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Review by megawhizz 
UPDATED: 306 days ago
member for 6.1 years, 105 visits, last login: 21 days ago
 Troy,Oakland,MI
 $94 per month (12 month contract)
 about 13 days
 "Great sales, good support."
 "Up/Dn speeds lower than expected"
 "Look elsewhere"
| Pre Sales information:
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DESCRIPTION
Dry line DSL 3.0/768k, Static IP, PPPoE, Business plan
ORDERING: 3/15/07
The Isomedia website is quite bare, and their support reps told me that they keep it that way to encourage personal contact with the customers. Reps are very friendly, and knowledgeable about options available. They were able to assist me quickly.
INSTALLATION: 3/28/07
Some small quirks came up during the install process:
* First my request for an appointment in the PM was somehow forgotten, when I called again they were able to make the fix without delaying the installation.
* Covad tech arrived on time, and was able to get the service activated smoothly. However the line was configured for 3.0/384, not the 3.0/768 that I ordered. He suggested I contact Isomedia for a fix, which I did - am currently waiting to hear from them.
* Per the Covad tech I was supposed to supply my own modem, and he was not going to bring me one - I had to call isomedia (3 times, before I got to the right person) who spoke to the tech and "authorized" him to leave me a modem (Broadxent 8120).
SERVICE
Speed is very good! 2487/325 kbps - hopefully the upload speed will rise once the provisioning is fixed.
UPDATE 4/5/07
Isomedia reconfigured my line to the correct speed, and the upload speed has improved, as expected. So far everything is working very well and I am happy with the service, but it is still too early to tell. I am going to purchase a new modem - Broadxent does not perform well in high-traffic situations when playing multiple roles (DHCP, NAT, DNS, PPPoE).
UPDATE 7/10/07
Problems continue in high-traffic situations. Per tech support I've had to limit my sustained Down/Up speeds to 120KBps and 30KBps, respectively. Not sure if this is a problem with the modem or the line, but I have to conclude that the service is not living up to my expectations, will likely move to a different ISP once this contract is over.
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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 1 year ago
(review was emailed from domain coupeville.net)
Coupeville,Island,WA
Contract price not specified. (3 month contract)
"Tech support"
"I highly recommend the company for service AND cost."
| Connection reliability:
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I have been a customer with Isomedia for several years and have nothing but
praise for their helpful technical support and service. My primary email
is 'techno-man...,' because I'm NOT! And, therefore, I have had a number
of questions/issues over the years and have consistently been VERY VERY
pleased with their prompt and helpful information/answer to my questions. I
have recommended their service to several friends and, truly, have nothing
but positive things to say about them. In fact, when I was finally able to
switch to DSL (I live in a very rural area), I thought I would have to be
connected to a different company. However, when I learned that I could stay
with ISOMEDIA - I immediately switched right back to ISOMEDIA and continue
to be very happy with their company.
Al Coupeville, Wa.
--
--
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Review by mike_nw
Posted: 1 year ago
member for 1 year, 0 visits, last login: 1 year ago
Spanaway,Pierce,WA
$49 per month
 Qwest
"Incredible support for six years running. Tonight a tech called me back ... from his home. Fixed issue, which was Qwest-related."
"None so far. Just a great provider."
"This latest above-and-beyond support led me to file this review."
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DSL went out tonight. I called at 7:40. "Paul" figured out what had gone wrong. It was an issue with Qwest. He called them and got a work order going. He was off at 8, but called back right before leaving. I did not hear the phone ring. He called back. I missed that one. I was really bummed when I realized I'd missed his calls. It was about 9 p.m. when my phone rang again. It was Paul, calling from home. He got me up and running, on his own time. That is customer service.
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Review by myluvnttl
Posted: 1.1 years ago
member for 7.3 years, 230 visits, last login: 129 days ago
Lynnwood,Snohomish,WA
$40 per month (12 month contract)
about 3 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Verizon
"Nothing to say for now."
"Can't trust tech department in getting problem resolved."
"Nothing to say for now."
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Tech Department guy are useless. Still waiting for the download and upload speed fix. Pay for 3meg/768 and getting just below speed as adv...was getting good speed with Verizon Online DSL.....
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Review by imkimc
Posted: 1.2 years ago
member for 1.2 years, 1 visits, last login: 276 days ago
Seattle,King,WA
$89 per month
about 25 days
CLEC party: Covad
"Great tech support, really willing and able to help. Fantasctic uptime and communication when facing outages or upgrades"
"Line thru COVAD took some time to gte up and running, never have received advertised DL/UL speeds"
"While there are a lot of good ISPs out there, ISOMedia actually cares about their customers."
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OK. So after a rocky start, coutesy of COVAD all has been great. COVAD caused the delays in getting set up due to 1) sending a bridged modem instead of a routed modem and 2) taking FOREVER to get me the new modem and someone to hook it up. ISOMEdia's tech support guy at one point put his phone on speaker and waited until COVAD came online and then called me back. He sat on hold waiting to help me for THREE HOURS trying to get through to COVAD. Show me another company that would be willing to do that! I went from 768Kbps/768Kbps through Verizon to 7Mbps/768Kbps. The modem is a BroadExt and I have 4 static IPs.
I had another DSL line through Verizon with them and switched to the COVAD line after talking with their sales rep who told me I could get better performance for less money! Always nice to have someone sell you more for less!
Even during a recent power outage while all my friends with cable modems waited for up to two WEEKS to get their internet portion of the cable back up, ISOMedia never went offline for us. When they have scheduled or emergency service on their system scheuled a nice email stating when it will happen and what affect you may see is sent out. When you have an issue you get someone on the phone right away who is not only ale and willin to help you but they will stay with you and check back to make sure it is fixed either on the phone or through email. Basically these guys ROCK! My home business requires that I run a WWW and email server from home, and with ISOMedia I have no worries that I'll have random connection issues.
Recently I had a speed issue (which I was pretty sure was an upstream issue) and ISOMEdia's tech support answered the phone right away, the tech called the problem, had me test to be sure I was having an issue, fixed the problem and confirmed that it was fixed, all within about 30 minutes from the first call. That included me calling back and several emails to ensure that the issue was re-provisioning my line. And that is the very first problem I have had in 2 years!
If you're looking for a serious ISP with some hefty tech support mojo I reccomend these folks whole heartedly. The only reason I gave the median score to them on install coordination was that COVAD messed up and while not ISOMedia's fault directly, I have to rate the entire experience fairly. I was told by the COVADinstaller that my connection was non-standard and required a router normally put into businesses, unusual line for a house I guess, but I this is also my place of business.
Followup comments:  myluvnttl
join:2000-12-22
Mountlake Terrace, WA
 ·ISOMEDIA
 ·Clearwire Wireless
| ISOMedia actually cares about their customers? ISOMedia actually cares about their customers? I don't agree with that statement. One tech guy say he would try to resolve my speed problem and would call me back, but never call back, and the same for the sale department. I would cancel my service soon. | |
| | smmilton
join:2001-06-07
Redmond, WA | Re: ISOMedia actually cares about their customers? I am sorry to hear you had troubles. Please call me or email so I can help get your issues resolved.
Stephen Milton
CEO/CTO
ISOMEDIA
milton AT isomedia DOT com
(425)605-5755 (direct line) | |
| | dougnutz
join:2006-04-12
Redmond, WA
| said by myluvnttl :ISOMedia actually cares about their customers? I don't agree with that statement.... Myluvnttl- I have had dealings with Isomedia several times from initial contact through install and moving and upgrading.
Initially I bugged the sales rep for over a week with questions about the service and options available, even though I said I wasn't buying, she helped me as if I was her only customer. Every email I sent was promptly responded to; every question I asked was answered accurately. After several months when I did sign up everything went smoothly. Later when I moved they even loaned me a modem when I was having trouble with connecting at my new home. It turns out the problem was a bad phone jack, not the modem or service. But the IsoMedia tech support team helped walk me through the testing and setup, never once did they hurry me and never once did they put me on hold or transfer me to someone else when I started asking tough questions.
I have been with IsoMedia for a couple of years now any time there has been an issue the sales rep and support department treat me like I am the only customer they have. I have never found, or even heard about, that kind of service through any other ISP. Don’t take my word for it all you have to do is look through the reviews and compare them with other providers; the difference is in the quality of its people. Nobody is perfect and all providers will occasionally have a problem, eventually you will need to call support, that’s when you find out what kind of company you are dealing with.
Doug | |
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Review by tlv
Posted: 1.3 years ago
member for 2 years, 36 visits, last login: 114 days ago
Hampton,Hampton City,VA
$30 per month (12 month contract)
Verizon
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Our family recently experienced power outages and severe power surges due to
the recent windstorm. As a result many appliances had to be replaced (yes,
there were surge protectors on them, but not quite strong enough to absorb
the 220 surge) along with a hard drive, copier and etc even though
everything was turned off.
As result we needed to completely "set up" again. Now to a youngster who is
familiar with computers and the "new" language that would not be a problem,
but to seniors who have been out of the work force for some time, this is a
challenge. Until we realized, the Isomdia staff have helped us the in past,
let's call again. Help us they did -- everyone we talked to from the sales
staff to the tech staff were WONDERFUL and extremely patient. They
understand that seniors came into computers during the gap! The gap when
someone sets up the computer and gets it running to the time computers are
taught in pre/grade school.
So on behalf of our family a very special THANK YOU to ISOMEDIA, we
sincerely appreciate you.
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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 1.4 years ago
(review was emailed from domain inertiatour.com)
Seattle,King,WA
Contract price not specified.
Qwest
CLEC party: Qwest
"ISOMEDIA: THE ULTIMATE ISP"
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Been with Isomedia for 8 years. We've never had our sites go dark or a
single tech problem.
Cannot say the same about other servers and I've heard and witnessed
some horrible Internet scenarios.
I never hesitate to recommend Isomedia.
They've provided me with prompt, excellent DSL service in both New York
City, Los Angeles and Seattle.
Wherever I am, I can rely on them right away. Hotels & On Location,
whereever...DSL or national dialup.
These guys are so good, they don't have to have 24 hour tech service!
Customer Service, Sales and Accounting department always think of the
customer first.
They once told me - "you stick with us, we'll stick with you."
'Nuff said.
Rock On Isomedia!
-Christopher Bryant
MC23, INC. / ITA Project Director
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Review by dalek
Posted: 1.4 years ago
member for 1.4 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
Redmond,King,WA
$50 per month
Verizon
"Fantastic service - both sales and support"
"Support is not 24x7 for home users"
"This is a great solution for DSL!"
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I have been an Isomedia customer for years -- originally with a dial up connection and now with DSL for years.
I recently called them to ask about getting a higher speed connection -- thanks to Verizon (the carrier in my area) I was limited to 768/128 which seems pretty slow these days.
I was directed to Sterling in Isomedia sales who pulled some strings at Verizon and actually got Verizon to upgrade some hardware on their end so that I could get 3M/768 service at the same price!
Sterling provided an upgraded DSL modem and the cut-over was very well coordinated with Verizon so that I received notice mid-day as soon as it was completed.
When I got home and went to start things up, I did have a connection problem which was eventually traced to my own router which had decided to fail at this very time. Nonetheless, the Isomedia service folks tirelessly worked through this with me even after validating that the line and modem were ok. This support was way beyond what I would expect since we had already validated the purely DSL part of the connection as being fine.
Bottom line: the service from pre-sales to support is exemplary and I would highly recommend them.
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Review by deblasio
Posted: 1.4 years ago
member for 1.4 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
Redmond,King,WA
$70 per month
about 7 days
Verizon
"Fast installation, reliable"
"Awesome"
| Pre Sales information:
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Travis in sales was awesome... gave me a great deal, and Paul Allen in Tech support was absolutely fantastic... he stayed several hours after they closed to make sure I was up and running. Can't be beat!!!
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Review by Merc248
UPDATED: 1.8 years ago
member for 7.2 years, 64 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
Seattle,King,WA
$60 per month
Qwest
CLEC party: Qwest
"Sales division is top notch; they actually care about the customer! Very stable and fast connection so far"
"Newsgroup download speed very limited, interleaving (through Qwest), manual setup of various stuff"
"Very awesome ISP; they keep most of their promises and is dedicated to the customer"
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(This will be updated as I go through the various order process steps)
I've ordered 5 Mbps / 896 Kbps (Qwest) service from ISOMEDIA with a dynamic IP.
So far, I'm past the pre-sales and am waiting for my modem and my line to go up, which will take an additional three days, due to the extra weekend days. However, even when I'm this early in the installation phase, the experience has been EXTREMELY smooth and favorable.
First of all, I have to comment on the overall staff's courteousness and knowledge on everything: I somehow directed myself to the tech support line (yeah, I know, I'm dumb) and they still did what the sales department would usually do, like prequalification and various sales questions. They then redirected me to a sales rep (Tammy, best sales rep ever), who didn't try to pull any fast ones in terms of setting me up with any super secret ISP bundles or plans; she actually suggested to me several options in terms of price / performance ratio without any hidden junk.
I ended up going with Qwest rather than Covad due to the low price / performance ratio. I also asked her a question as to why my previous ISP (Earthlink) couldn't offer me anything higher than 3 Mbps, and she actually knew the precise and easy answer without all the hassle of going through several levels of techs (which is what it took to find out that information when I was with Earthlink.)
As I said above, I ended up choosing the 5000/896 kbps connection from Qwest through ISOMEDIA. However, Tammy told me a few days later that Qwest had actually put an order in for a 7000/896 kbps connection. I'm not sure if I'll be keeping that connection, since it all depends on whether the connection costs relatively the same (for the ISP at least) as the 5000/896 kbps connection. It was extremely nice to see that they were willing to provision me at a higher speed for the same monthly cost, though.
I will update this review with more details as they come along. So far, I am EXTREMELY satisfied with ISOMEDIA, especially their sales staff.
EDIT (07.10.2006):
Alright, my modem hasn't arrived yet (they actually just shipped it out for whatever reason, I was told that it was shipped out last Thursday morning...) It doesn't matter though, I actually found a few things on the Qwest DSLReports forum that allowed me to change a few settings on my Arescom NetDSL 800 modem in order to connect to the service. The connection is extremely stable; it doesn't flake out at all like my previous ISP when I'm downloading a bunch of stuff off of Bittorrent, nor does it flake out at certain times of the day. I noticed that even if I'm provisioned at 7000/896 kbps, I can't seem to get anywhere near 7000 kbps download; I always seem to end up getting around 3000 - 4800 kbps, which is fine by me, though I suppose I'll be making a few phone calls to see what's up. My upload speed is consistently at around 750 kbps (around 92 KB per second), which is extremely nice.
One day, I had the urge to get Newsgroup access. I really wanted it. There was no information on how to activate it myself, so... I ended up calling my ISP up. Seems that no one really asks for Newsgroup access nowadays, but well, they were willing to give me access to the server. Only bad thing is that I had to tell them over the phone my username and password; it'd be much better if this was all done online, but eh, it doesn't really matter. I'm assuming email accounts are setup the same way as well, though I really have no need for an extra email account from ISOMEDIA. After setting up the Newsgroup stuff, I wanted to see how fast it fetches article headers and how fast it fetches the actual articles. The server allows you to fetch the article headers are almost your maximum download speed. However... when you want to actually download an article, it slows down quite a bit to 15 KB per second. Horrible. I suppose it'd be better to get a dedicated Usenet server from another company.
For the interleaving issue (since I was using Qwest through ISOMEDIA), I wanted to see if it was even enabled on my line, and if it is, see if ISOMEDIA could even disable it for me. And... yes, it was enabled, and no, ISOMEDIA couldn't do a thing. I can't do a thing about it either even after escalating myself through the various levels of administration. Oh well.
Anyway, a lot of the things I complained about above aren't really ISOMEDIA's fault. The experience has still been extremely favorable and I still love them. A lot.
EDIT (7.12.2006):
Alright, just got the first invoice. I was surprised at a number of things that I will need to clear up: one, the setup fee that was supposedly waived was still on the bill. Two, the monthly fee shows up as $67 rather than $61. The former was already resolved quickly after shooting off a call to the accounting office; however, I haven't talked to them about the latter yet. I was also told at the beginning that my base monthly fee would be $55 plus whatever telco surcharge (which would, at maximum, take me to around $62 if we take the current telco surcharge and place it with the previously asserted base fee.) However, it was to my surprise to find that the base monthly fee was actually $60 and not $55. I will try to get this clarified as soon as I can. For any other future customers, take note of the above as well.
EDIT (7.17.2006):
Okay, after messing around with my network devices and various amounts of routers (I've got a 2Wire Homeportal 100, D-Link DI-624 Wireless Router, and a Zoom 5660 X3 that ISOMEDIA sent me), I finally have the ultimate setup: the Zoom modem/router is the primary router that serves out DHCP assigned IP addresses and whatnot, while the other two are simply there to bridge the networks together (I also have a switch and a hub that all of these devices are connected to, including the computers.) Why am I explaining this? Because I ended up getting a MUCH higher transfer rate than when I had my Zoom modem/router setup behind my 2Wire router! I'm now getting around 5500-6500 Kbps, which is plenty good, considering that I initially subscribed (and still am paying) for the 5000/896 Kbps service!
The financial issues were all resolved, thanks to Tammy (sales) and Meri (accounting.) They promptly looked into the issues and resolved them quickly. They kept a very tight correspondance with me as well at all times; they would call me up and let me know of any updates on the issues, as well as email me with any other new information (as a clarification, they didn't seem to do this simply to buy time, but to rather show that they were indeed making actual progress on the issues, which were resolved within a day or two.)
After looking at the above, I found that I'm a really messy writer and the above should be cleaned up. But I'll leave the above as is as a sort of "humble" step-by-step reference of my experiences with ISOMEDIA. Hopefully this review helps!
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