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Review by rowen 
member for 4.8 years, 7 visits, last login: 1 year ago
lodged 1.8 years ago
 Seattle,King,WA
 $59 per month- (12 month contract)
 Covad "Cheap" "Unreliable and poor support" "Avoid unless desperate"
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I had Qwest DSL for several years, but the line was unusable in storms so I switched to Earthlink for DSL and VIOP (through Covad). For the first year it was absymal -- the phone and internet were often out and it took many phone calls to resolve it every time. It has been a bit better since then, but recently it's started getting flakey again. Their tech support is just useless -- somebody in India reading a script. I hate to pay Comcast rates -- especially since I don't really need the speed, but I'm about fed up with Earthlink. Unfortunately there are not many options in Seattle.
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Review by davidcj
member for 2.6 years, 4 visits, last login: 2.6 years ago
updated 2.6 years ago
- Albany,Alameda,CA
- $95 per month
- "Phone service has been good - few outages"
- "Internet access speed varies - tech support terrible!"
- "I am thinking of changing ISP"
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I had an Earthlink dsl service for some time and was pleased with it. A slow link, but reliable. Then, I took the Earthlink offer for integrated ISP and voice service. I opted for a speed increase, to 8Mbps. And things started going wrong.
Firstly, Earthlink provided a new modem, a ZyXEL 660R-ELNK. This has never been reliable. At best a few days will pass without the need to reset it (i.e. power off and on), at worst every half hour or less. Finally it became so bad I returned to the original modem, a Netopia Cayman 3342-ELK.
I tried contacting Earthlink to resolve the modem issue. Their phone support is terrible - it takes a long time to finally talk to a real person, and the person you do get is reading from a script and can only make the simplest suggestions. When pressed for more information I was told the way to get support is to take out a maintenance contract, for an additional monthly fee. I feel I am already paying enough so refused the offer.
The situation now is that I have a pretty good telephone service - it has gone absent occasionally, but on the whole has been satisfactory. The internet is a different story. Sometimes I get low latency, under 100mS, and a good high speed connection, better than 6Mbps. But I also find latencies of over a second and download speeds as low as a few tens of kilobits per second. When I will have a good or bad link is totally unpredictable, as far as I can tell.
Bottom line - I am looking at changing to a provider who is more responsive to my needs.
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Review by rabrabrab
member for 4.2 years, 26 visits, last login: 2.6 years ago
lodged 2.8 years ago
- Palo Alto,Santa Clara,CA
- $80 per month
- (12 month contract)
- "inexpensive"
- "service is terrible - they use covad who are using ATT lines, everyone points finger at everyone else, I'm in the middle"
- "I'm finding another provider"
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I had a solid 1Mb DSL connection. Earthlink offered me a deal for $20 more a month - 6Mb and phone service. I've been without phone for a week - twice. My phone randomly doesn't work. Covad says ATT has a bad wire to my house, ATT says there's bad inside wiring, Earthlink does nothing. I'm also supposed to have 6Mb but actually they can't deliver better than 1.5Mb because of the distance to the switch. However, my modem frequently reports the connection it has it is at around 900kb to 1Mb and the speed tests I do indicate that my speeds are around 650kb. Occasionally I'll see it configured at 1500kb (1.5Mb) as it's supposed to be, and then the speed tests come in at 1.1 to 1.2 Mb. I've spent so many DAYS worth of time on the phone trying to get decent service I can't count them. Mindspring (who I signed up with 11 years ago) was great. Earthlink is sinking into the swamp.
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Review by lab16
member for 6.1 years, 53 visits, last login: 96 days ago
lodged 3.5 years ago
- Albuquerque,Bernalillo,NM
- $22 per month
- (12 month contract)
 about 25 days- "Nothing"
- "The worst tech support I have ever seen."
- "canceled as soon as I had realized what a mistake it was"
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When I was receiving technical support on trying to get my service operational, the person with whom I was speaking with all but called me a liar, saying that the device that they had given me had no password, when in fact it did. She constantly asked me the same question over and over. She asked me what adapter model I had literally over 10 times in one conversation. I was put on hold, sometimes up to 30 minutes at a time, several times. She told me that I had to be 'mistaken' on my model number of my adapter. I felt like I was talking to a computer because she just randomly asked for information that was of no use to her and then immediately forgot it. I never got the service working, and after wasting a couple of hours of time with support, I just gave up and canceled.
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Review by harryhill
member for 8.8 years, 20 visits, last login: 3.6 years ago
lodged 3.6 years ago
- Saint George,Washington,UT
- Contract price not specified.
- "Kept my phone number after BAD service"
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After having MANY dropped calls I tried...that is TRIED to stop Earthlink.
Took all PM to actually discontinue their service. In India, they must lose face when you want to stop service.
Now, they will NOT release my original phone number which I did transfer when I joined Earthlink.
Changing phone numbers is an absolute pain.
Thank you Earthlink for poor service-crummy support and keeping my phone number.
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 Review by TransitMan
member for 11.4 years, 5142 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 4.1 years ago
- Dayton,Montgomery,OH
- $20 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 30 days
- "NONE"
- "Poor customer service, poor billing service, Outsourced Tech Support"
- "Stay very far away from this product. Be afraid, very afraid."
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Final update:
Late July, my house phone and cable lines were subjected to a lightning strike/surge which took out several routers, a computer, DSL modem, cable modem and the ATA for ELK TrueVoice.
Contacted ELK for a replacement, and after jumping through numerous hoops, got one shipped to me and sent the smoked one back.
Within 5 days of placing the replacement in service, it literally cooked itself to death. I was having trouble keeping a dial tone, friends would get a hold of me via email or cell phone and tell me that they could not get through on the phone number I had given them.
Upon inspecting the ATA, it was so hot to the touch that for a moment I thought I had touched a hot boiling pot.
Contacted ELK for a replacement and got so many runarounds that they never replaced the ATA and left me hanging without VoIP service.
I then contacted TWC and got their Digital Voice service.
ELK has since cleared my account to a zero balance after I snail mailed all my documentation to show where and when I tried to get my issues resolved.
If you need VoIP, DO NOT get ELK TrueVoice.
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I've had ELK True Voice for about 5 months, and when it works, it works good.
No real issues with calling anyone, including long distance. There were some minor issues of dropped calls, but it turned out to be my phone equipment and not True Voice.
Billing was a nightmare in the beginning.
Got charged a one-time setup fee (was not informed of this until the charge appeared).
Then was charged for Overnight shipping on the Linksys Sipura SPA2100. (Was not told this would happen, and was only aware of it after ELK charged my account. They claimed I request the unit to be sent this way. Never in my initial conversation with ELK did this come up, nor was i made aware of having to use the Linksys. The initial conversation has left a lot to be desired. Seems ELK was jumping back into the VOIP fray after selling their original customers to Vonage!)
Raised a lot of issues with customer service, including conversations with the person who originally took my order, which thankfully I did document. Was finally granted 2 months free, and even though I was promised a refund of the shipping charge, it has yet to happen.
At the end of my term, i will be looking long and hard at either staying with ELK True Voice or switching.
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 Review by rsmith7
member for 8.9 years, 1377 visits, last login: a few hours ago
lodged 4.5 years ago
- San Diego,San Diego,CA
- $19 per month
- (month by month)
- about 17 days
- "Great sound quality"
- "Tech support"
- "This is a great service should have gone to it sooner"
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I am a refugee from Sunrocket and wanted a company that was name branded. I did not like the fact that after signup I got no additional emails from Eathlink. Even after making 3 calls to India, I still got no emails.
I will be changing to AT&T because of Tech Support. Costs is the same but I hear sound quality is even better.
I do not want to knock Eathlinks service. I think that it is top notch but the support needs to come back to the USA.
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Review by coasterfan5
member for 4.8 years, 13 visits, last login: 4.7 years ago
lodged 4.8 years ago
- New Port Richey,Pasco,FL
- $23 per month
- about 8 days
- "Reliable"
- "charge for anonymous call blocking"
- "Great value with unlimited calling and long distance"
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I have been with Earthlink TrueVoice since July of 06. Signed up when I received a flyer in the mail advertising $5 off the monthly rate if I also signed up for Earthlink cable internet service through my cable company Brighthouse. I was glad to dump Verizon DSL and their overpriced POTS service. I was even paying extra for web call management with Verizon which they call IOBI, but is included with TrueVoice. DSL was also having disconnection issues and they just kept replacing my router without sending a tech. Earthlink was also one of the few voip services that had call blocking features when I signed up. A Brighthouse tech installed Earthlink internet a few days before my TrueVoice equipment came in the mail without any issues.
I jumped in and ported my number without trying out voip first. Not the smartest thing, but I could not stand Verizon any longer. Anyway, I was lucky and number was ported on the day it was promised. I had echo problems at first and called tech support and adjusted some settings and that solved my problem. Voice quality has been excellent since. Website did not show incoming calls for a few weeks awhile back, but this nationwide problem was fixed.
TrueVoice charges another $5 a month for anonymous call blocking and a $10 hookup fee. Pretty steep considering it is included in many of the other voip services. I just do without it for now.
FIOS has just been installed here, and Verizon is pushing it aggressively. I am happy with what I have and really don't want the extra cable boxes I would need. The analog cable I have in our three bedrooms is good enough for us. Anyway, Verizon knocks on my door about once a week trying to get me to sign up. They ask how much I pay for phone service, and they admit I have a good deal when I tell them what I am paying. I am pleased with Brighthouse cable and their bundle package with Earthlink and will continue to chase the FIOS sales people away.
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Review by DJC2006
member for 5.3 years, 17 visits, last login: 4.9 years ago
lodged 4.9 years ago
- Goshen,Orange,NY
- $24 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 14 days
- "Clear crisp quality audio with great enhanced features that you would be charged for on normal phone service."
- "Ease of Installation is harder when you use cordless phones for the entire house."
- "Good for it! Great features and quality for your money."
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I ordered Earthlink trueVoice for $24.95 a month. The order and install process was average. A house that is setup up for all wireless phones makes the installation a little bit more of a hassle. The home equipment was an Aris modem that was put in place of the RCA modem.
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Review by calathea
member for 10.1 years, 1840 visits, last login: 3 days ago
updated 4.9 years ago
- Corvallis,Benton,OR
- $25 per month
- about 12 days
- "Makes Qwest look better"
- "Installation was a nightmare and sound quality was unsatisfactory"
- "Went back to a telephone line"
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*****************update 15 Mar 2007*************************************
It finally got set up and working. But people would complain about the sound quality of the conversations. To some places, it was fine (Alaska). To Arizona it was not. Sometimes my husband would tweak the settings for certain calls and get better sound quality. But finally, he got tired of the complaints, canceled the Earthlink, and ordered a Qwest land line.
It's hard to find anything positive about the whole experience. Too bad, because VOIP is a really good idea. I suggested he try the Comcast version, but he was too burned out by the whole thing. Oh -- that's the positive thing. In order to try to improve the sound quality, he upgraded our Comcast bandwidth -- getting much snappier downloads now . . .
Update 18 October 2006
The dial tone finally came -- tech support redeemed itself a few points by helping with a sound quality issue -- If all goes well in the future I'll update again, but gosh, that was an AWFUL installation experience.
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My husband signed up for Earthlink TrueVoice. He wanted VOIP and had good past experiences with Earthlink. But right off the bat, Earthlink has a business process issue to iron out. They sent an activation email before the line was provisioned. Suggestion for Earthlink: Wait until the line is activated -- THEN notify your customers.
1. Earthlink emailed last Friday saying the the phone lines would be ready today, October 16. "writing to let you know that your service will be activated on 10/16/06"
2. When my husband called support at 8:00 am this morning after following the setup instructions with no joy, they had him do all kinds of configuration changes, cycle power, etc. etc. I worked on it for a couple of hours before going into the office, looking at the VOIP forum in DSL reports. There we learned what the actual IP address of the Spa-2100 is: 192.168.1.1. The Sipura documentation says it is 192.168.0.1, but, well, it's just not. We got the network going fine if we put the Sipura next to the modem and the firewall after that (another tip from dslreports). But no dial tone.
3. After I went to work hubby kept trying, and finally at around 4:00 pm Earthlink told him to wait another 24 hours 'in case perhaps' the line wasn't provisioned yet.
4. This evening around 7 pm, I called support yet again, mostly because it was tiring listening to all of the complaints about EarthLink.
5. Tier 1 support directed me to the wrong IP address for the Spa2100. The documentation says its IP address is 192.168.0.1. The tech kept telling me to enter that into the browser, which took me to our Netgear router. The IP address of the Spa2100 unit is 192.168.1.1. The tech just couldn't believe that 192.168.0.1 didn't take me to the Spa.
Once we did start looking at the spa configuration pages, the picture in front of the tech did not match the screen in front of me. He kept asking me to look for "Regional" and for negative numbers, none of which appeared anywhere on the Linksys Phone Adapter Configuration page, basic or advanced, on ANY tab. I suggested we use netmeeting, at which point he bumped me to Tier 2 (about a 10-minute wait)
6. Tier 2 was still India. He determined that the line was not yet provisioned. He promised to pass me to a Tier 3 technical genius who would be able to fix the problem immediately. Wait time for Tier 3 was half an hour.
7. Tier 3 guy verified that the line wasn't provisioned, speculated that the reason was the Telco not letting go of the number. Said it should have been done for sure at 8 pm, but it wasn't, so now it should be done by midnight. He said he couldn't do anything about the line, or answer my questions about the IP address, because he is "not a technical guy."
At least we finally got a reason why there's no dial tone --the line's not set up. Would have been nice to know that at 8:00 AM rather than 8:30PM, so we would have not wasted a whole day fooling with it.
We are not yet happy VOIP campers. Yet, ever optimistic, we hope that the phone will eventually start working.
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