Review by saturnjt Location: Pompano Beach, Broward, FL, USA Cost Contract price not specified.

Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money:

After having ADSL installed successfully for three weeks, i'm not using my 56K modem to access this website was we speak! ADSL has been down everynight this week alone in South Florida and when it works, i'm lucky if I can go to www.bellsouth.net without the connection timing out.

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Review by Location: undisclosed location Cost Contract price not specified.

Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money:

bad bad bad bad news. stay away.
i ordered ADSL of up to 1.4mbps
the order process was like a big hint to stay away, but i didn't pick up on it due to my enthusiasm for ~1.4mbps.
it was dynamic IP but it never changed, not even when i released & renewed my IP.
the speed was good until it permanently broke.
equipment was the Alcatel adsl "modem" as they called it.

two tries for installation. no big deal there except that the guy who installed it made sure to leave a phone cord available for my analog modem for, as he put it, "when, not if i need a backup."

the ADSL worked at the physical layer for almost 3 weeks. bellsouth's network servers such as POP, SMTP, DHCP and DNS never worked reliably.

immediately after the installation, i started picking up other voice conversations on my telephones, even with all the cordless phones unplugged and disconnected. my line had been clean until bellsouth installed ADSL.

about 3 weeks into it, my throughput dropped from the typical 1.X mbps to something like 12bps when I was lucky.

tech support, true to form, after being told that my throughput dropped to less than 20bps, told me to clean my browser's cache. when i asked to speak with the "next level of help" i was told they were glad i was amused and then put on never ending hold. i called right back and canceled my ADSL. the person with whom i spoke when i canceled was the only professional i encountered in my dealings with bellsouth.net.

i also had e-mailed tech support and also attempted to use web forms to submit technical support requests. replies came back from these attempts typically after 7-10 days, always saying something along the lines of "thanks for sending us e-mail, look at so & so webpage blah blah blah". the problem is that the webpages referenced were of no help, as if tech support scanned my e-mail for keywords and then (incorrectly) cut & paste a reply based on keywords.

since ADSL i have contacted bellsouth three times in an attempt to get my phone line fixed so i may carry on a conversation. according to them, my phone line works. strangely, i hear voices. i'd figure they must be in my head again except that they also cause my 56K analog modem to disconnect frequently.

thanks to Bellsouth's ADSL, it appears i may have to move in order to get a clean phone/internet connection again.

my only hope is that Mindspring will force bellsouth to fix things when i order their ADSL when it's available in the next month or so.

Bellsouth.net has a "no refund" policy regarding the installation fee. i recommend that you avoid the hassle i'm encountering about not paying this bill by NEVER ORDERING bellsouth's adsl. i cancelled my adsl before i even got the installation bill. lucky me. i may have the opportunity not to pay for the service that i did not receive.

the worst part is that bellsouth.net claims that they're not allowed access to bellsouth's phone service information due to FCC regulations. it's funny how the bellsouth.net people came and screwed up my phones, but now they're not allowed to touch them. hmm, do i smell something? oh, yeah, it's BS. No, not Bull Sh... Bell South!

eventually someone from bellsouth.net did e-mail me back with what seemed to be a legitimate interest in helping me. this was about 2 weeks after i canceled. when i sent her a big long e-mail describing exactly all of the above and asking if they could fix it, what did i get in return? NOTHING!

run away as fast as you can from bellsouth.net's ADSL. run for your life. the frustration will kill you.

i've been a mindspring dialup and ISDN customer for personal and business use since 1995. never had i encountered anything like bellsouth.net. i never will again, either. you can spare yourself the experience. learn from others. stay away.

last little tidbit- they're so clueless about their service, I still have their Alcatel ADSL "modem" despite telling them twice I'd like to get rid of it, and even suggesting that I may take it to the pawn shop!!!

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Review by mikerz4 Location: Winston Salem, Forsyth, NC, USA Cost Contract price not specified.

Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money:

I must admit that I'm one of the fortunate ones. After waiting for a year, I accidentally found out that Bell South was offering ADSL in my area (Winston Salem, NC) They didn't inform me as promised on their website. I inquired and discovered that one of my phone lines qualified (I have 5 phone lines; 4 did not qualify). I ordered ADSL Aug 15. They installed it Sept 1. Two installers came out, added a NID, used one of my existing phone pairs (I gave up one phone) and completed the installation within 1 hour. I use a laptop so I had everything ready. I work in the computer/internet field so I had my computer all ready for them to register the mac. I'm approximately 18,000 feet from my CO so we were not expecting a lot. After some specific registry tweaks ( I use Win98SE) I was achieving 1.3mbs. I couldn't believe it. I pay $59.95 and almost have the performance of a T1 line. Sure, I've had bad days; but so does everyone else. I had them with all 5 of my V.90 ISP accounts. I don't see any difference except that MOST of the time, I can download considerably faster. Even with all of it's faults, I would definately recommend ADSL if you can get it. And yes, I've had to call tech support to change my NIC mac and had to wait at least 35 minutes. My past experience with BS has been about the same. That hasn't changed either. They really do need to improve their customer service and support. Bell South waived my $199 installation fee and provided me with a free ADSL terminal (Alcatel). I had to pay $99.95 setup fee. I'm a HAPPY CAMPER....

Mike Rembisz

www.sci-tek.com

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Review by bpguy Location: Pompano Beach, Broward, FL, USA Cost Contract price not specified.

Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money:

Well,
after a VERY rocky start, since I was an ISDN dialup customer, I finally got ADSL. I have seen various speeds from a miserable 22kbps to over 1Mbps. (thats 135kbytes per second.)

The sad part is that Bellsouth AND Bellsouth.net (2 separate entities, very difficult to work between if you are isdn customer) have NO smooth upgrade path from ISDN to ADSL. In Fact, I was told that 'if you have ISDN, you CANNOT get ADSL'

What I did was
1. cancel ISDN
2. order analog
3. call daily (escalating to the VP office at bellsouth.net) until I got 'right' answers. Sheri Hedden actually made things happen. She is in the VP office at Bellsouth.net.

However, I resorted to calling the normal bellsouth customer service folks to get .net's attention after MANY unreturned phone messages.

Overall, I did push things, but I felt justified as I gave up 2nd phone number and faster access, so I felt they could move a bit on my behalf.

As for the service, I run a mac clone, so install was rather smooth. I had to provide a NIC (no problem: in machine already) and I just had to set the TCP/IP to ethernet and dhcp server.
worked right away. I have had the service not even 1 day. nntp and mail seem very fast.
I have run several speed tests, and seen a very wide range, with the highest being over 1 mbps.

as for tech suport, they (the phone drones) are pretty much useless, especially if you have a mac. I see plenty of reports where they have a server problem, but the phone support does not know until hours later. Until then YOU have a config issue, not them. If you need bellsouth support, go to the bellsouth.net news groups and find Lawrence Baldwin. He is accurate, and thoughtful. Bellsouth.net supes should reward him and get more like him.

I have been asked to contribute into an internal bellsouth news paper. I hope that I can hint to them that the ISDN customer SHOUD be targeted, as this is cheaper and faster. I think that MOST ISDN cusomers would really really want ADSL.

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Review by Location: undisclosed location Cost Contract price not specified.

Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection reliability: Services: Value for money:

After 10 days I wanted to give my first impressions BellSouth. After a horrible cable modem experience I feel released from the gates of hell. Fantastic connectivity. Signing up was a snap. The coordination was horrible. Make sure you have a NEW n.i.d ( network interface device ) installed on the the property before anything else. A false start and 10 days later they were able to install the line. Having an older house required a separate line run instead of existing phone wire- perhaps a blessing in itself. No chance of bleed or need for any filters. Be prepared to supply a hardware device address before setting up anything else. On system 8.1 and later its in system profiler, Network overview, give them the appletalk hardware address. I get consistant 1313 kbps or 165 k/sec except between 8 and 10am. This has been halved for 4 days now and no explanation has been given. Bottom line for 59$ month its speed is worth it. You get 1 email address, bellsouth ips service, small web page and anything else in true Bell fashion is available for a price. I will follow up in two weeks with more details.

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Review by Location: undisclosed location Cost Contract price not specified.

Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money:

Hi,

The are horrible, belive me. i have joined them, and they are sucks. The dont came at the time i say to them, and one one of the man's there hang me up, when i told him that the service the offer is not good saw much. Listen to me, peopole DONT JOIN THEM !

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Review by Location: undisclosed location Cost Contract price not specified.

Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money:

I have the 1.5 downstream, 256K upsteam plan. Bellsouth only offers dynamic IPs which change rarely. I conenct VERY fast.. I am very pleased with the speed. I have seen upwards of 130K/s on my downloads from good sites.

Tech support is absolutely deplorable. It would be better to ask your next door neighbor (who, by the way, has no tech experience and his VCR flashes 12:00)... I mean tech support is _horrible_.. and cranky and rude. Hold times are unacceptable also.

I got no documentation on use, phone numbers, server addresses, etc. The installer worked very quickly and knew exactly what he was doing.. install took about 45 mins.

I am a Linux user, so I had to hide that box so he would not see it. I let him install the ADSL on one of my Win95 boxes. BellSouth seems to have a grudge or something with the Linux community...

The modem is an Alcatel 1000. Unnamed spliter. 3Com NIC.

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Review by hal31 Location: Louisville, Jefferson, KY, USA Cost Contract price not specified.

Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money:

Bellsouth Fast Access (ADSL) has been reliable and fast since installation two weeks ago. No down time. Speeds consistent in the 150-160KB range. My biggest gripes are dealing with the human element at BellSouth. There is an incredible lack of knowledge of ADSL., and an incomprehensible inability to answer specific questions. I was even told very insistently by someone who answered the home installation line that BS did not offer ADSL. Probably worth it to get a second opinion if you get an answer you don't like -- in my experience.

Note for linux users: They do not support linux at this time. and will not schedule installation if they are aware of this being the target system. I was informed by several helpful souls, that the installers do not generally care as long as you can get it going yourself. The only thing they really need is the MAC address from the ethernet card. The dhcp part is incredibly easy compared to linux ppp setup. IPs are 'leased' and AFAIK static IPs are not available.

The modem , an Alcatel 1000., and ethernet card are included in the installation price. (Free installation when I signed up.)

So far, it's been great!

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Review by ChrisPage Location: Louisville, Jefferson, KY, USA Cost Contract price not specified.

Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money:

I've had ADSL installed for a little over two weeks, and am very pleased with it and the bellsouth.net ISP service. I've had no outages, downloads are consistently 130K-150K/sec (unless the other server can't handle it) no matter what time of day it is (all of the cable modem users I know in this area PEAK at 90K/sec downloads, heh heh...). Installation went very smoothly. And at $50/month (if you have BellSouth's Complete Choice plan on your home phone), it costs me the same per month as my previous 56K dialup, as I know longer need a dedicated phone line ($30/month) or my previous ISP ($20/month).

IN A NUTSHELL...

-PRO: $50/month with Complete Choice, $60/month without

-PRO: Smokin' fast 1.5Mbs downstream/256K upstream (which it hits all the time)

-PRO/CON: Dynamic IP addressing that changes about once a week (good for security/bad for giving out your address)

-PRO: Excellent equipment: 3COM 10/100 PCI (no ISA crap) Ethernet card and an Alcatel network terminator

-PRO: Very knowledgeable installers and a smooth installation

-CON: Periodically takes several tries to connect to mail server (no different than Netcom, my last ISP)

-CON: No documentation about ISP service at time of installation (I had to jot down addresses of mail, news,, local dial-up number, etc. on a Post-It note as the installation guy rattled them off to me)

-CON: Hold times are ridiculous for technical support. You had better get a speakerphone...

The bottom line is installation couldn't have been smoother, you can't beat the price, the speed flies (no bandwidth throttling or congestion), and it's up at least 99% of the time (100% as far as I can tell). The only downside I've seen is the complete lack of documentation at the time of installation, and if you DO have a problem, be prepared to sit on hold for a while. But there's nothing like your mail, news, and web coming in at 130K-150K a second. Oh yeah, and the 60ms-70ms ping times playing Quake on just about any server in the country doesn't hurt, either... .

ORDERING/INSTALLATION EXPERIENCE (LONG VERSION)

I had what is probably an unusually good installation experience by virtue of the fact that the regional sales manager had flown up from Atlanta that week and came to my house (among others) to "monitor and evaluate" the installation service subcontractors.

Before ordering ADSL from BellSouth, I talked to a sales person who was surprisingly knowledgeable about the technical side of what they were selling. I asked what specials they were running (not haven't seen any on their web site), and they told me they were waving the required twelve month contract. I ordered the installation prior to when they started the "save $200 on installation" special, so I didn't know about that when I ordered.

The actual installation went very smoothly, and took less than 90 minutes. The two installers were very knowledgeable about not only installing ADSL, but could answer just about any broadband/ADSL/cable modem you could think of. During the time of installation the regional installation manager that was also there told me about the $200 off installation special they had started the day before, and to call and make sure I got that as well. He gave me his card in case I had any problems getting that taken care of.

On a side note, when I subsequently tried to contact BellSouth about getting the $200 installation charge off my upcoming bill, I was forwarded to four different departments, and spent over 90 minutes total on hold, only for everyone to tell me that handling the billing for ADSL installations was not their department. I contacted the regional manager that came to my house a few days later about my dilemma, and he responded promptly that he took care of it, and would look into "their internal communications problem" so other customers wouldn't have the same problem. I was very please with his swift response and action.

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Review by Location: undisclosed location Cost Contract price not specified.

Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money:

1.5 Mbits down, 256k up. $50 mo. since I have CompleteChoice phone plan. $60 otherwise.

Dynamic IP (DHCP), changes once every 5-7 days. Speed is excellent. 150kbytes/sec downloads most of the time, unless providing server can't cope.

I've had 2 reasonably short outages, but I know for a fact that other areas have had unacceptable outages (days and days..!) Technical suport is good, once they actually answer (!) Waiting times are unacceptable.

Equipment is Alcatel, installation took less than 2 hours. Technician was VERY experienced, and could get everything done albeit his little knowledge on macs.

PROS: Fast, very fast. Hey, it's ADSL? Price is right.
CONS: I was left with no documentation of VITAL information, such as: DNS, mail server, news server, etc. No easy way to find this on their HomePage either.

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