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Review by JaviSRK 
member for 12.4 years, 18 visits, last login: 8.1 years ago
lodged 12.2 years ago
 Houston,Harris,TX
 $54 per month about 60 days Southwestern Bell- CLEC party:
 "PDQ.net was great before being bought out...." "My whole experience with these guys" "Do NOT deal with these guys. The horrible experience BEGINS with their sales team."
| Pre Sales information:
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I had DSL previously with PDQ.net for about 6-7 months with 768/384 ADSL, before it was bought out by Internet America. Before the buyout, I had rather excellent service, with me never having to call Tech Support. By November, I noticed that my download speeds weren't even reaching half the advertised speed (only going 384 down). After some extensive research (yeah right), I noticed that I had a SDSL bridge (Speedstram 5260, I last recall)! I called pdq.net on December 20, 2000, and they gave me a new number to call, which was now Internet America. I called their tech support, (to get an ADSL modem) and they had given me a case number in which to refer to. On December 22 (mind you this is the Friday before X-mas), I received an email from Covad that I reqested a disconnect! It was 3pm, so I had to scramble in calling PDQ.net. I called, and mostly everyone had already left for the day. I talked to an accounting rep there, and asked if I can get reconnected. Of course, being the grinch that she is, she simply said "I can't do anything for you until after X-mas.", which turned out to be Tuesday. My DSL line was already disconnected by then. I call back on Tuesday (Dec 26), after taking a day off from work, asking about what the hell happened. It turns out that Internet America turned off the account because there was some sort of discrepancy in their records. "Cool, I thought..." I then asked if I can get turned back on immediately. They replied "No. Covad were the ones who installed your lines, and we don't deal with Covad any more, so you have to get a new line from IP Communications."
"How long would that take?"
"30 Days."
"WHAT? 30 days, when you are the guys who (insert foul language here) messed everything up?"
"I'm sorry."
Basically, after I reamed their tech support department, I calmed down enough to talk to the sales department and told them to take my order. They were nice enough to give me a number, etc. From here, I waited a few weeks, and I heard nothing... so I decided I would call back on 1/18/01.
Turns out that the order was not even submitted to IP Communications as of yet. I really got angry, when they told me when they charged me for installation and setup fee ($306!!!!!), when THEY were the ones who cut me off with no good reason. So the salesman promises (I repeat, PROMISES) that the order would be expidited, and my setup/installation waived, and I am happy again.
3 weeks pass, and this is about 2/8/01. I decided to call, and to check up on the status of the DSL order. I was then informed that the DSL order was not even RECEIVED by IP Communications as of yet, because of a so called "system outage", plus the fact that the $306 was still intact! I told him that this was unacceptable, and I just hung up on him. (Poor guy... but I work tech support as well, but that was bad. Really bad. Especially when he said that he could do nothing for me) At this time, what could I do? Wait ANOTHER 30 days, while IP Communications goes thru a (really) long list of Line installations, or find an alternative?
Luckily, I still had the wits to call Covad (My previous DSL provider), and they informed me I can switch ISPs, provided that the preceding ISP (pdq/internet america) had released the circuit back to Covad. I called Internet America to confirm this, and once I heard those magic words, I spurted out "CANCEL!" From there, it was a 20 minute process to cancel the order for IP Communications, my account information in general, then another 5 minutes to the billing department, just to tell me that it will take 3 to 5 business days for my money to be credited.
From there, I called Earthlink, told them I still had a Covad Circuit available, qualified me, took all my wonderful info down, and said that the installation process would be a little faster than a fresh new install. On 2/13/01 (yesterday), I received an email from Covad, saying that everything will be in place by MONDAY. (2/19/01!!!!) And I will be back up on DSL, after 2 horrible months from Internet America.
Earthlink/Covad did more in 5 days than what Internet America did in two MONTHS. This is a sign to those who want Internet America/PDQ.net DSL service... you're better off getting service elsewhere.
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Review by crosstree
member for 12.3 years, 5 visits, last login: 12.2 years ago
lodged 12.3 years ago
- Houston,Harris,TX
- $69 per month
- (24 month contract)
- Southwestern Bell
- CLEC party:
- "Quick response on sales and tech support"
- "Didn't deliver as promised -"
- "Don't buy anything other than their"
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Motive:
I had DSL from SWBell for over a year and was generally satisfied. But I needed more upload speed than the 80K I was getting (download was fine at 900K.)
Internet America offered a "faster" 768/384 service. The salesman promised that my SWBell line would not be a factor since they used Covad hardware (DSLAMs, I assume.) He even promised my old connection w/ SWBell would remain active until the switch.
Install:
Salesman was wrong. SWBell DSL line quickly disconnected and no word from IA.
3 weeks with dialup and finally IA's partner, IP Communication, installed the line inside (what a mess as they relocated my service to another phone jack and I later had to go into the attic and re-wire back to my former jack next to my router.)
Speed Success?
Anxious to try my new upload speed, I tested the speed here and found... no change at all from SWBell. Still at 80K upload (around 900K download.)
Tech support?
Generally friendly but not helpful in solving the problem. Finally a tech support manager admitted that the problem was that SWBell had my line capped at 128K. He suggested I buy SWBell's faster line service for an addional $140/month. They've admitted that they can't supply the speed I've ordered.
Cost?
They still want to bill me for the installation and 1 year (over $500). They're not going to get that but I hope they see clear to write it off and change their advertised service in Houston.
Conclusion?
Probably going to switch to Sprint ION. I'd rather stay with IA but I need upload speed of at least 250K.
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Review by altairwolf
member for 12.6 years, 4 visits, last login: 9.4 years ago
lodged 12.6 years ago
- Lewisville,Denton,TX
- $19 per month
- (month by month)
- about 40 days
- Verizon (ex GTE)
- CLEC party: Verizon (ex GTE)
- "Tech Support Always good."
- "GTE caused delays in the instal."
- "Things are not always what they seem in these reviews."
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I have been with IA as a dialup customer sence late 1996, and almost always was able to get connected with them with no problem. Minus a couple of times in the early days, (like when Fort Worth number was over loaded). But the DSL connection is solid.
This informaion it given base on the part that I am technical and do know what the heck I'm talking about. My connection rates are not great, avg 250kbps or as your browser puts it 25k. This is due to the fact that I am at 15,000 feet from the CO, that is GTE/Verizons cutoff point for DSL. This and that it took GTE a month and 2 weeks to get it installed...(actually to get someone to my house to do the wiring needed outside the house), I have the information from IA within a week of talking to them. The Costs that it gives you on the cost page is if you use their Telco Partner Covad. And you have to pay for their modem, but you do get a mail-in rebate for it. So that comes out about even on those charges.
If you looking for a fast connection, check and see how close you are to the CO, before you start yelling at the ISP for speed issues..they can't help you is you 20k feet from the CO.
I did get a Static IP /w a net block. I didn't want the NAT accounts that they give because of the limitations that are involded with them. NAT does have good points. Read up on this also. They do give examples of what programs will not work with this, and that NAT does act like a firewall.
All in All, it was/is a great experience.
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Review by dredbig
member for 12.8 years, 244 visits, last login: 1 year ago
lodged 12.8 years ago
- Dallas,Collin,TX
- $27 per month
- (12 month contract)
- "Short Waits with phone support, Web Mail"
- "Connectivity Problems, News Server Down time"
- "Over all Fair service, BUT NOT worth the money for what you pay for!"
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I have had Dial-up ISDN for two years. First one with the ISP that was taken over by Internet America (A very Good Year!). My next yearly contract nearly doubled. Oh, with out any increase in services. If you are looking to download during off peak hours for increase bandwidth, NOT. Internet America throttles your connection speed. Now as my contract come to an end again I am being coerced into DSL at a rate even higher.
And if I decide to stay with ISDN the costs will increase to prices beon the cost of DSL.
And with a finial note. DSL is NOT available on my line. My CO is not with in limits.
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Review by Ammomagnet
member for 12.4 years, 22 visits, last login: 11.6 years ago
lodged 13.3 years ago
- Plano,Collin,TX
- $30 per month
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I have been an Internet America dial-up customer for 4 years. The first
three were trouble-free and great. In the last year, however, my dialup
service degraded rapidly (probably due to their large influx of new
customers via acquisitions). I switched to DSL to ease my disconnect woes.
I admit I was caught in the "new DSL user awe" on the speed for about the
first 24hrs. Then the speed testing came, and I realized (with some
Net.Medic and Windows Net Monitor help) that for large file transfers you
ONLY get the minimum rate. Internet America has in place a system to limit
your bandwidth to your paid rate's minimum. Again, you only see this on
large bandwidth transfers ... files >400K or so will take the hit. This was
disappointing, since this was a feature of DSL I was counting on. Funny how
their customer support repeatedly stated "that's the nature of DSL". They
even blamed GTE as being the problem. Well, I changed ISPs ... no problem
now.
I give this company a VERY bad rating because of how they advertise rates
and what they told me through customer support borders on deliberate
customer-deception IMHO.
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Review by khacken
(review was emailed from domain directlink.net)
lodged 13.5 years ago
- Sachse,Dallas,TX
- Contract price not specified.
| Pre Sales information:
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I had been using Internet America for two years for dial-up access, and will be using them for a little while longer for dial-up. For dial-up service, they are great. DSL, however, is another story. Pre sales information is not much more than what you hear on the advertisments. The sales consultants know very little, if any, about DSL. And this is when you can find someone that is actually willing to take you DSL order. I had some coordination problems that could be traced to GTE, but I feel that it is the ISP's responsibility to follow through instead of pointing fingers.
The connection was fairly solid, but I had three outages that lasted under 10 minutes each.
Tech support is not very friendly, but got the job done. (I had to deal with them to get the proper network settings).
Mail is also an issue. I got an unbelievable amount of spam. Around 20 emails a day.
Also, games had trouble working as Internet America has you connected over a proxy server, so no one can even ping you, much less let you run a game server.
The connection speed was horrible. The advertise price points based on minimum speed and the sales reps will tell you that these are minimums and the you should do better. This was not the case at all. You get the advertised speed and nothing more. They tried to tell me this was GTE's fault, but switching to another ISP has proved this to be a false statement (I get double the speed, and half the ping time or better with my new ISP).
Overall, they do what they say they will do for you, but nothing more. There is too much competition out there to justify going with these guys.
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