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Review by upjakass 
member for 8.2 years, 10 visits, last login: 8.1 years ago
lodged 8.1 years ago
 Riverside,Riverside,CA
 Contract price not specified.  SBC "None" "Customer service" "I'm leaving"
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They provide is low quality or e-mail is very poor and extremely bad, I'm physically disabled and they do not meet all the federal guidelines under section 508 of the federal disabilities act I have notified them what they have not responded.
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Review by KMason
member for 10.9 years, 6 visits, last login: 10.5 years ago
lodged 10.9 years ago
- San Francisco,San Francisco,CA
 Business customer- $159 per month
- (12 month contract)
 about 45 days- SBC
- CLEC party: Rhythms
- "Before Friday had six months of always on service."
- "Install was a nightmare with 3 botched install dates"
- "Suprise suprise... no notification of the company going under."
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Ordered 256K service for 139/month. Add in 4 e-mail accounts at $2 a pop. Router is Cisco 675. Requested and received 16 static IPs. Once I got past the screwed up install dates... DSLNetworks claimed that COVAD cancelled the install date but I was never notified of the change. Then got changed to Rhythms with no notification (it's not a problem, just unexpected) Agree that billing department seemed not to care if I paid my bill. I even called them on three separate months to ask for my bill which is something I never thought I'd have to do. Before last Friday the service was actually quite good for what we use it for. The service was almost always up. Rarely had to reset the Cisco router. All was well and good until they went under. Fortunately I had already started conversations with MegaPath Networks and was in their pipeline to migrate over when DSLNetworks collapsed. Fortunately I listened to my instinct when I had to call DSLNetworks to tell them to bill me.
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Review by Chumley6
member for 11 years, 49 visits, last login: 9.7 years ago
lodged 10.9 years ago
- Bensenville,Dupage,IL
- Business customer
- Contract price not specified.
- Ameritech
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Used to answer the phone"
- "No longer answers phone"
- "Looks like they are dead in the water!"
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All of my DSL Networks customers (we are an ISP who used to resell DSLNetworks) have been down since Friday, and I have yet to speak to someone about it. When I try to call their tech support... I get "You have reached the Technical Support Department of DSL Networks... All representitives are currently busy, please LEAVE A MESSAGE AFTER THE TONE - Beep." I've left a number of messages and have not received a response yet. When trying to connect to ANYONE I get various responses like a quick busy, disconnect, or a reroute to the un-manned tech support answering machine. Luckily we saw this coming when Northpoint turned DSLNetwork's circuits off twice before finally dropping out and when Covad did the same thing (with reason) for non-payment of their accounts. Too bad they fired over 90% of their work force, and my guess is the remaining 10% got a call this weekend that they didn't need to show up to work anymore because there is no one there facilitating any phone calls.
I'm hoping to find out if others are having the same issues. If they did "pull the plug" on their business, we never received notification in advance (surprise - surprise)
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Review by nottlv
member for 12.5 years, 559 visits, last login: 57 days ago
updated 11.2 years ago
- San Francisco,San Francisco,CA
- $359 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 30 days
- SBC
- CLEC party: NorthPoint
- "Install fairly easy"
- "DNS lookups occassionally slow"
- "Good value for business class service"
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Speed: 1.5M SDSL
Router: Flowpoint 2200
8 Static IPs
This is my second experience with a DSL line at the same location. The first was through Rhythms for a 768K SDSL line (install April 1999). I was satisfied with the performance and availability, but decided to check out a few other providers since Rhythms seemed pretty high for increased speed ($400/month for a 1M SDSL; $615 for 2M/1M ADSL). After looking at a few other providers (Zyan, Qwest, DSL.net, Intermedia, Concentric) I decided on DSLnetworks for a few reasons:
(a) the price seemed fairly competitive
(b) I'm in the SOMA area in San Francisco and their headquarters are only two blocks away from me, so I figured that would alleviate any routing problems that some other people complain about
(c) good customer list on their site
I was hoping to pull a simple ISP switch and use my existing install, and at first DSLnetworks told me they could do it. Turns out Rhythms doesn't allow ISP switches (I contacted them directly to find out) so I had to have a new line installed. I had my choice of CLECs at 1.5M--Rhythms ($309), Covad ($379), or NorthPoint ($359). The sales rep recommended NorthPoint (another EssEff-headquartered company) as he thought they had the best local presence.
The NorthPoint install guys were right on time. Install took awhile (3 hours) because of some strange inside wiring. After the wiring was finished I entered the required information into our Firebox firewall and was live.
So far so good. Traceroutes show low latencies, and I'm currently routed over Exodus' network, although I read recently that DSLnetworks signed a deal to use the Level 3 network in the future. The difference between 768K and 1.5M is slightly noticeable for just viewing web pages, but definitely worth it for transferring large files. I haven't had any outages yet (it's only been a month), but DNS lookups seem to lag at times compared to my previous line. I haven't had a need to contact tech support yet (hence no rating), but will report on that if need be.
UPDATE: Service went down on Friday afternoon; called customer service and they said it was a "nationwide problem with Northpoint." Funny, I called a few other people I know with Northpoint access and no one else seemed to be down. Up until this point I had been pretty satisfied with my service, but after reading the messages here it seemed inevitable that DLSnetworks was going under. Since I already had a live Rhythms circuit at the same location from a previous install, I called MegaPath Networks and started an ISP switch to their service; should be ready in 7-10 days.
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Review by laserpointer
member for 11.2 years, 2 visits, last login: 11.2 years ago
lodged 11.2 years ago
- 94130a
- Contract price not specified.
- (12 month contract)
- about 265 days
- SBC
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Company folds easily with no environmental impact."
- "Dishonest and more dishonesty from management (CEO-CFO)"
- "A company structured on"
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Just a few quick words about DSL Solutions, Inc. dba DSLnetworks. From the beginning we all knew lil'lizzy did not have a clue, which would have been fine if she would have shut the &#@* up and sat quietly munching a Girl Scout cookie or something. That would leave the random events leading up to and including an actual DSL installation date in the hands of the new customer care reps., the dedicated COVAD support staff consisting of Gina Why' Bother to be preceded by none other than ySMOKESCREEN'. I honestly don't know how, but I actually witnessed circuits get installed in spite of the opposition of most efforts. I had an incredible experience working with a dynamic group of do'ers ready to make something happen that were all to often mislead with lies and dishonesty from the corporate executive team. Cahcie and lil'homey dedicated far too much to a loosing cause that they cannot ever regain. Live and learn y'all. Don't forget Lizzy next time ya feel the need to slap on some hikers and your short shorts for a run to the deli. Just so everyone knows ... you won't find corporate integrity for sale at the deli.
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Review by FinalConnect1
member for 11.2 years, 71 visits, last login: 8.1 years ago
lodged 11.2 years ago
- Costa Mesa,Orange,CA
- Business customer
- $200 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 40 days
- SBC
- CLEC party: Covad
- "No Redundancy"
- "No Redundancy = BAD"
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Over 12 hours of down time in one sitting- and still counting. There ATM Switch connecting to Covad went down. Any redundancy in the network- sure does not look like it.
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 Review by CylonRed
member for 11.8 years, 7256 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 11.2 years ago
- Dayton,Greene,OH
- $64 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 30 days
- Ameritech
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Great sales people that answer e-mail QUICKLY!"
- "ping times/DNS server problems"
- "Good - but not for the gamer."
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Brian G.
ADSL (actually really RADSL with Covad)
608/128
Modem is a Speedstream 5260
2 static IP addresses ($3.00/ month for second IP)
Speed - after tweaks is very good (from DSLReports)- with fast servers I have gotten 60 KB/s but average around 20-42 KB/s.
Install was a breeze although DSLNetworks did not give me the gatreway address but the Covad tech knew the gateway address.
They do not charge the credit card until the service is up and running with a 30 day trial period.
Only problem is with ping times to my gateway - VERY HIGH. Over 200 ms - no execeptions (but no packet loss).
Starting trace - Aug 25, 2000 19:54:27
Tracing to www.bjorn3d.com [209.15.103.107]....
Hops IP Address RTT(ms)
1 216.186.169.1 232
2 216.186.176.2 232
3 216.34.2.81 230
4 216.34.2.36 232
5 216.32.132.218 234
6 216.33.153.5 233
7 216.32.132.206 235
8 206.132.150.242 235
9 206.132.114.86 280
10 206.132.114.118 281
11 206.57.5.22 282
12 209.15.116.250 280
13 209.15.103.107 282
Host reached
High ping is partially due to Covad's interleaving - trying to find out if they turned off interleaving at my CO (have not gotten an answer from Covad yet). I have e-mailed DSLNetworks 3 times in the last 12 days about the problems (I was also told by the salesman that their nearest POP was Chicago - but I an NOT being routed thru Chicago) and have not gotten but one e-mail. In that mail they said my (R)ADSL was best quality (in other words - too bad) and that I would need to talk to the salesman about my routing. I then reply and said other ISP's are able to get Covad to fix the problem and I did not understand why I would have to talk to the salesperson about the routing. I have never gotten a response from this e-mail - 17 days later - from either tech support or the salesperson.
When I trace Onlineracing.net (I race Nascar3 online) I go to San Jose, to Houston, Tx., then to Baltimore and then to South Carolina - not real efficient routing especially whren they supposedly have a POP in Chicago. I have had worse routings than this to Onlineracing.net.
Suddenly they can't type a response to save themselves - MAJOR disappointment!
If you want great sales and do not care about pings (you are not a gamer) trhen DSLNetworks is fine but since I game somewhat I think I will be changing my ISP after the year is up....... unless things change soon....
UPDATE: I talked to another tech support person about an outage I had and explained my ping/latency problem..... He said Covad would not reprovision my line unless there was a trouble ticket (Earthlink/Mindspring, Voyager.net, Speakeasy has had no problems issueing a TT or getting Covad to reprovision without a TT) but he said if he had to call Covad he would see if they would reprovision the line. So far (after 2 weeks).... NOTHING. He also could not explain why I am being routed thru Santa Clara, Ca. instead of Chicago...
DSLNetworks continues to say that a ping of 200-305 ms (averaging 292 ms)to my gateway is ok.
Talked to another tech over 10 days ago (because I had sent 5 emails showing a tracert and saying the pings were unacceptable) and he still could not explain why I am routed through Santa Clara. I even asked him what the use of a POP in chicago was if I was not going to be routed through it - he said "I dunno".
He said they would get back to me in several days (after I sent in 3 tracerts to servers of their choice) with an answer or resolution. After more than 10 days (going in 13 I think) I have yet to hear anything - even after 2 reminder emails. Pings/latency still sucks as bad as ever.
After a month I still have not gotten an answer as to why my pings are so high. I had an additional problem inteh last 2 weeks or so - I could not get to www.amdzone.com. I wrote tech support and all they said was for me to try and find out if I had been blocked by CAIS.net (where amdzone is hosted. Instead I posted here about my problem and included a tracert and found out (thaks to another poster) that amdzone was resolving to the WRONG address. Apparently they have not updated their DNS servers lately - and I had to find the problem.... They still have not updated their DNS servers after a week.
10/28/00 - finally got a reply to my ping/latency problem:
[i] Covad is doing intrusive testing on their backhauls and we do not have an
ETR as of yet. We will keep you posted when they notify us of their
results. [/i]
11/7/00 - my pings dropped more - down to 110-120 ms from 180-195 ms. I do not know why they dropped - I think Covad has been doing work to their trunk to Chicago.
12/10/00 - After getting my pings down to 109 ms for a few days my pings are going back up to 120-140 ms.
Jan 2001 - DNS servers are still screwed up (I can't get to AMDZone.com from home in the last 5 months) and pings are going up again to 150+ ms. A Covad tech reprovisioned my line to get he 3 or so hops less to the gateway and the latency to the gateway has gone down again - about 110-1120 ms. The Covad tech also noted that my ISP could have called and gotten the same thing done - a tech at DSLNetworks had said that was not possible for him to do.......
Feb 2001 - More DNS problems - www.bjorn3d.com moved web hosts and after 3 weeks I was still rewsolving to the wrong IP address - same problem with AMDZone.com I mailed tech support again proving the DNS problems and have yet to get any response. I also hope that I have successfully e-mailed some of their top leaders including the VP of Customer Care and the CEO with my problems.
Feb. 2001 - Not only did DSLNetworks screw me over (along with all of the other Covad people) but a guy at work who uses DSLNetworks for his di\omain, mail service, and his web pages got the boot also. I guarantee you they have already charged me for February and March (which I am going to dispute) and I am switching to Speakeasy and have already filled out the form to do so.
What was really funny was I got Eric Ogden's attention from my e-mail I sent (above) to thebig wigs. We talked on Wednesday night (2/7/01) and he tried to get me to switchover to Rhythms - I refused and wanted to think abou it. He then asked if I had a backup and when I said no he said that I *really* needed to get one. A half an hour later my lie was dead.......
Thanks DSLNetworks for not caring about me or your other customers that suddenly had their lines go dead. Thanks for your tech support that did not help me - got more help from Covad on the message boards than you folks. Thanks for lying to me when you said you had POP's in Chicago when you KNEW I was getting Covad DSL (they were the only ones providing DSL in my area when I ordered) and you did not have a cross connect with Covad for a POP in Chicago (found this out after 5 e-mails and 5+ months). Thanks for not caring enough about your customers to try and reroute my line so I could get pings in the 110-180 ms range (Covad did that for me)...... good riddance.
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Review by brycenesbitt
member for 11.5 years, 57 visits, last login: 11 days ago
lodged 11.5 years ago
- Berkeley,Alameda,CA
- $56 per month
- SBC
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Billing department so"
- "High ping times. Miserable DNS reliability. Idiots at the wheel."
- "Look elsewhere."
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I had grief with DSL networks at all stages:
1> Installation: Late & botched.
2> Connection speed: Particularly high ping times. So-so throughput.
3> Operation: Constant problems with the DNS servers. Several times I analyzed what was wrong and provided feedback, but the technical people I talked to (including the person who claimed to have set up the system) were not bright enough to clue in. They have set up a chain of systems such that if anything fails, the whole system goes down. It seems like a real shoestring operation there. They kept claiming "all would be solved as soon as they got permission to buy another PC".
Note that I did not even use their DNS for the forward lookups. I was unable to avoid them for the reverse (turning an IP into a domain name). The usual result of a failure was a 4-5 second delay accessing certain web sites and my work accounts.
4> Support: Clueless low wage people with no training.
5> Billing: They have the most primitive and awkward billing system. The good news is they don't notice if you don't pay.
6> Cancellation: Yup, they could not even get this right. They can't find my account to cancel it. I've been trying for months. They falsely want to bill me a cancellation fee (but see #4 above, the person handling my account is of very low intelligence, and easily manipulated).
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Review by yondrboy
(review was emailed from domain sj.znet.com)
lodged 11.5 years ago
- Alameda,Alameda,CA
- Contract price not specified.
- SBC
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Experience taught me patience and self-reliance"
- "Was stood up more times than any bad date"
- ""Roll the bones...""
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Rating
C+ S = Sales rating
F- I = Install Experience
n/a R = Reliability
n/a T = Tech Support
C- SV = Services (Email,DNS,News, etc)
n/a V = Value for Money
This is regarding my experience with the botched install by DSL Networks in
the Bay Area
I am amazed by the positive reviews by users regarding this company. I
must have been an exception when I tried to get my DSL services through DSL
Networks. As you can see, most of ratings are not applicable (n/a). The
reason why is because they gave up on me after 2 months of FIVE NO-Shows
after arranging wiring appointments. After two months of calls to Pacific
Bell, Covad, and the individual coordinating my DSL installation, they
stopped responding to my voice mail and email. Truely disappointing.
This is sad story of what happened. First I was given an appointment to be
present during the Pacific Bell technician wiring procedure. No one showed
up and no one contacted me. When I called my DSL Networks representative,
Nxxxxxx xxxxxxx, he tells me that Pacific Bell has already done the
installation. That was weird--I even looked around the apartment complex
and the surrounding area for their truck that day. I did not spot them.
Then I called Pacific Bell about the installation. After a harrowing
experience of waiting on the phone and being transferred from department to
department, they confirm to me that NO work was done on the line.
I forward this information to my rep, who reschedules another day for the
wiring attempt. Once again, no one showed up. I call DSL Networks and
they inform me that Pacific Bell did the work at the Central Office and
everything was good. Fine, let's schedule the router installation with Covad.
Waiting for the Covad individual, he does not show up, and after calling
Covad and getting through to someone (contacts through a friend of a
friend), I am informed by Covad that the line work by PacBell was
incomplete, and I have to contact DSL Networks for ANOTHER appointment
reschedule.
Okay, I have heard of DSL installation nightmares, so let's give them more
than three strikes. It is now the second month. I email my contact
information to DSL Networks in case of any rescheduling. On the fourth
try, I schedule an appointment with Covad for an installation window
between 3PM to 7 PM. I had verbal and email confirmation regarding the
installation window. When I arrive home at 2:15 PM to prepare for the
installation, there is note from Covad saying that they arrived at about
noon and no one was around for the install. Calling Covad with my order
number, I dig out of them their instructions for a noon to 3PM install.
Now the 3PM to 7PM install sounded strange but their customer service
confirmed that such an installation window did exist for customers. I
don't who was fibbing here, but when I explained the situation to my DSL
Networks rep, the snide response of "Oh well" did not help their position.
That was when I made my complaint loud and clear. My DSL Networks rep then
offers to lower my contract price. When I asked what services came with
it, he responded with Email services, DNS services, and web access.
"What about UseNet newsgroups and webhosting?" I ask.
"Oh those are included with this contract." says DSL Networks
"Fine... I don't care--just get my line up... please."
"If there are problems this time, please call me and I will PERSONALLY come
out there with a technician to get the job done."
Now that sounded like some awesome customer service.
On the fifth scheduled day of installation, guess what? NO ONE showed up.
So I call up my rep and leave numerous voice messages and also sent
numerous emails. NONE of which yielded any replies.
Did he quit the company? I have no idea... and that was when I had enough
of their antics.
I went with a local ISP plan which gave me service through PacWest Telecom.
I told them my story, and they responded with quick service. So fast that
they sent out someone to "ride shotgun" with the Covad technician, and
together we confirm that NO work was done with junction box in my apartment
and there was further work needed to be performed on a satellite junction
box to my unit. With one appointment in less than a week, I am now up and
running WITH all the services that DSL Networks could not provide.
Regards,
Dave.
Who did all the legwork and investigation? What in the world was this
person representing Covad???
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Review by dylancarlson
member for 11.5 years, 14 visits, last login: 8.8 years ago
lodged 11.5 years ago
- New York,New York,NY
- $249 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 30 days
- Verizon
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Install went very well"
- "Customer service (or lack thereof) support@dslnetworks emails get ignored."
- "Expensive for poor customer service and high ping times."
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My install was fast and fairly painless, I credit them for that. I ordered a 384/384 SDSL line, 8 static IPs, with a FlowPoint 2200 from them back in September of 1999. They did it about as fast or faster than anyone could. I got the sense that they were trying to do as much as they could for me. It was a very good experience to start. Today, I am still with them.
But the list of things wrong is long, and it's fallen on deaf ears there. I've been a customer for over 12 months, and I've not been happy because I've paid a lot for the service, and I've gotten very little response and support from DSLNetworks after the initial installation.
1. I run servers, and my own DNS, thus I need the netblock delegated to me. They said, sure, but to this day it has not been done right despite repeated requests to get it fixed.
2. When the system is up, it stays up and works reliably. But when it goes down, the fun begins. I've been down several times in the past year... on an average, down for 2 days. The press pages and so on would lead you to believe that there is proactive monitoring being done. I'm not seeing it. Every single time I have had a problem with my line, I have had to call DSLNetworks to notify them of it -- usually hours after the problem first began. If there is ping monitoring going on, I'm not seeing the activity on the router.
3. Once notified, the technicians seem nice enough and usually promise that they'll keep me notified with status updates. Rarely happens. If I don't stay on top of them, the outage could go longer. It's my belief that they don't have enough people in the NOC to handle the work. But that's not my problem, I pay them to take care of that problem. It must be bad management. I like to believe that the tech people who are there are doing the best they can under the circumstances.
4. Performance has been horrible. My line (I live in New York), goes all the way out to the West Coast before I can hit any internet sites. That typically puts my latency up over 150ms at least, usually 200ms or more.
[root@localhost /]# ping www.nytimes.com
PING www.nytimes.com (208.48.26.200) from localhost : 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 208.48.26.200: icmp_seq=0 ttl=116 time=193.9 ms
64 bytes from 208.48.26.200: icmp_seq=1 ttl=116 time=194.8 ms
64 bytes from 208.48.26.200: icmp_seq=2 ttl=116 time1.6 ms
64 bytes from 208.48.26.200: icmp_seq=3 ttl=116 time=192.7 ms
64 bytes from 208.48.26.200: icmp_seq=4 ttl=116 time=191.5 ms
64 bytes from 208.48.26.200: icmp_seq=5 ttl=116 time=193.8 ms
64 bytes from 208.48.26.200: icmp_seq=6 ttl=116 time=192.6 ms
64 bytes from 208.48.26.200: icmp_seq=7 ttl=116 time=195.1 ms
64 bytes from 208.48.26.200: icmp_seq=8 ttl=116 time=191.8 ms
They offered to switch me to a new backhaul at Covad, which I reluctantly agreed to. It's supposed to cut the latency on the circuit down. We agreed on a time to cutover, but then nobody got back to me. And they have yet to follow up even after I've raised the issue with them on a couple periods of downtime since that time in July.
5. Billing credits. DSLNetworks has verbally agreed to give me credits for downtime on several occasions, but has yet to live up to it. I elected to not send them payment on one month's bill, because that is approximately what they owe me in credits anyway. Someone from their collections dept called me one day to tell me I'm behind on my bill, and I explained to her the situation and never heard back.
6. Tech support absolutely does not get around to the email. Completely and absolutely. It goes to the bitbucket somewhere. I've gotten less friendly in my emails these days, but it's only because I thought the nice approach wasn't working. The terse approach does't either. So be prepared to sit in the phone queue for a half hour to get anything done.
If they could fix my problems, apologize and atone for past mistakes, monitor my line, and drop the monthly router fee (the thing is going to pay for itself twice soon), I'd be interested in staying on for a reasonable rate.
But at this juncture, my experience has not been that positive, and it's not improving. I will be looking at other ISPs, someone who has a better track-record of delivering a premium service. It's disconcerting when you pay for a business-class service and you're getting worse than consumer-grade performance. The only difference is, I have 8 IPs.
I don't play games but I run SSH, Telnet and other latency-sensitive services, and I need the latency to be minimal. I paid for a business-class service, and I'd expect it to be better than some kid's Bell Atlantic $60/mo service down the hall. Give me a break.
Here in NY I could get a full T1 with 16 IPs for $500/mo. That's nearly 4 times the bandwidth, lowest possible latency, and a federally mandated QoS as opposed to what I'm getting right now. I guarantee that T1 would stay up a lot more than this DSL line.
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1/15/01: Working with them on resolution on these issues. Will post the outcome of our conversations.
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