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Review by mrrabbit 
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 1.8 years, 8 visits, last login: 114 days ago
 San Jose,Santa Clara,CA
 $65 per month
 AT&T
 "Been customer since 1999. Survived Flashcom transition, and recently had rate reduced for old circuit under new sales tier."
 "Read members ticket submissions guys - you keep turning off SAFE MODE. =8-)"
 "Not much has changed since Best Buy aquisition - though they seem to have more data link control nowadays."
| Pre Sales information:
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Been a customer since 1999, so this is more of an update review.
About 8-12 months back I noticed that I was still paying 92.00 / month for a 1500/384 service locked in SAFE MODE at 790/329.
I requested that I at least get the same rate for someone paying today's 1500/384 service at 65.00 / month.
They obliged. That's a good indicator of a business that sees a reasonable request when it is made.
My line is in SAFE MODE because my neighboorhood wiring though in ground alongside buried electrical is considered to the modern way of doing things - it is apparrently aerial rated cable that has been direct buried without any built in moisture protection.
Plus Comcast sliced the 400 pair running up the street a few years back...and the splice in the sidewalk across the corner had to be redone. Anytime that splice is exposed and the splice moisture seal removed - all noise in the neighborhood suddenly disappears.
I think you get the picture....
So recently, AT&T created a new digital equipment distribution cabinet behind the block from which they are re-feeding the two neighborhood green huts as well as providing 10-12 Mbps service up to the last mile. I guess when they were cleaning up blocks and transferring pairs and the like they were also resetting circuits / loops at the CO in tandem.
Circuit went down - and apparrently was brought back up unlocked. Well...that was good for a day or so - but as before - BAM! - hard down.
SAFE MODE brought it back up - but Speakeasy went ahead and sent AT&T out to attempt to fix a loop ground issue. This has been tried before - and the result has always been the same. Despite what the test results say - hard down within 1-2 days unless SAFE MODE is turned back on.
I guess Speakeasy REALLY WANTING THE BEST FOR ME tried unlocking one more time - same result.
It's okay guys...really...call your wife and buy her roses or something - don't waste your time trying to give me something I know for a fact won't work.
Okay? =8-)
On a scale of 5 on this day, November 22, 2008, I give Speakeasy a rating of 4.5.
=8-)
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Review by gariac
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 5.8 years, 14 visits, last login: 1 year ago
Fremont,Alameda,CA
$52 per month
AT&T
"no port blocking"
"flaky tech support; expensive"
"I'm looking for a new provider"
| Pre Sales information:
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I've been a subscriber to Speakeasy DSL for more years than I can remember. Here is my history. I started with Telogy, which became DirectTV DSL. It was great. It went bust. I was on Covad for a while. Back then it was quite expensive. I changed to Speakeasy, but used my Covad hardware per Speakeasy's suggestion.
The change from Covad was pretty simple. They do their magic, I get a new set of "numbers", plug them into the router and it's done.
Now here is the trick with Speakeasy. They change plans to be competitive, but don't bother telling their subscribers of the change. For instance, I had upload speeds around 245kbps. Speakeasy updated this to 380kbps or so. The only way I found out was to see the new plan on their website. So I call tech support. They insist I am at the higher speed. I insist I'm not. After much arm twisting, Speakeasy calls Covad (who is the first provider in my DSL chain) and gets my speed up to the 380kbps (or whatever, since I don't recall the exact number.)
OK, time passes. I notice the plan I have with Speakeasy is now $10 cheaper a month. I call, I bitch, I get the new rate. I have no idea how long they were screwing me for the extra $10.
Now once in a while my DSL modem locked up. It was a Prestige from the old Covad days. Speakeasy agrees to send me a new modem if I stay with them another year. I should have dropped them then, but changing DSL providers is work, and Speakeasy kind of worked. The new modem arrives. Well, make that recycled modem. It is some sort of box from Creative. The new modem was dead on arrival. I send it back and get another one. This one worked and thus far doesn't lock up. However, it has a different problem. If there is an interruption in power, the modem locks up. This is actually worse than the prestige modem which would only lock up once a month. This new modem is total crap. The only way I can get the modem to work is to power it down for about 10 minutes, then plug it in again. Clearly I can't do any remote desktop with such a garbage modem.
Now Speakeasy doesn't totally suck. The download speed of 1.2Mbps is close to the 1.5mbps target. The upload speed reaches about 300kbps. However, the service is over-priced.
Regarding tech support, everyone speaks English. Beyond that, it is quite poor. Case in point, the DSL goes down. I do all sorts of reboots on my end. I give up and call tech support. They insist on me rebooting the modem, even though I already did ths. I had the fool on the line for the 10 minutes it takes that crappy Creative moden to reset. Of course, the reboot has no effect. I knew that would be the case since I did a reboot of everything prior to my call. They set up an appointment. What typically happens with these appointments is nobody shows up because the problem is not on my end. The usual outcome is the DSL mysteriously starts to work again. For this last so-called service call, I twist the arm of Speakeasy to find out what Covad actually did. All Covad did was pull and reseat a card in their rack. So the flaky hardware is still there.
As most people know, Speakeasy was bought out by Best Buy. The company was going down hill before the buy out, but Best Buy did nothing to improve the service.
I encourage you to log into the Speakeasy.net website and try to find the pricing plans. All you get is "starts from." This may be to prevent customers like me from finding out the prices have dropped and insisting on getting the new rate. Thus far the only other provider I looked at was DSLextreme. I can't vouch for them, but I can tell what their service costs from their website.
As soon as this modem contract is up, I'm dropping Speakeasy. I may just dropped them sooner since the competition is about $20 less a month for the same service.
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4/5/2008 follow-up
In the middle of a "session", the internet connection quits. The modem is happy (DSL light on), but websites are not found. I unplugged the modem for two minutes, but that wasn't enough due to the crappy power on reset Creative Broadxent DSL modem uses. So I leave it alone for about 10, then boot. It still doesn't work so I boot the linksys router. This is nuts. I can tolerate the booting, but the 10 minute wait for the Broadxent DSL modem is intolerable. If I could find decent test data and reviews, I'd go buy a modem.
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11/20/2008
Well, I finally got around to buying another DSL modem. Doing some research, I concluded that 2wire gear was a good as it gets. Unfortunately, they only sell to ISPs (providers), but you can get 2wire modems used, mostly from people that "upgrade" to cable (subject to debate) or just move out of town. At the time of this writing, the top of the line 2wire is the 2701HG-B, commonly used by AT&T, and goes for around $40 used.
I was having trouble with the Broadxent locking up, especially with bit torrent. That is now history. The 2wire has no issues with bit torrent. My upload speed is slightly faster. Download is about the same. There are umpteen things to tweak in a 2wire modem, so I don't want to post any hard number until I'm sure it is as good as it gets.
Ultimately, I'm still going to dump Speakeasy. Just too expensive for what you get. The nice thing about the 2wire modem is there are diagnostics that read out phone line related quality parameters. Next up is tweaking my house wiring to insure there is nothing funky on my end. I'm about 5db too high in loss to go up to the next speed level. The 2wire reads out loss up and down, signal levels, noise, and uncanceled echo. It's really worth the money. I can't understand why any ISP would just insist on a 2wire rather than waste the time of their customers with garbage like the Broadxent BritePort. You can poke around DSLreports and see similar complaints about that modem.
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Review by vincebusam
Posted: 1 year ago
member for 1 year, 114 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
$85 per month (12 month contract)
Verizon (ex GTE)
"Good service, little downtime"
"Could be better coordinated with my telco"
"Great choice for static ip"
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I've been on Speakeasy almost 4 years. I don't recall the exact details of the competitors I looked at, but for my package (Static IP, no ports blocked, 1.5/768 they were all within $10/mo). Speakeasy came highly recommended.
I've had very little downtime, and most of that has been due to telco problems. This is the only downside I seen with Speakeasy. Instead of helping me handle the situation, they just gave me the number to call at Verizon.
My move is one of the best examples of customer service I've ever had. I called ahead of time to give them my new number/address. On move day, I just unplugged all my equipment, drove to my new place, and plugged it in. It didn't work immediately, but I called support, and literally 30 seconds later, on a Sunday, it was up and running.
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 Review by nixen
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 7.1 years, 3518 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Alexandria,Fairfax,VA
$120 per month (12 month contract)
 about 40 days
Verizon
"If you can get through the initial install problems and instabilities, they tend to leave things alone."
"Getting a human to talk to is an ordeal. Their automated systems are even worse. Customer service is not their forte."
"Too expensive for the speeds and service."
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I've had SpeakEasy for a number of years now. They used to be a good company to do business with. It's why, after several moves, I still have them. Unfortunately, it seems that SpeakEasy's business priorities have changed. If you are looking for residential service, is simply would NOT recommend them.
While they've always been more expensive than their competition, they used to provide value for this price differential. The SpeakEasy forum used to be an example of this: they used to have employees participate in the forum to help customers. This policy seems to have ended in July of 2006. They've dropped a number of other things that made them "worth it."
Lastly, they like to advertise one price for their service then absolutely PILE on miscellaneous fees. They then like to attribute these fees to "compliance recovery" costs. Most egregious of these was with the recent repeal of the USF. Somehow, even though the USF was removed, some new "compliance fee" was introduced that pretty much offset this reduction. Requests for clarification go unanswered.
Due to the high prices, I dropped service a few months ago and switched to Cox plus a VPS. I liked Speakeasy, I just could no longer justify the price given my ther options.
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Review by angeliquec
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 1 year, 1 visits, last login: 1 year ago
undisclosed location
Contract price not specified.
"You can reach a live person that speaks English as a first language"
"They can't help you"
"Please stay away...far, far away!"
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I got Speakeasy because my I needed a static IP address, and my computer guy, who I trust completely, raved about their service.
I've had problems from day one. They charged me an extra couple of hundred dollars that they didn't bother to mention ahead of time for Covad coming out to make the lines ready for service (or something). After many, many communications with Speakeasy, they finally removed the charge...but getting them to agree to remove it was no small nightmare.
While I never had any problems at all with Time Warner, now I was having problems all the time with my, when working, shockingly slow Internet, especially the download speeds.
In the last month, my service has been down more than up, and some jerk just told me that I had to keep using them because I had (unknowingly) agreed to a contract. Please, please tell me how I managed to do that when I was scared to try them in the first place? Unless someone snuck in a commitment when I wasn't looking, I promise that I never made one. In fact, I was guaranteed that if I wasn't happy with the service, I could leave them at any time. (Heck, I'm happy to return their stupid modem if that's what they want....)
I've also had problems because Speakeasy doesn't work well with people that need I to communicate with. I've spent many hours for the first time in my business career trying to find ways to get email to places like sbcglobal.net.
I hate Speakeasy more than I've ever hated a company in my entire life. Do yourselves a favor and don't be tempted by getting live people in the US that answer the phone. This is the worst company ever!
Followup comments:  sirket
join:2006-01-19
| SpeakEasy customer I've been using SpeakEasy since 2000 and I have no real complaints. I wish it was faster and cost less, but as a network engineer I know what bandwidth costs versus what I am paying. I've had only minor service interruptions in the last 8 years- certainly less than on my cable modem.
I'm sorry you've had a poor customer service experience. Every time I've called SpeakEasy I've spoken with an American and gotten good service. Everytime I've ever called the local cable company I've gotten an American, but one that was of no help whatsoever.
Most DSL comes with a contract because of the added provisioning costs. This is a result of Covad and not SpeakEeasy per se.
If you're just looking for home Internet service than you probably should stick with cable modem. If you need the services SpeakEasy can provide then that's the way you should go. | |
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Review by drlang
Posted: 1 year ago
member for 2.1 years, 21 visits, last login: 9 days ago
Barrington,Lake,IL
$76 per month (12 month contract)
about 60 days
AT&T
"premium service, no port filtering"
"cost"
"good provider"
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-
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Review by apeddada
Posted: 1 year ago
member for 1 year, 3 visits, last login: 352 days ago
Los Gatos,Santa Clara,CA
$59 per month
"Reliable, good tech support"
"none"
"would recommend"
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Service since 2004. No significant issues.
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Review by mrweigand
Posted: 1.1 years ago
member for 2.1 years, 22 visits, last login: 1 year ago
Chesterland,Geauga,OH
 Business customer
$95 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
"Easy to move their reliable service to new location."
"Coordination with ATT was lacking. (ATT's fault, but...)"
"Very reliable service."
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We've had both ATT and Speakeasy DSL connected for the last year. We were considering dropping Speakeasy because of the higher cost.
The very poor quality of ATT DSL sold us on Speakeasy being worth twice the price of ATT.
Speakeasy just works. With Speakeasy, we don't have any of the stop and start flaky connection issues like we experience with ATT. After 18 months (and multiple routers/modems), ATT still hasn't figured-out what is wrong with their line or equipment.
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Review by jsilve1
UPDATED: 1.1 years ago
member for 8 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago
Baltimore,Baltimore City,MD
$65 per month
"Reliability, service, technical expertise of staff"
"More expensive than Verizon. Occasionally loooong waits for support staff to answer the phone."
"Have had Speakeasy since 2001 and have NEVER lost our connection. Really."
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Have had Speakeasy since 2001. Their technicians and support staff are friendly and knowledgable. And the phones get answered by REAL PEOPLE -- no drilling down through a million phone menus. That's nice. *And* they actaully play good music on their hold line.
Admittedly, one does have to wait, on occasion, for a support person to come on line.
But the thing is, I've had to call them only one time in almost 8 years. And that was Verizon's fault. Two things happened, unrelated, but coincidentally in the same week: (1) we changed our Verizon phone services and Verizon deleted the DSL line share account (stupid!) and (2) The phone line from our house to the street had failed (it was ancient) and we needed it to be replaced. For both of those issues, the bottleneck on repair and recovery was Verizon.
Extremely satisfied customer.
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Review by jeremynd01
UPDATED: 1.1 years ago
member for 1.1 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago
Cleveland,Cuyahoga,OH
$55 per month
about 5 days
AT&T
"No hassle, static IP, great tech support, ALWAYS up"
"Cost"
"Recommend for a power user, avoid for commodity"
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I've been a Speakeasy customer for about five years. In that time, I've had only one outage (after a wind storm that knocked out the phone), apart from planned, middle-of-the-night upgrades (which they notify me). They have never hassled me about usage or bandwidth consumption. The modem gets reset maybe twice a year, but usually works fine. I run a webserver in my basement (on the static IP), have setup IPSec, port forwarding, and their network is wide open on an ethernet over ADSL connection (not PPP or anything). Customer support is 24/7 (not that I ever need to call), based in the USA (not outsourced), and actually has trained techs with a brain. All of that said, the basic plan (1.5M/384k) is $50/mo + $5 taxes and fees. It's never gotten any faster or cheaper in the half a decade I've used it. Being a home user in Cleveland, I'm outside their bigger markets, so I feel that they don't really care about my business. Lately it's started to show with intermittent failures and slowness. So when I compare it to $35/mo for four times the speed at AT&T, I have to wonder if maybe I can work with a dynamic IP and pocket the difference.
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