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Review by jfortune06 
Fair warning: reviewer joined this week
lodged 4 days ago
 Terrell,Kaufman,TX
 Contract price not specified.  "Best available option in my area" "Service is spotty, speeds slow at peak times, tech dispatch very slow" "It's better than Satellite or cellular on a price per speed ratio."
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I live just outside of town where my only options are...
Satellite - which never lives up to it's advertised speed, is expensive and caps downloads.
DSL - which I am too far way from the C.O. to get any usable speed.
Cellular - I can get 4G surprisingly from Verizon but they cap bandwidth and make you sell your firstborn to get more available cap.
Skybeam - Not the fastest option, or the most reliable, but the best combination of speed, price, reliability available to me.
Here's the deal. I am a realist. Skybeam is filling a void in internet service for those of us in rural areas who are semi-heavy internet users. Their profits are not going to be as high as in a denser populated area where cable and local phone companies are available with better speeds and service. They have to pay pretty steep prices to get the fiber transmission lines to these remote towers so their profit margin isn't going to be huge. That being said, I have some advice on how they can help their customers...
Pricing structure - If you are going to offer higher priced connections, you need to be able to supply the bandwidth. If you can't supply 5Mb, don't offer it to suckers who expect to get that kind of bandwidth. I think an even better option would be to offer customers the option to pay a little more to get a guaranteed minimum bandwidth of something like 3, 5, 10, etc bandwidth. Just charge whatever you would need to in order to pay for the required backbone connection to make this happen. You can use QOS settings in your APs to make it work. I, for one, would be willing to pay $100 a month if I could get 5MB 24/7 with no slow-downs.
Installation - Please help those of us who are technically savvy to get the best possible connection by giving us access to our radio's signal aiming software. We don't need full access to change settings you don't want us to change, only access to see the signal and noise levels to help us better aim the dish to get the best possible connection. This would save your field techs SOOOO much time. I know that my dish moves slightly during high winds. Sometimes trees change during the seasons and affect the signal path. If I could just SEE what the heck is going on, I could fix it myself when I have time rather than waiting 2 weeks for one of your techs to come to my house and move my dish 2 degrees to the right. I watched the tech the last time to see how it works and it's really not that complicated. I actually did the dish adjustments while he watched the screen to make things go faster. He showed me how it all works.
Tech Support - Hold times, obviously, are an issue. This means you need more staff. The other issue, is you need more knowledgeable staff. I am in the tech support business myself and I know that much time can be saved if the techs can quickly diagnose an issue. You would need less staff if the staff you have are faster. A tech can better diagnose an issue if they have a full understanding of how everything works rather than relying on a script that wastes the clients time checking things that don't need to be checked. I had to explain the Ethernet OSI model to almost every tech I spoke to when diagnosing a physical connection issue. It was quite simple. I was getting a link up / down connection issue which is either link layer or physical layer, not network, transport, application, etc. Rebooting my PC won't help. They had no idea that the link light should remain on no matter what the connection status from dish to tower was. A tech visited twice on this issue and just replaced the POE injector which did not fix anything. I ended up fixing myself by re-crimping both ends of the cable from dish to the POE injector inside my house. The original crimps were HORRIBLE.
I hope someone from Skybeam reads this and takes some of my advise. I really want this thing to work. I understand the uphill battle rural internet service can be but there's no reason to shoot yourself in the foot too.
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Review by Skybeamweak
member for 23 days, 0 visits, last login: 23 days ago
lodged 23 days ago
- Dennis,Parker,TX
- $65 per month
- "In January and February of 12' service was good. Since no bueno"
- "Zero consistency"
- "At times it's just moderately slow. Other times pages will not load at all."
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Skybeam in Brock Texas has the privilege of having the best tower location in this area.
Other wise the would have zero subscribers left.
South Parker county folks:
If you can get any line of sight towards Tin Top or 1-20 Cierra net is your best bet.
They haven't used the 900 frequency type service that skybeam uses for years. Their technology
Has been basically out of date for years.
Regretful customer.
Disclosure:
I would happily change this review if they would upgrade the network here;)
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Review by elisamae
member for 50 days, 0 visits, last login: 50 days ago
updated 50 days ago
- Paige,Bastrop,TX
- Contract price not specified.
- "MONOPOLY - Can't fix the tower"
- "A new provider is avail and I'm outa here"
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Old company ECC Wireless (local in Texas) was purchased by SkyBeam out of Utah. Old company was great - no complaints worked as expected.
SkyBeam lowered the internet speed of service and raised the prices, refused to honor the previous deal (where I paid for a full year in advance and rcvd extra time) and said that they had no requirement to honor any previous agreements. Service tech response time is now measured in weeks. The shortest we had to wait for a tech was 13 days and whenever they came out they always said there was nothing wrong with our equipment it is all the towers fault. But there is no one from the company in the entire State of Texas that can climb the tower, so the ticket remains open with no resolution from June 2012 until present March 2013.
Basically, we were stuck with no other companies to change service to since SkyBeam bought ALL the local providers and created a monopoly. I tried to be friendly, cordial, patient while we were Up and Down and Up and Down. One time the speed test reported .45kbps (That's slower than Dial Up)! They kept saying they were going to give us credit for the bad internet days on the bill, and every now and then they did, but that was not the point. The point is I wanted internet that worked not a credit for when it didn't or me having to chase down the billing people to give me my credit and argue that I didn't get the credit.
A few months back I started receiving Denial of Service attack being reported from my router. The traces showed they were being generated from within the SkyBeam local network. The SkyBeam tech support told me that I needed to buy a better router and that it was my problem. They didn't even want the logs! The tech didn't even know what a DoS attack was, thought is was something to do with the old MSDos Operating System. I think i confused him when I told him I was running Linux.
Google search bbs SkyBeam Texas: They have improved since December last year from a "F" rating to a "D+".
But finally a new company has moved into the area. The internet speed is faster that my daughters cable service in the city. Absolutely NO issues and they are local people (yes local, they live in the area)!
I patiently waited for another company and a new provider is available and I'm outa here.
I'll give you a very bad analogy:
I think a service provider should be like underwear; you shouldn't have to know it's there, it doesn't have to be seen, and it certainly should support you when and where you need it. But when it is obvious that it's not working and you've tried everything to fix it, it's better to toss that aside and get something new.
Comments:
 | | Thank you for your comment. Thank you for this opportunity to help. We strive always be your best connection choice. This includes providing amazing support and response from our dedicated Customer Support Team. I want to personally reach out and help with any issues you may be experiencing. Would you please contact me directly? Thank you, Tom Gallegos, Director of Customer Care, Direct Line - 970-295-4092 (M-F) | |
| | | Thank you for this opportunity to help. We strive always be your best connection choice. This includes providing amazing support and response from our dedicated Customer Support Team. I want to personally reach out and help with any issues you may be experiencing. Would you please contact me directly? Thank you, Tom Gallegos, Director of Customer Care, Direct Line - 970-295-4092 (M-F) | |
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain myawai.com)
lodged 105 days ago
- Parker,Douglas,CO
- $36 per month
 Qwest- "Lower on the cost scale"
- "Poor service, poor speeds at peak times"
- "Too bad they cannot provide the service level of the company they bought out"
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We were with Air Wave Access for years with few problems and fantastic
customer service. Then, like many others, we got the 'opportunity' to
change when Skybeam took over and bought Air Wave out. They're pitiful.
Tech support emails do not get returned, are often in broken english when
they are answered, phone calls are useless since they just have you shut
everything down, sratch their heads, come out to the house, mess around for
a while and tell you 'it is what it is'. As long as I don't want to use the
internet when it's convenient for me, the speeds are ok. I am so sick of
these idiots I could scream. I think these companies use the poor speeds
to extort you to upgrade your service(for another 10.00 or more per month).
The traffic is their problem to handle, I shouldn't have to pay more to get
what I'm already paying for. We're in a rural area south of Denver and
there isn't any cable in the ground so we have to use one of these services.
The direct-to-satellite providers are a lot more expensive and try to hide
it with the promos. Our phone provider has internet but it's Century
Link(formerly Qwest) and they're just waiting to die, I think. Their
service is beyond bad.
Thanks,
Mark Horton
303 902 3810
"Teamwork is based on outstanding execution of assigned responsibilities,
not compromise and cooperation."-Chuck Coonradt, The Game of Work
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 Review by RenHoek
member for 12.6 years, 5580 visits, last login: 1 days ago
lodged 136 days ago
- Peyton,El Paso,CO
- $41 per month
 about 1 days- Qwest
- "Good high-speed internet in the "middle of nowhere""
- "Goes down once in a while, but usually for only a few minutes"
- "Good value for the price"
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When me moved to "the country", we went through the Qwest website for DSL and their website said high speed DSL was available at our address. When we tried to order, they said, "sorry, not available in your area". Same with Comcast, the local cable monopoly. Our new neighbors had SkyBeam and were happy with them. The service is "point-to-point" wireless using a dish similar to DirecTV. We have direct line-of-sight to the tower about 7 miles away so the signal is awesome, even when it rains or snows. So far only a couple of minor outages in 6 months, nothing for more than 1 hour and that was due to power issues at the tower. So far I'm very happy with the service. 5Mbps down/1Mbps up for $41 a month is WAY better than satellite internet.
Comments:
| | Thank you! Thank you for sharing your positive experience with Skybeam. We strive always be your best connection choice. Thank you, Tom Gallegos, Director of Customer Care | |
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Review by TheJabberwok
member for 2.9 years, 16 visits, last login: 231 days ago
updated 258 days ago
- Greeley,Weld,CO
- $55 per month
- "Human tech support. Speeds consistently as advertised on 'superfast' (5 Mb down 2 Mb up)...when it works"
- "Poor troubleshooting"
- "STAY AWAY!"
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When it works it is great.I have had to change my review a couple times.
The yearly problem is back again... There was a "weather related outage" that started 7/6 and ended 7/9. Despite the outage having ended, I still have intermittent or no connectivity. This happens every year in the summer months. After 4 calls to support and over an hour of hold times, they issued a service call on 7/11. Based on previous years experience, they will issue 2-3 service calls, and then eventually they will realize it is at the AP and finally fix the issue. Last year, I had to contact the BBB before it got fixed. I like the service when it works, but this gets REALLY old. Got the service call (he actually came early, but didn't bother to phone prior to showing up.) First he wanted to replace the power cable, which was suggested and tried at the beginning of my troubles last year. Then he checked some things and finally said the AP was getting interference from another AP, and that I would have to install a pole at my expense to reach a different tower... I know this is BS.
UPDATE 2012:
Iiiiit's baaaaaack. They not only have started a bandwidth limit and implemented some kind of bandwidth allocation snake oil that has turned latency from 10-20 ms pings to 50-60ms pings, but my yearly problem is back. Severely intermittent connectivity. I guess it's back to the BBB. I can no longer recommend this service on ANY level. STAY AWAY!
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Review by lathcar
member for 265 days, 0 visits, last login: 265 days ago
lodged 265 days ago
- 81403
- $45 per month
- CenturyTel
- "When it works...only relatively high speed choice for remote locations"
- "I wish I had another choice"
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I have never had so many problems with an internet company before. Always it is internet performance issues. In the beginning (in 2010) until around Nov 2011 things went well. Something happened in Nov , and I started having issues with speed. It took them about 3 months to resolve. I must have called them every week to get an update. I even had to write a letter to BBB to get some resolution. BTW - their rating with them is "F".
Recently (8/2012) their system went down in Colorado and Wyoming for two entire days. It is still not up in my area. But, as support always says, they are aware of the problem and working on it. They must have subpar equipment and maintenance protocols to have these ongoing issues...not to mention management direction. I wish I had another choice (besides satellite, which is not much better than dial up), else I would have dropped them a long time ago.
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Review by skybummer
member for 293 days, 0 visits, last login: 293 days ago
lodged 293 days ago
- Windsor,Weld,CO
- $42 per month
- CenturyTel
- "used to be good"
- "incompetent support; overloaded network"
- "pick something else"
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Years ago, I chose the wireless ISP because it was the only option available. Service was ok for a while after the acquisition by Skybeam but then began its inevitable decline. I was supposed to have 5Mb service but I could only achieve that speed to two test sites. Other speed test sites as well as internet in general could only manage 1.5Mb. Clearly the speed was being throttled because the Network chart in Task manager was so perfectly flat on top. Skybeam support seemed unable to comprehend this discrepancy in spite of all the data I sent them. It kinda didn't matter though, because their network was overloaded. Throughput would slow to a measly 200Kb in the evenings. I finally gave up and terminated service from them. For the final insult, they wouldn't refund the unused portion of the monthly charge.
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Review by tiredoflies
member for 1 year, 0 visits, last login: 1 year ago
lodged 1 year ago
- Amboy,Lee,IL
- Contract price not specified.
- "What a Friggen joke they are hiding under T6 Broadband In this area"
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I have had them for 8 years since they have been purchased by Sky beam Aka Jab Wireless I have been forced to a 900 MHz module told that it is what it is and that is all its going to be. I contact their support when it goes out and I hood up directly to it and get same results. Their technicians treat you like a moron when you call in. I have a masters in Computer Information Technology Certified in wireless networking Wired netoworking Fiber optic networking. When they put the 900 Mhz module up they put a 4' Yagi on it that is made for a 50+watt broadcast equipment for ham radio not made for this internet connection equipment. The module is made by Trango to which I contacted them regarding the antenna they advised me that the antenna recommended for the equipment was only about 12 in long and that most of the time unless I was shooting through house walls wasn't needed on a install as close as mine is to the tower. Their tech installed the module ad eyeball level and I almost walked into it as they did the install on it while I wasn't home. When I called them on it and told them that if someone got hurt I would get sued for their installers stupidity. Their installer also didn't leave a power supply for the module thus he plugged in a powered ethernet cable that had 24 volts dc injected into it on a module thats power maxed out at 14 volts dc. I asked them about this and they said oh it will be fine. What happened the next day their installer was out A moving the module to my roof height and B replacing the module as it burnt out from being over powered. They then again plugged in the cable without changing the power injector and burnt that one out and 5 others even after I told the tech that hey you need to change the power injector on the line b4 you power that up when he replaced the first one he still kept replacing module after module b4 he finally listened to me. I have all my certificates on the wall My Degree From MIT hanging on the wall where their tech can see it when they walk in the door and I pointed it out to them along with my Transcript showing I graduated in the top 5 of my class That I know what I am talking about and he told me I could take the paper they were printed on and wipe my A$$ with it. I told him to get his S$%^ done and Get the F#@! off my property. I complained to his supervisor who failed to respond to my email including the 10 that were Cc to their Corporate office.
I offered to give them a free consult to help them find their problem and was told oh we know where the problem is at were overloaded the noise level is to high and is causing the speed to go down. I asked them why they don't stop installing new customers until they can come up with an alternative that will maintain the speed for all or better yet split it up instead of having 100 customers connecting to a module made for a max not recommended by Motorola to max it out but a max of 60 Client module connections 25 recommended max for maintaining speeds of 12 Mbps for each customer by Motorola. My speed averages .5 down and .1 up for a package that I am supposed to be getting 8 down and 1500 up. All of the service calls to my house said they needed to stop installing on the 900 MHz band as it was way to overloaded and they forced me to switch. One of their morons installed a 5.7 module at my location knowing full well that it would drop my connection 5.7 cannot go through trees at all and provide any kind of speed results.
I recommended switching to Ubiquity Modules as they can run at a full watt and not interfere with each other. They even tried to tell me that my 5.8 GHz cordless phone was interfering with the 2.4 and the 900 MHz modules. I laughed my rear off at them. Ubiquity is right now leading the market with their technology and their ability to be flashed with open market software. I was told to keep my opinion to myself that they would rather disconnect me than fix the problem considering that I had been a long standing customer of theirs. I need the connection for my VoIP phone and to access my server when I am away for my schedule and files I need for various client sites.
I have setup several Apartment complexes with Hotspot services for their residents and I can tell you that I use Ubiquity modules on each setup I have installed one complex with 48 buildings I had 1 AP and connected 48 modules to each one all on 5.7 GHz then inside each building I put a 2.4 GHz AP for the residents to connect to. The Complex has a 4pair bonded T-1 and maintains 6 MB with 0ver 200 people connected at anyone time. I have tried to explain to T6 this is something they need to use their first response was their Techs couldn't configure the modules so I gave one to my 12 yo niece that isn't computer savvy with novice experience told her what she needed to do to connect it to her computer then told her to configure the module. After 5 min she had it connected to their home network. Now if a novice child with novice experience can do it in 5 min than their supposed techs should be able to do it just as fast and have no problems.
I contacted them tonight as I have a static IP with them and when they went down and were down for more than 5 min I connected my laptop to their module directly got an error of duplicate IP detected by windows. Then rebooted my pc when to Linux and got the same error. I contacted them about it through their chat over my Verizon Mifi that I had to purchase for a reliable connection until Comcast installs at my location which wont happen for the next 20 days. So im in the chat with their rep to which I sat on hold for 35 min and on the phone I was still on hold when the tech came online. He tells me to please hold for 1 min. 10 min later I asked if he was still there he said he was on the phone with a customer he had several calls come in after he connected with me and that I was a constant complainer so I wasn't a priority. He then transfers me to another tech who didn't even read the problem just tells me to to email my logs to their support department and to have a nice day. I advised him that he needed to pay attention to the problem I was having and that I passed it on to him in slow detailed steps of what I had done and what errors I got. He got rude with me in the chat I then asked if his supervisor was available and who it was. I was told that I didn't have any right to speak with his supervisor. I advised him by FCC and FTC requirements they had to have a supervisor available for escalated calls and that I did have a right to speak with them I was then told to f#@! off and then he disconnected.
I was setting up a replacement for a new client went to a private owned tower and requested on the clients behalf to lease space on the tower. T6(Sky Beam Jab Wireless) had modules on their tower already they were open band unlic internet frequencies to which they proceeded to tell the owner of the tower that it was illegal for my client to lease space on the tower and use the same freq as them or any other freq on the tower. Then they proceed to Slander my client telling the tower owner that my client would damage their tower and that they had already caused a tower to fall down because of their incompetency. All false information this was the first tower my client was leasing space on and that I attempted to contact their corporate office about this slander that the T6 rep had done to my client and was told by them do not harass them anymore regarding that as it was a waste of their time they would not look into it. I then proceeded to file a complaint with the FCC and FTC as well as the States Atty Generals office against them for their practices as the tower owner was kind enough to pass over a copy of that phone call to me or my legal usage for my client to which I passed copies over to each agency that I contacted.
They aslo take advantage of people that have no knowledge of how to run a speed test what it means what their speed is. They are ripping people off I am surprised there hasn't been a class Action Law suit against them . I have had a total of 20 clients that I have setup with links that originate on a tower site where they end up leasing space on the tower and installing Cable internet at the tower and beaming that to their homes. All 20 clients were originally T6 Customers that were being ripped off by them and their Coherts at Sky Beam and Jab Wireless.
Seriously People don't buy from them they will rip you off big time contact me Ill get you setup with a link from comcast or who ever your cable internet company happens to be in your area. I do it for a low price and you own your equipment and I stand behind my work and guaretee that you will get 80% of the speed package you pay for up to 100 mbps.
Comments:
| | T6 false advertising Yep, they are trying to rip me off too. I am signed up for the siler package including phone which is supposed to be the 6mb plan. They only give me 6m for 30m of data transfered and then idle down to 1.5m. So if I do a speed test it says 6mb, but if I watch net flix for 5 minutes and do a speed test, it says 1.5m. I just verified this with there tech support as well. They actually have mu "sustained speed" set to 1.5m. The 8mb plan obly has a sustained speed of 2mb. I told them they are misleading there customers and false advertising. Where should I get internet? I will be canceling with T6. | |
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain sbcglobal.net)
lodged 1.2 years ago
- Weatherford,Parker,TX
- $77 per month
- AT&T
- "the overall speed is good"
- "no cross department communication and nobody to sort out problems to solve issues"
- "if everything goes correct they might be allright but if someone at their end messes up you can't get it fixed"
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Last month I ordered Skybeam 10m voip bundle when the installer came (although very knowledgeable) he=A0 didn't realize they even offered 10m service so he called to check and found out=A0it took a different antenna so he installed the 5m antenna and told they would be back next week to change it out , of course that never happened but after many yrs. of dial up I was getting 3-6m I'm happy with that and had them change to 5m service price .I then submitted a porting request to keep my old phone # after a few weeks skybeam e-mailed me to tell me my # had been ported so I started using the voip and for a week it worked fine. After a week the phone went dead the first few days. I assumed it was due to outages=A0then I began the beat down process of calling tech. support first day they blamed the outages told me it should be on any=A0 time probably before I went to bed now it hadn't worked in 3-4 days I had little faith it would suddenly start but OK.
Next evening still nothing back to support this time they said it must be the way I have it hooked up so I unplugged replugged rewired changed phones as told even though it had previously worked just fine, know that reaching and dealing with tech. support is no quick endeavor finally gave up 5am comes early for me. So next evening back to tech. and back to telling me it's my wiring then I asked why I wasn't able to access my phone acct. on-line as I was able to before things went dead that's when they figured out they turned off my service told me I wasn't signed up for phone service mind you after they installed a voip modem ,assigning me a temp # and porting my old # so being Sat. I was told it would be Mon. before it could be restored ok what are you gonna do but wait . Well Mon. evening came still no service so back to tech. By now it's been a full week my wife and 4 yr old out in the country haven't had a phone .I was at the point fix it or forget it the tech. assured me it would be restored shortly and it was so I thought all was well . The next day I tried to call home and once again I get their recording ( were not accepting calls at this time ) This time I wasn't waiting till I got home to call=A0 back to tech. support=A0for the 4th or 5th time and each time its like it's your 1st call explained all that happened and instantly he went back to their default solution he has no signal so it must be that I have it wired up wrong, yes I was livid !! at that point. I told them to cancel my phone service. Well that evening when I got home expecting the worse from the wife found the phone was=A0 working fine only they turned on the wrong number the temp. instead of my ported.
So I thought give it one more try I really wanted =A0to keep a land line and my old phone number so back to tech. I explained what they did wrong t=
his time and if he could just switch the numbers all would be fine then he told me since I cancelled I had no phone service and my old number was probably lost in the poole. Needless to say I have no phone service . I would highly recommend if you have any other options or high blood pressure don't use Skybeam . They seem to have no contact between departments the left don't know what the right is doing and after this entire debacle was clearly the fault of Skybeam no customer support made any attempt to get this right it's as if they really don't care buyer be ware
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