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Review by mdschaal See Profile

  • Location: Denver, Denver, CO, USA
  • Cost: $60 per month
  • Install: about 240 days
  • Telco party Qwest
  • CLEC party: Qwest
Consolidated monthly telco bill/reasonable reliability
Inconsistent Qwest tech support
Reasonable deal if you're close to a CO
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

First the Qwest (originally, US West) side: Yes that 240 days (8 mos) is correct. My ADSL order was taken, then cancelled twice without notice because they couldn't figure out which CO I belonged to (the Business side doesn't talk to the Ops side). Final success was the result of my getting a VP of sales involved on try number three. BTW, I am approximately 850 ft from the nearest CO--about a block and a half--two tin cans and some string would just about do the trick.

Fortunately, once the CO was identified and the line set up, everything proceeded relatively smoothly. I've had few outages, none lasting more than a day, over the last 4 years with them. Pricewise, the $29.95/mo is OK, although the 380 Kbs average I enjoy is substantially below the advertised 640 Kbs. In the meantime, I've been promised the 1.4 Mbs line upgrade, but I'll believe that when I see it.

Now the E.Central side: Simply put, the best ISP I've ever worked with. I have been with them since Oct 96 and have nothing but praise for their operation. Don Bachner and his crew have given outstanding service, accurate tech support, and no-BS recommendations from day one. The $30.00 fee for DSL, dial-up backup, and a static IP has been worth the investment.

member for 20 years, 11 visits, last login: 18.4 years ago
lodged 19.9 years ago


Review by funbill See Profile

  • Location: Aurora, Arapahoe, CO, USA
  • Cost: $52 per month
  • Install: about 3 days
  • Telco party Qwest
  • CLEC party: Qwest
Tech support tries real hard to do nothing
Hey, lets see if we can get the line to operate at 20% efficiency
Im glad DSL is sooooooooo much more stable than Cable
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Update 5/1/04 OOOOh Qwest is going to give me an upgrade, 1500/1000 Im soo happy. Lets get on the computer and see what happens. Yay, I can upload @ 800 kbps, this looks like fun. Now I can save 2 minutes every 2 months when I actually upload something where size matters. Oh, I know lets download something, because thats what most people on the internet do. Lets see, I used to get around 500 kbps download on old line, and now that speeds have more than doubled, I think I will have to get something closer to maybe 1200 kbps, that seems to be the norm for this kind of line. Okey dokey, lets do some tests. Alright, 700kbps, not great but better than before. Alright, for consistency, lets test on some other sites. Hmm, 400 kbps, WTF, must be an error, lets test again. 250kbps, urge to kill rising, rising. Must be computer, lets try tweaking RWIN settings, that must be the problem. Know what would be fun, trying every possible RWIN 1 hour a day for a whole week and see what happens. Well, lets see how I did. Times past 1500 kbps 0, 1400kbps 0, 1300 kbps 0, 1200 kbps 0, 1100 kbps 1, 1000kbps, 4, 900 kbps 8, 800 kbps 14, 700 kbps 22, 600 kbps 28, 500kbps 35, 400 kbps 50, 300 kbps 80, 200kbps 90.... I am so glad I get to see a broken mbit barrier once a week, just to see how it can be pathetically measured agains the 30% efficiency my line gives 90% of the time.Thank the heavens I have DSL, wouldnt want to have cable and my Download drop from 3 mbps to 2 mbps during peak hours, I am so much more satisfied with 300 kbps during all hours. Oh, and thank you Qwest for turning on Interleave, It helps keep my download speeds sooooooooo stable, I dont care about pings either, I mean, how much does 32 ms matter anyway, I mean just because other gamers have pings lower than my minimum ping with DSL shouldnt make me unhappy.



Ecentral is a small local ISP, one of the many Qwest has its DSL available through in Denver Area. I had dialup with Ecentral and decided they would probably be best bet for DSL too. This reviews is almost as much for Qwest too, they seem to have a large role in connection and support as well. Install went fine when I recieved modem from Qwest after 3 business days, the actiontec Gateway. Line was live when I installed modem, and have been happy ever since. Have to say the modem install was most idiot-proof I have ever done, almost too step by step by step. I get about 540/180 on line 640/256 advertised, slightly higher or lower for each and 0 packet loss. Im anywhere from 5.5k to 8.5k from CO. Pings fluctuate greatly, with lowest(rarely) being about 50, and internationals about 230, which is still better than 56k was. Also have a friend with local cable that gets around same pings, so Im not too dissapointed. Qwest easily answered the easy setup questions, but also seemed to have a farily good grasp of some routing questions, and Ecentral helped out there too. The only other problem with it is the phone noise, the filters dont seem to be %100 effective and can hear some varying pitches and data sounds, probably slowing my connect slightly too. Qwest couldnt solve this one though, but they said it might be house wiring, etc. Noise is still tolerablle with filters though, not nearly as bad as w/o. I also have about 22db of line noise Qwest said, but they couldnt seem to see if anything was causing it. Qwest also CALLED ME when my line went down for about 10 seconds due to rerouting or something, just to tell what happened. Ecentral is as good as any ISPs in cooperation using Qwest's DSL. Will update if anything else happens.

member for 20.7 years, 135 visits, last login: 19.3 years ago
updated 19.9 years ago


Review by markehr See Profile

  • Location: Littleton, Jefferson, CO, USA
  • Cost: $46 per month
  • Install: about 5 days
  • Telco party Qwest
Smooth order and install
Actiontec modem is sub-optimal
Good value, excellent support, fast install
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

After nearly five years of wrangling with Qwest, I finally got them to remove a "UDC splitter" that was preventing my lines from qualifying for DSL (see related article in the Qwest forum).

I chose E.Central as my ISP not because they are the least expensive (MSN has some really attractive deals), but because a) I have had terrible past experience with MSN, and b) I have had very good past experience with E.Central, and c) my brother-in-law has been using E.Central for his DSL for some time now, and is very happy with it. As an added plus, E.Central is a local (Denver-based) company, and I like doing business with smaller local companies whenever possible. An added benefit to going with E.Central is that there is no contractual committment--just a simple month-to-month arrangement (MSN is requiring a one-year contract in order to get their "special" pricing).

On Monday 8/11, I called E.Central to order DSL, speaking with probably the most DSL- and networking-savvy sales person I have ever met (Don Bachner, x 114). After discussing my options and verifying that my line did indeed qualify, Don placed my order (through Qwest's system) for 256kbps up/down.

Qwest called me on Tuesday to verify the order, and indicated that I would be receiving my modem by 8/19 (one week). The modem arrived on 8/15 (3 days later), and after running through the install process (which involved plugging in the modem, pointing my Web browser at it, and answering two questions), the system didn't work. It turns out that the setup on the E.Central end had a small glitch, which they solved on Saturday (my initial tech support call was placed at 6:30pm Friday evening), and I was up and running.

Speed is as advertised: a solid 256kbps both directions, and so far, the line and ISP service have been rock-solid. It would be nice to have 640kbps for download speed, but the additional charges ($5 to E.Central and $10 to Qwest) aren't worth the price to me (after all, 256kbps is nearly 10 times faster than I was used to over dialup!).

The service charges are broken down as follows:

$19.95, billed to credit card for the ISP (E.Central)

$21.95, billed to my phone bill, for the DSL line

$5.00, billed to my phone bill, for modem rental

Total: $46.95.

My only real complaint is that the Actiontec modem does not allow you to easily turn off the integrated firewall; I attempted to play an online game (Diablo II), which requires the ability for the person you are playing with to connect to your IP address, and the Actiontec's firewall would not allow the connection to happen, despite placing the PC's IP address in the "DMZ" and setting up port forwarding. I am sure there is probably a work-around, but it wasn't very evident. I am considering purchasing a used Cisco 678 modem on Ebay, which does not have an included firewall or router, in order to circumvent this problem.

I have been successful in getting my D-Link WiFi router working with the Actiontec, by disabling DHCP on the D-Link and plugging the Actiontec into of the D-Link "LAN" ports. All of my PCs on the wireless LAN work just great!

In short, thumbs up to E.Central and Don Bachner for coordinating a very smooth install, and thumbs-up to Qwest for a smooth DSL provision and modem shipment. Thumbs-down to Qwest for taking nearly five years to get me DSL--the company would have ~$1,300 more in their coffers if they had been able to provide me service when I originally asked for it!



member for 21.4 years, 6 visits, last login: 19.8 years ago
lodged 20.6 years ago