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Review by Test99 See Profile

  • Location: Los Gatos, Santa Clara, CA, USA
  • Cost: $59 per month
  • Install: about 7 days
  • Telco party Verizon (ex GTE)
  • CLEC party: Covad
Outstanding customer support
Probably the best Internet provider in Silicon Valley
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
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Value for money:

I've had Meer's 1500 down / 384 up DSL service with a static IP for almost 3 years. The broadband connection has been extremely stable. At one point there were a couple of short breaks after midnight caused by network upgrades. When I called about these service breaks, customer support always called back within a few minutes (at 2 AM!) with an explanation and an estimate of when the problem would be fixed.

Customer support is outstanding. Everyone at Meer knows what they are talking about. And when you ask for something to be done, you hardly ever have to ask more than once. Weird problems, like the upstream provider who one day started routing packets from San Jose to London, back to San Jose, and then on to their final destination in Sydney, were resolved within a day or so after a single emailed request.

Some minor things: there is no control panel for tasks such as adding new mailboxes and changing passwords. The web site could use some work: pricing information is not always clear. Meer does not offer web hosting on Windows web servers. And there was a period a couple of years ago when the mail servers ran tens of minutes behind real time on weekday afternoons.

Meer is constrained by Covad's pricing and upload/download speed offerings. Ultimately the price/performance of broadband service is the result of government policies that favor incumbent telephone companies. There's not a lot that independent Internet providers like Meer can do about it.

Meer is a great Internet provider. Customer support doesn't get any better than this.

member for 20.9 years, 4925 visits, last login: 12.1 years ago
lodged 17.8 years ago


Review by retrosynth See Profile

  • Location: Elkins, Randolph, WV, USA
  • Cost: $45 per month
  • Install: about 15 days
  • Telco party Verizon
  • CLEC party: Verizon
Personal customer service, knowledgeable support staff.
The best ISP for geeks.
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I've been a meer.net customer for close to five years. Last year DSL became available in the small town of Elkins WV and I quickly signed my sister up. Her service was up and running in no time even though Verizon has just started offering dsl. meer.net even supplied a home router/NAT box so she wouldn't have to run a PPPOE stack on her PC.

Last weekend while visiting there were thunderstorms and brief power outages which caused her dsl equipment to flake out and her PPPOE connection to fail. I left a message with meer.net support at 10pm on a Friday night and received a call back within 10 minutes and the problem was solved.

meer.net support is superior to that offered by Verizon (ILEC) and the dsl service is far more reliable than the competing offering from Cebridge (local cable operator).

I should also note that meer's service was outstanding when getting ISDN to work at my folks' place two years ago (don't even get me started about Verizon's poor customer service and billing) and equally great with my SDSL in Mountain View, CA.

I can't say enough good things about meer.net and their team.

member for 19.8 years, driveby review (so far)
lodged 19.8 years ago


Review by mwnn See Profile

  • Location: Berkeley, Alameda, CA, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
  • Install: about 16 days
  • Telco party SBC
  • CLEC party: Covad
Excellent technical people in the first tier of contact!
Old-school ISP with all the services and competence. If you're a geek, just use them.
Pre Sales information:
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[Update 2006-05-10: After two years, they're still — umm — beyond excellent.]

Speed ordered: 3.0 Mb/s down, 384 kb/s up (to be upgraded to 768 kb/s up when Covad allows).

The pre-sales, ordering, and installation processes went quite well.

Equipment provided was Broadxent ADSL Gateway 8120, as Covad chose.

Service is routed /29 (a static 3-bit sub-net).

This is simply phenomenal. I sent questions by e-mail, and I got prompt responses, in clear, standard English (with punctuation and everything!). The best part is that these responses were actually thorough answers my questions! There is no experience of trying to figure out the code words necessary to get through the first-tier customer service or support people, because the people who actually respond the first time _are_ the geeks! I don't know how to properly express the difference between this ISP and others that I consider competent and a good value, but these people are remarkably better. I've dumped ISP's that were bad, and I've happily kept ISP's that were good, but these people are excellent. Excellence is so rare, and I'm so pleased to see it here.

[I have and have had no relationship with meer.net other than as a recent customer. I have not and will not receive any compensation for this review; they're just that much different from the others.]

member for 22.3 years, 92 visits, last login: 251 days ago
lodged 19.9 years ago

succotash7
Premium Member
join:2002-12-14
Monterey Park, CA

succotash7

Premium Member

Great local ISP

Meer.net isn't my ISP, but this review jibes with the great things I've heard about them in another online forum. I read one testimonial a few weeks back about how they set up an entire machine in their office to try to replicate a customer's dialup connectivity problem. Took them over three hours to diagnose and solve the problem. Way beyond the routine level of tech support you'd get from most other ISPs.

Also, I've read that, since they're geeks and not business people, their accounting had been rather casual, at least 4 or 5 years ago. People would sign up and not get billed for months. One should probably assume that they they have since gotten, uh, a little more professional in this respect.

They were apparently set up to provide ISP services for geek friends and then became a more formal business. Pricier than most, but sounds well worth it.

Review by (hidden by request)

  • Location: Mountain View, Santa Clara, CA, USA
  • Cost: $79 per month (6 month contract)
  • Telco party Southwestern Bell
  • CLEC party: Covad
Friendly & knowledgableable support available 24/7; reliable service; web hosting; email hosting; DNS; static IPs
Upgrading from dialup to adsl confimed meer.net's continuing commitment to stable, reliable network service.
Pre Sales information:
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(review was emailed from domain meer.net)
lodged 20 years ago







Review by oneacn See Profile

  • Location: Fraser, Macomb, MI, USA
  • Cost: $119 per month (3 month contract)
  • Telco party Ameritech
  • CLEC party: Covad
Customer Service
News Server
Great Company To Deal With.
Pre Sales information:
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Value for money:

No Complaints At This Time.

member for 22.9 years, 1274 visits, last login: 25 days ago
updated 20.5 years ago

meernet
join:2003-05-09
Mountain View, CA

meernet

Member

meer.net replies: Was not eligible for 768 SDSL

We very much regret being unable to provide service to
this gentleman, but the loop delivered by Ameritech and
measured twice by Covad was unacceptable for any
reliable SDSL service.

There was a history of marginal performance at this
location and loop length and we declined to provide service.
We recommended alternative vendors to him.

We very much appreciate the high marks for "pre-sales"
which presumably reflect the dozens of hours of tech
support we invested in this ultimately unsuccessful install.

- meer.net
oneacn
Greetings
join:2001-05-03
Orlando, FL

oneacn

Member

Re: meer.net replies: Was not eligible for 768 SDSL

back to no customer service via e mail and phone calls. Circuit going up and down for 384k SDSL just had to file a complaint with the state attorney general. Maybe every customer will get an even playing field now

Ken Spress
oneacn@meer.net
ken@blackandsilver.org






Review by blmurch See Profile

  • Location: San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
  • Cost: $80 per month (12 month contract)
  • Telco party SBC
  • CLEC party: Covad
Excellent & knowledgeable customer service
only in Bay Area and WV
can't beat the service
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meer.net is a wonderful ISP, they can help fix any problem and not get bogged down in lingo and buzz words, just get to the problem and fix it, especially the ones we create! I highly recommend them. They are a personable bunch of guys and it's a pleasure having their services. As a wonderful side benefit, I'm very happy NOT to give my money to SBC and PacBell.

--
»www.murch-sitaker.org
»www.moveon.org
»www.unitedforpeace.org
»www.globalexchange.org

member for 20.8 years, driveby review (so far)
lodged 20.8 years ago


Review by (hidden by request)

  • Location: Menlo Park, San Mateo, CA, USA
  • Cost: $80 per month (12 month contract)
  • Telco party SBC
  • CLEC party: Covad
speed, lack of hassles
ZyXEL routers (Covad's preferred) a bit on the klunky side
could not have asked for more
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I have been a satisfied meer customer for eight years, starting with a
voice line and upgrading to ISDN four years ago. Recently I decided to
upgrade to ADSL after realizing it would be more cost effective than
ISDN. Once I gave the go-ahead things moved swiftly. Four days
after placing the order I received the self-install kit, and a week
after that Covad announced that the line was ready. Initially I was
unable to get a connection, and when I reported that to meer I
received prompt assistance although it was Sunday evening. Despite
the ZyXEL's having a clunky UI better suited to the proverbial
Russian toaster, meer was able to determine that the problem lay with
Covad. Within 24 hours of my initial message Covad had
re-provisioned the line, and my service has operated flawlessly since
then. After hearing horror stories from friends' experiences with
other ISPs, I was quite pleased by the outcome. I can hardly imagine
an easier experience.

/PGJ

(review was emailed from domain meer.net)
lodged 20.8 years ago


Review by moley6 See Profile

  • Location: Mountain View, Santa Clara, CA, USA
  • Business customer Business customer
  • Cost: $80 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 20 days
  • Telco party SBC
  • CLEC party: Covad
People with clue!!
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These guys are awesome. They were fast and helpful with the install process.

But where they really shone through was in resolving a problem that we started

experiencing. Covad has switched to Zyxel's DSL modems. These modems were rebooting on a regular basis in our environment.. The Meer.net guys recreated the problem in their lab (some weird interaction bug when you have a static IP but the modem still sends the DSLAM a PPP packet and waits for a resonse). They then worked with Covad and Zyxel to come up with fix. Most other ISPs you have to go through phone mail hell to get a person with half a clue. With these guys the first person you get is very knowledgeable.

member for 20.8 years, driveby review (so far)
lodged 20.8 years ago


Review by ltabb See Profile

  • Location: Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
  • Cost: $90 per month (month by month)
  • Install: about 10 days
  • Telco party SBC
  • CLEC party: Covad
Covad guy said, "You must be a valley heavey :-)"
Meer.net is great.
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I have to tell my funny story first.

When covad came to do the install the installer, oscar, said, "meer.net is your isp?".
I said, "Yes".
Oscar says, "So who are you?"
I said, "What do you mean, who am I?"
He said, "These meer.net installs are always for *somebody*, you know, valley Heavys".
Aparently meer.net serves alot of the very technical people in the valley.

Meer.net is great. If you are somewhat technical, these guys are the for you. I'm in the hills, with without the ability to get ADSL, meer arranged for an IDSL install for me to my guest house (which required a complicated grope through the Pacbell Line database) and was able to get the install done.

Their support is super knowledgable. Just call and ask for what you want. They understand and make it happen. Connection is reliable and rock solid.

They watched my line after it was installed to make sure there were no error or problems.



member for 20.8 years, driveby review (so far)
lodged 20.8 years ago


Review by whopgood See Profile

  • Location: Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, CA, USA
  • Cost: $295 per month
  • Install: about 30 days
  • Telco party SBC
  • CLEC party: Covad
Excellent tech support, excellent connectivity, personable.
Bay Area only
The best bang for your DSL buck.
Pre Sales information:
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I've been with meer.net for about five years, starting with a dialup account. Two and a half years ago (October, 1998), I upgraded to 144IDSL, and have since upgraded to 384SDSL and then up to 768SDSL. Service interruptions have been few, and when they have been it's been on the Covad side the majority of the time. Whenever I've had questions, meer.net has always been quick to respond and help. I can't say a bad thing about them, other than they are in the San Francisco Bay Area only -- and if I have to move, I'm going to severely miss them.

member for 23.2 years, 19 visits, last login: 10.4 years ago
lodged 22.9 years ago


Kibbles
Premium Member
join:1999-07-31
Mission Viejo, CA

Kibbles

Premium Member

WOW!!

And people say Megapath is expensive...for my 768SDSL SOHO $179.99 a month.