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Review by edlee8 
member for 11.6 years, 37 visits, last login: 10.3 years ago
lodged 11.4 years ago
 Santa Barbara,Santa Barbara,CA
 $52 per month- (15 month contract)
 about 14 days Verizon (ex GTE) "Nice technicals -- it works!" "Small delay getting thru to tech support" "Nice"
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After over a week battling with Verizon's complete idiocy and incompetence, I finally went online with my DSL today (my ISP is Silicon Beach).
Brief history: my housemate and I both work for a software company G here in Santa Barbara, and for a while we had a DSL line that went from our house to company G. This was a business line, and company G was our ISP. GTE (before they changed to Verizon) provided the phone line, of course, since they have a local monolopy here.
GTE's DSL service was lousy, and their DSL modems were lousy. The first DSL modem died, and we got a new one, and the second one also died. We were left with no DSL service for about 6 months (fortunately, the need to work from home also went away, so it was OK.) Still, that's how I learned GTE really sucks.
In Oct, 2000, I started shopping for my personal DSL service. Verizon (formerly GTE) was, as usual, completely incompetent, and never responded to my online order for their DSL service -- lucky for me! God knows what kind of hell I would be in now if I had actually signed up with Verizon as my ISP!
In late November, getting ready for my new DSL service, I asked my company (company G), to cancel the business DSL service with Verizon. I was told the cancel order went to Verizon, so things _should_ be OK.
In early December, I placed my order for my _new_, _personal_, DSL service with Silicon Beach Inc (www.silcom.com). I had been using a 33.6k dial-up service with Silcom for a few years and I was very happy with their service. This time, I took advantage of their DSL promotion: free installation from Verizon, free DSL modem from Verizon, etc.
At the time, I was told to expect a 3 to 5 week delay because of DSL modem shortages. So I was looking at late December 2000 to mid-January 2001 for the DSL to go live.
In mid-December, 2000, I got a phone message from Silcom, saying that my DSL line would go live on Dec 18, 2000. So this was earlier than expected. I was happy. But the happiness didn't last long.
First sign of trouble: on Dec 16, 2000, I got a letter from Verizon which confirmed the ADSL service (ADSL Bronze+ 768K/128K), but there was also a SERVICE CONNECTION CHARGE of $35. I called Verizon and asked about the $35. They said it was because I was switching ISP. I told them, no, I was _not_ switching ISP, but that I was ordering a new DSL service through Silcom and there should be no setup fees at all. They couldn't figure out what's going on, except they asked me to talk to Silcom. Thus began the finger pointing. I also told them my DSL line would go live on 12-18-2000, but that I still had not received a DSL modem. They said talk to Silcom.
I'll make the long story short: the next 9 days were pathetic: after numerous phone calls to Verizon, talking to about 10 of their people, in different departments (billing, logistics, customer support), I pieced together the following picture:
GTE never canceled the DSL service with my company, G. On Dec 4, 2000, Verizon sent an email to my company, G, saying that "Our records indicate that there is no ADSL service on this TN to disconnect." The email went on to state that the service was "Gold 768/768". Then, on Dec 20, 2000, Verizon sent my company G another email, "Your request for disconnect has gone to processing." -- Now I am worried that they will disconnect my _good_ DSL service thru Silcom!!
So when I placed the order for DSL through Silcom, Verizon thought I was switching ISP.
On Dec 18, 2000, Verizon left TWO messages on my home phone, one saying to confirm that my "_downgrade_ from Silver 384/384 to Bronze+" and my "switch of ISP from company G to Silcom" were now effective.
I still had not gotten a DSL modem, and the reason is Verizon thought, _incorrectly_, that since I was "switching ISP", I did not need a new DSL modem. So no order was placed for a DSL modem when I ordered my DSL service through Silcom!
More phone calls. Even a conference call with a sales mananger from Silcom, with Verizon. We finally managed to get them to say there was an order for a DSL modem.
Subsequent phone calls to Verizon continued to show their complete lack of competency: different people would tell me that nothing could be done about the $35 charge, that their records showed no signs of company G, that no DSL modem was ordered.
More phone calls to Verizon: finally, I was able to get a tracking number for a shipment from Verizon to Santa Barbara, to arrive today 12-27-2000.
On 12-22-2000 Friday, I finally got through to the first competent, polite, helpful person at Verizon: her name was S. McMullin, at the St. Louis office.
Finally, I figured out that Verizon is in the middle of switching a computer system themselves! Just my luck. This explained why half the time I was told there was no record of company G, and half the time I was told no DSL modem was ordered.
Anyway, I patiently waited until today, 12-27-2000, and the DSL modem arrived from UPS to my home at 11:20 am, and by 12:27 pm I was online with my DSL service (after talking to Silcom's tech support for all the IP address and other numbers).
My best speed so far: 483k/123k. The service is supposed to be 768k/128k. We'll see if the connection speed will improve or not.
The only reason Verizon/GTE is even in the picture is that I have no choice: Verizon owns the telephone lines, they are a local monolopy. If I have a choice, I would not use Verizon for _anything_: not for local, not for long distance, not for DSL.
Final verdict: Silcom rocks. Verizon sucks. Stay away from Verizon at all cost if you can help it. Check out »www.verizonpathetic.com
I'll continue to monitor Silcom's connection speed and reliability, and post more reviews later.
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lodged 12.5 years ago
- Santa Barbara,Santa Barbara,CA
- Contract price not specified.
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Only issue i had with Silcom was waiting to get thru to tech support to have my ip issued. Other than that, the connection is great and installation was hassle free. Up and running instantly as soon as i was given the ip settings. Great speed.
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lodged 12.5 years ago
- Santa Barbara,Santa Barbara,CA
- Contract price not specified.
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Although there was a light miscommunication from the pre-sales department which caused an extra day of waiting to get my DSL up, everything went smoothly. Speed is constant, very little downtime -- service and speed is actually very impressive for a smaller ISP. Static IP address.
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lodged 12.8 years ago
- undisclosed location
- Contract price not specified.
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Silicon Beach is great for ADSL!
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