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Review by WebColin70 
UPDATED: 12 days ago
Fair warning: reviewer joined this month
 Middletown,Frederick,VA
 Contract price not specified.
 "Highly responsive and accessible support, Great for Web Browsing"
 "Quality of Service for touchy apps like VoIP, Harsh contract"
 "It's no FiOS connection, but very good for a wireless service"
| Pre Sales Information:
Install process:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
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I recently moved from the FiOS-connected suburbs back out to rural Virginia, so I'm probably somewhat spoiled by a rock solid 20Mbps DL/5Mbps UL. I needed high speed Internet not just for web browsing and e-mail, but for audio and video conferencing for work purposes. I tried to get DSL or Cable, but neither was available in my area. Here on DSL Reports, I found Wave2Net. There were several negative reviews, which definitely scared me, but I didn't have a lot of choices.
Fortunately, at least so far (only online for 2 weeks now), I've been very pleased with my interactions with Wave2Net and the service. It's not perfect for my needs, but Wave2Net was up front with me that as a wireless service, they can't guarantee VoIP or similar applications. That said, the service has been good enough for VoIP most of the time. In the evenings, the quality drops on voice calls, maybe because more people are using it then and saturating the spectrum? I'm not sure of the reason, but during the day, I don't have any hiccups. When it cuts out, it's comparable to a weak cell signal - you can still make the call, but you might occasionally need to repeat or ask the other party to repeat something.
For more standard applications, like web browsing and file downloads, with one exception when my signal was down for 2 hours (no idea why, maybe the weather) the service has been indistinguishable from a cable or DSL connection. To the extent this review can be helpful to the standard user: if you want a basic connection for standard uses (outside of VoIP), Wave2Net has been superb.
My biggest criticism of Wave2Net as a company is on the contract. For me, they required a 2 year contract which doesn't let me out even if I think the service is unacceptable, because Wave2Net reserves all rights to determine if the service is not good enough. On the phone, (very helpful and friendly people on the phone, by the way) they told me this means about 75% of the stated speeds, and that if they can't provide that, they would let me out. I wish they would put that in writing - why have a customer friendly policy like that, but then scare off customers by not putting it in writing?
In all fairness to them, they have been able to provide 75% of the stated bandwidth.
My other criticism is that apparently even on their SoHo plan, I can't have access to port 80 for an HTTP server. This is a fairly standard need. It doesn't really affect me (I only use HTTPS and SMTP) but I'm surprised they do this. They also claim that every user will receive a static IP, but you really have to be at least at their SoHo plan at about $80/mo for any of the traffic to actually reach your physical location (that seems expensive for the bandwidth and limited capabilities), because they close all the ports on the family plan. That said, again, this would not be an issue for the typical user.
I think several of the negative reports here at DSLReports may be by the same guy, maybe a disgruntled employee, trying to make Wave2Net look bad. They are strangely personal (he created a website against them!), keeps referring to the president by name, and doesn't speak to any actual usage issues.
My experience with Wave2Net support is that, at least during business hours (unfortunately only available on M-F, 8-5), I could almost always reach someone directly in support. In trying to troubleshoot some server issues relating to port forwarding, their support personnel were excellent - smart, responsive, and caring. It took a lot of calls and shared troubleshooting, but they got everything working for me.
Everything has occurred on schedule, with the installer arriving and installing an antenna on a chimney above my metal roof in the rain. I'm amazed he did this. When he arrived, I asked how long it would take and he estimated about an hour. It took several, so maybe they could coach their installers on the virtues of under-promise and over-deliver, but the guy did a great job. He hid the wire pretty well and other than a slightly ugly antenna atop my chimney, I think it's about as neat an exterior install job as could have been done. He did use a black wire, where a white one would have been less visible against my white house, but again, because he hid the wire so well, this is not really an issue.
Inside, where he drilled to bring the wire through, he left the sawdust from the drill on the floor and didn't mount or ground the little box (not sure what to call it, sort of like a modem I suppose). I'm not sure if it needed to be grounded, but I screwed the loose green wire into a screw on the back of my UPS. To me, these are trivial and minor issues that took me all of 5 minutes to clean up after him and set the box where it was hidden and out of the way.
All in all, based on the install and experience of the first two weeks, I would absolutely recommend Wave2Net for standard usage (web browsing, e-mail, file downloads, etc.) and say they are good enough for VoIP and video conferencing if you don't have alternatives. Everyone I've worked with at Wave2Net has been helpful and a pleasure on the phone and in person. If I could get FiOS out here, I'd still prefer that for the much higher speeds and rock steady signal quality.
It's only been 2 weeks. If anything changes dramatically in the future, I'll report back.
- Colin
Followup comments:  custcomp
join:2009-11-24
Winchester, VA
| re: Middletown, VA service You may want to also check out Winchester Wireless. Their service is only $39.99/mo. and is available without a contract and they also offer a full 30 day 100% money back guarantee. Their service is very low latency as they use only Motorola Canopy gear from end-to-end. Look into it while you are still within your 30 day cancellation period with Wave2Net. »www.winchesterwireless.com | |
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Review by dajames4
Posted: 2 years ago
member for 4.2 years, 10 visits, last login: 2 years ago
Winchester,Frederick,VA
Contract price not specified.
"Excellent upload and download speeds"
"Signal interruped by natural events but that isn't Wave2Net's fault"
"Highly recommended, Wave2net has made me a very happy person"
| Pre Sales Information:
Install process:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
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I am highly impressed by the service and support from Wave2Net. If it wasn't for this company, I would be surfing the Internet on a dial-up modem pulling the rest of my hair out. I'll admit it, I was a little hesitant to call them after reading some of the reviews but being so far out from civilization, I had no choice but to made the call. I am so glad I did, so far nothing but great success and every person that I have talked to within the company has gone beyond the call of duty to make me happy customer.
Great job Wave2net.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Wave2Net |
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