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Review by qworster 
UPDATED: 45 days ago
member for 6.8 years, 2491 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Santa Monica,Los Angeles,CA
 $122 per month (12 month contract)
 about 18 days
 Verizon
 "It started out fast"
 "Tech support, unreliable connection, slow speed"
 "They've slipped....."
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I singed up my business with BrandX because they were a local (Santa Monica) company and had great reviews here. Turns out the reviews are old and they seem to have 'slipped' in quality/speed of connection and tech support.
Service started out okay, although it took Verizon almost three weeks to actually connect up the line. BrandX offered zero help during this time. It wound up being completely up to me to get Verizon going. Since I'm a network engineer, I knew who to call and what to do. If I was just a regular person the DSL might never have worked! Speeds started out great, as did reliability....but after a few weeks, the speeds dropped like a rock and so did the reliability. Right now, the connection is off more afternoons then it's on. Calling BrandX is a waste of time; I always get a clueless answering service who always says that: "the problem will be fixed momentarily". I guess that momentarily is a measurement unit for hours!
At this moment my 1500/384 circuit won't even run my VOIP box, which only requires 90K on uploads to work. Speed tests just run are showing 265/57 meaning that the upload speed is barely better then dial up (I'm paying for 384K).
Finally, and worst of all, I look like a fool for buying this service to replace the 175K symmetrical service we had before from another provider. Not only was it much more reliable, it turns out it was faster most of the time too.
I'm very disappointed with BrandX.
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Review by AOLSUKKS
UPDATED: 5.3 years ago
member for 5.6 years, 114 visits, last login: 4.4 years ago
Long Beach,Los Angeles,CA
$52 per month (24 month contract)
about 21 days
Verizon
"brand x has great customer service"
"took verizon two weeks to make repairs and eastablish my connection"
"can't get their enhanced bronze package at 368 upload speed"
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i must admit, brandx's customer service is pretty good.
i ordered their package of 1.5/385 package for about 57 bucks/month online.
i did not talk to anyone on the phone to get this deal and everything was handled online.
i was a previous aol dsl customer at 768/128.
both of these isp's used verizon as their telco.
after switching from aol to verizon's "enhanced bronze" package,
it took verizon nearly 2 weeks to make the changes to my line
in the process, brand x sent me 2 modems, one apparently got lost through the usps.
after i contacted them through email, johan from brandx sent one asap and i recieved it the next day.
after installing it, the modem did not sync up with the line and i emailed and called brandx.
they were pretty quick in helping me solve some of the problems iw as having and was directed to verizon.
after calling verizon and contacting one of their techs, he sent out a tech to see what's wrong with my line.
it turns out that my line had some major interference going on and the tech stated that the upload that i wanted, which was 380, was nearly impossible to get.
right now, i'm getting 1400/120-30 on average which is good on the download side but no where near the upload speeds that i am paying for.
verizon is giving me until tomorrow, which is monday for a prognosis.
i am a full time college student who relies on brandband all the time and also have a personal business at home.
update: i'm still trying to resolve my current upload problems with verizon. i'm supposed to be getting 1.5/384kbps and am only getting around 1.4/128.
brand x has been great with tech and customer support.
UPDATE: 06/22/03
VERIZON tech has informed me that i can only achieve at peak, 136 upload speed.
brand x offered to lower my enhanzed bronze to bronze at 1500/128 plan. they wholeheartedly waved my first month's bill due to the problems discussed in the latter portion of this review. i am now getting consistent 1400-1430's/136. i highly recommend brandx/verizon dsl services in the greater long beach area.
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Review by bobthrollop
Posted: 5.4 years ago
member for 5.4 years, 0 visits, last login: 5.4 years ago
Playa Del Rey,Los Angeles,CA
Contract price not specified.
Verizon
"They're very nice."
"They're very nice."
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I tried to order DSL service from Brand X Internet but I was informed by Verizon that my location was not eligible for DSL at the time, so I had to go with cable modem instead. But the people at Brand X were very nice about it.
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Review by cricket018
Posted: 5.4 years ago
member for 5.4 years, 0 visits, last login: 5.4 years ago
Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
$49 per month (month by month)
about 5 days
Verizon
"It is a small ISP which makes it very friendly and helpful"
"Nope"
"Good service, good tech support, and friendly staff"
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I was dealing with Verizon DSL for about 6 months and I was always on hold for up to 45 minutes at a time. Then I was being transfered to different people and departments where I would have to repeat my problem over and over again. It was maddening and I don't think anyone ever actually cared whether my problem was fixed or not. Usually, I was just given a different excuse from each person I spoke with. Brand X offers the same competitive pricing and is much more personal. Whenever I call, I get someone who knows who I am and what sort of problems I might be having. They remember me and whatever problem I have is addressed quickly. They've helped me with problems that I am sure a larger ISP would have simply shrugged off as "not their job" or "someone else's department". Sometimes they are busy, but Brand X will actually call you back to help! When is the last time an ISP did that without trying to collect money?!? I'm happy with them.
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Review by harrislaw2
Posted: 7 years ago
member for 7 years, 2 visits, last login: 7 years ago
Santa Monica,Los Angeles,CA
Contract price not specified. (month by month)
about 11 days
Verizon
"They're not my cable company"
"None - great service"
"I made a big mistake to move to cable modem"
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I made a big mistake when my roommate moved out. He had a Brand X account and I let it go in favor of @Home. It sounded like a good deal, lower price by a couple of dollars, and from the advertising it looked like it ought to be a bit faster. Hey, speed is good.
But problems started immediately with @Home. I'm in Adelphia territory so I went to their website to get a telephone number to report problems with email. It said no comment forms would be accepted until August 19. Which went by a couple of months ago. Hey what's wrong with these people? It also had a phone number to call which turned out, after 40 minutes waiting on the hold music, to be a wrong number - adelphia and @home have seperate support departments that don't talk to each other. So I had to get on the hold music again.
I never had this kind of problem with Brand X. Sure, if all lines are busy they call you back for support but at least you don't have to wait there holding the phone.
The name was generic but the tech people were helpful and seemed to know their stuff. And I didn't get the feeling I was talking to a call center in Texas. If you call up a few times you start to recognize the different people. I don't know what's with all the Swedish people there. But anyhow (named deleted) and the others were all pretty nice.
RIght now my mailboxes on @home don't work. They have told me they can't fix it until Tuesday, because, I don't know why, they need to escalate or something in order to change my password.
I'm going back to Brand X. I guess big corporate internet is good for some people but not for me. Everything worked great there and switching to cable was a big mistake.
Rob Harris (harrislaw)
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Review by MarcelloG
Posted: 7 years ago
member for 7 years, 1 visits, last login: 7 years ago
Santa Monica,Los Angeles,CA
$49 per month (month by month)
about 10 days
Verizon
"Good Customer Service - Exceptional Tech Support"
"I would highly recommend this company for any ISP needs"
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I choose Brand X because they were a Los Angeles based company with a friendly and efficient staff. I ordered the basic package, which includes a free modem with a one-year term. My modem was shipped out 10 days later and I was online and surfing. I called them one time for a technical question and they helped me immediately. Their service was very satisfying and I would highl;y recommend this company.
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Review by CFM5555
Posted: 7 years ago
member for 7 years, 30 visits, last login: 1.5 years ago
Hermosa Beach,Los Angeles,CA
$49 per month (12 month contract)
about 21 days
Verizon
"Price was OK, Had a dialup account for backup"
"Reliability was undependable, tech support unreachable (answering service) excuses for everything, email unreachable (spamming)"
"switched today, cant't deal with it anymore."
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Service ordered and installed was 768/128 k from verizon (actually GTE then) Brandx coordinated it all. Got it done quickly, then when I moved they got that done no down time. Actual speeds (from 2wire) were avg 500-525. problems with this company were always reliability and communication w/ tech support. I start work @ 6:30 am usually log on by 6:00 when I had problems couldn't reach anyone for hours. They have a service, but they're useless.. Then a couple months ago I started having email access problems. Taking 5 and 10 minutes to access email if at all. They said spam attacks and moved me onto a different server, been somewhat better. I read another review form someone who said they got emails in advance from Brandx when they were doing maintenance. Not me, I had to find out the hard way. After screaming about it time after time, they finally sent one email. After the problem. Maybe OK for home use/entertainment, but I need to work on this thing.....
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Review by cliveholloway
Posted: 7.1 years ago
member for 7.1 years, 1 visits, last login: 7.1 years ago
Santa Monica,Los Angeles,CA
$69 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
Verizon (ex GTE)
CLEC party: Verizon (ex GTE)
"They really care, bless 'em, and they like Linux :)"
"When things go belly up, their size can put 'em at a disadvantage"
"better than the average bear, booboo"
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When I wanted DSL, I wanted a local company, and was lucky enough to find BrandX.
The install was fine, they're very friendly, and really seem to care about what they do.
I'm running 3 static IPs @ 768/128 (I work at home), and have had no problems running Win 95/98 & Linux.
Unfortunately, you have to go through Verizon as a telco. When a problem hits Verizon, they aren't exactly the most on the ball, customer friendly company to deal with. So I just pass problems over to Brand X and let *them* deal with them (it's nice to get a cc'd reply later).
There have been a few outages/crawl times over the last year, but these seem to have settled down now. And from my point of view, these have been minimized as problems by the addition of a backup dial-up account for $3 a month (worth it if you need to rely on your connection being there 24 7).
So, are they OK overall? Saying I have no experience of other DSL suppliers over the last 15 months, and that I rely on my connection totally to do my job well (Perl developer), should give you some idea 
They also don't block ports, which is increasingly becoming an issue to techy users on some larger ISPs.
HTH
cLive ;- )
ps - please note that I can't comment on their service to non-tech savvy users, as I've generally managed to sort configuration/setup issues without prodding them too much.
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Review by rgiles5
Posted: 7.1 years ago
member for 7.1 years, 1 visits, last login: 7.1 years ago
Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
Contract price not specified.
Verizon (ex GTE)
"Ended my DSL nightmares"
"Infinitely better than my telephone company."
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This line is paid for by my employer, so I cannot supply price information. However, back when I signed up, it was certainly competitive.
My DSL service was originally with GTE, and it was a nightmare! That is, dealing with the GTE ISP was a nightmare; if I hadn't had a GTE hardware fellow acting as my advocate, I don't think the service would ever have gotten up and running. For months, the service was terrible -- the DSL was always down, and the ISP was always blaming problems at their end on the hardware people.
Then, I switched to BrandX. DSL wasn't a nightmare anymore. It just worked. There is the occasional outage, but other than that, everything has been just fine. I'm a very heavy user, and an quite happy enough that I plan to stay with Brand X indefinitely.
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Review by We Have Six Feet
Posted: 7.1 years ago
member for 7.1 years, 1 visits, last login: 7.1 years ago
Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
$45 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Verizon
"Friendly people, small company, lots of good will."
"None."
"Good value for money."
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It's nice to deal with real people at a small company. If there's a problem, you're usually talking with the same person until it's resolved; and it always does get resolved. I'm getting close to hoped-for speeds (I have the 768K package.) I'll be sticking with these guys for the foreseeable future.
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