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 Review by mouseferatu 
UPDATED: 1.1 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 2545 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Im not sure
 $49 per month
 "The jury is out but it leans against FairPoint- I haven't found many yet."
 "Complete confusion surrounds this company and its takeover of N. New England Verizon"
 "I wouldn't go there if you have a viable alternative HSI option."
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I was a Verizon FIOS customer for years with few problems, and am now a FairPoint/Verizon sub-contracted lost-in-the-shuffle customer.
FairPoint purchased all NH, VT, and ME Verizon assets last winter. At this point in time, I am not all that sure that they have figured out what they purchased yet, but it is my hope that they do so before Verizon backs out of their support role all together. That will be on Thanksgiving weekend in my locale if the NH PUC's current consumer information is correct.
Pre-Sales info really involved the sale of Verizon to FairPoint in this case. We we poorly informed, often uninformed, and sometimes misinformed.
Shortly after FairPoint took over, the ONT at my residence failed. The co-ordination in getting it replaced was difficult. FairPoint's residential customer service referred me to Verizon, and Verizon refused to deal with me because they said that I wasn't their customer, and didn't appear to know that they held the sub-contract for all fiber lines. Some several days and a dozen phone calls got me nowhere. It occurred to me that a trip to the local Duncan Donuts might, and it did- a Verizon truck was there and the guy told me how to deal with the mess.
The connection reliability is poor and the excellent Internet access that we were accustomed to with Verizon appears to be a done deal... We have had two new ONT's and are on the third router. The dropped connections are becoming tiresome, and the lousy Actiontec routers are as well. I always used a NetGear Draft N router, but some change in the configuration of the ONT will not allow it to recognize anything but the Actiontec. Tried a couple other brands to get a Draft N router. Nothing. Nada.
Sluggish speed is a new issue as well- we have always gotten at least 10/2, and now 3.5/1.5 seems to be more typical.
The most frustrating aspect of tech support is the number of calls and excessive hold time that it takes to get anything done. No one seems to know who should be responsible for a problem, asking for a manager gets you a promise that "someone will call you back" (they haven't thus far), and the foolish canned message that "you can access us on the web" is pretty useless when you have no Internet connection.
I give them a "two" for services, simply because they still beat dial up, and they are better than my local cable option in this specific location. They do not offer TV, or a "triple-play" type package. The phones are fiber, so they also go down when there is a major malfunction. This is a cell dead zone, so that is problematic for most people.
I give them a "two" for value for money, as they are up- even if it slower- most of the time. The local cable vendor was down more than it was up.
Essentially, I would recommend that you consider all options before going this route. As FairPoint is the only game in town for many folks, it is an inevitable choice, but there are areas in northern New England that are handled well by cable, alternate DSL options and satellite. I would consider them.
Also, check your bill carefully. We have had a number of weird charges that were not ours, mostly out of Nevada and the Islands, billed "for a third party carrier". I have never had problems with either slamming or cramming, so this was also new to me.
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Review by AaeronAtroph
UPDATED: 1.2 years ago
member for 1.2 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.2 years ago
Mckenna,Pierce,WA
$64 per month (12 month contract)
 about 14 days
"It beats dial-up"
"Internet dies repeatedly, rape you on the price for speed"
"Dont go with this company"
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I moved in with my grandparents and they live in a rural area in Washington. We currently have Fairpoint's "High Speed", I can say that it is anything but, high speed. They advertise that I am to receive 3mb/s down and 512kb/s up. I have a speed touch modem, which is horrendous, it shuts itself off randomly throughout the day, it is consistently saying "DSL Line Disconnected please check phone line to see if connected" and at max speed when directly connected to modem, its 1mb/s . I have called them repeatedly to come out and check the line to see if there's a problem and to switch out my modem for a brand new one, that is not of the speed touch brand. They rarely show up, and when they do a person who barely has a high school diploma or any sort of formal training tells me there is nothing wrong with my line or anything. I was annoyed with the speed and how much i pay. I pay 65$ for 1mbs...And it is the ONLY company available in my area, I live just about 13 blocks outside of QWEST coverage, which is offering 7mbs DSL now. The people on the phone are rude and offer no help as to why my connection quite literally dies once every ten minutes.
At this point I would rather have AOL than Fairpoint, because at least I would know that my internet would be consistent, slow, but consistent.
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Review by JTY
Posted: 1.2 years ago
member for 5.5 years, 2470 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Ellensburg,Kittitas,WA
$74 per month (12 month contract)
about 6 days
"High reliability, and a good price."
"No self-install."
"Good deal for the money."
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I have Fairpoint's Full House bundle, which includes 3Mb DSL, local phone, 120 minutes of long distance, voice mail, etc. for a little under $74 including taxes.
The install process went pretty smooth, although I would have preferred a self-install. Their technician brought his own laptop to configure the DSL modem/router and to verify that it was working. In addition, they had me verify that my laptop to could connect via the router.
Since having the service installed, I have yet to experience any outages, or major performance issues. Although, I have only had the service for 5 months.
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Review by major4579
UPDATED: 1.2 years ago
member for 1.2 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.2 years ago
Cornish,Sullivan,NH
$39 per month (12 month contract)
"Very reliable"
"Can only get 1500/320 at my location"
"Happy with service (esp. since no alternatives)."
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I live at the end of a dirt road in Rural New Hampshire. First I shotgunned 2 dial-up modems, then I purchased ISDN (very $$$), finally - to my surprise - I could get DSL. But since I live at the extreme range for DSL I could only get 1500 - not the advertised 3000.
The service is through my phone company, originally Verizon, but in Northern New England the phone/dsl service was purchased by FairPoint recently.
In the 2 years I've had the service, I've had few outages - my power is out more often then my phone/dsl lines. As for support I'd have to say it is excellent - because of living in a rural area, the same guy has been fixing my phone/dsl lines for years, and he is very good.
Dealing with support on the phone is above average (the few times I've needed it). Considering how bad phone support is these days, above-average is not great, acceptable but definitely not great.
Other info:
I received a Westell 6100 DSL Modem with my setup.
I have NO other options for broadband and probably never will because (and this is unusual up here) the last 1/2 mile of power and phone cable to my house is buried. I personally would have to pay to have any new wires buried (i.e., Cable or Fiber if either ever became available).
-John
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 Review by karlmarx
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 3.1 years, 1292 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Nashua,Hillsborough,NH
$65 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
"Fast Speeds (15/15) Great Price"
"Incompetent Installer"
"For 65 buck a month, I can't complain"
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Originally had Comcast 8/768 for about $60.00/month. That just wasn't good enough, so I called Verizon, who gave me the runaround about FIOS, until I finally got someone who said it was now a Fairpoint Area. Ordered Fairpoint Fios on June 24th, and scheduled install for the 30th. They gave me a window of 8:00 AM to 12:00 noon for the installer to show up.
June 30th: 9:00 Am : Fairpoint installer arrives. He takes about 3 hours of tinkering, before he said something was broken, and he had to pick up a new part.
June 30th: 1:00 Pm : He finally got it installed, but was completely incompetent when it came to setting up the computers. Took an hour to install the 'welcome to fairpoint' CD, which I SPECIFICALLY told him I DID NOT WANT INSTALLED. But when he was done, ran a speed test, and got 15/15 as promised. Once he left, I unistalled all the crap he put on my PC, ran a new wire so I could put the modem where I wanted it, and got everything working the way I wanted it. Still stuck with a crappy Veriozon Labeled Wireless modem, but it does what it says it does.
All in all, slow install, crappy software, but GREAT speeds. I'm VERY happy to be leaving comcast FOREVER~ NO CAPS! No limits at anything I've tried. Torrents run a 1.8MB/sec download, and 1.8MB/sec uploading
Followup comments:  
DaveBrooks
@ChicVNA.com
| FiOS from Fairpoint? So Fairpoint was able to hook you into the existing FiOS line on your street, and you've got FiOS speeds?
Dave Brooks, Nashua Telegraph (dbrooks@nashuatelegraph.com)
»nashuatelegraph.com/fairpointwatch | |
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karlmarx
join:2006-09-18
iraq
 ·Fairpoint Communic..
| Re: FiOS from Fairpoint? Yes, it was a fairpoint installer, but all the equipment still says 'verizon'. Even the modem label, bios, etc, all read verizon. I'm not saying it's not worth it, by all means, if you CAN get it, get it. The routing is MUCH better than the 15 odd hops I used to get before I even SAW outside of comcasts network. Right now, first hop is Verizon, and yahoo is only 6 hops away. All the web pages load faster, and the download speeds meet all my expectations, AND, the upload speed is ALSO at 15mb/sec.
Hey, if the installer had completed in the '2 hour' estimate they had told me, I would have given them a much higher score.
--
The happiest countries are the most secular. The struggle AGAINST corporations is the struggle FOR humanity! | |
| | |
happy with fios
@verizon.com
| Re: FiOS from Fairpoint? Was this installation in Nashua or in another town? My fios installation went smoothly and my experience was pleasant. The technician installed several devices in my house in just under 4 hours and for what he had to do the time seemed justified. Now I am waiting for the video. | |
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karlmarx
join:2006-09-18
iraq
·Fairpoint Communic..
| Re: FiOS from Fairpoint? Umm, don't think there will ever be video over fios. well, I've not seen any indication that fairpoint is working on it. I REALLY wish they would.
--
The happiest countries are the most secular. The struggle AGAINST corporations is the struggle FOR humanity! | |
| | | | | STPitcher
join:2008-07-24
Litchfield, NH
| Re: FiOS from Fairpoint? I'm in Litchfield, NH... Fairpoint installed my FIOS yesterday.
They took, I guess 3-4 hours... I wasn't timing it. Seemed a bit slow, but I wasn't at all disappointed. (hower, they were there about 2PM, whereas, I'd been promised 8-12 AM!)
The guys did tell me that... and I think they implied this may not be past the rumor stage... Fairpoint does hope to offer video (i.e. TV) in New Hamsphire... even suggested a timeframe of perhaps 6 months.
Further, they said Fairpoint wasn't going to use Verizon's video technology, but would be trying TV-over-IP. Never heard of it, but I'm game!
- stp | |
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Review by bruper
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 398 visits, last login: 8 days ago
Gretna,Pittsylvania,VA
$45 per month
"good Customer support"
"slow expensive"
"when no competition this is what you get"
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Price per Month download
$34.95 =128k
$44.95 =765k
$79.95 =1.5mb
download approx 600k actual
supplied with speed touch 546 4port dsl router
10 years ago i had optimum online with 10x the speed for the money.
this is what happens when there is no little competition but it beats satellite which i used to have till dsl came to town. now just waiting for cable to come the extra 3 miles to reach my house.
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Review by vileator
UPDATED: 1.8 years ago
member for 1.8 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.8 years ago
Rainier,Thurston,WA
$64 per month
"Very reliable, happy to upgrade equipment"
"Complete rape on price vs. speed"
"Only solution in my area, but my back is starting to hurt from being bent over for so long.."
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Well, I've had their service since 1997 when it was first introduced in my area, however Fairpoint only recently took over my local telco. Comcast finally came to my street but wanted ~$6500 to run a line to my house, which was out of the question. As others have said, the price vs. the speed you get is horrid, and they are slow to up the speed. I started out at 320/120 in '97, and then got 768/256 around '01, and recently got upped to 1280/256 and then 1500/256 down with the takeover. They recently introduced a 3.0mbps plan which I just bought, but at $65 it really hurts, and I'm only getting about 2.0mbps down. My buddy down the street has Comcast and it's just ridiculously fast...he's only rated for ~6mbps down but is getting 25-30mbps (not a typo). On the bright side, they've always been happy to give me a newer modem, usually for free. I had to pay $30 for my last one, but it moved to ADSL2+ for television, and has integrated Wi-Fi, but they said it was for the servivce visit....I told them I didn't need anyone to come out, but they insisted, and wouldn't exchange it over the counter (something I had done 3x before). In the 11 years I've had this service, I can count the number of outages I've had on 1 hand, only one of which was over an hour, and I don't think I missed any...when I'm awake and home, I'm using my connection. Customer service doesn't always listen to me when I call them, they tell me to do all kinds of stupid things first, reguardless of my problem, but they never believe me when I tell them I'm not a computer retard. One other problem I've had is the latency. It's well within acceptable bounds, but it sure would be nice if it was better...the best I can get on game servers is about a 45-60ms ping, which isn't bad, but I'd prefer ~30ms. You shouldn't be able to tell a difference, but swear I can.
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Review by dszabo
Posted: 2.1 years ago
member for 3.9 years, 23 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
Pine Plains,Dutchess,NY
$50 per month
"Reliable connection"
"SLOW. HORRIBLE SUPPORT. VALUE = NO."
"Slow speeds for inflated prices, although reliable."
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I had Taconic until they changed to FairPoint. No change in the service.
I get 768/256k for $44.95/month. This is RIDICULOUS.
I saw that Optimum Online was available in my area and SPRUNG for it.
I made the change and never looked back.
I pay the same amount monthly yet I'm getting a 15/2Mb connection.
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Review by vzfiosrox
Posted: 2.4 years ago
member for 4.7 years, 38 visits, last login: 2.2 years ago
Petersburg,Rensselaer,NY
$45 per month
about 5 days
"Nice Local People. When There Is A Problem They Go Out Of Their Way To Fix It."
"None.."
"Only Option For My Area. Very Good Company And People."
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Info to start with.. I live in Rural Upstate New York. A town called Petersburg, NY. I am now 4,000ft from the local CO. I am on the last CO that the phone company has. CO Petersburg is linked to CO Berlin, CO Stephentown, CO New Lebanon, and finally to headquarters in Chatam by fiber optics. Taconic (Now FairPoint) has one of the most amazing backup plans out of any company ive seen especially a rural one. New underground fiber optics feed all CO's separately so that in the case of line damage the underground cables can kick in and continue to serve us. FairPoint DSL is the only HSI option besides satellite in this area.
Packages as of 7/06/2007 :
basic - 128kbps/128kbps $34.95/month
standard (my plan) - 768kbps/256kbps $45.95/month
premium - 1.5mbps/512kbps $99.95/month
all of these have about 3-5 dollars more of charges.
Starting about 2002 our local phone company Taconic Telephone offered DSL for $45.00 a month for a 512kbps/256kbps package which was not bad for 2002. I was getting 200kbps/200kbps from that. We were then upgraded for free in 2003 to 768kbps/256kbps. It stayed like this to present day. In todays ever changing internet world, speed is everything. I wrote a letter to the CEO/President of FairPoint. FairPoint has owned Taconic since 1900. This year they decided it was to be called FairPoint and the subdivision number is 651. We'll after writing a letter stating that these speeds were crap for what we paid, I got change. The local office called me up and said that the President of FairPoint had called and they were going to negotiate with me. They said that they had no clue people wanted more speed because no one had ever complained that it wasnt fast enough. They said they had to make assumptions as to what the people in this area did on the internet. As following their company promise they are taking a risk. Using me as a test subject over the coming months they will increase my speed to 1.5/512 (where it is now) then to 3/?? (couple of weeks) and maybe 6/??. They will then test their old network to see if it is capable of handling 8,000 customers at these speeds. they currently have 8,000 customers who basically all subscribe to the $45 plan. These speed increases would be free to all customers. A new pricing tier would be developed. It will be a couple months before it gets rolled out because it has to go through marketing and other departments. I am also talking with the company about leaving the 128k/128k or 256k/256k plans and offering it @ $10-20 per month for low income families or elderly people or people who just want always on and be able to use the phone line but dont care about speed.
Lesson is. you have a voice. let it be heard. People dont always know things unless you tell them. This company cares about its customers. They are making changes that are at the companies expense. This shows that they really want to keep the customers they have and encourage new ones to come.
FairPoint is an example of an exceptional company with exceptional employees.
Followup comments:
UpstateNYFan
@taconic.net | Wow. Power to you, man. Dude, you're my hero. I've been stuck with the $45/month package for 786/256 kb speeds, and I have long thought that this was outrageous.
If this goes through, dude, you have earned my undying respect. | |
| | vzfiosrox
join:2005-02-12
Tampa, FL
clubs: | Re: Wow. Power to you, man. were still testing. but were expecting september-november sometime.
itss gonna be awesome! | |
| | | dszabo
join:2005-12-31
Pine Plains, NY | Re: Wow. Power to you, man. Well, I couldn't take it anymore. I finally caved and went for Optimum Online. I'm getting 15/2Mb for the same price. | |
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VZ leaving
@verizon.net | DSL is good,,, but at what price I have Verizon DSL in Vermont. 3.0 Mb service is $30/month. It is very reliable since I am close to the CO. I really wonder what will happen if/when Fairpoint takes over. | |
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Review by ekennard
Posted: 3.5 years ago
member for 3.5 years, 0 visits, last login: 3.5 years ago
Stockton Springs,Waldo,ME
$48 per month
about 9 days
"Offer T1 Service, once setup correctly has fairly good speed for DSL in the middle of nowhere."
"Tech support is horrible, takes them days to respond to most items."
"Only game in town, kinda stuck with them unless you wanna pay 80 a month plus equipment for satellite."
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Pivot.net (or Fairpoint.net for new customers) is a fairly decent service for people that are located in rural areas of Maine that are serviced by Fairpoint New England telephone service.
The setup is fairly easy, give them your phone number, and they see if they have a station near you. The technicians set up your modem for you and drop it off at your location, so if your savvy enough to plug in a couple of cables, your golden. The setup is pretty easy and they give you a quickstart guide to follow up with any questions.
Tech support is available 24/7 but sometimes getting someone with more than a week of experience is hard, to get a "Level 2" tech takes an act of god and thus requires you waiting usually 24-48 hours and most times the issue gets magically solved (which the Level 1 tech says can't happen) or they call you a little late. Rarely ever do they get right back to you.
The price is horrid for what you get, seeing the fact that for 30 something dollars you can get residential DSL from Verizon that gets speeds of up to 3mbps down. Pivot.net (Fairpoint.net) charges $48.00 a month for 1.5mbps/768kbps service.
Once it is actually configured correctly and you have called tech support at least 4 times, the service stays relatively reliable.
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