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Review by pmontag 
Posted: 8.6 years ago
member for 8.6 years, 1 visits, last login: 8.6 years ago
 Washington,District Of Columbia,DC
 Business customer
 $124 per month (24 month contract)
 about 90 days
 Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
 "None, so far"
 "extremely difficult to work with"
 "limited choice, recommended by consultant"
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Had good success with existing ISDN, but change to DSL is ongoing nightmare. Very bad response to emails and buck-passing between COVAD and CAIS
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Review by DizzyG
Posted: 8.7 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 6 visits, last login: 8 years ago
Saint Charles,Kane,IL
$45 per month
about 45 days
Ameritech
CLEC party: Ameritech
"when it works it's fast"
"hardly ever works, have to change internet settings hourly"
"as soon as something else is available, we'll all leave around here"
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This is one of the best at being the worst. I have to change my internet settings almost hourly in order to keep working on their unstable network. I'm done at least one day a week. I have to say that this is the worst ISP I've ever had to deal with, I wish that they'd start reading these reviews and see what people really think.
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Review by mikesny
Posted: 8.7 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 8 visits, last login: 8.7 years ago
Washington,District Of Columbia,DC
$100 per month (12 month contract)
about 120 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"provided me DSL service when others said it was impossible"
"Horrible Service, INSANELY slow install time"
"Switching now because I can"
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Hi all,
I ordered CAIS DSL in October 1999. At that time everyone else said that DSL was unavailable in my building. CAIS repeatedly postponed my install date, so the service didn't get up and running until January 2000. Since the line was installed, there have been periodic outages - each time the service goes out its next-to-impossible to get in touch with CAIS. I have stuck with them, however, out of loyalty since they provided me with DSL when others couldn't.
All that changed today - I'm moving apartments within the same building and wanted to move the DSL circut to the new phone hookup in our telephone room. I contacted CAIS - which took me over 2 hours to get someone - who informed me they would have to charge me $250 to do this to send COVAD out again. I told them to go ahead and disconnect my service.
I would STRONGLY recomend to anyone that they explore ALL other options before settling with CAIS.
-Mike
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 Review by Ace_of_Clubs
Posted: 8.8 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 161 visits, last login: 184 days ago
Ridgewood,Queens,NY
$50 per month (12 month contract)
about 45 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"None so far"
"You name it, it is bad"
"I use my dialup when I have something important to pull"
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My 640/128 line reliably does 107/60. That is the maxium either on a single pull or the sum of multiple pulls from large pipes. I live in NYC and all my traffic is routed first to Dallas and then to Chicago adding an extra 3000 miles or so to everything which is nuts. Today the service stahled 90 times in a 24 hour period for 1-2 minutes each time. I am with them almost 2 months now and nothing is getting any better. Tech support went from 24/7 to 12/6 a week after I got connected and always promises the world, but delivers nothing. Billing double charged me for installation, it is listed twice on my credit card statement, but billing says they didnt do it and they dont see it. Looks like I will not be with them for very much more of their poor service, probally going to need to get visa involved.
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Review by bduross
Posted: 8.8 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 10 visits, last login: 8 years ago
Howell,Livingston,MI
Business customer
Contract price not specified. (12 month contract)
about 45 days
Ameritech
CLEC party: Covad
"Sales staff was helpful at the beginning."
"Went through ISP switch with StarNet / Covad to CAIS / Covad. Went terrible. No return phone calls, tech support was morons."
"CAIS bearly lives up to the ratings on dslreports.com, they are by far the worst ISP I have ever seen."
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Went through ISP Switch from Starnet Inc to Cais. CAIS was terrible, they managed to get 2 of my circuits cancelled and then managed to break their ordering system so the lines could not be re-ordered for 2 weeks. No call backs, 3+ hour hold times for tech support, Took 45 days to get 25 circuit's back up and running when this switch was described as a "seamless transition". My experience with CAIS is by far the worst to my memory, I will NEVER refer another customer over to them as they very possibly could experience the same problems I did. I only lost 4 customers as a result but the fact of the matter is that CAIS could be doing a better job.
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Review by NMT3
Posted: 8.8 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 82 visits, last login: 6.3 years ago
Schaumburg,Cook,IL
Contract price not specified.
CLEC party: NorthPoint
"N/A"
"N/A"
"N/A"
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N/A
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Review by nribelin
UPDATED: 8.8 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 298 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Pearl,Rankin,MS
$44 per month
about 3 days
"Easy to order, quick shipping, easy login procedure, smooth ride."
"Working to find the best place for the receiver to sit, wireless is not a 100% reliable link."
"Only been playing with it about 24 hours. Will follow up."
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I ordered 1.5 Mbps up/down stream and so far the best I've had is 1.2 down/950k up, which is really very good for wireless dsl. I'm kind of waiting to see what happens during the next lightening or thunderstorm when there is a lot of static in the air, but I usually stay off the machine during that time anyway.
The install was easy, just plug the cat5 into the nic and the brick and authenticate. No problem.
So far so good, waiting to see what comes of this.
Update: Cancelling service, this is crap....read my reply below.
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Review by The Ranger
Posted: 8.8 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 14 visits, last login: 7 years ago
Naples,Collier,FL
$50 per month
about 5 days
"Have not found any yet. As soon as I do I'll let you know."
"once a month, like clockwork, the server is down"
"This is the worst ISP I've ever had"
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When my apartment complex offered Wireless DSL, I said "Sure, why not". Connection was accomplished within one week. This was a self install of the wireless link. My Horror story began shortly thereafter. 2 weeks after the install I recieved a call from customer support saying they had processed my application, and were sending my wireless box and set-up paperwork out to me. (?) Company didn't know that I was already connected? 2 weeks after this, My computer is unable to find the server.  Server remained down for 4 days. That was in august(?) Each and every month thereafter the server has gone down. Just like clockwork. After about 30 days. KAPUT! I have given up any calls to technical support. Nobody could answer any of my queries as to how long service would be down or what happened. The only response I get is from exasperated customer service reps who come close to shouting that it is I who have to be patient. I DO NOT THINK SO!!!!! My last ISP was JUNO. Who I had for one and a half years. Over that time I had a grand total of two disconnects and not once did I fail to connect. Over the 5-6 months I've been with CAIS, I've had 20-30 days of no service.
In their defence they are the cheapest DSL I've seen, but I need a reliable connection not this BS. Price does not matter, quality does.
Oh yeah, Mail server has been down for 4 days. I can recieve but not send. No telling when this will be corrected. Or if any mail that has been sent to me in this time will still be there.
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Review by netwrkr
UPDATED: 8.8 years ago
member for 9.8 years, 102 visits, last login: 3.1 years ago
Centreville,Fairfax,VA
$120 per month (12 month contract)
about 60 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Covad
"None."
"Horrible Customer Serivce, Long Customer Support Wait Times"
"Look Elsewhere !!!"
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I am actually rescending my previous nice comments about CAIS and posting new ones referring to my troubles getting a customer of mine turned up with CAIS.
CAIS is currently suffering financial problems, and quite possibly will be bankrupt in the near future. With the numerous layoffs they are experiencing, customer service wait times are exceeding 30 - 45 minutes. The technicians (all 5 of them) who answer the telephone are some of the most unqualified I have ever spoken to in my life.
The pre-sales support was non-existant. My sales person was either fired/quit or laid off. The new sales person (Keith) was less than helpful, not returning my calls and untimately responsible for more than a 2 week delay in the DSL order being processed. In addition, Keith spelled my email address wrong, so Verizon & Covad technicians were showing up at my customers house unannounced and normally when they were not home - further delaying the process.
So, the Covad technican comes and goes, without leaving any IP information for me to get this customer up and running. Numerous calls to my sales person Keith went un-returned over the course of 5 business days. In addition, a email requesting this information submitted to dslcare@cais.com is still unanswered after more than 2 weeks.
In the -1- week since the DSL connection was installed, the connection has spent more time down than up. After calling CAIS numerous times to have the issue escalated I finally spoke with Gordon who promised to escalate within Covad and call me back within 15 minutes. I am now still waiting for this call back, despite having called Gordons direct line twice and waiting more than 4 hours. When I did call back that evening, after waiting yet another 45 minutes, I spoke with Johnathan who tells me it is against CAIS policy to call a customer back, and the ticket was closed out. - One word "Awesome!".
The customer service exhibited throughout this company is poor at best and non-existant at worst.
I would like to personnaly thank DSL Tech Gordon (703) 247-6348 for waisting more than 5 hours of my time trying to get my customer's DSL up and running.
Needless to say I am immediately moving my customers to UUNET.
You get what you pay for, and you pay for what you get.
Thomas Petersen
President, Lowspeed Technologies
tom@lowspeed.net
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Review by quzi
Posted: 8.8 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 22 visits, last login: 7.4 years ago
San Diego,San Diego,CA
$10 per month
"fast access"
"no advanced features (VPN, ssh), only basic IP services"
"great for hotel web browsing, awful for doing work back to office network"
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Review from Sheraton Harbor Island, San Diego, CA.
Access speeds are great (looks like 1500/1500). You can do all the basic IP services like web, telnet, ftp, POP/email (outgoing needs to be set at smtp.cais.com), etc.
But when it comes to doing a PPTP/VPN back to the office network, or doing ssh or other advanced IP services, it's just not there.
For roughly $10/day, you can use it if you want fast basic services.
For more advanced IP services, find a hotel using STSN instead of CAIS. I only got roughly 512/512 at the Residence Inn-Downtown San Diego, but at least it's faster than dial-up VPN.
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ARDENT COMMUNICATIONS -- formally known as CAIS
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