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Review by sectvfreak 
member for 1.2 years, 151 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 217 days ago
 Kintnersville,Bucks,PA
 $130 per month about 7 days "Inexpensive, HD pic quality amazing!!" "Limited Channel Line up/ few HD channels, VOD extremely limited, MAX Internet Speed 10MB/800KB" "Good Value for folks on fixed incomes looking for basic services"
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This private family run company in the Lehigh Valley and nearby areas seems to have all the basics for triple play right now and thats about it very good value however they dont have all the extras that the competitor RCN has If you are looking for a great value for the buck than SECTV is for you however if you stuck in an area where RCN isnt available but SECTv and you want more than you are out of luck unless theres FIOS. It seems like faster internet speeds are coming soon..... stay tuned....
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Review by adishong
member for 6.2 years, 13 visits, last login: 259 days ago
updated 273 days ago
- Hellertown,Northampton,PA
- $49 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 2 days
- "Its avaiable in our area thats about the best thing I can say."
- "Reliability is poor, bandwidth deplorable!!!!"
- "As soon as we get another alternative we are gone!!!"
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Unreliable for the past 6 months they have a had a part on order for the Cisco switch our entire area is about 10% of the advertised bandwidth I would expect to see 60-70% at least. As all cable since bandwidth is shared for your area it gets even worse I actually have used my 3G card at times when it was faster then the cable. In order to get credit I have to call every month to tell them they suck, technical support is fine although I question the length if time it takes to get a card I work with Cisco and this is unusual. I suppose if they have old technology it may take awhile to get a card but if this is the case get a new switch!!!
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Review by sectvfreak
member for 1.2 years, 151 visits, last login: a few hours ago
lodged 1.2 years ago
- Upper Black Eddy,Bucks,PA
- $49 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 14 days
- "Brand New Fiber/Cable Hybrid Network in Upper Bucks County, PA"
- "Faster Download/Upload Speeds"
- "Blows Fronteir/ Verizon DSL away NO COMARISON"
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OK, Service Electric of the Lehigh Valley just completed a massive totally new state of the art fiber/cable hybrid system that took 2 years to be completely deployed thoughout Durham, Nockamixon, Tinicum and Bridgeton Townships including Riegelsville Boro in northern Bucks County and this entailed running completely new lines in most areas given that its mainly rural.
I am getting just about 10M download around 800 upload and we last house at the very end of the line on my road, just impressive!!!!! We signed up with the triple play telelphone is load and so clear with the HD channels stunning quality. Best yet is the price!! Since This area has either Frontier or Verizon (NO FIOS that dead now) IT BLOWS THEM BOTH AWAY. since verizon and frontier only offer 3M dsl with frontier inferior lines and monoply style pricing at 52 bucks just for 3m while the 10M is about 49.. IF YOU LIVE IN UPPER BUCKS SERVICE ELECTRIC is the best forget that old 1 way network its gone!!!! ITS COMPLETELY RELIABLE NOW..
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 | | internet speeds suck during peak now actually the internet speeds during peak are unacceptable now measured 900k the other night cant even use neflix are they capping speeds during peak or their new network cant handle all the new customers??? | |
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Review by moresuo
member for 10.4 years, 103 visits, last login: 261 days ago
updated 1.3 years ago
- Stewartsville,Warren,NJ
- Contract price not specified.
- "Decent customer service during office hours [not 24 hour service]"
- "out dated tech, really poor upstream speed"
- "Not where you want to be if you can avoid it."
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The folks at Service Electric Cable partner with Pen Tele Data to provide internet services for their cable subscribers. In my part of Warren County my condo development is fiber. The Pen Tele Data equipment, as serviced by Service Electric techs, is not fully capable of taking advantage of all that the fiber to the door can provide. The fee for this is $40 if you have their cable TV as well and $50 if you don't.
Beyond that the set limits on their up-link throughput at under 1mbps. I currently average around 77kbps. With Netflix streaming, VoIP headroom, X-Box, etc anytime I want to use more than one of these modern technologies at the same time I run into up-link bandwidth problems.
Down-link speeds are around 6.5mbps. Slow compared to the Optimum Online service I use to have when I lived in Hudson County, but much faster than the painful cable down-link/POTS up-link from SE I had to suffer with when I first moved out here four years ago. Talk about yesterday's technology today.
The customer service folks at SE are friendly and responsive when they are available. They advertise 24 hour service but if you call after 8PM that takes the form of a call service that will give them a message in the morning when they open their offices again at 8AM.
All in all, unless you want to use Century Link [formerly Embarq], its the only game in town. FiOS is not deploying out this way any time soon - literally a decade away at the time of this writing [thank you FCC for giving them their land line "special fees" since the 80's to make fiber ubiquitous - thank you Verizon for taking those fees and and slapping them into your general fund and NOT using it to make FiOS truly ubiquitous - you thieving humps, I want my money back].
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Review by Eek2121
member for 9.3 years, 575 visits, last login: 54 days ago
lodged 1.6 years ago
- Flanders,Morris,NJ
- Contract price not specified.
- "Fast 30 meg service..."
- "Low caps..."
- "Avoid this one if you have other options..."
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I moved from FIOS territory, and I must say, I wish I could go back. Service Electric is partnered with PenTeleData, and as such, comes standard with caps. The cap on my particular connection is 100 gb. That may seem like a lot, but I use steam, netflix, pandora, and rhapsody along with iTunes. The first 9 days saw me sitting at 75 gb. On the bright side, the service is fast. I Definitely don't have any complaints about speed or reliability thus far, but they REALLY need to bump up the caps. 250 gb (like comcast) would be much better.
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| | They claim "no demand" They claim they won't bump upload speeds because there's "no demand"
well duh if there are such low caps there won't be any demand! | |
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Review by evilkitty
member for 1.7 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.6 years ago
updated 1.6 years ago
- east
- $39 per month
- about 3 days
- "local 24 hour technical support"
- "not all area's are built for 2way communication"
- "Generally online"
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Generally online, ok for gaming and downloading movies.
They offer LOCAL technical support which is rare in the industry.
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Review by billgill22
member for 2.4 years, 1 visits, last login: 2.3 years ago
lodged 2.4 years ago
- Coplay,Lehigh,PA
- Contract price not specified.
- "Have None"
- "Not Stable"
- "Horrible"
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Ok here is the deal, I had SETV broadband from 2000-2003. First i had the one way then I got the 2 way. I was constantly dealing with the modem losing connection. Called they replaced it, same thing. I ditched them in favor of Verizon DSL which I loved but I hated having all these utility bills. So I thought I'd take advantage of the bundled packages from Service Electric since I already get their HD package. I decided to drop verizon altogether and go with Vonnage back on August 10, 2009. Well, I am running into constant dropped connections. The modem keeps the internet connection but all of my computers and the xbox lose internet connection. I find myself restart the modem several times a day. Believe me, I know what I am doing, I build my own computers. I'v tried 3 different routers so it is not a hardware issue on my part. I had an SETV tech come out the other day, made some subtle changes, swapped modems. Now it seems worse. For some reason the pcs, 3 wired pcs [ 2 on Vista 64 and 1 on XP Pro] and the xbox lose connection to the primary dns server. Manually setting them makes no difference. I've basically lost patience. I had Verizon DSL, which has the same speeds as the cable [7mb down, 768kb up] as Service Electric and I never had a problem with these machines. I called verizon back today after 2 weeks of this crap and am going back to DSL. It is reliable and the same speed for the same price.
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Review by icbkr
member for 6.8 years, 30 visits, last login: 128 days ago
updated 2.6 years ago
- Allentown,Lehigh,PA
- $50 per month
- about 7 days
- "Local service, friendly staff, decent rates, decent quality."
- "No better option, no alternatives available."
- "I hate having no choice, but if they got me by the short and curlies, at least they're not bad."
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It's a cable modem, and I've had DSL, so I knew this was better. I came from a super duper high speed setup at my last place, so I also knew it was a step down. I've also got a Sprint card, and that was better than DSL, but not as good as this. As long as I can game, it's fine, and PTD/Service Electric was. Barely. They've bumped up the speed once in three years, so now gaming is totally fine and downloads are much better (4M down 700K up). Install was a breeze, since I just have them drop it at the dmark and I take it from there. The connection is relatively stable, with only two outages in three years, and tech support is the best, since I can hop in my car and drive down the street and kick in their doors if something isn't to my liking. Not much in the way of services, at least nothing that stands out, and $50 is a bit high for what I'm getting. So value wise, I'd like faster service or more address options, but it's tolerable. Certainly not the worst I've had, just not the best. Overall, if you can't get one of the high end setups, this is a great 2nd choice.
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| | service electric = garbage it is absolute crap for me. i use it for some pretty serious online gaming and every other day i get long hours of packet loss. one second i'm kicking ass, then i'm teleporting 10 ft away the next... great... just great. and no, after many phone calls, they insist the line is fine even though i'll check through this site which paints a different picture.. im about to downgrade to a slower, but slightly more reliable verizon dsl... | |
| | | | Re: service electric = garbage It depends on where you are. I am in Northwest NJ (Wantage) and the service is just fine. I have DOCSIS3 service and hardline all the way to my house so I guess that helps. | |
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Review by mickey D
member for 2.7 years, 0 visits, last login: 2.7 years ago
updated 2.7 years ago
- Springtown,Bucks,PA
- $50 per month
- about 4 days
- "Fast, reliable, Mac savvy, support so good I think they're living in a different era"
- "None worth mentioning"
- "Glad to have it"
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I receive many unsolicited offers for broadband service. Each one has a website or phone number to call to determine if service is available, and each one said the same: Sorry, not available at your address.
Service Electric's website has a page that you can use to determine if service is available at your address. Like the others it said service wasn't available where I lived. When new neighbors moved in next door, they called Service Electric and set up internet service. So I tried the website again: Sorry, no service. Finally, I called them and insisted upon talking to someone who knew what they were doing. They were as perplexed as I and told me service is indeed available, and outlined the packages they offer. The technician arrived on schedule and had everything up and running in moments. He even had little booties he wore to avoid tracking in dirt without me requesting it. They supply a Motorola "Surfboard" SB5101 cable modem, everything else is up to you. He wasn't afraid of my Mac equipment and Airport wireless network.
I've had the service for about six months and it has been reliable with maximum download speeds of 7000 kb/s and upload of about 400 kb/s. It's about $50/ month. They offer cheaper (slower) packages. Like any cable service the download speed slows down during peak periods (6-9 PM) but it's not a dramatic difference. I occasionally stream Netflix movies in the evenings and once in a while it has to pause to buffer video. On one occasion the connection became very slow but normal speed returned in an hour or so. Any total service interruptions seem to happen in the middle of the night and there has been only one brief unexpected interruption on a Sunday. Sometimes cars smash into poles, what can you do.
One oddity about Service Electric is that you have to call them to set up an email address. They said Service Electric doesn't actually set up the address, I believe Penn Tele Data does that and there is no automated way such as a website to determine if the address you want is available. So you have to ask "Is MickeyD available?" "No" "How about Mikey?" "No" "Well, then, could I have "Mike"? "No, sorry..." etc. I thought this was odd, but it's a minor inconvenience and they are very pleasant about it.
Their website is very informative and has the answer to any question you might have including wireless home networks, configuring up your email software, etc. Their Mac OS X information is refreshingly thorough but just a little out of date. They do have webspace available and their website explains how to set it all up. The server space is limited but it's adequate for something just to play around with. I had a problem uploading mine so I called tech support. They fixed it within hours - said it was a permissions problem on their server. The even called me back to follow up and asked if everything was OK! This is unheard of these days.
DSL is not available yet. Verizon is completing installation of DSL in my neighborhood. I'm not planning to get it but it's good to have some competition.
I considered Hughesnet / Direcway and WildBlue satellite, but satellite speed isn't impressive (I've used it) and I don't want any part of their FAP. Seems like you get half the speed for twice the price. After reading the horror stories here I subsequently rejected those alternatives. I also considered Airisen but those horror stories were even worse. The reviews on Broadband Reports has saved me a lot of aggravation and money staying away from those outfits.
Service Electric has exceeded my expectations. I actually don't mind writing them a check every month.
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1 edit | You missed the part about the caps I agree that the service is reliable and the network appears to be well built and maintained, but unfortunately the bad thing about Service Electric (actually PenTeleData) is that they cap the service.
I am with Service Electric's Sparta NJ system and my caps are 100G/month for 30M/2M. They cap 10M/1M at 60GB.
You may be on a different system. Just read the fine print and don't watch too much hulu because Service Electric will charge $1/gig overage if you go over. | |
| | | | Re: You missed the part about the caps I looked for any mention of limits or "fair access plan" or whatever they might call it. None are mentioned. I have not encountered any additional charges. This doesn't mean they might not change their mind in the future though. -- Mike (who can't remember his login name/PW) | |
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| | Peak Slowdown? I have cable and it doesnt slow down. Maybe your network isn't up to par to handle the customers.
I've had cable service at 4 addresses and 2 different providers. none ever had any slow downs- RoadRunner by TWC and Buckeye Cablesystems. | |
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 Review by borredo
member for 7.8 years, 3314 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 2.8 years ago
- Emmaus,Lehigh,PA
- $40 per month
- (month by month)
- about 7 days
- "Speeds as advertised with no down time."
- "None as yet"
- "dependable & reasonable"
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After over 10 years with verizon DSL with virtually no problems this CABLE provider seems just fine. I downsized to an apartment and I didn't want a landline so I opted for cable. A bundled deal. TV & Internet. I use magicjack as my primary phone and cell phone for backup. Everything working flawlessly. No fios in the Allentown area as yet and RCN also provides service here. So I'm month to month with no commitment. If I get a better deal I could go for it. I would like fios but that may be a couple years away.
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| | . just dont go over 50gb a month, or they will call you.
Im not sure if they disconnect or bill you. | |
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