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IonSky (my old ISP) was recently purchased by WisperTel, and I hoped their promised upgrades would help many of the speed and reliability issues I was experiencing. This hope grew when WisperTel replaced my old 2.4Ghz access point unit with a new 5Ghz unit with a parabolic dish. I had a few concerns here, though, since I had purchased the old 2.4Ghz unit and they did nothing to address this (assuring me that the new unit would also be mine, informing me of differences, etc.) when they took it away. But I wasn't too worried. At least I'd have something that worked. Right? Nope. My hope quickly died when I started using the new service. It worked, which was slightly better than the old service was doing at this point, but it was slow. Horribly slow. I soon learned why: WisperTel only dedicate 256Kbits to each old IonSky customer (Trango Wireless AP "Committed Information Rate"), even if they're on the highest-end plan. This is significantly slower than IonSky's usual 1mbps (when it wasn't down). WisperTel then advertise "2mbit maximum information rate," which basically means "you might get 2mbits at the beginning of a transfer once in a decade." Currently I am getting 768 down (which is better than usual) and 900 up. Their upload is usually significantly faster, about 1mbit, proving that it's probably not a wireless issue but rather an issue of either extremely oversold backhauls or simple stinginess. Then, during Colorado's second blizzard, WisperTel's wireless access died. Completely. On the second day of no service -whatsoever-, I called to ask them what had happened (since they kindly managed not to inform us themselves that an entire set of their subscribers, including us, had just lost service). Our tower was having "unknown issues". Again. The major issue with IonSky (outages) still had not been fixed - appearantly even with the new 5Ghz equipment nobody at this company seems to understand how to make their hardware withstand Colorado's weather. Our internet access was down for four days, and no alternative access methods are supplied or offered. I had to travel to a coffeeshop in town to complete my work, which depends on a decently-fast network connection. Overall WisperTel is no better than IonSky was, and with their atrocious bandwidth caps are possibly worse. An amazing feat in failure, especially for $80/month. I'd recommend using something, *anything* else if at all possible. member for 18.2 years, 5 visits, last login: 17.2 years ago lodged 17.2 years ago
I set this up at my parents house about a year and a half ago. I also handle a lot of the technical aspects of managing their network and computers on a regular basis. As I said above, WisperTel is what I would consider a smaller internet service provider and which has both good and bad aspects to it. The good side is that customer service seems to be quick and personal and it seems to me that the company as a whole cares more about making you happy than say, a large company like Qwest. The downside is that their staff is smaller and service (billing, technical, etc) can be delayed during surges in requests. The setup and install went well. It did take a few days for the survey to be performed, but it was not an unreasonable wait. The billing staff promptly emailed me back when they determined service was available and answered all the questions I had about installation, setup, and billing. They were also willing to work with me on setup and I was given a period of time to return the equipment if I wasn't satisfied. The installer came out and was courteous and knowledgeable. He provided several install options and worked with me to pick the best. The install was quite nice, leaving a professional look. The installer hooked up the antenna to the computer, and explained the setup. The residential setup uses a dynamic IP, but a static is available for business I believe. At that time, they offered 256 kB up/down as their lowest and that was what we ordered. The installer brought up the link and made sure that we were receiving at least that before he considered the job complete. He also left a useful packet explaining how to set up the email and other features, along with the technical support numbers. The reliability of the service has been good as well. The service has had almost 100% uptime at my parent's house. It has only gone down three times in a year and a half. Once they were merging with another company and were having backbone trouble. Another time a service technician was working on the microwave tower providing our service. Both times the technical support staff answered the phone quickly and were able to explain the situation and give an estimated completion time. For the instance where work was being done on the tower, the technical operator even called out to the technician on the tower to ask him for a progress report. The last outage was actually due to problems with the antenna at the house. It took several occasions of the service dropping for them to diagnose the problem. They made sure to check everything else before focussing on the antenna as that could have cost us a service call fee if it wasn't the antenna. Upon settling on the antenna, though, they quickly came out and replaced it with a newer model. The service has been great since then, I actually seem to have more problems at my house with DSL getting flaky. The bottom line is that WisperTel provides a quality service that compares well with DSL or cable in reliability and customer service. I believe they are actually cheaper compared to the DSL rates that I have seen as well. They cover a large area of the Denver foothills that would otherwise not have reasonable access to broadband. Yes, satelite is always available, but it can be more expensive and the latency can be 10 times longer or more. The upload speed is terrible as well, unless you pay for the pricy two-way connection. I have seen several reviews giving WisperTel a bad rap and don't understand them at all. My experience has been totally the opposite. And no, I do not work for them or have any association with them other than internet service (I work as an aerospace engineer down in Denver). My suggestion is that if you can't get cable/DSL and you are in their coverage area, give them a call or email. I think you will be happy with the results. member for 19.7 years, 36 visits, last login: 14.5 years ago lodged 18.2 years ago
My experience in the sales process was dreadful. I called and reached somebody who took all my information and said they'd see if they could determine via a driveby of my house if I was in their coverage area and he'd call me back. (They need line of sight to nearby mountains for microwave dish transmitters.) They never did. The following week I submitted sales inquiries by web site mail form and voice mail. I never heard back. I repeated actions for a third week. Still nothing, and I was not able to reach anybody live by phone even though I was calling during business hours. Fourth week I reached a person who was a new sales hire and said they could only determine if I was in their coverage zone (which by their coverage map I should have been) by having me place an order and having an installer come make that determination. So, being hungry for the 9.0 Mbps, both-ways, high speeds, I placed an order to get slated for an installation right away. My order apparently got lost in some computer crash in their scheduling department, but the sales person made sure that I got a call from them anyway. I had to complete the order again from scratch, but it got me scheduled for an installer to come to my house in about 10 days. December 1st install date: I had a housemate stay home all day for the installer. Installer tried calling my cell phone (I was in meetings and could not answer) and said they came up and rang the doorbell (we don't have a doorbell). And then left because "nobody was home" even though somebody was in fact home all day. Their scheduler called my assistant and said the contractor was waiting at the house and we needed to call back immediately. She tried calling back for the next hour only to receive busy signals. When she finally reached the scheduling department to find out what happened, she was told the installer left because nobody was home. My assistant (who had called the house and verified somebody was there and asked him to walk out and look for the installer) assured her somebody was in fact home and diligently noted that nobody could have answered the doorbell since there isn't one to be rung. The scheduler said she'd have to check with their contractor for when they could re-schedule and call us back. Two days later, not having heard back, my assistant called the scheduler back and was told that our ticket had been cancelled since they hadn't heard back from us. Being a stickler for the details, my assistant read back her notes from the previous conversation including the promise that we would be called back with the next date scheduling was available. Apparently, the conversation was quite unpleasant. Not easily daunted, my assistant called the company and tracked down one of the executive/partners who was not particularly helpful nor apologetic until he began to understand that the discrepency about ringing the doorbell probably indicated that the installer was at the wrong house. He said he'd get another installer scheduled, but warned "if you aren't there again, you'll have to pay the $50 fee for the contracted installer to show up." Since the previously mentioned housemate works at home and does not have a car, she was not intimidated by this threat. Today (about 8 weeks after my first call to them), an installer came to the correct house. He was experienced, knowledgeable and professional. However, he assured me that it would not be possible to establish a reliable line of sight to the dishes because of intervening hills & trees. It seems that all this time and energy could have been saved by the first person I spoke to fulfilling their promise. They may be able to serve some, but they have failed me. member for 19.4 years, 11 visits, last login: 16.5 years ago lodged 19.2 years ago
Not worth the money. Great sales staff, but the wireless service is NOT RELIABLE. Our family has had alot "page cannot be displayed errors" and luckly we still had our dial-up account with AOL, jumped on AOL and the websites would load up right away! ??? I'm just being honested with you all, so I'm not sure what the problem is, but the wireless thing isn't reliable for the money. *****It's problem just not good idea to tramsit information through the airways anyway we thought. ***** The secondly the installers that came to our house were very young and looked like a couple of not so friendly people! There was no identifaction that they were with Wispertel communications, they just showed up in regular cars with ladders strapped to the roofs. Just a warning to all. You never know now days! Thanks, The Millers member for 19.7 years, driveby review (so far) lodged 19.7 years ago
The cost of my WisperTel, which offers excellent, speedy, reliable service, is comparable to dial-up service (when including the cost of a landline phone). However, the level of service, reliablity, and speed is outstanding in comparison. member for 20.1 years, driveby review (so far) lodged 20.1 years ago
The installer showed up on time. Seems to be a very professional and organized service. I was up and running in only about 30 minutes. Never had any problems with downtime in 8 months. I'm a very happy customer! member for 20.1 years, 2 visits, last login: 19.2 years ago lodged 20.1 years ago |