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Review by houstontarge See Profile

  • Location: Houston, Harris, TX, USA
  • Cost: $131 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 14 days
  • Telco party Southwestern Bell
  • CLEC party: Covad
Reliable & Stable with Static IP's and a great TOS
Pricey
If you can afford it, it's great
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I was on the local cable for years, the lines got bad and they wouldn't repair it, I finally gave up & decided there had to be something better. I made the transfer to Speakeasy on April 1, 2005, and after 5 months all I can say is GOOD Job Speakeasy. None of the constant outages that I was getting with cable. Although, the first week was really shakey, constant p/l, but the tech support was great, worked with me, did'nt treat me like an idiot & blame everything on my equipment, actually called back when they said they would, and kept on it until they found & FIXED the problem! I just hope that with all the talk of fiber, Speakeasy will be able to offer some higher speeds in the near future.

UPDATE!

Ok, I have had this account for over 16 months now. The service here is still fine to date, but Speakeasy's attitude towards residential DSL users has completely done a 180! They have aparently adopted a "business only" stratigy and are totally ignoring the residential users. And now, they have pulled a fast one with the lifting of the Federal Fee granted to all DSL users, and putting the money in their pockets. The fee was dropped by the Feds, so Speakeasy dropped it on their invoice but added allmost the same amount to "other" fee line(creating a completely BOGUS fee), resulting in almost no savings what-so-ever ! Verizon did it, Bell South did it, but both dropped the total amount only after the FCC rattled sabers. I guess we need a little more saber ratteling to get Speakeasy's attnetion. But there is hope, there a new kid in town here in Houston with FTTH, Fision, they claim to be in beta testing now, so hopefully my connection will hold up until they get this FTTH up & running, then Speakeasy can my A@@ (and my money) goodbye!!!

member for 19.2 years, 1248 visits, last login: 13.9 years ago
updated 17.5 years ago


Review by claudeo See Profile

  • Location: Redmond, King, WA, USA
  • Cost: $68 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 20 days
  • Telco party Verizon (ex GTE)
  • CLEC party: Covad
Six years, still reliable connection. Fixed IPs, allows servers.
Billing practices have degenerated into the unethical.
Getting to be like just any other provider, just more expensive
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Update September 2006: Speakeasy has unfortunately gone downhill in bogus fee billing practices. In the past few weeks they raised the bogus "regulatory compliance fee" significantly, at the same time as the FUSF tax was discontinued by federal action. This is in effect a hidden rate hike allowing them to keep the officially posted rates lower and the total billed amount about the same. I am one among many SE customers disappointed with this change in the company's ethics.

Update June 2005: Nothing new. Still just works. Convenience of fixed IP addresses, no nonsense about servers and high uptime are still highly rated features. Still charges bogus "regulatory compliance fee" though.

Update Oct 2004:For the same base price I've been paying for several years for 608/128 with two fixed IP addresses, the residential price sheet shows that new accounts get 1500/256. I called yesterday and was told that my account had been slated for upgrade, but delayed while their provider (Covad, I presume) was getting its act together. However, the upgrade could be done immediately. Sure enough, within a couple hours the speed tests showed the speed improvements. Now if only Speakeasy could give up on that bogus charge for the cost of doing business (the so-called "regulatory compliance fee") I would be a truly happy camper.

Update Jul 2003Well, nothing to report, but I got nagged to provide an update, so here it is. Still rock solid. My biggest problem is that I seem to have misplaced my password for rarely used features (at some point the single password got changed to one per feature, I changed one but forgot the others).Update Dec 2002.My Redmond connection (Verizon line, Covad service, Speakeasy ISP) went strange yesterday. Constant activity on my IP address even with nothing connected--almost like a DOS attack, but probably just a misconfigured system somewhere desperately trying to connect to the wrong address. Anyway, packet loss due to collisions with those incoming packets was so severe it made the connection nearly impossible to use. It took all of 10 min (after a 2 min hold) for the SE tech support person to decide not to waste more of my time and rebuild a circuit with 2 different fixed IP addresses. Could not ask for more efficient and courteous support.

Early 2002 (Two years ago below) --Hmmm. Did we reset the modem since last year? Can't say we did. Maybe we had a short power outage or two, and it got reset that way. Never noticed an outage otherwise. However, there was a glitch in billing a few days ago. Got a dunning e-mail for being overdue in payments. Strange, since on automatic payment plan. Found out that some billing system update they made screwed up the credit card expiration date, and automatic payment got denied. Instead of a courtesy notice I got a rather rude dunning letter. Oh well. Fixed in a few minutes. Hmmm. Better watch that account from now on... Other than that, so far so good.

A year later (A year ago is below) -- A year of service with Speakeasy, and the only glitch was when Covad moved some circuits and moved my friend's by mistake. It took 3 days to resolve, but 2 days of that were week-end. Since then also got the same Speakeasy service for my home in Aug. 2000, but that one in Verizon (ex GTE) land. Gave up second phone line so I had extra copper; that was before Verizon allowed Covad to line-share. Expected and got who's on first routine, Verizon-Covad line good/line bad/lost service ticket/ line fixed/line bad nonsense for a couple of weeks, then a 5-minute install and have not looked back since. Have not looked at a modem for months. Having 2 fixed IP addresses has been a godsend since I've had trouble connecting to my work VPN server through the Linksys routers that protects the home net, but no problem using the 2nd address with a cheap hub. None of that @home nonsense about VPN blocking and upload throttling. Occasional (now rare) DNS slowdowns, momentary tx/rx slowdowns during heavy gaming times, nothing that would bother me much since I'm not a gamer. Billing has worked like clockwork, very easy to check status online.

Two years ago (April 2000) -- Everything went so smooth I'm still amazed. This is actually a friend's connection in Seattle, WA. Very low tech friend, so I did the tech stuff. Ordered the least expensive Speakeasy service (home 384/128) in late January, in part based on enlightened policies compared with other providers, and in part based on DSLReports scuttlebut. There happened to be an extra line with recently discontinued service into the house, but since we'd never been able to connect on any line with a modem at more than 28K I was not optimistic. Loop install went without problem. USWest tech did not even ring the bell. One week later, Covad tech came in on time but was a little confused. I could not be there to assist my friend, but I was on standby for phone "support" and got 3 calls from the tech. One was that he thought there was already some equipment on the premises because he had been given a serial number. Nope. Second was to verify what was to be connected (my friend is *very* low tech). Third call was to tell me that there was a dial tone on the line and did I really want to use that line for DSL? Yup--go figure what USWest had in mind for that line. He rewired the phone jack to replace the RJ11 with a cat-5 RJ45, plugged in the modem, found it was working with the IP info given by Speakeasy, checked the rate, and was out of there faster than a bat out of hell. Later that afternoon I plugged a virgin Linksys Cable/DSL router/switch into the modem, configured it in 5 minutes, et voila. No formal speed checks yet, but downloaded some software updates from a couple of servers at 32kBps, so it seems ballpark. Too early to tell about reliability of line or DNS. Did not need tech support at all. Did not use mail, news, etc. Found the Speakeasy TAC system and e-mail messages very informative and useful, especially compared to what passes for information with some competitors. On the other hand, one of these days I'll have to get DSL for my house in Redmond, but that's GTE country and there is no extra copper, and based on what I read here and on the GTE sales pitches I'm not looking forward to *that* experience... Well in retrospect it wasn't that bad, see above

member for 24.1 years, 1538 visits, last login: 16.8 years ago
updated 17.5 years ago


Review by bhan261 See Profile

  • Location: New York, New York, NY, USA
  • Cost: $100 per month
  • Install: about 23 days
  • Telco party Verizon
  • CLEC party: Covad
Self-install, 2 static IPs
Pricey
Too lazy to make a switch and not unhappy enough to do it...but getting there
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Update 8-23-06: I upgraded to 3000/768 service. The process wasn't without pain. I had to called Speakeasy several times to find out why the upgrade had not happened by the scheduled date. As usual, they didn't know...pointing the finger at Covad. For a major Covad reseller, SE seems to have surprising little clout with them. I'm probably going to make a change soon. I've grown tired of SE trying to defend what is nothing more than a rate increase as "regulatory compliance fees." And there are signs the NYC POP is being oversubscribed as it was a couple of years ago. High prices for sub-par service isn't what I signed up for.

Update 2-1-05: Line is stable although there was a slight reduction in speed with some of the maintenance work SE did to the NYC POP last year. I've been considering upgrading to higher speed but I'm reluctant to get hooked into another year commitment. And anyway, I already feel like $77/month is too much.

Update 3-5-04: Now that they've updated the POPs, the service is fairly stable. I'm now on month-to-month and happy to have the flexibility to make a change if I want to without a termination fee.

Update 8-27-03: What's wrong with SE in NYC? Since the middle of the month, I've been getting 100% packet loss spikes lasting from 3 to 10 minutes as often as several times a day. Other SE subscribers in the NYC area show PL graphs nearly identical to mine so it isn't my circuit. Some SE users justify the higher cost they pay for SE by saying "you get what you pay for." I'm not sure I am. I will continue to evaluate alternatives for when my contract expires.

Update 6-4-03: For $80/month, I expect more than I'm getting from Speakeasy. They haven't handled the NYC DoS problems they've been having well and as a result, the circuit has been up and down repeatedly for a week. There have been occasional outages prior to that and every few hours, the pings spike up to 300-400ms. All-in-all, SE might have been a fine ISP once upon a time. Right now, they are showing signs of stress and I'd recommend considering alternatives.

1-10-03: I was a Directv DSL refugee. The install with Speakeasy went fine except for Verizon who kept insisting that the cross-connects were complete when they weren't. After two trouble tickets and getting a little cranky with them, Verizon had a foreman make the proper connections. Downtime between losing DTV and getting up on SE was less than two hours. Pings to both the east and west coasts are better than with DTV. So far so good.

member for 23.1 years, 4357 visits, last login: 12 days ago
updated 17.5 years ago


ToddC
@rr.com

ToddC

Anon

Not necessarily a Spekeasy issue

This may not be a Speakeasy issue, I use Roadrunner currently and have been experiencing the same issues in NYC. May be a network issue further out.

Review by mhowarddune See Profile

  • Location: Renton, King, WA, USA
  • Cost: $66 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 10 days
  • Telco party Qwest
Well organized support system, good bandwidth
unfair policies
cancelled service
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I have used speakeasy in a number of locations. I find their prices high, but the product a better quality than some other providers I have gone with. I have recently had a very bad experience with them:
I have a home in WA where I have service. My wife went to college in Utah, so I got her service at her apartment. I agreed to pay a $300 disconnect fee if I had service for less than a year.
1) 9/7/05 service begins
2) 7/22/06 I get invoiced for service from 8/22/06-9/21/06
3) 8/4/06 I call to cancel service because my wife is moved back to WA.. CS does not mention anything about disconnect fee
4) 8/22/06 I am charged for the service from 8/22/06-9/21/06. (this was payed through cc)
5) 8/22/06 I am invoiced $300 for a early disconnect fee although I have already paid through my one year contract.
6) 8/22/06. I contact CS and get nowhere. I cancell my other connection in WA.



member for 17.6 years, driveby review (so far)
lodged 17.6 years ago


Review by TechSponge See Profile

  • Location: Hillside, Union, NJ, USA
  • Business customer Business customer
  • Cost: $130 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 10 days
  • Telco party Verizon
  • CLEC party: Covad
Tech Support -Reliability-Multiple IP's-Servers OK-Resale OK-Domain hosting(5) included-100email adds-Shell account
Telco party drags feet or sabotages Local Loop side of things
NO OTHER ISP comes near support, reliability, professionalism, or Integrity.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

UPDATE: JULY 2006!!!

Well, 4 months ago a windstorm that lasted a few days brought bursts of 75 MPH winds to the area. The line started flapping and I promptly opened a ticket with Speakeasy requesting a LEC dispatch for a TDR to troubleshoot where the Local loop has gone bad after 2 years of SOLID 6/768 service. Every crossconnect box down the street was open with all the wires hanging out. 2 had rodent nests in them. 3 Days off from work, a vendor meet at the NID, a vendor meet at the CO and about 6 LEC dispatches with an OHM meter...the line is still as unstable and unreliable as the day I opened the ticket. Not yet has it been troubleshot properly. Speakeasy, Covad and the LEC are dropping the ball and making me totally ANGRY at this point. They refuse to do their jobs and are pointing their fingers at each other for ALL of their Incompetance. I have become FURIOUS with SPEAKEASY. This is not the type of service and support I expect for $130+ a month. There has been a definite shift in culture and service at Speakeasy in the past 2 years. Stay AWAY from Speakeasy and Covad unless you are 2000ft or less away from a CO.

==============================================================

Overall I am EXTREMELY HAPPY with Speakeasy service. They provide professional service to those of us who want only the BEST. Support is TOTALY on-the-ball and more knowledgable than any other ISP I have encountered. They are not script-readers. They are Techs that are as passionate about their network service as you are about yours. Their trouble-ticketing system actually exists! Furthermore, you can open a Tkt. over the web interface and track updates and resolutions. Try that with ConCast or Venizon. Speakeasy does a much better job than ANY other ISP in letting you know when a maintenance event will occur...and with PLENTY of notice. Resale/Sharing of Business-class service is allowed and encouraged(NOBODY else can say that).

I have had my home circuit up for almost a year and have already started on migrating my Network-Consulting clients over. Any new clients within the distance requirements will go to Speakeasy for Internet Connectivity without a second thought to it. Especially if I have to provide ongoing support after-the-fact.

I suggest Speakeasy to ANYONE looking for a Rock-Solid advanced-featured Higher-Speed DSL circuit...Home or Business.

Room for Improvement:

-A little pricey compared to other providers...but you get EXACTLY what you pay for...and often more.

-The relationship with the CLEC and the TELCO parties can see more improvement. Although I'm sure if it were up to Speakeasy this would not be the case. The TELCO's are still putting up an Incompetance/delay/sabotage game(My Local loop pair was open to atmosphere- took a dozen VZ dispatches to rectify) that Speakeasy must work through. However, once your Circuit is running solid and any turn-up kinks are worked out... and unless the TELCO screws something up on the loop afterwards...you will always have the BEST DSL pipe to THE NET money can buy.

Throw your questions at the Sales Team...they will give you the right answer the first time. If Integrity and promises-kept are key...Go with Speakeasy.

6Mbps/768kbps Business-Class - Broadxent Briteport Modem - Self-install kit(Though I did split at the NID and home-run to modem over Cat5e- HIGHLY SUGGESTED if possible.)

member for 22.8 years, 110 visits, last login: 14.6 years ago
updated 17.6 years ago


Review by elitephreak See Profile

  • Location: Los Gatos, Santa Clara, CA, USA
  • Cost: $55 per month (12 month contract)
  • Telco party SBC
  • CLEC party: Covad
Missed my install date by two weeks
Never again
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I have been a customer with them for years. I had a move recently and they totally dropped the ball saying my order would be completed by June 30th. It wouldn't matter so much if I didn't to have to have service to do my job. I am an IT Consultant in Silicon Valley and I will never recommend them agian to any of my clients. What am I paying more for again? Now I am in a real bind thanks to them.

If you ever have to do a move just a new provider they cannot be trusted.

member for 21.1 years, 13 visits, last login: 16.3 years ago
updated 17.7 years ago


DaSneaky1D
what's up
MVM
join:2001-03-29
The Lou

DaSneaky1D

MVM

This review makes no sense

Your review gives high compliments to SE, but your grading of their serivce is extremely low. Do you like them or what?
xfactor19
join:2002-10-01
USA

xfactor19

Member

Re: This review makes no sense

It is kind of confusing, cause your basicly saying they are great but some what limited.

But the scores you give them are like they run there company from a carbord box under a bridge, hehe.
jamesyeeoc
join:2001-11-06
Fullerton, CA

jamesyeeoc

Member

SE good, SBC bad...

SE would have gotten my T1 in place already, but SBC decided that their available T1 circuits were to be used by direct customers, not resellers.

I even called the SBC T1 sales and had them verify with provisioning and the NOC to make sure they had a circuit available, once they verified it, I declined to place an order directly with them at a much higher cost than SpeakEasy would have charged me.

So I've got both SDSL and an ADSL running....

Review by roboman2 See Profile

  • Location: Potomac, Montgomery, MD, USA
  • Cost: $55 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 30 days
  • Telco party Verizon
  • CLEC party: Covad
Speakeasy reps are, in general, fairly good
Monthly cost, DSL goes out, initial cost are not well documented
We had six good years but ready to leave....
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I've had the 384 kbps SDSL business service for 6 years now. Slow but reliable is the best description. One problem in that period resulted in a COVAD tech at my house the next morning and I was back-up in no time.

Now I'm trying to upgrade to 1.5M ADSL OneLink Select. So far it's been a real pain and very unreliable.

After many broken schedules, COVAD finally did show up the tech looks around and tells my wife this is a custom install and he's not authorized because it will cost us more $$. I find a spare copper pair from the NID to the DSL modem and call speakeasy back out. Another week+ goes by and a second COVAD tech comes out and wires it up and test it as a good, clean line.

I switch my router over and get decent results on DL/UL speeds and ping times. next morning the DSL light is out. I power cycle the modem and it comes back.

Next night it goes out again. Then the following day when my wife it set to telecommute.
I then have to spend 1 hour with speakeasy on the phone to finally get COAD to check things and the need to come back out. Both Speakeasy and COVAD tested this line several times and it's alwasy good with a downlink SNR of 14.5.

On top of all this is a nice "service charge' of about $350! A call to speakeasy revealed they charge about 8 weeks of payment in ADVANCE! And I think I'm getting billed twice for my SDSL service which I'll keep until the ADSL is proven out.

All I can say is that this is about how Verizon DSL wen when I tried them and gave up. I might be back. As soon as FIOS is here I'm gone!

Also, Speakeasy seems to realize the Broadnext modem supplied is junk but I guess they need to save every penny they can. They said a Westell modem would work better but they won't support it so if there's a problem I would need to swap it back in.

Update 6/1/2006:
I changed to Verizon Business DSL for $24.95/mo for 768k DSL. I did use there support number and found them to be great. Better than speakeasy since there is no Speakeasy/Covad/Verizon figer pounting. They dispathed a tech onthe weekend within 24 hours and had the problem fixed. ( move me to a new line pair to eliminate crosstak interference). Both times I called them I get right through to a tech that has a clue what they're talking about and is willing to send out a tech. So I'm paying 40% of what I was paying and getting 2x the speed with only a minor increase in ping time (25mS to 35 mS). Only one time did it go out and that was suring a thunderstorm.

I think the Verizon Business DSL is well worth the extra $10 for fast phone response and next day on site tech support!

I cancelled Speakeasy today. I can't see how they are going to compete with Verizon DSL let alone FIOS!.



member for 18.1 years, 39 visits, last login: 15.9 years ago
updated 17.8 years ago


ITALIAN926
join:2003-08-16

ITALIAN926

Member

TRBL?

Why did you have a 384 kb in the first place? More than likely its due to CO distance? Having your speed pushed up and getting sync problems is no surprise if their trying to over provision your line. Its not like you got any closer to your CO since your initial install. .. and of course youd have the same problems with verizon DSL.. its all out of their CO.
roboman2
join:2006-02-24
Potomac, MD

roboman2

Member

Re: TRBL?

Because that was six years ago and it was all I could afford.

The "newer" DSL standards go further and faster now.

COVAD is set to come out tomorrow so we'll see.

I'm still going back and forth with billing on this one. I don't like to get billed for something two months in advance especially when it doesn't work!
robscullion
Premium Member
join:2001-12-07
Philadelphia, PA

robscullion

Premium Member

Re: TRBL?

Yeah, I just about did a coffee spit-take when I saw my first OneLink+Voice bill. Once I examined it carefully and saw that it was really the correct amount I felt better, but it is a pretty disconcerting experience to see a few (3?) months of charges plus rebatable install fees show up on your account. I thought that the due-date for my intial payment was 2 months after the service was activated though. Are they making you pay the whole thing right away?

I hope you can get your line-stability issues straightened out. I was lucky enough to have a SpeedStream 5660 from my ADSL install that's worked like a champ with the 1.5/384 OneLink service. I do have a Broadxent as well, but only ever hooked it up just to see that it was functional. From what I've read here on BBR, I don't understand why SE is still using the "Broadjunks". In every other way this really is a premium service. Why ruin the customer experience with dinky modems that make the connection look flaky?
roboman2
join:2006-02-24
Potomac, MD

1 edit

roboman2

Member

DSL is still out----cancelled service

COVAD came out again and said there was some noise on the line which I'm skeptical about since every test showed between 14 and 16 dB margin.

Verizon "repaired it" Thursday and today the DSL light is out again.

I cancelled service this morning. I hope I don't get the run around when it's time to credit my account. So I'm back to my slow and rock solid 384k SDSL service.

Review by fwestern See Profile

  • Location: Davis, Yolo, CA, USA
  • Business customer Business customer
  • Cost: $100 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 7 days
  • CLEC party: MCI
It was great when it worked
They really screwed us over, on multiple occasions
Never again
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Background: Since 2003, a client's primary internet connection for their Davis office has been a $99/mo 1.5Mb/768Kb ADSL line from Speakeasy with MCI as the CLEC. We would've gone with Sonic.net, but they didn't serve California's LATA 3 (including Davis) at the time.

So, at about 18:20 (6:20PM) on Wednesday 3 May '06 I started getting email notifications from my monitoring system letting me know that a client's DSL line was no longer responding to pings. This client has a flaky DSL bridge that sometimes locks up, and they know to power-cycle it when this happens, so I left it alone while I wrapped up work, ate, and went to a movie with my SO. At about 2200 (10PM), the line was still not responding, so I went over to the client's office to check it out. Power-cycled the DSL bridge - no joy. Power-cycled the m0n0wall router/firewall - no joy. Double-checked cables & settings - everything's right. Plugged my laptop directly into the DSL bridge and configured it for one of our static IPs - can't even ping the gateway.

So, I called Speakeasy's business support, and waited on hold for ~20 minutes. It turns out that they summarily canceled our DSL service. Why? Because MCI doesn't want to serve Davis anymore, and Covad (Speakeasy's alternative in such cases) doesn't serve Davis either. So, Speakeasy just canceled the service without notice. The rep I spoke to was just as incredulous as I was - it sounds like somebody on their end screwed up big time and just neglected to inform us via any means that our service would be disconnected. The first hint that I had anything was wrong was at 17:26 (5:26PM) on Wednesday - about an hour before the DSL line went dead - when I received an email from Speakeasy about my new dial-up service. (I didn't order any dial-up service.) I guess that's our consolation prize - we got to try to run email + web browsing + client/vendor file transfer for 45 people on a 53K dialup line.

I'm really, really pissed. I knew Speakeasy wasn't as good as they claimed, but I had no idea that they would screw us over like this. That, on top of the 2-business-day-long outage we experienced last year (thanks to MCI), means we will never again give Speakeasy or MCI the opportunity to screw us over.

Fortunately, after a grueling week of having ~45 people share a 56K dialup line, we are now back online with a 4Mbit/500Kbit line from Sonic.net.

member for 17.8 years, driveby review (so far)
lodged 17.8 years ago


Michieru2
zzz zzz zzz
Premium Member
join:2005-01-28
Miami, FL

Michieru2

Premium Member

Wow

Minor note MCI is now Verizon, or basically Verizon Business.

Thanks for the honest review.

Review by speakUNeasy See Profile

  • Location: Pleasanton, Alameda, CA, USA
  • Cost: $80 per month (12 month contract)
  • Telco party MCI
  • CLEC party: Covad
NONE, bunch of Bozos
Too many to list for these bozos
Monkey See, Monkey Do.... Monkey See Dooo-Dooo
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

These words are about my bad experience with I a company call
SpeakEasy.Net. This bad experience was due to some stupidity on SpeakEasy's
part I was forced with many customers to 'migrate' to a new circuit. In this
process I considered and upgrade and was speaking directly to the migration
manager, Todd Volker of Speakeasy. He seemed really nice, but quoted me a
price that took several phone calls and email and more phones to have them
NOT honor the price he quoted me over the phone. To top it off this bozo
from Speakeasy never would return a communication to me. Needless to say was
not very amused by this and decided to keep my circuit bandwidth "as-is",
1.5Mbps/384kbps (down/up). After the Speakeasy migration the best bandwidth
I could get was 800kbps/200kbps. I called them about this and the net-net is
they expected me to chew gum and pound sand. Not me, these bozos at
Speakeasy deserve every kind word I am writing about them now. The short
story is I ordered a 2nd phone line, then started researching DSL
sellers/resellers. And frankly there were two companies that rose to the
top, DSL-Extreme, and Sonic.Net. I selected Sonic.net and am HAPPY now.

member for 18 years, driveby review (so far)
lodged 17.9 years ago

devzer0
join:2005-04-04
Seattle, WA

devzer0

Member

Your Probably Mistaken

Speakeasy only carries the bandwidth and network, the circuits belongs to your local phone company and the vendors like COVAD, please provide some good facts dont slam a company like this, Speakeasy is great.

Review by Marauderwd See Profile

  • Location: Lynnwood, Snohomish, WA, USA
  • Cost: $60 per month (12 month contract)
  • Telco party Verizon
  • CLEC party: Covad
Worked at first...
Has to run at half speed to even stay connected... Super Pricey
Don't ever make the mistake of signing with Speakeasy...
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I used to use Comcast cable at my old apartment in bellevue. It was great, 3M down, and solid connections. It almost never went down. One day it started going down nightly, and Comcast was unable to fix the problem.

I used to game a lot and I heard a lot about speakeasy being quality and having low pings and all that nonsense. So I switched to them, paying the same price for 1/4th the speed (comcast had recently upgraded to 6 megabit).

It worked really well at my apartment in bellevue, even for 1/4th the speed, it was a reasonable alternative since comcast was not an option. However, at the price rate, its not a good alternative unless its your ONLY alternative.

I then moved north to Lynnwood and all hell broke loose immediately.

The connection was horrible - peaking at MAYBE 1 megabit down. I was a long ways from the telco, and the telco themselves told me it wasn't even possible for me to have DSL at this location. Speakeasy wanted their money so they pressed the limit and kept me in contract.

I ping 250 ms to san francisco from washington - keep in mind, this is worse than my 56k laptop modem would perform over AOL when I'm on vacation from further away.

My maximum download rate is 70kB/s...!! For 60 dollars a month.

It is absolute, pure, highway robbery. This is as close as I've ever come to experiencing straight up fraud with a business.

They halved my download rate, but kept me charged at the 1.5 Megabit rate. This was able to stop disconnects - but my latency skyrocketed, and I now download at about 1/8th of what everyone in my neighborhood does, at less than I'm paying. This also means keeping a 30 dollar a month ground line open for no reason.

Its been months since I downloaded over 100 kB/s. I miss it... I miss it a lot.

Furthermore, their CS is non existant. You can expect to wait up to an hour or longer just to talk to someone who really doesn't know whats going on. There is zero advantage in going to speakeasy - zero. You ping lower to their own "Game" servers on comcast now adays than you do via their company. They should be ashamed.

member for 18 years, 1 visits, last login: 17.9 years ago
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attsbcisgay
join:2003-03-18
Beverly Hills, CA

attsbcisgay

Member

hi

that's crazy man
70.00 for 768kbps??? god even sbc/att 12.99/14.99 express get much better speed then this.
why not rate them a 1 on all category?

Lynnwerd
@speakeasy.net

Lynnwerd

Anon

oh yeah right

Dude. What diags have you done?

Cut your whining and do some troubleshooting. Have you tried testing at your phone box? How about you unplug all the stuff using the phone lines in your house except your DSL modem, reboot the modem and then test for speed.

You prolly have some noisey gear on your copper. You won't hear the noise b/c it's in DSL-range. Do you have a 900MHz phone, Tivo, or any kind of fax/modem connected to the copper? Filter those puppies.

You sound like one of those people who gets a wireless router but doesn't read how to secure it and then gripes when they have jack for throughput - cuzz yer smarter neighbors are using your bandwidth through your wireless. It's probably me and my friends. We all thank you. On second-thought don't do *any* troubleshooting... we like our connection er YOUR connection just the way it is.