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 Review by yuduyl 
UPDATED: 16 days ago
member for 2.7 years, 711 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Cando,Towner,ND
 $45 per month
 about 5 days
 "Fast speed to most sites, reliable connection, Usenet"
 "Slow Usenet speeds, high latency at times,"
 "All things considered, it's really good service...."
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I have had this service for about a month now, it has been reliable. The Usenet service is reduced speed, but has 100k + groups, has a long retention on binaries 30 day + and has a high level of completeness. I use Gmail for email, so I have not had any experience with their email system.
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09/13/08
Taking into consideration where I live (Way out in the country) the speed, reliability and cost; MidCom provides good service. Download speed is really good and the connection has be very reliable. The service is better than what DSL offers. Both are reliable, but MidCom has higher speed for about the same price.
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11/04/2008
Good service all around, Internet is always up and running, excellent download speeds. I'm really happy with their service.
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Review by jaynicks
Posted: 90 days ago
member for 232 days, 4 visits, last login: 13 days ago
Grand Forks,Grand Forks,ND
$40 per month
"adequate service"
"They like to sucker punch customers"
"stay away"
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I moved to Grand Forks and got a sublet. After asking "is this the lowest price?" MidCo said on the phone for $40 and, I forget, $50 installation. Verified as lowest price on the phone.
The installer guy failed, but I fixed it next day with a new Best Buy cable. Yawn.
Sucker punch one: I Iogon and there is an offer for $20/mo for six months no connect fee. Two hours of phone hassle they give me credit.
Sucker Punch two: I move 90 days later and MidCo says $50 connection fee. I remind them of their promise and they say that statement is not "policy". they basically say, "FU"
Sucker punch three: I terminate and we agree on a printed termination statement. Nothing happens for 80 days and I get a phone call saying "sending you to a collection agency" I ask for a name and get hung up on.
So here I am, typing away.
Summary: Connect is good. Customer support is great, but they make statements that are later denied by 'corporate'. Overall they are polite but firmly dishonest.
I figure there are some real screwup mid level managers who do not understand politeness, customers, trust, corporate strategy or DSL Reports who are messing them up. A waste of carbon footprint, people like that.
It does not matter. As a corporation they sucker punch clients. Stay away from them unless you like getting sucker punched.
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 Review by Deft
UPDATED: 99 days ago
member for 5.2 years, 1991 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Grand Forks,Grand Forks,ND
$89 per month (6 month contract)
about 4 days
"Excellent Download/Upload for the Price"
"None"
"Damn good service in the ND area!"
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1st time i got it was 3yrs ago and all i had was a 3mb down/ 128mb up 29.99/mth.. then after about 8 months they came out with an upgrade.. to 256mb up 29.99/mth then after a year or more they sent out Midco Max which is what i have now. and thats 5mb down and 512 up 49.99/mth.
The Tech was excellent both times (since i moved) and both EARLY!! so yea all in all if youre in the ND area and are within the 2800 feet i think.. definitly get MIDCO dont get that crap DSL.. just isnt the same.
***UPDATE** I've moved back to GF,ND its been 2yrs since ive had Midco and WOW they just updated yet again!!! i now have 10mb/1mb down its just amazing! and the Price is unreal 99$ for 1 YEAR!! thats of course without taxes! but you cant beat that hell no!
*****UPDATE**** Recently went to a new package of 89,95 for 6mths and get unthrottled download *16meg* and 768 up, also get 30HD Channels all HBO channels and 200+ channels with that rate..
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 Review by kados
UPDATED: 102 days ago
member for 5.6 years, 1857 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Watertown,Codington,SD
$39 per month
about 4 days
"Blazing fast, excellent retention on usenet"
"none, yet"
"Love em"
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I was with Qwest DSL for a few years. They kept raising prices, so I cancelled and went back to cable. With dsl I only had a 1.5 mb connection with my wired pc, and about 800 with my laptop on wireless. With my cable on midco, I'm getting 8.5 mb with the desktop, and 5.5mb with my laptop. Couldn't be happier.
Laptop speedtest
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 Review by bear73
UPDATED: 122 days ago
member for 7.4 years, 1656 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Grand Forks Afb,Grand Forks,ND
$75 per month
about 15 days
"bundle package of Cable TV and Broadband"
"$75!!!! Quest DSL is only $25 around here"
"it works and it's 2.5M down 256 up"
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Don't believe the "Fat 10MB Broadband pipe" hype.... reality is it's as fast as DSL...
If I could keep my email address (like if I had my own domain or POP server) then I'd change providers...
Latency is high, and throughput is typically around 4M or lower. Frequently its more around 2Mb. Additionally, there are frequent disconnects when streaming, like with a NETFLICKS instant view. I have tshot numerous times and the reply from techs is always "...see nothing wrong, just reboot teh modem..."
And then there is the price increases that seem to hit every 3-4 months...
Followup comments:  rsolo57
join:2002-02-23
Rapid City, SD
|  Your assesment needs fixing...
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bear73
Metnav... Fly The Unfriendly Skies
Premium
join:2001-06-09
Grand Forks Afb, ND
 ·Midcontinent Commu..
| Midco may be [chuckle] reliable, but ... the service I have had over the last year has been up 99% of the time, but I frequently have to reboot hte modem. The other thing I dislike about Midco's billing is their lack of transparency. Ask them how much each portion of the bill is, and they give you a run-around.
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If ya gotta go, Go with a SMILE!
»www.thereligionofpeace.com/ | |
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bear73
Metnav... Fly The Unfriendly Skies
Premium
join:2001-06-09
Grand Forks Afb, ND
·Midcontinent Commu..
| Re: I get good speeds, but depends on the server... I test out to all of them and take the fastest. I test ofer a wide range of times also. I get MAX speeds ranging 8Mb-1.2Mb and its more frequently at the 2-3Mb speed during most daytime hours. The 8Mb speed was measured at 3AM local time.
--
If ya gotta go, Go with a SMILE!
»www.thereligionofpeace.com/ | |
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Review by titanmiller
UPDATED: 228 days ago
member for 6.6 years, 351 visits, last login: 3 days ago
Grand Forks,Grand Forks,ND
$50 per month
"INSANELY FAST - 30mbps"
"Horrendous Upload - 768kbps"
"Woah!"
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I just upgraded to "Midco Max" which has unrestricted downstream bandwidth and 768kbps upload. The unrestricted downstream varies of course depending on network congestion and server speed, but I have witnessed download speeds of up to 30mbps and bursts up to 45mbps on good servers at off peak times of the day. This just might be one of the fastest connections in America!
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Review by Eugenitor
Posted: 241 days ago
member for 241 days, 0 visits, last login: 241 days ago
Bismarck,Burleigh,ND
$65 per month
about 7 days
"Speed, always connected, no problems"
"Can't think of any"
"Can't believe it's this good"
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God I love the cable connection in Bismarck.
No ping problems with games. BitTorrent and other P2P is absolutely blazing fast. I NEVER, EVER DROP- I only get a new IP address when I reboot. Holy CRAP do I love this ISP.
Monthly fee includes phone, and they've recently upgraded to new cable/phone boxes. Good thing too, POTS in my house is old shit...
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Review by hastinbe
UPDATED: 340 days ago
member for 340 days, 1 visits, last login: 339 days ago
Bismarck,Burleigh,ND
$49 per month
about 3 days
"Reliability"
"None"
"Great service in Bismarck, ND area"
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I've had Midcontinent for the past 7 years. I can recall maybe less than 5 unscheduled downtimes. I originally had the Basic package and would average about 500 KB/s down and 30 KB/s up with a down record of ~700 KB/s. The last 2 years I have upgraded to the Premium package. About 70% of the time I get 600 KB/s and around ~100 KB/s up. 20% of the time 800 KB/s. And 10% over 1 MB/s. The Premium comes with uncapped downstream and 256 kbps upstream. My latest speed test scored 7200/800.
The install was pretty quick as I'm in an pre-wired apartment. The variety of modems they offered was short. I paid for the modem and requested a specific brand and did not receive it. Instead I received a Ambit U10C018. However I have had absolutely no issues with the modem and am 100% satisfied with it.
About 98% of the time you are notified a week in advance for service interruptions. In times that you are not it is usually on the recording when you call support. Most recently they had DNS server issues. The recording stated the time it was reported and gave an ETA that was right on the money.
Overall, compared to the other services in the Bismarck, Lincoln, and Mandan area it is the service to have.
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Review by mathyou
Posted: 1.2 years ago
member for 6.8 years, 459 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Vermillion,Clay,SD
$85 per month
"Everything"
"Nothing"
"I'm moving and wish I could take Midco with me. :("
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I've been a Midco subscriber in Vermillion, SD since they took over form Mediacom in February, 2007. The switch went pretty well, but I had an issue because Mediacom had three modems registered to my account and Midco didn't know which one to use and guessed wrong. A quick call sorted that out.
I was generally pleased with the service from Mediacom, and things have gotten noticeably better with Midco. Our bill went down about $10-15/month (for cable + internet). Mediacom had some issues when they increased the speed to 10Mb down. One area in Vermillion was particularly heavily loaded (around University Street, if I remember correctly). The speeds with Midco have been rock solid. I don't know if they made the needed infrastructure investments or what, but I haven't noticed any problems at all. I routinely get 9.4Mb/470Kb on Midco's speed test (»support-test.midco.net). That's dang good for a 10/500 line.
My connection has been highly reliable. I think there have been three outages since February. They have all been short. Two happened in the wee hours of the morning. Only one happened during primetime.
I play games pretty seriously, and my latency has been exceptional. At the beginning of July, 2007 there was an issue with connection between Midco and Sprintlink. Latency shot up from the normal 20ms to around 120ms. The first person I talked to at Midco gave me a bit of a runaround saying it was Sprint's problem and suggested I contact Sprintlink (seemed a funny idea that some end user would contact Sprint's NOC, but whatever), but I was persistent (as you have to be with these sorts of issues). I actually did send an e-mail to Sprintlink and also got in touch with a more helpful person at Midco who escalated the issue and contacted Sprint as well. The problem was solved by the next day, and I haven't had any issues since. I routinely get to Sprintlink in under 20ms, Google in 35ms, etc. Aside from that one CSR, I've never had a bad experience with Midco, and I was used to having to work a bit to get my problems solved after working with Mediacom for a while.
I heartily recommend Midco to my friends. One of them is switching to Midco from Qwest, which has been nothing but trouble (constantly dropped connections and of course the latency from interleaving--really the worst of both worlds: the latency of interleaving and total instability interleaving is designed to prevent).
I am moving to Minneapolis, MN soon and have been looking for ISPs up there. There aren't any good options. I can get Comcast (no bittorrent, slower, and higher latency than I have now). I can get Qwest DSL (ugh interleaving). I can pay through the nose for Covad DSL reseller (avoid interleaving but tough to afford for a young guy like myself). This experience has really made me appreciate how great Midco is. I would be absolutely ecstatic if I could use them after I move. I'd even take Mediacom over any of the options up there. I always thought the big cities were the place to be for broadband, but dang we rural South Dakota kids seem to have it pretty good.
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Review by RouterCab
Posted: 1.2 years ago
member for 6.5 years, 654 visits, last login: 56 days ago
Sioux Falls,Minnehaha,SD
$49 per month
about 7 days
"Great speed most times, just uped and have toped at 7mbps"
"the price is a bit much for the good reliable speed"
"Good is Sioux Falls, but unknown throughout the state"
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The speed is great around a constant 7 mbps, the cost is a bit more being they nearly only compete against Qwest which sucks(in Sioux Falls). There is a new carrier coming in called Prairie Wave, so hoping for competition.
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