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Review by Packhead 
UPDATED: 3.4 years ago
member for 7.6 years, 812 visits, last login: 145 days ago
 Crown Point,Lake,IN
 $34 per month (6 month contract)
 Ameritech
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Review by HAMMGB
UPDATED: 5.5 years ago
member for 9 years, 348 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago
West Bend,Washington,WI
$49 per month
 about 60 days
CLEC party: Rhythms
 "GREAT DOWNLOAD AND UPLOAD SPEEDS."
 "ALWAYS UPDATING."
 "SPEED PROBLEMS STYLE AWAY!!!!!"
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DSLREPORTS MEMBERS,
There service has gone down hill and rumor has it they are going out of business. Get out fast!!
HAMMGB
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Review by muze22
UPDATED: 6 years ago
member for 8.3 years, 283 visits, last login: 11 days ago
Tulsa,Tulsa,OK
$49 per month (2 month contract)
about 45 days
Southwestern Bell
CLEC party: Covad
"Still looking for some"
"Modem overpricing; 2Wire"
"Go to Cox"
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Well, I took the plunge and switched to SBC when DirectDSL went out in Feb. Been a total pain ever since.
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 Review by BriGuy89
UPDATED: 6.4 years ago
member for 8.5 years, 2003 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Yorktown Heights,Westchester,NY
$29 per month
Verizon
CLEC party: Verizon
"Free SDSL wiring of my house; no long-term contract"
"Ping-pong between ADSL-SDSL-ADSL; changed Ts&Cs; used NorthPoint"
"Don't even consider"
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I ordered service in February 2001 from an online promotion at $39.95 per month. Without notice, that was raised to the "standard" $49.95 per month. I was not in the promotional area, according to Telocity, although the billing rep could not tell me what parts of the country were eligible.
Telocity first told me I'd be getting ADSL but then switched me to an SDSL connection via NorthPoint, despite my reservations and expressed desire not to use a company in bankruptcy. So after a week waiting to test my line for ADSL, I waited another two weeks for an SDSL install to the network interface box. Then the next step, interior wiring, never occurred because AT&T bought and shut down NorthPoint's network.
I (mistakenly) trusted Telocity and its claims that I would have service through it in less time than it would take for me to start over with another provider. At this point, I was told Verizon would be my provider -- back to ADSL again -- and I'd be billed $49.95 per month. When I called billing to say that Verizon charges $39.95 per month for the same service, and asked whether Telocity matches competitors' prices, I was told by a rep "no -- leave if you want; I can't do anything about it and don't care because I still get a paycheck."
At this point I'd racked up three months of free service credits, so I decided to stick it through. Another three weeks passed with no action; calls to check on line activation continually showed my order as "just days away from being implemented." Telocity squarely blamed Verizon for implementation delays.
Then on a Saturday afternoon, I got a call from a Telocity rep saying that I was being dropped as a customer. Apparently, blaming Verizon for service delays was not entirely true: Telocity could not secure a contract through Verizon for my area, even though they'd been telling customers like me that the provisioning aspect through Verizon was completed. (I'm less than a mile from the CO, BTW.)
Now I'm with Covad (via Earthlink). Self-install kit comes this week. Turning on ADSL took less than a week from initial order. (I know the exact time because I was trying to use the line at the time ADSL was being turned on!) I'll review once I've taken a test drive.
Although the reseller experience was horrid through Telocity, I went that way again because Verizon's the only other option, and the price/performance through Earthlink via Covad is much better than Verizon, which I consider provider of last resort.
All I got out of this was free SDSL wiring to my network interface box. Telocity demonstrated total ineptitude in its ability to provide service. Its right hand had no clue what the left was doing. Tech support reps were best able to peer into the internal systems and provide truthful information; customer service reps I dealt with could not do so.
My recommendation: Stay far away until GM/Hughes installs its own management team and can actually run this operation as a business. However, if Hughes bought Telocity soley as a loss leader to upgrade people to DirectPC and DirectTV, then things will likely only get worse.
If still seriously considering Telocity, press for real information about how Telocity handled the NorthPoint debacle -- number of customers lost, how long it took to re-provision customers, new provider partners added to its network since NorthPoint's network went down, changes in its SLAs, etc. How well it can answer these and other relevant questions will give you an idea of how well it can respond to such a challenge in the future.
If the quality of its internal service capabilities only matched the quality of the PR job Telocity did after NorthPoint went down, I'd have been up and running already through Telocity.
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Review by dave34733
UPDATED: 6.4 years ago
member for 8.4 years, 3 visits, last login: 6.4 years ago
New York,New York,NY
$59 per month
about 147 days
CLEC party: Verizon
"when it works (rarely) it's great"
"it usually doesn't work, tech support is inept to moronic when available - their billing department is a joke"
"don't use them. for anything."
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It took them three months to figure out that I needed to change local telcos to allow them to connect me. During that time I heard all manner of excuses, nonsense and the rare technician who said he had no idea what the problem was.
I was connected for exactly two days when the service went down, for no apparent reason. The first tech accurately told me that it would probably take ten days to get a repair ticket through their system. It didn't matter what the problem was. Astonishing.
When I complained that the service, once restored, appeared to be running more slowly than a 14.4 dialup, the service tech ran tests, and said, oh, you're on an overcrowded router. I asked why, and what it would take to get me moved to a not overcrowded router. He said he didn't know why, but that I couldn't be moved without an order from a senior executive.
I started calling telocity execs.
After multiple calls, I was assigned a priority switch, and wham! The service worked like a charm. For about a week.
Then it started breaking down. Packet loss issues, server issues, all sorts of stuff. Customer service tried switching my search pattern, which fixed nothing. As mysteriously as the problem arrived, two days later it disappeared - reappearing intermittently for a few weeks. It started taking up to 45 minutes of hold time to reach customer service.
Then, ten days ago, in the middle of the day, service went down. Every day I called. Every day I was given a different excuse. It was a network problem. It was a Verizon problem. It was a screw up in customer service. They'd forgotten to tell Verizon to fix it. Each excuse was accompanied by a 30 minute on hold experience.
Finally, tonight, a tech told me they'd discovered that when they upgraded their main server on the day my service went out, a number of customers had been knocked off line, because of inaccurate data that had been fed into their computers. He promised a 24-48 hour fix.
Three days later, I started calling again. After evasions, promises, nonsense and two days passed, I got a customer service rep who actually tried to do work. At my request she pestered a supervisor who, predictably did nothing. She, however, got a level three tech on it, who took ten minutes and fixed the problem.
Then I called billing for a credit - service had been down half a month. After more than an hour on hold, they said, leave a message, we'll call you back in a under 48 hours. I did. They didn't.
I started e-mailing. Their replies came after a day or so, and were unbelievably arrogant and moronic. First they demanded my trouble ticket number (which was on their system, and which I didn't know - we'd used my DSL number as the reference). I told them it was on their system. They responded that they couldn't issue me a credit because the trouble ticket is still open. Mind you, this is three days after service has been restored.
They told me to contact them within 15 days of the ticket being closed. Like I can tell when those morons get around to closing the ticket???
I reiterate - NEVER use these guys. They're pathetic, dishonest and inept... a trifecta of scuminess no one should ever have to bear.
Oh, and throughout this entire experience, they've been billing me at full rates. You can't reach their billing department by phone. Ever. They don't answer e-mail. They don't respond to messages.
In short, they suck. Anyone considering Telocity/DirectTV service should stop now, and find another provider.
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Review by JJV
UPDATED: 6.5 years ago
member for 8.6 years, 3623 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
Seattle,King,WA
$49 per month (month by month)
Covad
CLEC party: Covad
"It worked for a couple days"
"its not working now"
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I hope they get this sucker workin cause internet over my cell phone is kinda weird
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 Review by Lloydr
UPDATED: 6.6 years ago
member for 8 years, 2023 visits, last login: 98 days ago
Milton,Santa Rosa,FL
$49 per month (12 month contract)
about 12 days
BellSouth
CLEC party: BellSouth
"fast service, easy install, free equipment, no activation fee"
"none so far"
"directv dsl is running great so far!"
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so far directv dsl has been great with speeds of 1198/220 steadily and it only took about 10 minutes to setup and install the software.... later on i will be running CAT 5 straight from the phone box to the gateway to see what kinds of speed i might get.....so far i haven't had to talk with tech support b/c i haven't had ANY problems yet.....l8er
ARGGGGGG lol dead isp.....be on megapath in another 3 or 4 days probaly lol....kets jus see how much downtime we have lol, lata
MEGAPATH NOW!!! WOOT!
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Review by AKspike
Posted: 6.6 years ago
member for 6.6 years, 0 visits, last login: 6.6 years ago
Temecula,Riverside,CA
Contract price not specified. (12 month contract)
about 14 days
"Their aren't any."
"They lied, it's slow, and I might as well have dial up and not a huge dish!"
"The dish itself is HUGE & unsightly and it is NOT worth the money."
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First, I only ordered this because my husband and I do a great deal of work from home and need "fast" internet access. The ONLY thing available in our area at this time is satellite broadband. We have been promised cable broadband by our local cable company (Adelphia - another problematic company), but nothing yet. Also, the local phone company still doesn't have DSL. We were stuck...
I purchased the "no deposit for equipment" package at $99/month for 12 months. Othewise I would have had to pay $350-400 for equipment, then $59/month for 12 months. When the installers arrived (after repeated phone calls for an appointment), they bought out a huge dish - much larger than they saidin their sales pitch. I was told it was "not much bigger than a standard TV dish" when in fact it is about 4 times the size and 10 times the weight. I was also informed that their might be extra charges for a "non-standard" installation, mileage, and the like, but the sales person couldn't detail the amounts until the installer saw the location. What a joke. In any case, the installers got everything set up outside, but left before my computer had been completely set up (which they are not supposed to do) because they were running late for another appointment! I was told to call technical support if I "had any trouble". I thought they were joking - they weren't. The phone number the idiot installer gave me was an "installer only" number, so I could not access it. Hours later after calls to the installer's company and their parent company, then calls to Direcway, I finally got through to Direcway people who then had to transfer me to technical support for another 20 minute hold. When it was finally resolved, I was able to set up my e-mail (another hour long process on the phone with the technical support guy!!) and it's been about the same ever since. Just TRY to get ahold of someone at their 800 phone number. You're in for a looooong wait.
In any case, the latency is horrendous, e-mail and Internet browers are incredibly slow, I get mail bounced back to me sent to perfecly good e-mail addresses, people sending mail get theirs bounced back, and I have never in my life gotten so much spam. I can hardly keep up with it. I can hardly believe that the internet sale of Viagra and Viagra-like products is so profitable on the internet, but that appears to be the extent of the e-mails. It has been a very bad experience from all aspects of this purchase and I regret it completely.
Overall, it was a very BAD deal that the company clearly misrepresented. I never would have purchased it had I know the enormous drawbacks and the problems I would have had. I may as well have dial up. At least it's cheaper for the hassle!
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Review by tomredden
UPDATED: 6.8 years ago
member for 9.2 years, 2222 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Cornelius,Mecklenburg,NC
$50 per month (12 month contract)
about 12 days
BellSouth
CLEC party: BellSouth
"they closed"
"they closed"
"they closed"
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My broadband connection was prestige/adelphia cable prior to this change to DirectDSL. When the cable internet connection was functioning, the speed was almost always above 2000... that is when it was working. As such, I became dissatisfied and decided to try DSL in spite of the extra $20/mth in cost.
I placed a call to order on Sunday. The next Friday, received an email saying that BellSouth had completed the line setup and the equipment was being shipped. The equipment arrived on Monday as I was leaving town for the week. Upon return, I connected the 3 cables and loaded the software and I was up and running.
I have a small network in the house so over the next couple days, I found the manual to the DLink wireless router, refreshed my memory on setup, logged onto the DirectDSL site to get the IP address for the submask, gateways, etc. I then logged onto the router, loaded the IP addresses and cloned the MAC address of the PC and immediately connected to the DSL through the DLink 713P router.
I considered my DSL choices to be DirectDSL or BellSouth (the local teleco). I selected DirectDSL because they permit and encourage the use of small home networks where as BellSouth does not support.
I've started monitoring the new connection with DSLReports. So far the ping times are very consistent at around 60 ms and almost no latency. Speed test have been very consistent with an average down/up of 1250/120... which is about half of the speed of cable but dependable and consistent.
Net... chose DSL over cable if you don't want to get frustrated about connecting when you want to. I am happy with DirectDSL... at least so far in this process.
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Review by JohnnyCNote
Posted: 6.9 years ago
member for 6.9 years, 5 visits, last login: 6.4 years ago
Jacksonville,Duval,FL
$49 per month
about 15 days
BellSouth
"It WAS very reliable"
"Going out of business"
"Now not receiving all that was promised."
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I used to recommend this to my friends. Then I got e-mail that DirecTV DSL is going out of business in a month. I switched to Comcast for the time being. I tried to access my web page files, but found out the server has been down since the end of the year. They provide ETR dates, then keep on extending them. The promised 24/7 customer service has ended. Phonecalls get a recording referring the caller to the website.
This is in spite of the fact the service is supposed to include web page storage and 24/7 support. I've received no response from the e-mails asking for credit, and can't change my credit card. I am now disputing the charge with my credit card company. I strongly urge all users to do the same.
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DIRECTV DSL (TM) (ISP Closed)
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