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Review by rreinish See Profile

  • Location: Arlington, Arlington, VA, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

well,

From the get go I found Speakeasy was great to deal with. They set me up with several IPs on home account which many other providers wouldn't do. Bell Frantic would only give me one ip. Bell arrived at my house 12 days after my order was placed. Covad showed up ontime exactly 28 days after my order was placed. The covad tech was very friendly and courteous despite having do clean up a wiring mess in my house which took him 2 hours. I was up and running for two hours and then my DSL modem went down. Covad and speakeasy did sometesting and determined that my bridge was bad. I am still waiting for them to come back today but was told they will be here this afternoon. The only negative with speakeasy so far has been that you have to wait a while to get a live tech support rep. Other than that, I have been pleased.

member for 24.1 years, 7 visits, last login: 23.9 years ago
lodged 24.1 years ago


Review by kirkfrey8 See Profile

  • Location: Farmington, Oakland, MI, USA
  • Business customer Business customer
  • Cost: $149 per month (12 month contract)
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

January 7th - I called SpeakEasy and placed my order with them. Prices not as cheap but at least to some extent you get what you pay for (imho). Within 2 minutes of hanging the phone up with the sales guy (who was very knowledgeable) I had an email from him with the following info: the service I ordered, my username/email address, the costs, a web site (EXCELLENT !!!) to check the order status, and a free dial up account to use until my link was in.

January 21st - Covad Tech arrives and does install, finds line problem, calls Ameritech and opens a trouble ticket.

January 26th - Ameritech problem fixed DSL up and running.

Great company!! Could use a few more tech support people to shorten wait, but who couldn't?

member for 24.1 years, 5 visits, last login: 20.2 years ago
lodged 24.1 years ago


Review by Chase9 See Profile

  • Location: Silver Spring, Montgomery, MD, USA
  • Cost: $99 per month (12 month contract)
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Tech Support:

The Speakeasy & Covad partnership is a joke. I had some difficulties with Bell Atlantic, but these two clowns (Speakeasy & Covad) are even worse.

I ordered my service from Covad on 12/07/99 requesting to use Speakeasy as my ISP. After an initial "Thank you for your order" email from Covad, didn't hear back from anyone so I called Speakeasy on January 12, 2000. Of course they told me that Covad had dropped the ball, blah, blah, blah.

I place another order, this time with Speakeasy on the same day. Things appear to go smooth. I get my loop date for 1/24 and the Covad install date for 1/31. BA comes out and can't find a good pair. I contact Speakeasy who says that I still need to keep my Covad appointment. Today is Monday, January 31, 2000, and as per their email, and a subsequent email from another customer service rep, I stayed home to meet my Covad installation appointment. Well guess what? Just a short while ago I telephoned Covad as their technician had not shown up yet. Their reply? "Well sir, we show that your appointment was canceled because complications with the Bell Atlantic loop installation."

So why didn't anyone inform me that Covad wasn't showing up?!!! As I just metioned, I received confirmation via email from two separate reps. Furthermore, I received a call from the Covad technician on Thursday the 27th requesting that someone over 18 be home and to ensure that we had power and that we had a phone jack available near where the DSL modem needs to be installed. There is even a note in the TAC reflecting the conversation the technician had with my wife.

So what happens now? Speakeasy/Covad are prompt to bring to my attention that there will be an added fee of $175 for a missed appointment. Well, it costs me over $700 for a missed day at work. Now that I missed my work day, what is Covad/Speakeasy going to do with respect to that?!

I called Speakeasy to explain the situation and they blamed Covad for not notifying them in time. I called Covad and they said that they notified Speakeasy on the 28th and that it is speakeasy who is at fault for not notifying me.

Well, as I said, I've already missed a day of work and have managed to raise my blood preasure considerably. My opinion right now is that both Speakeasy and Covad are guilty of negligence and extremely poor customer service relations. I find them both negligent and disrespectful of their customers. I had chosen the Speakeasy/Covad alliance to service us due to some favorable comments I have read here in DSLReports.com. I guess all those favorable comments must have been either manufactured or doctored, as I can't believe the disregard and non-caring attitude I have been demonstrated by both of these companies. They should keep in mind that they are not the only providers in town and this "though luck" attitude need not to be tolerated by anyone.

I just called Speakeasy's Customer Service department and canceled my order.

Now back to DSLReports to look for another ISP and maybe see if I can use NorthPoint instead of Covad.

member for 24.2 years, 1 visits, last login: 24.1 years ago
lodged 24.1 years ago

System

Anon

$700 a day?

If you make that kind of money, why not go with a local ISP like Capunet, Atlantech, Radixnet or something? A local ISP can give you business grade, and being in your backyard.. better service.

Anon

Re: $700 a day?

$700 * 5days/week * 48weeks per year (1 month vacation :-P ) is $168,000.00/year. For that, I could buy a T1 from Verio or Sprint for ~$1300/month ($15,600/year) and still only report $152,400/year. Hmm...... DSL would suck compared to a real T1. Especially if something went wrong. Down here in SWBell country, if I have a problem with a T1 at 3am, someone is out here at 9am to fix it (they're good about lines that they make money one) but if the DSL line has a problem, Covad/Northpoint/Rhythms is out here in a couple of days.

William

Review by RichieG See Profile

  • Location: Little Neck, Queens, NY, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
Install Co-ordination:

DSL Smells!!!

OK, Speakeasy doesn't smell, but my 5250 Bridge did smell, like melting plastic. So I called Speakeasy to arrange for a trouble ticket to have the Bridge swapped out by COVAD. I was told that COVAD would come on Saturday 1/29 between 8:00am and Noon. Yeah, right.

The COVAD tech was one hour and 15 minutes late for this service appointment, which I guess was better than the 2 1/2 hours late they were for the initial install. But here is the kicker - the COVAD guy comes out to my house and DOESN'T HAVE A REPLACEMENT 5250 BRIDGE WITH HIM!!! DUH!?!? He tells me that he didn't know what the service call was about, just that he had to come to my location. So after wasting my whole morning and part of my afternoon, he told me that he might be able to procure a 5250 from the dispatch shop which wasn't too far away and then come back later. Yeah, right again!

He said he would be back after 4:00pm, but he NEVER showed up again. What a comedy of errors. And COVAD doesn't have to answer to me so they really don't care. So I'm note sure when this thing will get replaced or even if it should be replaced now, since the smell has finally subsided from last weekend.

Oh, one more thing - even though COVAD was too brainless to do this correctly, I got my $150 rebate check from them in the mail on Saturday, only 7 days after I faxed the rebate to them!!!

member for 24.3 years, 285 visits, last login: 12.4 years ago
lodged 24.1 years ago


Review by nohdowt See Profile

  • Location: Oakland Gardens, Queens, NY, USA
  • Cost: $59 per month (12 month contract)
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I tell ya, if I had not come across dslreports.com, I'd be still waiting for broadband! I'd been using single channel ISDN up until now.

Well, I had the site find my distance to the CO... It was less than 6000 ft. Cool...

Covad had been setup at the Bayside CO! Yay!!! DSL was available! I didn't have to wait another 6 months for Bell Atlantic to provide DSL.

Anyway dslreports.com showed me a list of ISPs, and Speakeasy got me hooked because of the free install & modem special. Then I read all these reviews. I read 'em all, they were mostly favorable. Sounds good, I was drooling.... The only stumbling block I saw was Bell Atlantic. Would they take care of their end? I had to find out.

So on the morning of Friday, 1/7 I emailed my request for 384/128, and got call back late afternoon. I asked for one static IP. Then the waiting began. Speakeasy's TAC site was nice to use and very informative.

Finally on 1/19, I got an e-mail of the install dates. BA would AND DID show up as scheduled on Friday 1/21, the first day of the sudden NY snow pounding we'd take. Well, I guess was lucky because, the tech didn't have to do much since my line was already digital from ISDN. All he did was change the DSLAM over to Covad's.

On Monday 1/24, the Covad dude arrived in the first half-hour of four hour window. Cool....

He didn't have to change any wiring, since I had ISDN. I already had CAT5 cabling going to the NID. He hooked up the Efficient 5250 bridge and we got all green lights after a minute. Cool...

He said I was one of the lucky ones because wiring/connection problems are common with BA. Thank God BA wired me up properly when I got ISDN. Since DSL is still in its infant stages, a lot more training and experience is needed before it's installed with relative ease.

Anyway, I'm chugging along at the rated speeds. I had to edit my RWIN to get it, too. It works great, I really like it.

I'll give Speakeasy the fifth star in 'Value for money' when their NY POP finally arrives. The lag is too great for me to enjoy my Quake game. But the fast web browsing and downloads, the non-existent dialup, plus bandwidth sharing convenience will keep me satisfied until then.

The drooling stops here...

John T.

member for 24.1 years, 393 visits, last login: 15.1 years ago
lodged 24.1 years ago


Review by steffan

  • Location: Queens Village, Queens, NY, USA
  • Cost: $49 per month (12 month contract)
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I ordered their DSL service on 1/2/2000. Everything was smooth... all
the way to sending me email with Bell Atlantic line provisioning dates
and Covad install dates.

After that... nothing...

I called today to find out what was happening and was told that there
was some kind of problem with the Bell Atlantic install and that they
would look into getting a new install date for me. So I asked them what
would have happened to my order if I had not called in. And they said
that nothing would have been done. In other words, I would still be in
limbo with no chance of getting DSL installed.

So much so for customer support and responsiveness.

After being on hold for about 30 minutes (normal, right?) I still haven't got to anyone to do any kind of follow-up.

Would I order with these clowns again ? No way.

(review was emailed from domain clearstation.com)
lodged 24.1 years ago


Review by bradsperry See Profile

  • Location: Silverdale, Kitsap, WA, USA
  • Cost: $89 per month (12 month contract)
  • CLEC party: Covad
Excellent Service! Knowleable Technicians! Solid Line! Reliable Connection!
Go with Speakeasy and Covad! An exellent product all the way around!
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

My Name:
Brad P.

Order details
Speed: 768/384
Price: 89.95

DSL Equipment:
Efficient Networks SpeedStream 5250 bridge

IP addressing:
Up to 4 static IPs w/order. More available for a
reasonable fee

Rambling:
My experience with SpeakEasy and Covad has been excellent!
From the order placing through the install, SpeakEasy has
provided me with 1st class service.

To being with, my account representative was willing
to place the DSL order even though my street was not
in Covad's street database. (He looked up a street
address a few blocks away to verify that DSL was
indeed available in the area.) Other ISP's I had been
in touch with simply told me that there was nothing that
could be done and I'd have to wait until Covad updated
their street database.

Once the order was placed, I expected to wait for 2 - 3
months before any further activity from the TelCo or
Covad would take place. Not so! The appointments
for the Telco and Covad were scheduled just 3 weeks from
my order date. The Telco (USWest) representative arrived
at my house in a very timely manner. When I'm told to
expect a technician between the hours of 8 - 12, I expect
the latest. So I was surprised about that. They hooked
up a new circut and did had Covad do a loop back test to
make sure DSL was ok at my location.

Just 4 days later, the Covad technician arrived. Once
again this appointment was scheduled for any time in a
range of hours. The Covad tech. called me at the beginning
hour to make sure I was home and ready for his visit.
(Of course I was!!!!) Once he arrived, he went about
installing a second jack in my office and configuring
the router. He was courteous, knowledgeable and friendly.
His work was done and the appointment was over in under an
hour!

I immediately noticed that my speed didn't seem quite
right and did some testing to verify my suspicions. Sure
enough, I was right! My download speed was around 112k,
nowhere near the 80-100 I had been expecting. I called
SpeakEasy technical support and had an answer within 5
minutes. (I edited 1 registry editing.. RWIN)

My line has only been up for 5 days now, so I can't
comment on reliability.

Final Grade:
A++ !!!

member for 24.1 years, 22 visits, last login: 22.4 years ago
lodged 24.1 years ago


Review by gborio

  • Location: New York, New York, NY, USA
  • Cost: $90 per month
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Region: NYC
Computer: Mac PB

This has been the quickest, slickest, easiest DSL install I've ever
heard of.

After reading the glowing reports here on Speakeasy, I went to their
website. All was clear, clean and helpful. Within an hour, I was set up,
had received an email address at speakeasy.org, had a clear explanation
of what was involved and who was doing which part of the process, and
could go to a web page that tracked the 7 or so stages of the install. It also indicated where in the process I was. The whole process
was clean, clear, non-confusing, simple--great user interface all the
way!

I had a Mac technical question, emailed at about 11 PM, got a reply just
after midnight(!)

They kept me updated with emails and phone calls, pre-sending me my IP
info, reminding me when BA or COVAD was coming by, etc.

Bell Atlantic kept their appointment. The poor guy was here 7 hours
(minus a few to go to another install to get "the drill" for my external
apt. wall). These poor guys don't even have a truck, they walk or take
the subway, no cell phone, and have to share the drill(!) He said they yell at him for taking 4 hours for an installation, but that's often what it takes.

COVAD kept their appt. too, and I was hooked up and running in an hour.

These people really know their stuff!

(review was emailed from domain mindspring.com)
lodged 24.1 years ago

System

Anon

Bell Atlantic is Satan.

I suppose it's entirely possible that someone in Manhattan could actually have a smooth DSL install. THen again, with Bell Atlantic determined to screw things up for anyone who isn't choosing their Infospeed service, it seems unlikely. It's been 2 months since I've ordered service and BA has missed 3 out of 4 loop install dates. The one time a guy showed up, he said he had to go to my basement and subsequently disappeared without a word. BA is the biggest enemy to DSL competition in NYC.

Anon

Re: Bell Atlantic is Satan.

Remember, my install guy stayed 3 hours MORE than BA wanted him to. Be nice to your install guy. Especially in the summer, some cool drink and cookies might go a long way.

I've since been through an insoluble nightmare with Earthlink/Mindspring & GTE in Palm Desert, CA. Earthlink seems totally incompetent. My record what their reps have told me, call after call, even confuses them! And STILL no DSL!

Review by Marc G See Profile

  • Location: Miami, Miami-Dade, FL, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.

Just had to let you know that my first impression is terrible. I called the sales dept for info, was on hold for minimum 5 minutes, and then received a voice mail recording asking me to leave name & number, as nobody was availabe. What a bummer for them!

member for 24.1 years, 4 visits, last login: 24.1 years ago
lodged 24.1 years ago







Review by (hidden by request)

  • Location: Germantown, Montgomery, MD, USA
  • Cost: $89 per month (12 month contract)
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

I guess this is more a BA review, or a review of the current state of
DSL service availability, than a Speakeasy review, but here goes.

I ordered 768/384 service from Speakeasy in early January, for my home
in Germantown, MD. I was given a 1/21 Bell Atlantic loop install date,
and a 1/27 COVAD install date. BA showed up a couple of days early,
saying that because we already have two active phone lines to the house,
some splicing needed to be done at a junction box of some sort in the
front yard. They dug up the yard, and presumably did their splicing.
Another BA guy showed up again on the appointed day (1/21). When he
left, a second "box" had been installed on the outside of the house,
with a line connecting it to the original box. At about that same time,
Speakeasy e-mailed me with IP address, DNS server numbers, etc. So far,
so good. Then, just today (1/26) as I was eagerly anticipating the
COVAD install two days hence, I e-mailed Speakeasy with some questions
about time of the COVAD appointment. They e-mailed back promptly,
saying they'd look into it. As it turns out, the various arms of
Speakeasy Support don't seem to communicate too well. One hour *before*
that message, another party at Speakeasy Support had sent a message
saying they'd been informed by BA that the distance from my house to the
CO was actually in excess of 15,000 feet -- instead of the 11,056 feet
that Speakeasy/COVAD had estimated -- and that the line condition "would
not support SDSL service." They asked if I was interested in 144k
IDSL. But for the same monthly fee plus nearly $500 in hardware and
installation fees, I told them no go.

I'm a newbie at all this, and am still somewhat puzzled. The second BA
guy that came knocked at the door to tell me he'd be working, and then
left after completing his tasks without telling me of any problems.
Would he have been the one who tested the line, after installing the
loop, and found the problem? If so, I'd think he might have said
something about it. If not, how did they make this determination
without attempting any connection from this end? Anyone out there get a
similar go around?

Anyway, Speakeasy offered a good service at a reasonable price, and with
no onerous TOS agreement to sign. But in the end, the whole thing has
left me with the impression that even though both Speakeasy and COVAD
seemed supremely confident that I was well within range of the service I
ordered, neither actually had any idea. Either that, or BA is lying.
Suffice it to say that I got all charged up about this cutting edge
technology, only to wind up with a terribly frustrating and discouraging
experience -- and a pretty cynical attitude. All that, and I'm still
stuck with my old-tyme, 56k modem. Alas.

Bruce Scott

(review was emailed from domain dazzling.com)
lodged 24.1 years ago