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Review by mo1258 
Posted: 155 days ago
member for 5.4 years, 25 visits, last login: 155 days ago
 San Marcos,Hays,TX
 $120 per month (12 month contract)
 about 10 days
 "Consistantly high speed (8Mbs) and Very good value especially for initial signup period"
 "TV selection not as good as Time Warner, Install was a circus"
 "Good for internet and phone, not so good for TV"
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Had Grande Com in San Marcos. The install was a fiasco - all on their side of the house - no problems inside. They did stick with it until they got it working but it took over a week. Phone worked fine over existing phone wiring - it is not VOIP to my house. Internet speeds were very reasonable - upgraded to 8Mbs and it was indeed that speed at all times of the day. Connection was reliable. Great pricing for the initial 12 month signup period then the prices shot up like a rocket - customer service took no efforts to keep me as a customer. Wife wanted better TV - more HD so we changed to Time Warner with Turbo Boost - which, BTW, I do not think is all that fast. Grande was consistantly fast with no lags. Time Warner Turbo seems to have a lag then spurt of speed. I miss my Grande internet!
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 Review by zeos386sx
Posted: 330 days ago
member for 3.9 years, 8 visits, last login: 321 days ago
Waco,Mclennan,TX
Contract price not specified.
"8Mbps as opposed to twc's 6Mbps"
"p2p throttling seems to be in place"
"speed is great, only cable option for this apt."
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8Mbps as opposed to twc's 6Mbps for about the same price.
p2p throttling seems to be in place, torrents, linux isos only of course  , run at about 3Mbps
speed is great, only cable option for this apt.
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Review by toddnix
Posted: 358 days ago
member for 358 days, 4 visits, last login: 346 days ago
Austin,Travis,TX
$39 per month
about 6 days
"fast, reliable, consistent, friendly installer"
"had to wait a week for install, technical requirements not spelled out well"
"recommended"
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ordered GForce F-10 High-Speed Internet
switched from 2-line ATT + DSL to Grande + Voipo
my monthly bill is 1/2 and my speed is 3x both up and down.
speeds have been rock solid consistent with no issues and no down time.
they should inform folks that the modem needs a power drop and while they will install it under a pier&beam house, they won't install it in the attic and prefer to install it indoors
wasn't a huge problem - had my electrician out the next day to install a plug but an unexpected hiccup.
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Review by brybarnes
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 812 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Little Elm,Denton,TX
$35 per month
about 5 days
"Reliable Speeds-Connectivity-Very few outages-Excellent field service techs"
"None (yet)"
"Quality Internet at decent speed/price"
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2 years now with Grande Cable; they continue to provide a reliable connection with few outages. I have had the same speed package and upload speeds can vary wildly anywhere from 200's to 400's. latency and jitter have become a concern with VoIP; the speeds only offer subpar or radio quality VoIP. Still cheaper and better the A** &T DSL!
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Grande only offered DSL in my area until they extended their broadband cable network into my neighborhood. Install went well. When there was an area outage (only one so far), the field techs were at my house the very next day to ensure service was up and speeds were there!!
Update: Field service tech came thru again! My neighbors built a pool and severed the line when installing a sprinkler. Service tech was out the next day to check signal at house (none), he ran a temp line. Total down time 3 days in a year!
Update: Upload speeds could be higher, mine 400.
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Review by mbizer
Posted: 1.4 years ago
member for 8.2 years, 67 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
Austin,Travis,TX
$20 per month
"generally reliable"
"tech people are idiots"
"much better than Time Warner!"
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$20 is a special one-year rate for 6 mbs down and 384 Kbps up.
I've generally been very happy with Grande but my recent experience with them has given me pause. My router (or computer, if it is directly connected to the cable modem) is consistently getting a DHCP lease that lasts only an hour, it's filling up the logs, yet I get the *same* dynamic IP every time. I've spent countless hours on the phone with Grande, suggesting that their DHCP server is misconfigured or should be reconfigured to give me an IP for at least 24 hours, to no avail.
Followup comments:  retsej2007
join:2008-06-02
| .... Strange...I'm now in the Austin(ish) area on Grande, and my lease times aren't an hour the last time I checked. I was having a latency issue while playing WoW which seemed to occur at certain intervals, and I searched everything from leases to wireless connections and it ended up being the stupid wireless software. (linksys and windows sometimes fight over who owns my wireless lol)
Although I don't think it will bother me for what I'm doing, I'll check mine this evening out of curiosity. I wonder if it's possible it's specific to certain areas? | |
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ret
@grandecom.com | Re: .... Mine is working fine...maybe they fixed something? | |
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Review by hughesjr
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 1.7 years, 5 visits, last login: 49 days ago
Corpus Christi,Nueces,TX
$42 per month
about 1 days
"Fast speed, courteous service"
"none"
"12 mbps down, 1 mbps up, $42/month"
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I have had the highest bandwidth offering by grande for more than 3 years, they just increased the max plan from 6/512 to 12/1024.
They have quickly resolved any issues i had over this period and I highly recommend this company and this plan,
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 Review by Plif
Posted: 1.8 years ago
member for 1.8 years, 7 visits, last login: 330 days ago
San Marcos,Hays,TX
$50 per month
about 5 days
"Fantastically stable"
"Sales reps provide little information about the service"
"Great service from a company right here in Texas"
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Currently on the 8mbps/512kbps speed package, renting a Motorola Surfboard 5100 cable modem.
The initial order process was fine, though the sales rep only knew so much about the internet service itself. The tech scheduled to come out and install service showed up within the four hour window allotted, installation was quick and painless.
When pressed, my sales rep finally told me my upload speed would be 768kbps, and my bills even reflected that speed. But a few speed tests after the service was installed told me a very different story, and a call to Technical Support revealed that the speed package was never for 768kbps, it had always been 512kbps.
Further into my service from Grande, I found my download speed had dropped to 6mbps, the next tier down. Ran the test a few more times, got the same result. Called Tech Support, who had me test again and bypass my router, same result. After a few tests my download speed came back up closer to 8mbps. In short, we wasted half an hour proving what we already know about broadband: your download speed won't be at 100% all the time.
All in all, I'm extremely pleased with Grande's internet service. My standard uptime hovers around 40 days, and only then because of power outages or swapping which router/computer/device is connected to the modem. Stability is my primary desire from my internet connection, and Grande has it in spades.
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Review by ruscusa
UPDATED: 2.3 years ago
member for 6.7 years, 17 visits, last login: 2.3 years ago
Austin,Travis,TX
$400 per month (24 month contract)
about 60 days
"Good Sales and Support Team"
"Some less than desireable installers"
"Excellent value and easily upgraded bandwidth"
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My choices were many: Cable, SWB T1 variants, Time Warner Telecom and Grande. The only 2 offering fiber to my shop were TWTC and Grande. We purchased our 3M symmetrical Ethernet delivered service from Grande. We also purchased a PRI to our PBX. We received both services for less than the PRI from our previous phone provider. I will admit that we have had more problems with the PRI than the internet service. But most of that is due to our old Nortel PBX.
Previously we were using RR with a 4M down and 2M up and it was quite good most of the time. However the monitoring done by Grande is far better than RR (well you are on your own with RR). But, my home connection has been RR for 5 years!
If you can get Grande internet service, buy it.
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Review by veggiegeek
Posted: 3.4 years ago
member for 4.5 years, 27 visits, last login: 3.4 years ago
Austin,Travis,TX
$55 per month
about 3 days
"static ip, price, downstream bandwidth"
"low upstream bandwidth, only one ip address, inconsistant tech support, problems with static ip"
"a great alternative to time warner"
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after researching my available isp options, i decided to go with grande communications. unlike time warner's road runner service, they offer a static ip address at a reasonable cost and faster downstream bandwidth. i chose their 6mb/384kb package with a static ip address.
installation was pretty straight forward, the tech was able to do the install only 3 days after calling to sign up for service. he brought the cable modem, ethernet cable and cut me a couple coax cables. one thing i found odd was that he didn't have my static ip information, so i had to call tech support and ask them.
on a side note, the lady who signed me up did a lot of lying to me about package digital cable tv prices and cable box rental fees. be warned, i am not the only one who has had this happen, they will say anything to get your cable tv business over time warner and when you call back upset they play innocent.
unfortunately, three weeks after flawless service, i started having disconnect issues and dead connections. basically, my modem was on their network, i could send out traffic but was not getting anything back in return. i called up and a tech was scheduled to come out to my house the same day. an hour after the tech visit time window, one tech did show up. he checked my line noise and made sure that we were getting a good signal. further, he called another tech to bring me a new modem to replace my old one.
service returned to normal for the following day and then i began having the same problems as before.
i finally decided to see what happens when i pull an ip off their dhcp server instead of the static address i was assigned. my connection problems went away instantly. i called back tech support and had them open a trouble ticket for me. it is my belief that either 1) someone stole my ip address or 2) they never gave me a static ip address to begin with.
once grande fixes this one major problem with my service, i believe that i can easily be a happy grande customer. i have noticed that i get 7 - 8 mbs downloads. for those who use usenet, usenet is capped at one connection @ 150kb/s and there is supposed to be a two month retention period. they will also unblock port 25 per request. each time i've called for cable modem tech support there has been close to no hold time.
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Review by jerake
Posted: 3.8 years ago
member for 7.3 years, 45 visits, last login: 3.4 years ago
Austin,Williamson,TX
$111 per month (12 month contract)
about 14 days
"Quick and easy installation, no problems, speed constant."
"Tech support, but I didn't find it as bad as others."
"Very good, no problems so far"
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I recently moved from an apartment in Chicago to another apartment on the north side of Austin, Texas. Some background: I had 1.5 MB DSL with SBC in Chicago, and never had any issues, so I wanted DSL in Austin also. However, when I asked the apartment office staff about phone service/internet service (I had assumed it would be SBC, since both Texas and Illinois have SBC phone service), they said that I would have to go through Grande Communications since they owned all the closets in the complex. I was also informed that Grande didn't offer DSL, and that I had to get cable internet at 6 MB. I'd had cable internet through AT&T (pre-Comcast) before when I lived in Des Plaines, IL, and hated every waking moment of it (speeds would vary tremendously at certain times of the day, but that's what happens when you live around Chicago). Like some othe reviewers, this info threw up a ton of red flags, but since the entire move happened in about two weeks, I didn't have time to investigate further.
I ordered the service about two weeks before I moved down to Austin; the apartment complex actually submitted the order for me. Grande sells packages of internet, cable, and phone service, so the cost for the bundle was $111/month for unlimited phone service, 6 MB down/384 up for cable internet, and digital cable (this was their highest package).
I moved into my apartment on a Friday; the installation was scheduled for Saturday, the day after I moved in. I had no furniture, was waiting for the movers, but I did bring my PC with me when I drove down to Austin. There was a four-hour installation window, but that's pretty standard (I did just come from having SBC, after all). They showed up within the scheduled time and installed my digital cable box, hooked up my phone line in the closet, and set up my cable internet in under 20 minutes. Everything went very smoothly, and the technician was very good at making sure everything was working (made sure I had dial tone, placed test calls, made sure I had all my cable channels, and tested out my internet). Bottom line - when the tech left, everything I had ordered worked.
I tested my speed after the tech left, and found that I was getting some weird results - very slow, slow, SLOW speeds and my upload speed was larger than my download speed. I called tech support immediately, and the tech had me run speed tests on Grande's web site, which confirmed the slow speeds and inverse upload/download speeds. The tech really couldn't help me very much, to be perfectly honest - I would peg their tech support as a 50/50 tossup of getting actual help. He put in a ticket and said someone would get back to me. Well, after I hung up, I checked all my settings, and remembered that my NIC was hardcoded at 100/full (I had it hooked up to a router previously, one where I could hardcode the NIC speeds; my cable modem is now hooked up directly to the PC until I get everything unpacked), so I set it to Auto, and *bam* - all my speeds came up. I was getting exactly the speeds they promised - 6 MB down/384 up.
The only slowness I see is during peak times when everyone gets home from work, between 3-ish and 7-ish, and even then it only drops to 4 MB (which is still way faster than I was getting with DSL in Chicago).
Now, let me say this - I am EXTREMELY picky about my internet service, having gone through hell with SBC back when I first got DSL in 2000 (overselling of service, couldn't provide the speeds they promised, etc.). I was really very surprised that I had no issues whatsoever, and that my connection speeds have stayed stable. Granted, I've only had the service about three weeks, but it's been fantastic thus far.
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