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Review by turtleturtle See Profile

  • Location: Snohomish, Snohomish, WA, USA
  • Cost: $106 per month
  • Install: about 3 days
  • No Cap
Local and can reach gigabit
Speeds fluctuating wildly. Known network issues don?t get resolved. Hidden below the line fees.
Better than Comcast.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
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Value for money:

Gigabit plan, which includes unlimited data. To get gigabit, had to have a tech out three times and they had to do a network upgrade on my block because they sold me gigabit when the node was oversubscribed. Lots of phone calls. Took three months. They did give me a credit, but had to ask for it.

member for 5.9 years, 873 visits, last login: 53 days ago
lodged 3.3 years ago







Review by mf9000 See Profile

  • Location: San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
  • Cost: $118 per month
  • Caps of 400 gigabytes/month
Mostly reliable over 15 years
technology lags, very poor tech support if anything goes wrong, poor privacy policy
overpriced but OK if there is no competition
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I've had Wave Broadband for about 15 years, starting at about 2Mbps (it was RCN then, and it was Astound for a while). They have had regular speed increases, usually without charging more, to the present 100 Mbps. They actually deliver advertised speeds. Package includes phone with free North American calls. It is overpriced for what you get, but there hasn't been any consistently superior competition until now.

Wave and predecessors have consistently under-invested in the basic technologies necessary to run a modern ISP. For instance, there is no IPv6 service. There is a link on their page that purports to show network status, but it is completely non-functional. When you call Tech Support to check on a previously-reported problem, the rep you talk to has no visibility into when a repair is scheduled, and no way of communication with the repair trucks. There is a separate system for giving you a repair time window, but it works by calling your phone number, which is almost certainly not working (or you wouldn't have called for service…). The most recent repair appointment time window was 12 hours long. I'm serious, 12 hours. Not acceptable.

The under-investment in network infrastructure is pathetic — their service was down for me for over 72 hours during the first week of May 2017, and they were unwilling to do what was necessary to get service back up quickly. They had replaced a piece of equipment, which was found to be incompatible with equipment at the customer sites. Their solution was to leave the new equipment in place and go around fixing the customer sites, which left a large number of people without service for a long time. A responsible company would have put the original model of equipment back in, even it if cost them for expedited shipping, rather than leaving all those people with no service. But Wave was clearly too cheap to do that.

Thankfully, Sonic.net has just announced they will be bringing fiber-to-the-home to my neighborhood this year. It will be faster and cheaper, with a much better privacy policy. I have pre-ordered.

member for 6.8 years, 11 visits, last login: 3.5 years ago
lodged 6.8 years ago


chpalmer
join:2002-11-18
Belfair, WA

2 recommendations

chpalmer

Member

IPv6

They actually do have IPv6 via a 6 to 4 tunnel at least at all our sites in WA state.

Id rather see it native though.

Review by chpalmer See Profile

  • Location: Bremerton, Kitsap, WA, USA
  • Cost: $100 per month (36 month contract)
  • Install: about 3 days
Thev'ye been reliable for uptime. Pings are usually low.
Power Outage uptime sucks
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

My Other Reviews

·Astound
·VOIPO
Update 02-15 My internet connection continues to work well. I'm de-rating them on the graph however for TV services as they have now decided to start scrambling QAM channels. Its nothing but a money grab as they are forcing users to rent equipment to see these channels in digital format. Looks like we will be investigating the competition for TV.

Update 02-14 On the 55/10 commercial internet. Speed seems to hold most of the time but I think some growing pains right now. Since our tv is under our personal name and the internet under our company name we don't get the "extras" that bundling would get such as Movieplex... Would love to see a work around for that.

There is a forum up and running here on dslreports at »Wave Broadband If your a Wave customer please check it so we can be moved to US Cable Support finally...

update 11-12
Tech support can be clueless most of the time. Needs better offerings. Hoping the new owners take ownership and try out customer retention for a change. Had a customer that had a line cut by construction which we could see. Wave made them prove it wasn't the customer owned modem before they would proceed any further troubleshooting. Rookies!

update- 9-09
Connection still stable with a bit of slowdowns on peak hours lately.. Not bad though. Getting tech support to make a change for me (commercial connection) has gone on for weeks now for a simple dns change.

update- 6-09
I now run my business server here so opted for commercial service. Now at 6mbps 1.5mbps.

moved to 6/1service.

Ive had my install since the Charter days since it became available on my street. Since Wave took over the offerings are a welcome change. I ordered the 768/128 plan from Charter and have since been moved up to the present speed of 6 mbps 385 kbps.

member for 21.3 years, 1767 visits, last login: 95 days ago
updated 9.1 years ago


chpalmer
join:2002-11-18
Belfair, WA

chpalmer

Member

Forum

Forum here... »Wave Broadband

Vinessa
@sbcglobal.net

Vinessa

Anon

Terrible Service

The price, well introductory price for wave broadband is great and all, you basically pay for what you get. They are down a lot of the time and don't expect to watch a full movie at one time because you never know when they are going to go out. AND YES OTHER COMPANIES OFFER ON DEMAND, EVEN THOUGH I WAS LIED TO BY WAVE BROADBAND!!!
MadApples
join:2012-12-27

MadApples

Member

NO NO NO

my foster dad owns a business where they have wave broadband, one i hosted a web/game server with there data center, apparently i got ddoss hacked by one of my disgruntled players, and the data center came to me and said, they didn't want my server there any longer. of course if a simple doss attack caused them so much trouble they are basically noobs in my eyes for not being able to deal with the problem properly.

a few years later, i am told i was going to move up there. problem is im currently developing morpg and it requires tcp/ip data streams from server to client side that i programed.

After seeing all these horrid and scary reviews, i certainly not looking toward to the move up there. Ill do what ever i can to stay with Comcast and not move to this area with this crappy, overran, noobish, stuck, snobbish up prick of a wave broadband company.

My idea is to host all my servers in Seattle and not give a penny to these noobs they call wave broadband.

-MadApples

Review by machine156 See Profile

  • Location: Garberville, Humboldt, CA, USA
  • Cost: $60 per month
  • No Cap
Faster than dial-up
Expensive & Slow
Pre Sales information:
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In this area, we have one choice for internet, Wave Broadband, $60 for 1.5mbit/sec down and 768kbit/sec up; bandwidth test get 0.6 to 1.2mbit down, downloads go about 40-80kbyte/sec, Hulu, Netflix and other streaming video constantly buffer. The local office has told us they are not allowed to complain to corporate office about speeds or they will loose their jobs. We have also been told that the Internet wasn’t intended for streaming video and to many people are doing so. We get mailed and e-mailed offers for the services they provide all other Wave service locations, but when we call to get them, they say they are not available to us. When we call and complain about the slow service, they say ‘we can upgrade your service’ then they say ‘oh those services are not available in your area’

Speeds have been improved and now we get the full 1.5mbit down, however for 4 months they had 20% packet loss and the service was unusable most of the time. weeks after they fixed that, now a lot of customers are having their MODEM reboot 3-9 times a day.

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member for 11.6 years, 1 visits, last login: 9.5 years ago
updated 9.5 years ago

sparky007
join:2011-08-25
Phoenix, AZ

1 edit

sparky007

Member

The whole damn thing is down...



According to »www.isitdownrightnow.com ··· com.html

The whole damn service is down as of 09/05/2014 9:00 Pacific time zone.

Website Name: wavebroadband.com
no responseResponse Time:
unknownLast Down:
DOWN
Wavebroadband.com is DOWN for everyone.
It is not just you. The server is not responding...

Also »downdetector.com/status/ ··· roadband

Recent reports mostly originate from: Port Hadlock-Irondale, Tacoma, Seattle, Port Orchard, Portland, Mount Vernon, Minneapolis, Woodinville, Concrete, and Port Hadlock.

Review by truckeelink See Profile

  • Location: Granite Bay, Placer, CA, USA
  • Cost: $145 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 3 days
when its good its good
when its bad its bad
Unstable service
Pre Sales information:
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High Speed bundle 55
Aris docsis3.0

Not getting advertised speed, it's about half actually. Worse, there's intermittent connectivity and latency issues abound. It usually starts at 8-11pm every night, however noticed tonight it was already bad by 6pm.

Ping plotter shows a couple hops locally which have no named DNS entries, strange. It's there where it all drops off.

Called tech support to be hung up on as the line went dead. Calling back and a recording comes on stating this number's not receiving calls anymore?!?

member for 10.4 years, 13 visits, last login: 9.6 years ago
updated 9.6 years ago


EF
@76.14.172.x

EF

Anon

Latency here too

I have been noticing the latency at night too here in Lincoln. Even speedtest.net using the Sf server suffers!

I recently had to replace my ASUS rt-n66u because of frequent disconnects. Apparently it might be and issue with how they are doing dhcp now. Not my routers fault. But instead of trying to explain it to them, I just bought a different router. The issue started the same time as the latency, so they have something going on.

Review by jedensuscg See Profile

  • Location: Rocklin, Placer, CA, USA
  • Cost: $50 per month
  • Install: about 1 days
Had fast install. Allows use of own equipment
Cheats speedtest.net, true speeds 1/6 of what paid for.
Like all ISP's they shape traffic for speedtest.net. Actual speeds are 1/6 advertised even during off-hours.
Pre Sales information:
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I pay for the 55 mbps package. When using speedtest.net it shows 45-50 mbps ALWAYS. Even during peak hours. However, I only use speedtest.net to test physical connections, as most ISP's will shape their traffic to give priority to speedtest.net, as it is the most common site and everyone uses it (they will also tell you to go there if you call and complain about speeds). However, using half a dozen other speed test websites, as well as day to day internet use (browsing, downloading and gaming), my actual speeds are as low as 8 mbps. I will run a speedtest.net test, get 45 mbps, do a testmy.net or speakeasy.net test a minute later and get 8-20 mbps!

Please take any positive review here saying they get advertised speeds with a grain of salt. The VAST MAJORITY of those people are using speedtest.net and are not savvy enough to know that ISP's are cheating on these tests.

Getting max speed on speedtest.net verifies my physical connection and hardware has the ability to provide the speeds I pay for, they are just refusing to give them to me. Hopefully more people will force speedtest to monitor this activity and notify users. It is the number one requested feature on speedtest.net. Sadly most people do not realize they are being lied to, and are ignorant to the fact most people are not getting what they paid for, because they are trust a website that is showing them false results compared to actual internet use.

member for 9.6 years, driveby review (so far)
updated 9.6 years ago

sparky007
join:2011-08-25
Phoenix, AZ

1 edit

sparky007

Member

That's the dirty secret with ISP's..

Basically ISP's will sell you a speed and "Yes" you are connected at the speed, BUT.. If you read the fine print. They basically say that they can't guarantee that speed on the internet every time.

Your connection from your house to the ISP will run as advertise.. The connection to the rest of the world might not be a full speed.

WHY??? The ISP's want to save $$$$ so when they connect to the internet and the rest of the world, they won't spent the $$$ like they should and they will skimp on a slower / less connections..

This is why late at night and or early morning some people will find that there internet speed is much faster. Less people online trying to suck thru a small internet straw.

If your ever up at 2 AM on a Monday morning.. Run a speed check...

bmccoy
join:2013-03-18
Port Orchard, WA

bmccoy

Member

.....

I still get 50-55Mbps download speeds when downloading from a lot of different download servers (including my own speedtest server - »speedtest.bmccoy.cf ), and a bunch of other download sites. Wave doesn't prioritize or shape traffic to certain websites as far as I know, and torrents download at >55Mbps for me. Testmy.net gives me a 35.7Mbps download speed, but that may just be a result of a congested peering point, or a lot of other possible causes.

emjayef
join:2007-11-25
Pleasant Hill, CA
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X
TP-Link Archer C9
Obihai OBi200

3 recommendations

emjayef

Member

There is a lot of misleading information posted here - confirm if you can

There is a very good reason that they don't guarantee your throughput, and it's not because they are not providing the capability; it is because most servers you connect to don't send data to you at full speed. This is why knowledgeable users who want fast downloads use download managers that make multiple connections - each connection gets its limited speed, but overall you get your full download capability.

I agree that speedtests are not an absolute indication of your download capability, but not because of "shaping" by the ISP. I find that it is more often lower than actual, because of overuse of the servers.

I know how to monitor my actual download speed for large files from various servers I use. In fact, I can easily display a line graph showing the speed over time, with any dropouts along the way. I get a pretty consistent 55 mbps from Astound, the Wave provider here. When I had Comcast, I got a very consistent 28.8 mbps from them, and when I had AT&T uverse and DSL, I had consistent speeds there, too. If I didn't, I looked for the cause, and it was usually my own equipment or wiring. Once, it was the Comcast modem.

The posters here didn't say anything about how they determined their "facts". Without that, there is absolutely no way to judge the validity of their claims, and they should be treated as mere rumors.

bmccoy
join:2013-03-18
Port Orchard, WA

bmccoy

Member

Re: There is a lot of misleading information posted here - confirm if you can

I have Wave, and they don't boost speeds to any certain websites or throttle anything as far as I know. They don't even block any ports, unlike many other ISPs. I get consistent 5.7-6.9 MBPS (megaBYTES, not megaBITS) speeds when I'm downloading anything.

Review by KawiNinja81 See Profile

  • Location: Rocklin, Placer, CA, USA
  • Cost: $40 per month
  • Install: about 7 days
Very Fast Speeds, Reliable
Bandwidth Caps, Overage Fees
Decent ISP but caps and overage fees degrading internet
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Tech Support:
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Value for money:

I was with Starstream before they were purchased by Wave Broadband.
Service stayed the same for a long time, good bandwidth, almost no downtime, unlimited usage.

Recently however Wave Broadband has decided to join the data usage cap train with other larger ISPs.
I feel this is wrong and degrades the internet so I will be researching alternative service providers.

member for 9.9 years, driveby review (so far)
updated 9.9 years ago







Review by mongocrush See Profile

  • Location: Salem, Marion, OR, USA
  • Cost: $45 per month (24 month contract)
  • Install: about 60 days
Fastest connection where I'm located
They have had 5 outages in the last month, and those are the ones I know about.
If I had a better option I would switch in a millisecond. Hopefully I can convince the local ISP to be more reliable.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
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Value for money:

I signed up for Wave Broadband about 2 months ago and within those two months I have lost Internet service 5 times, that I noticed. I was thinking of expanding to a VOIP service as well, but I first need a reliable ISP (Internet Service Provider). Wave Broadband is not a reliable ISP.

I would love to change this post to something more favorable, but first Wave Broadband needs to provide a more reliable internet service.

member for 10.5 years, driveby review (so far)
lodged 10.5 years ago


bmccoy
join:2013-03-18
Port Orchard, WA

bmccoy

Member

What caused the outages?

Was it something on Wave Broadband's side, or in your home's wiring?

Go to 192.168.100.1 (or your cable modem's IP address), and look at the following values:

- Downstream SNR - Should be above 32 dB
- Downstream Power Level - Should be between -10 - +10 dBmV
- Upstream Power Level - Should be between +35 - +50 dBmV

Those values determine the reliability and speed of your connection. If they are out of DOCSIS specifications, your connection WILL become slow and unreliable.
groingo8
join:2013-01-24

groingo8

Member

Jumpng telephone poles in Port Orchard

Our last few outages in Port Orchard were from jumping telephone poles and cars, we get a lot of that round here!

Review by JeffInWA See Profile

  • Location: Chelan, Chelan, WA, USA
  • Business customer Business customer
  • Cost: $119 per month
  • Install: about 15 days
Speed was ok
Stopped working, would not fix, still will not cancel after 6 months
If everything works you might be ok, just hope you never have to cancel
Pre Sales information:
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I was their customer from the time they took over Broadstripe (was with Broadstrip for years before). Feb 2013 the connection quit working. Everyone on my block was out. They came and replaced a box on the pole in the alley, but it didn't fix the problem. Many calls to tech support resulted in many visits by the local guy, but he didn't know anything about internet connections, just cableTV (which still worked fine). I switched to local fiber and tried to cancel with Wave. After an even dozen phone calls, two written letters and emails to every tech and customer support email address I can find I'm still getting bills. Most phone calls to them result in being on hold forever. I waited 4 hours one day and never reached anyone.

My internet was long gone, but on one of the numerous bills they sent after I canceled they stated they were going to have limits on usage - something Broadstripe never did. I believe the monthly limit was going to be 20gb for a normal account.

If you have any other option for internet other than Wave, use it.

member for 10.7 years, 1 visits, last login: 10.6 years ago
updated 10.7 years ago


Review by markymark52 See Profile

  • Location: Rocklin, Placer, CA, USA
  • Cost: $60 per month
  • Install: about 2 days
Timely Install. Mostly Reliable Service.
Price, Bandiwth Capping, and Pricing Structure
Average Internet With Above Average Price Tag
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Services:
Value for money:

I've had Wave Broadband for a few years and have had a sub-par experience with them. While their service has been mostly reliable, the overall value you receive does not measure up with the larger companies such as Comcast. Currently, Wave offers pricing structures for speeds from 3 Mbps all the way up to 50Mbps.

While I do credit Wave for offering tiered options for customers, they are ultimately overpriced once your subscription goes beyond the 3-12 month promotional period. Additionally, they implement caps starting at 100 GB (I had 100 GB cap with my 15Mbps plan) and charge you $5.00 for each additional 25 GB used. While this may be fine for the average user, streaming HD media regularly can exceed this cap easily.

With Basic enhanced basic cable TV bundling, I was paying over $120.00 a month. While it's not anything that's going to throw me into bankruptcy, I'm able get a lot faster speeds and comparable cable elsewhere for less money.

member for 10.8 years, 2 visits, last login: 10.8 years ago
lodged 10.8 years ago