level of service or elite service get 10 free hours of nationwide dialup service, so that could be used as a backup connection in case of downtime.
I've had a few different modems over the years, and currently I'm using the standard Arris modem, which has yet to give me any problems. It cooperates nicely with my Netgear router. IP's are dynamic, although a static IP can be rented for an additional charge each month. My IP has changed only a handful of times since being installed, so I don't bother going static. Speeds for my connection are very consistent -- any time I check, I always get the capped amount (3500kbps down / 384kbps up), give or take 5%.
The only ports BEX blocks are 25 (SMTP) to avoid spammers, 80 (no servers), and 135-139 to block common viruses. VNC and RDP both work very well for me; as soon as I get to work every day I set up a remote desktop session with my server at home and stream my music to my desk. Very handy. 
For you constant downloaders, there is no enforced cap. In fact, some of my co-workers and I have tried to see who can get in the top 20 for bandwidth used. To my knowledge, no one has ever been disconnected for excessive use. Now, I'm not saying this can't change, but again, I'm just telling you my experience with the service. The terms of service / acceptable use policy says no servers, but BEX is pretty cool about this other than blocking port 80. If you want to run a server, I suggest either a business account or the elite residential package (5000kbps down / 512kbps up), with a static IP, because static IP's only have ports 134-139 closed.
Truthfully, my only real gripe with my connection is the upload speed. I have the standard service level, which has 384kbps upstream, but I really feel that a 3.5mbps downstream should have at least 768kbps upstream bundled with it. I've heard rumors that we're looking at bumping speeds up, but nothing official has been announced yet.
On a side note, BEX e-mail servers used to be like a roller coaster a couple years ago, but this seems to have been taken care of for the most part. I hardly use my BEX mail accounts, but they don't seem to give me any trouble any more.
Something else that might interest folks -- BEX is in the process of rolling out Buckeye Tel, which we're really excited about. BTel is our VoIP product, which offers a huge local calling area and kickass long distance abilities. Overseas calls are dirt cheap! I don't believe we've rolled BTel out in all areas yet, but I'm seeing more and more callers from different areas with it. It's only a matter of time until everyone will be able to get it.
So, that's pretty much it. I've tried to be fair and impartial, but I understand if folks are still skeptical. I've based this review on my own experiences with BEX, so your mileage may vary.
** If anyone has any questions, please feel free to IM me. I'll be happy to answer your questions / concerns as best as I can! I'm on DSLreports very frequently. ***
....
Update 8/15/2005 -
Two things -- The first is that I am no longer on the Springfield hub. As of 8/1/2005, I am now living in Sylvania and my connection feeds off of card 5/DOU0 on the Sylvania hub. My new CMTS hasn't been upgraded with the 2x8 cards yet, but it's only a matter of time. Besides, the average subscriber won't be able to tell a difference either way. Currently my return is transmitting at 44dBmV and the forward is coming in loud and clear at 7.5dBmV (my modem sits no more than 10 feet of coax away from the ground block now).
Secondly, BEX speeds have just been increased. I don't know if new configs have been pushed to all modems yet, but after powercycling mine I am able to get near the 5000/512Kbps new speeds. A little bit of tweaking and I should be over that, but for the time being it's a nice little bump up. FYI -- the "Elite" package has also been upgraded; folks who are willing to spend the extra $$$ now have 8000/768Kbps connections.
...
Update - 10.27.2007
Current modem: Motorola SBV5220 (VoIP capable but not used)
Wow, I can't believe I've been a DSLR member this long. Where has the time gone? The DSLR system just sent me an automated request to update my BEX review, so here I am. It's been an interesting two years since I last wrote, and I'm still just as pleased with my BEX service as I was when I penned my first review. I'm still wanting more upstream though...
By the way, I no longer work for BEX. I left Buckeye Cablesystem a while back in order to work at its sister company, Buckeye Telesystem (commercial fiber optic and copper telephony services). Some might say that still makes me biased, but honestly, I really don't care what anyone thinks. I have nothing to gain by lying about my experiences with BEX, especially now that I my affiliation with them is tenuous at best.
These days I am running the 10 Mbps downstream / 800 Kbps upstream package, and I pretty much always get within 90% of those speeds consistently. There is another speed upgrade in the works, so that'll be welcome once it finally rolls out. As far as reliability goes, in the past two years I've had maybe 24 hours of downtime (if that).
Traffic shaping has become more prevalent but I'm still able to get very reasonable P2P speeds. Others have complained that they have been running into trouble with P2P, so I guess I can only speak for myself.
Insanely fast symmetric speeds are in development at Buckeye, and I can't wait to find out what the future has in store. Verizon just announced 20 Mbps symmetric service in a few of their service areas, so the bar has definitely been raised!
Followup comments: slckusr
join:2003-03-17
Maumee, OH | good riddance buckeye glad i moved to dsl buckeye was junk in maumee.
guess i got spoiled by comcast.
3 dsl and dishtv | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of buckeye cable |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by PaulieFresh
UPDATED: 316 days ago
member for 2.3 years, 221 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Rossford,Wood,OH
$70 per month
about 7 days
"Low ping times, reliable connection, FAST download speeds."
"Upload bandwidth is easily consumed among gaming consoles and multiple computers."
"I love it and its speed. End of discussion."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
|
I had cable internet installed at least 5 or 6 years ago. Then, the demand may have been higher for a new installations back then, so the time from order to install was a week if I remember correctly. For the most part, I've never really had any outages due to Buckeye's actual network, it's been due to modems and other hardware failure. There was a time where I had to reset my modem and it kept failing to reconnect but when I called tech support they were already aware of it and said that it should re-connect itself by the morning at the very latest and if it didn't they would send someone out or something like that. At any given time I have an Xbox 360, 5 or more computers, a PS3 and maybe a couple other connected devices on my network. I almost always get host while playing game on xbox live because of the reliability of my connection and the very low ping times. I'm currently on the 10,000/800 package and I believe it costs about $70 a month. I also use their telephone and cable TV services.
I do know that when I confront tech support and ask about any way at all in the universe to obtain faster upload speeds, given that money is not a limiting factor, I'm met with dodgy responses and I'm juggled between different "departments" for things such as a business connection, which I would be willing to pay for.
I recently got a new modem, it's a Motorola SURFboard SBV5220.
This is my first review, please forgive me for sounding like an idiot but I can't sleep and I figured I'd counter the negative reviews with a positive one. Maybe some of those other reviewers should try the higher speed tiers, it might do them some good. After all, you can't expect Ferrari performance from a Geo Metro can you?
Oh and to the torrent people, it's limited mostly by your computer and the people seeding to you, I've had some ~cough~ linux ~shifty eyes~ torrents max out my connection.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of buckeye cable |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by mauifrog
Posted: 361 days ago
member for 4.6 years, 49 visits, last login: 285 days ago
undisclosed location
Contract price not specified.
"none"
"Connection goes bad for hours at a time frequently"
| |
If dsl was available in my area I would switch back, but it is not so I am stuck
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of buckeye cable |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by stinerman
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 1.1 years, 10 visits, last login: 301 days ago
Sandusky,Erie,OH
$29 per month
about 1 days
"Quick install!"
"Limited USENET."
"The best deal in the area, but that isn't saying much."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
I'm back in the area from a 5 year stint in Dayton for college. There I had RR, which was superior to BEX in all aspects.
I ran down to the Sandusky office on Tuesday afternoon, ordered the package, and had it installed and running by Wednesday morning. A turnaround time of 24hrs is incredible, regardless of who your ISP is.
I'm on a budget so I ordered the 1.5/128 package. I thought the upload was a bit low, but I wasn't going to complain. Little did I know that they put a total cap of 2GB/mo on this package. I do VOIP, youtube, bittorrent, etc. so I can easily hit 2GB in an hour, let alone a month. Needless to say, I'll have to upgrade to the 7.0/512 package unless the cap is not enforced. They farm USENET out to Giganews and cap it at 3GB for the upper echelon packages. This is unfortunate for me since I am used to RR's unlimited offerings.
The tech was friendly and professional. He didn't know what "Linux" was, so I had to insure that the connection was up and running. He didn't have a problem running the modem to my router, which was refreshing as the RR people refuse to do that.
It's pretty obvious that the lack of competition in the Sandusky area is why the prices are a little high. Our only choice is BEX or AT&T (and CLECs). DSL service requires a landline, which my girlfriend and I don't need. That pretty much narrows it down to BEX. It's too bad we can't get unbundled DSL service like Speakeasy offers. I'd probably go with that if it was available.
Updated 8/17/07: Apparently there is no enforced traffic cap. That makes this connection a bit more palatable. I've not had an outage yet, so the connection is very solid.
Followup comments:
tater_gunz
Shoot to kill
Premium
join:2003-08-22
Toledo, OH
·buckeye cable
| Better how? I'm back in the area from a 5 year stint in Dayton for college. There I had RR, which was superior to BEX in all aspects.
I'm curious how you came to this conclusion? I don't want to argue the perks or drawbacks of either service -- I'd just like to hear an objective summary of how the two ISP's differ (aside from newsgroup access).
Thanks, and I hope your BEX service works out for you.
- Tate
--
Happiness is an OC-48 in your basement... | |
| stinerman
join:2007-06-20
Sandusky, OH
·buckeye cable
| Objectively RR was $29.99 for 5/384 for the first 6 months. They gave us another 6 months at that price when we threatened to go to Earthlink.
With BEX, I'm paying $19.99 for 1.5/128, which increases to $29.99. At that point, I'm probably going to go for the 7/512 package, which is monetarily comparable with the RR package w/o the discount.
RR started unlimited USENET access in December. BEX offers a 3GB cap on its 7/512 while offers no access at all on it's 1.5/128 package.
The cap I referred to is apparently not being enforced (at least not yet).
In general, I think BEX could do better with it's upload speeds. Their blocking of outbound connections to port 25 really irked me and caused me many wasted hours of tracking down the problem. Luckily they haven't blocked Gmail's servers with operate on a non-standard port. I don't have a problem using their SMTP servers, but the tech never mentioned any of these things and the server names are nowhere to be found on their website. He never even set me up with a username and password for them because I told him I was using Gmail.
They aren't poor by any stretch, but they aren't as good as RR. | |
| |
tater_gunz
Shoot to kill
Premium
join:2003-08-22
Toledo, OH
·buckeye cable
| Re: Objectively Sounds like a fair and objective review to me. I personally agree that upload speeds need to be at least doubled, but there's just this crazy stigma in the industry about giving more than a 1:8 ratio on bandwidth. On a side note, the newsgroup stuff is actually monitored (I used to work in the department responsible for this, amongst other things). Be careful, because letters do get sent out and people have had their newsgroup access terminated for severe infractions -- just my $.02 worth.
Thanks for the update, and I hope everything keeps working smoothly for you.
- Tate
--
Happiness is an OC-48 in your basement... | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of buckeye cable |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by denis1213
Posted: 1.2 years ago
member for 3.6 years, 44 visits, last login: 72 days ago
Toledo,Lucas,OH
$45 per month
"very reliable, excellent service and support"
"something can always be cheaper :)"
"wouldnt ever change"
| Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
Been using buckeye for 5 years. Speeds have slowly increased and my cost has stayed the same. I would classify myself as a heavy downloader and well seeded torrents constantly run between 350-500 with peaks hitting over 600 (perhaps someof you dont know how to tweak your clients, not to mention the sp2 limits imposed by MS). i have had only one outage that lasted longer than a couple of minutes. on 2 occasions, i did notice a decrease in speed and signal strength. the 1st time, the tech came that day and the next day they replaced cables throughout the house (have several TV). just recently they replaced the entire drop to correct similar condition. both at no charge of course. as far as other ISPs, i have personally tested many of my friends connection speeds and their dsl connects are far below what i have come to expect. no, i dont work for buckeye nor do i know anyone who does. i use them for tv and internet. home phone is thru sbc so i could have gone the dsl route. im so glad i did not. and a final note: many ISPs, including buckeye, use bandwidth shaping on bittorrent protocols. you should know what to do to get around that.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of buckeye cable |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by shicaca
Posted: 1.6 years ago
member for 6.6 years, 13 visits, last login: 1.6 years ago
Toledo,Lucas,OH
$29 per month (12 month contract)
about 3 days
"Semi-fast download speeds, but the 1.5MB/128k feels slow."
"SLOW upload speeds for cable, but I'm not spending $70 for 100KBPS up"
"My feeling is it's kind of expensive for the speeds."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
I guess I'm used to the speedy lands of Time Warner from years past, but from my honest experience, it's a big sluggish. I am on the 1.5M/128k. I understand most people won't need a quick upload, however uploading files for college is like watching paint dry. Try taking a 5 or 10 MB PowerPoint and upload at 10-15k/s, and the worse part is that you can't do anything else while doing it, or you slow the connection way way down.
P2P, from what I've experienced, is "ehh". I've seen better, but also far worse. From my experience, I haven't had a problem. For those that are complaining, I guess I really don't understand. There's no P2P that gives you any more than 200 or 300 k/s b/c most of the time your computer can't handle all the connections at once. Most likely instead of it being their connection, it's their computer.
I run a Netgear wireless router/hub/firewall. It works really well. I *do* highly suggest placing authentication on your connection b/c of the theft level in the area, and with the horrible upload, if someone got a hold of your connection -- you're hosed.
There have been and are times that the service has gone down completely. Normally they know about it, report it on their auto-answer for tech support, and it normally returns in 15-30 min. There are also times of slow speeds, but they're few and far between.
All-in-all I'd rather have Verizon DSL -- you can upgrade from their base speed to 5mbps w/out a price increase. Impressive? I think so.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of buckeye cable |
| »next page (previous review)
Review by sonicsoul
Posted: 1.8 years ago
member for 1.8 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.8 years ago
Toledo,Lucas,OH
Contract price not specified.
"reliable, fast service"
"expensive"
"for the only option it's not that bad"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
Upfront, I don't work for Buckeye. I moved here in April of 2005 to work for an industrial gases company. My wife and I moved into a beautiful loft in downtown Toledo and went with Buckeye because we wanted DVR and could not get a dish. I opted for the 5M service since I do a lot of torrent sharing (legally).
We lived in that loft for exactly one year. In that time, the only downtime I experienced was after Buckeye had done some network maintenance and things didn't go so well. For about a day and a half I had no or spotty service. I called their customer service number and they credited me for those days. We bought a house in April of this year and moved our service there. Again, no problems. For the entire time I have been with Buckeye, my downloads are adequate. On well seeded torrents I get about 350-450K down, but I do notice a bit of throttling, which is going to happen no matter where you get your internet service from, especially if the Net Neutrality Bill passes. On ftp/http downloads, depending on the server I get 150-550K down. Again, great!
Now, our cellphones don't work in our new house so we got a landline from SBC/AT&T. I also opted for the Pro DSL service, which is advertised as 3M. This was a HUGE pain in the rear as SBC kept telling me my house was not capable of receiving DSL even though the previous owner had it and I am staring at the phone cord and filters still connected in the house. Finally they said I could get it. Actually going through the customer service was a NIGHTMARE. I had to call them 4 or 5 times to get someone to come out to our house becuase we had NO dial-tone. Thier technician was smoking at my front door and when I answered, he flicked the lit cigarette onto my front lawn. He disappeared for 20-30 minutes at a time. I received no phone call saying a technician was coming out to the house. I work nights and he shows up at 8am while I was sleeping. Needless to say I would have loved to have scheduled the appointment.
Anyway, he fixes the line after about 2 hours. Turns out a previous technician disconnected our lines at the telephone pole because he saw we had no service. I finally get the DSL modem in the mail, after paying a non-refundable 12.95 shipping fee that took 7 days to get here. I install the modem, with the HORRIBLE SBC/Yahoo installer that loads your computer with service tools and scripts. I have a spare router so I used that to test the DSL and Cable while I had them both and before I cancelled Buckeye.
Here is the funny part. On speakeasy.net and Cnet's broadband test I was getting 4950Kbps down (5M) and 475Kbps up with Buckeye. Great! With the DSL I was getting 210Kbps and 225Kbps up. Yes...I could upload more than I could download. SBC said it was the wiring in my house but that would cost hundreds of dollars to replace.
I cancelled SBC/Yahoo DSL and my SBC phone line and signed up for Buckeye Tel with the same number for 22 dollars more vs. the 36 dollars a month for just the phone service.
I will say that Buckeye is terribly expensive. I guess you can do that when you are the only company in the area that provides decent cable. And what company charges you 35 bucks to DOWNGRADE your cable service. Oh yeah, Buckeyes does.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of buckeye cable |
|
|
