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 Review by pixelpirate 
UPDATED: 6.7 years ago
member for 8.5 years, 1995 visits, last login: 3 days ago
 Castaic,Los Angeles,CA
 $49 per month (12 month contract)
 about 8 days
 SBC
CLEC party: SBC
 "Easy to switch from prior service; plug-N-go!"
 "Bargain rate ($39) doesn't apply to static IPs"
 "Great, so far!"
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- 14 FEB 2003 UPDATE -
Whew! DSL was turned on in about a week. Yay DSLX! So far, no drops, no problems.
- 24 JAN 2003 UPDATE -
Okay, I'm in Limbo. DTV is shut off -- waiting for DSLX to pick it up. Ho... hum.
Here's my "Good/Bad/Bottom Line" from DirectTV DSL before I change it to DSL Extreme:
Good Points: FINALLY things seem stable
Bad Points: 72 days until I was online; 6 months of sporadic outages
Bottom Line: Gradual improvement, if you're willing to wait
- 13 JAN 2003 UPDATE -
Ahhh, DirecTV closing its doors. Transferring to DSL Extreme which, so far, is quite receptive to us DTV orphans. The order is in, and I'm just waiting for a connection date. We'll see how things go!
- 20 MAR 2002 UPDATE -
In the past 2 months or so, I've experienced only 2 or 3 "whole day" outages, where I come home from work and can't get any DSL to work, even after rebooting the gateway. A handful of times I've had to reboot the gateway in order to re-sync. Download/Upload varies from 1280/120 to 950/80.
I'm slightly upgrading my opinion of DirecTV DSL, as no long-term outages have occurred as of late. *knock on wood*
Advice: Run the TWEAK TEST and correct any problems with Dr. TCP before assuming the ISP is the culprit.
- ORIGINAL REVIEW -
Ordered Feb. 26, 2001. Received modem April 10. Didn't work until May 9. Sporadic outages until middle of August. Now (middle of September) things seem stable and zippy. Finally.
Originally, I was sent a modem when the work was not completed. Although tech support was very polite, they were more-or-less worthless and kept filling out mystery "trouble tickets" that disappeared when sent to PacBell. After complaining enough, I eventually worked up the "tier" and got hold of a couple of competent people who took care of the job. A month later, I had DSL.
A few weeks later, things were up and down. After more complaints, they finally got their hardware fixed in the middle of August sometime. I've had no problems since, and my connect rate is about 1.2Mbps download.
To be fair, I should disclose the following: I believe the ISP is plagued by growing pains, but is getting better. Slowly.
I originally placed my order with Telocity apparently before they were bought out by DirecTV DSL. I received my Telocity equipment, but no service. During a following month of no service, I received letters and e-mail from DirecTV about the buyout. Eventually they got me running, but then things were up and down for a while. Then they send a letter about raising the price $10/mo. (Not a good PR move.) In August, DNS died for a few days. This is (I assume) when they were bought out by Hughes, who probably upgraded the equipment??
Currently, I have no problems (for about 4 weeks now!), but I reserve my full comment until after a few months go by under the new regime.
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 Review by BoteMan
UPDATED: 6.7 years ago
member for 7 years, 48 visits, last login: 215 days ago
Fort Lauderdale,Broward,FL
$50 per month (month by month)
about 350 days
BellSouth
CLEC party: BellSouth
"Rock-solid connectivity, after initial trouble cleared"
"Support not thorough, billing dept. dead"
"If you push them to solve problems, it's a great offering"
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I ordered Telocity ADSL service in November 2000. The package arrived as expected and after the usual bumps in the road getting things configured, it worked...or so I thought.
The connection would not stay connected, but since I had to go out of town for the holidays I figured my trouble report and tech support's message that a bad card in the c.o. had been fixed would mean smooth sailing for me.
Wrong. I returned after the New Year to find that the connection would fail any time I uploaded anything substantial, which meant that text e-mail would transmit fine, but photos or sound files or anything larger than the smallest file would cause the connection to fail. This required a power-cycle reset of the modem to re-establish the connection.
Numerous attempts to repair this with tech. support yielded some hope, but no results. I was doing a lot of traveling at the time and simply could not babysit my DSL modem, so in between trips I would put up with simply exchanging e-mail faster than dial-up.
I tried refusing the charges for Telocity on my mothly statement, thinking that would get their attention. It did not.
A number of months later, I finally had enough time on my hands to force the issue. I called tech support, fought my way through to the next level, who at long last tried the only remaining obvious solution: a replacement modem.
I installed the replacement and shipped the old one back and it has been rock-stable ever since. Why they couldn't have taken this step earlier in the process when it became apparent is beyond me. Instead, they squandered yet more tech support time and customer good will, which certainly cost them more than the price of the unit and shipping charges.
Nonetheless, I am not about to upset the apple cart. It works great now and I am sticking with it.
I will update with the all-important speed reports when available. As I recall from several months ago, it was not as fast as the speed demons demand, but within acceptable limits.
*****
UPDATE 2003.01.09
Oh well, Telocity went belly-up so I am switching to Speakeasy, which is scheduled for turn-up tomorrow.
*****
UPDATE 2003.02.13
DirecTV (without the "Internet" at the end of the name) is now hounding me for money for the service beyond when I switched to Speakeasy and therefore left their network. Some useless person left me voice mail to call her at 1-866-544-8416, which is answered by yet another useless person who asks boiler-plate questions without any knowledge that their Internet company went 10-7. These folks are clueless!
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 Review by justbits
Posted: 6.8 years ago
member for 6.8 years, 2241 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Chicago,Cook,IL
$53 per month (month by month)
about 12 days
Ameritech
CLEC party: WorldCom
"Ok advanced technical support... if you knew how to troubleshoot non-trivial technical problems."
"To troubleshoot real problems, you need to do it yourself and have their techies access and coordinatethe stuff you cant."
"Cheap. Static IP was great. No PPPoE overhead! Never seemed to slow down at peek times of day."
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Even though DirecTV DSL is going out of business, I felt it was necessary to spout off about how great it is. I started off with Telocity, with a Rhythms SDSL line. When Rhythms went out of business, WorldCom took ownership of my SDSL circuit. Then, when Telocity was bought by DirecTV DSL, they continued to maintain my SDSL circuit.
In the beginning, I ordered DSL from Telocity. The regular package, $49.99+tax/mo. I was happy to learn that they were providing me with SDSL, raw-Ethernet bridging (no PPPoE crap), a static IP and a free modem!
The order/install process was simple. The only problem during installation was that the Rhythm's dude drilled an extra poorly placed hole in the back of my house.  The home equipment was the standard Telocity brick in the beginning, which was then upgraded to a X2 when DirecTV took over.
Overall, the Internet service was awesome! At 12,000+ ft from the CO, I am getting 784kbps SDSL... and have always been very close to getting 1Mbps. Even at this late stage in the game (Feb 12), the line is still up and performing at full bandwidth.
There were probably a total of 3 Internet routing outages that I called in an incident on... but those were 1-8 hour outages. That was acceptable to me.
The only major problem I ever had was a 4 week period where Ameritech (now SBC) failed to accept fault for a wiring problem with my SDSL line. The problem occurred after a storm went through the area. I started with a incident report to DirecTV DSL... they had Ameritech switch me to a different dry pair because there was "a short in the existing pair." Then the line failed to sustain 784kpbs reliably, so WorldCom kept bumping my line speed down til it reached 384kbps... but it still would randomly drop connection. After writing some scripts to log downtime and bandwidth-sync-rates, I noticed what looked like a daily call pattern by one of my neighbors. I presented the data to DirecTV DSL with the hope that they could pass it on WorldCom, which would pass it on to Ameritech... so that Ameritech to coorelate it with a customer's phone activity. That never happened, but my data did prove that my connection was still very unreliable. In the meantime, Ameritech kept blaming WorldCom's office equipment. We tried three different SDSL modem firmware revisions. None fixed the problem. It took lots of phone calls, lots of management and troubleshooting on my behalf, and lots of slow unreliable DSL service to prove that Ameritech still hadn't given me a clean dry pair that could again sustain 784kpbs. Finally, after a customer-CLEC-ILEC meeting behind my house one day (very cool to have both site technicians in one place) and two more complete pair switches by Ameritech between my house and the CO, the line regained 784kpbs quality!
That month of poor quality DSL felt like a longer duration. In the end, I was only told that the problem was likely all because of a wiring problem at my neighborhood breakout box. Possibly from clumsy wiring, or a lightning-struck batch of wires. My favorite quote from Ameritech was "Your line is within tolerance"... sure maybe for low-speed-noisy ADSL & voice, but not SDSL!
Therefore, it seems like you need to be your own troubleshooter and manager in order to get anything done when it regards DSL service which involves different ISPs, CLECs & ILECs.
I'll finish up again by saying that I wish that DirecTV DSL were still in business for the long run. I would have gladly paid $10 or $20 more per month to keep my SDSL 784 line with static IP address! I would have been extremely happy if WorldCom would have offered to take over my line directly, but instead, my only options were cable, ADSL, or really freakin expensive business class SDSL!
I'm currently getting 784/128 ADSL+PPPoE+dynamic with SBC for $35/mo. I hope to get a speed increase soon, to make up for the lower upload speed and lack of a static IP. 
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 Review by Tony
UPDATED: 6.8 years ago
member for 7.8 years, 2506 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Natrona Heights,Allegheny,PA
$37 per month (12 month contract)
about 20 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Verizon
"Very, reliable."
"I hope I don't have to call tech support ever."
"The best bang for my buck. It gets the job done."
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The Directv DSL deal is behind me and Verizon is getting the job done now. It wasn't easy getting it running but I guess it could have been worse. When I first caught wind of the business failure I contact a few other dsl providers in m area and they couldn't even come close to the price that Verizon is offering. $0.00 month number 1 $29.99 month 2-6 and $49.99 thereafter. Averaging $37.50 per month for 768/128, not too shabby, good enough for my home account. I am also working on the veriations(sp?) package for an additional $15.00 off a month. So that's the price I am paying. I spoke to three different groups of people at Verizon. 1) The inside sales group who initiated the order 2) Tech support to help with the installation 3) The people who ship the hardware.
1) The inside sales people were absolutely fantastic and you could tell that they either were getting compensated well or that just cared about their job. They get an atta boy.
2) Tech support stinks. Not enough bodies to answer the phone plain and simple.
3) The reason I had to call the hardware shippers is because the package that presumably contained my DSL modem and other trash turned out to be a mousepad. SO I gave them a call and they shipped the correct package UPS red
The details are getting sketchy but I do believe I was down for about 36 hours, but I think it may have been my fault, something with the dialup network adapter wasn't configured properly and tech support had to fix it. I didn't get a chance to talk to tech support because I was actually busy at work that day and my wife handled it. She was happy it was fixed but kinda pissed off for being on hold for 45 minutes.
The binaries are great compared to Directv. Unlimited download with about an 8 day retention. My dynmaic IP address has not changed in three weeks. I have a router taking care of the PPPoe for me. Okay thats all for now.
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 Review by jinjimbob
UPDATED: 6.8 years ago
member for 8 years, 3355 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Corona,Riverside,CA
$49 per month (12 month contract)
about 22 days
SBC
"Fast, low pings, nice web tools"
"Took longer than I had hoped to get installed"
"Superb"
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I get speeds of 1300/110 from the »lax.speakeasy.net pop
I only use usenet for reading, so I'm not really concered with the 128Kbp cap, apart from when you download the news server group names.
Took about 10 minutes to read the manual, install a few filters around the house, install the software, let the gateway do its thing and a few pc reboots. I already had an ethernet card installed.
Its nice that they let you have one dns entry, allowing you to forward a domain name to your web space.
$19.99 for the first 3 months, $24.99 setup fee for shipping the gateway, $49.99 per month there after. I could've got ATT cable for $36 if I supplied the cable modem($47 leased), but I thought this would be better, plus no wires had to be installed. I will be hooking it to my LinkSys DSL/Cable router. I might play with using an email server seeing as they give you a static IP, which is nice.
The gateway is not mine, but I like that, if it ever breaks, they send me a new one. I've read problems with broken Earthlink modems over a year old, forcing you to buy a new one . .?
The gateway diagnostic screens are very informative.
It shows:
ATM Uplink Rate (bps) 163664
ATM Downlink Rate (bps) 1572616
Haven't some people got the 384Kbp upload speed, can I get that? I assume I have the 1.5Mbps/128Kbps on my Pac Bell line.
I urge people who want to sign up for DirectvDsl to sign up through the red cross link, I did.
»www.directvdsl.com/redcross
For every subscriber generated through the Refer a Friend Relief Program through 12/31/01, DIRECTV Broadband, Inc. will donate $100 to the American Red Cross.
The web status screen that shows you how your order is going it halfway ok, it was a little messed up at first, showing no order being processed, even though there was. They should email aswell to make it clear.
I haven't used tech support, but if it is as good as the simple to follow manual, I assume it can't be bad.
------
They do not refund your money and make it hard to even contact them.
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Review by jlanthripp4
UPDATED: 6.8 years ago
member for 8.5 years, 7 visits, last login: 6.2 years ago
Smyrna,Cobb,GA
$49 per month
about 40 days
BellSouth
"Ethernet connection, DHCP assignment of static IP - works with linux (when it works)"
"Down 1/2 the time & Support = 1 hour+ on hold to talk with clueless rep"
"If you can't get cable modem or ANY other DSL provider, then toss a coin to decide between 28.8k dialup and DirecTV"
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Finally got Telocity DSL back in late April after ordering in early March. Plugged it in, followed the directions in the pamphlet they call a manual. No go.
After 3 calls over a period of 2 weeks, they finally figured out that the BellSouth guy had gotten the polarity reversed when he hooked it up. They switched the wires and I was up and going at just a hair under 1.5 megabits/sec downstream and 256kbps upstream. That is, for a few days...
Ever since then, I've had *maybe* 3 or 4 periods of uptime greater than 2 days. If the weatherman says the word "rain" the DSL dies for a few hours out of fear. A plane lands at Dobbins AFB and it's down for a few minutes at least.
I had the same trouble ticket number open for about 2 months, until DirecTV took over Telocity. I'd normally send an email to support when the DSL came back up after it was down...when DirecTV took over, I ceased getting replies (I later found out they were sending automated replies to an email address I had *BEFORE* I got DSL)
Sometimes I get lucky and go a day or 2 without an outage. Most days, though, I start my web browsing session by rebooting the "Telocity Gateway" box hanging on my wall at least once. I call the support number and sit on hold until it comes back up.
In fact, it just came back up while I was on hold a little while ago. While I was on hold, I opened a 276-page Word 2000 document on a Pentium 233MMX PC, added 112 chapter numbers, changed fonts a few times and saved it, played Age of Empires II for a while, cooked and ate a hot dog with chili (I used canned chili, but boiled the dog the old fashioned way...), and recompiled the kernel on my Linux machine - a Cyrix 166 with 80 megs. At the end of all this, they ran a couple of tests and said it looked okay to them..."Must be something in the line on your end" - to which my response is, "Well then shouldn't you either come check out the line, or have BellSouth check it out?" That doesn't seem to fit into their view of the world...
Hopefully I'll soon be moving to someplace where I can get cable modem. I'm at the frayed ends of my rope with DirecTV, to the point where a 14.4k modem is looking fairly attractive...
UPDATE: I should have updated this long ago, but here goes...
About a month or 2 after I posted the initial review, DirecTV DSL replaced my modem and had BellSouth perform some kind of arcane ritual regarding the circuit. Things improved dramatically, to where I only had to power-cycle the wall-box about once a month or so. Then the news servers went to hell in a tattered handbasket. C'est la vie. Then, a year later, they went nipples-skyward, kicked the bucket, bit the dust, and began pushing up daisies.
Watch for a thorough shredding of SpeakEasy in my next review - I just got their service and thus far, I'm far from impressed with anything of theirs apart from the support personnel.
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Review by blackjack29
UPDATED: 6.8 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 57 visits, last login: 3.8 years ago
Memphis,Shelby,TN
$49 per month (12 month contract)
about 3 days
BellSouth
CLEC party: BellSouth
"Fast - (after a speed test on dsl.com) promt delivery"
"No Static IP"
"Easy setup (no tech support for router)"
| Pre Sales information:
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Ordered service online, 3 days later it was at my door. Equipment & Installation charges:
Service Activation Charge: $50
Modem Charge: $99.95
Shipping and Handling Charge: $14.95
Total Equipment and Installation Charges: $164.90
A rebate offer for $99 Credit for the Westell 2100 modem made equipment cost $0. Also offered was a FastAccess DSL $50 cash back rebate, and for transfer of my service from DirecTV (static IP) to FastAccess DSL another rebate was offered for $50 to take care of the service activation charge. Ok so I only paid for the shipping $14.95.
I got no support from the bellsouth tech department on hooking up my Linksys router to the Westell 2100 (don't even try they won't tell), but quickly came back to this site to find out Bellsouth uses a PPPoE with dynamic IP address also from the Bellsouth forum got all my answers for a easy hook up.
What eles can I say, smooth ride!
Bye Bye Telocity/DirecTV you served me very well once direct took over and I hate to see you go.
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 Review by treefrogg43130
UPDATED: 6.8 years ago
member for 9.1 years, 3457 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
Lancaster,Fairfield,OH
$49 per month
about 20 days
Ameritech
CLEC party: Rhythms
"Static IP,"
"routing problems, so far only minor outages"
"Wait and see"
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Joined in September and everything went better than expected. Speed has been 700+ up and down except for the last 2 weeks or so. I have not had the mail problems that others talk about and use it daily. I get minor outages from 10 mins to an hour sometimes. Not enough problems to switch but will have to wait and see.>>>>>UPDATE>>>>>They no longer offer service in this area. Rhythms went bankrupt.
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 Review by outtherenost
UPDATED: 6.8 years ago
member for 8.5 years, 3393 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Corona,Riverside,CA
$49 per month (12 month contract)
about 35 days
Trivergent
CLEC party: SBC
"I had a problem, at first, and it got fixxed."
"It didn't work perfectly right off the bat. Oh well"
"If it keeps working reliably I don't see any problems. Way better than IDSL"
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Some of you may recognize me from the forums and I waited a while before writing this review because I didn't want it come back and bite me.
After my loop got set up it was only a couple days till my modem arrived. Once the config downloaded and I was connected I thought all was well. Little did I know that I was in for 1 week of pure frustration.
About 3-4 hours after the config was set up I lost connection, both lights were steady green but no internet. So i called DTV they started a trouble ticket and the very next day it was up again. Well a few hours later, down again. You get the idea. This went on 3-4 times before I was finally hooked up with ASI and provided a direct number to the guy that would be handling my case. They tell me there is a bad ATM that is effecting me and a handfull of other people and that the problem should be fixxed in a couple days but it could also be a bad card in the RT so he was going to have PacBell change that also. Well in the process of screwing with the ATM and the RT I lost sync. This had me worried cause I am on a RT that is very close to my home. So ASI said they had to send someone out. The guy came out on a Saturday and after about an hour and 3 attempts to reboot the card in the RT remotely my line finally came up and I am happy to report has not gone down (knock-on-wood) since.
My speeds have been what I expected 1200/130 and very stable. I had a IDSL line with Covad before that went down only for a couple hours in the year and a half I had it so my initial experiance had me a little worried but I knew if I remained patient the problem would get worked out. Since the majority of the work is done by the telco I honestly believe I would have had the same problem regardless which ISP i would have chosen so I can't blame DTV too much. I did get a free month of service and the fact that they actually answer the phone when you call is a major plus. The tech also said that if I wanted my line could handle a 6mbit download for about $180.00 bucks a month.
For right now I am going down the middle in ratings. If the service keeps up I will come back and adjust a few things but for right know DTV has delivered for me and I am happy to have them as my ISP.
***Update 6/21/2002***
Still going strong. Without an outage. I'm feeling pretty good about my choice.
Thanks for reading
-----------------------------------------
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Review by duvallg
UPDATED: 6.8 years ago
member for 7.5 years, 104 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago
Decatur,Dekalb,GA
$49 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
BellSouth
"Solid support, fast speeds, quick install, good deal! STATIC IP!"
"Uhm, they're closed?"
"Pretty damned sad to see them go."
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Sad to see them go, really, as they were the only game in town which offered a sensible rate for DSL + Static IP. But I guess some business models are just a tad unprofitable.
---
Not much to say. Got in on the $29.99/3 months deal. REceived package in only about 7 days, installed REAL quick, 1.3mbps speed, altogether fast ordering process (although BellSouth did mess up a little in the beginning in provisioning my new phone number, I wish i hadn't had to re-order from scratch through DirecTV DSL - minor nitpick), excellent phone support... I'm truly pleased.
The only real downer is the USENET binary limitations.
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DIRECTV DSL (TM) (ISP Closed)
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