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Review by Cogito 
Posted: 1.2 years ago
member for 1.2 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.2 years ago
 Seattle,King,WA
 Contract price not specified. (12 month contract)
 Qwest
 "Uptime"
 "Billing, Customer Service, Money Grubbing Ogres, Speed"
 "I would never recommend Speakeasy to anyone."
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I too was a Speakeasy customer until recently. As a Seattle resident living three blocks down from their head office, it seemed a natural choice of an ISP.
After being a faithful subscriber for 3 three years, the buyout happened. Then everything went to hell. When I moved to a new house shortly aftter the buyout, I was double billed for 3 months. On top of that they had told me that I was capable of running 15mb/sec ADSL2 (which I was quite excited about) Sent out an install guy to my new location, only to find out that the line did not support it. The guy just took off anyway and told me to call the office. I was left without internet for a week, while I waited for another guy to come out with an ADSL1 install package. That package did not take either so Speakeasy contacted the copper owners (Covad I believe) and had them come out and do a repair on the line... two weeks later. A whole month went by with my line being gimped to about 200k/sec when my first bill came. Not only was I double billed for my old cancled line at my apartment, but the had the balls to charge me for the full install price, and the full price of my new line (which was still not functional) I asked to speak to a superior, who simply told me that service was not guaranteed and that I still owed them the full amount.
I highly recommend that people avoid Speakeasy/Bestbuy
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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 1.2 years ago
(review was emailed from domain acinvestors.net)
Lafayette,Contra Costa,CA
$95 per month (12 month contract)
"sales/install process"
"performance"
"don't recommend"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings match consensus)
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My second experience with speakeasy. I ordered service 3 months ago and
was
sold and charged for the high price high bandwidth service. Its never
worked reliably as I'm on the edge of the max loop length. Email tech
support says you have to call to troubleshoot, and they are difficult to
get
through to. It was such a hassle that I just kept using my reliable
at&t
dsl ( I need a backup so I keep two). When the at&t modem fried
yesterday I
had to try to get the speakeasy connection fixed. I finally get through
and
they now claim my loop is too long for the speed I was paying for so
they
downgraded my speed and closed out the trouble ticket (no credit back to
me
for having sold me something they now claim they shouldn't have).
However
the line still has intermittent very high latency and basically is
messed
up (ping is 50% longer than when installed), so I'm back to opening a new trouble ticket and getting back on the
line
with them. I can't wait for my new modem to arrive to get the at&t dsl
back. It cost 70% less than speakeasy, performed better, and I never
needed
support. I can't recommend speakeasy - they've gotten worse
while
the rest of the market has improved.
Followup comments:  ChiTang
Premium,MVM
join:2002-08-23
Alhambra, CA | 2 broadband If you need 2 BB, why not get 1 DSl and 1 CABLE? Speakeasy may be using AT&T's gear as well, so if DSL goes out in your area, both may go out.
--
I used to be indecisive, now I am not sure. | |
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jerrygarcia
@pacbell.net | Re: 2 broadband i had a cable modem as backup which i should have kept, but it was costing more than the at&t dsl. i also had some pixelation problems with the cable tv that went away after turning off the modem. | |
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Review by wschofield
Posted: 1.3 years ago
member for 7.5 years, 5 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
Silver Spring,Montgomery,MD
$72 per month
 about 5 days
Verizon
"Highest quality service and technical support."
"Pricey compared to FIOS, Cable."
"Good for home business user who has to be on-line."
| Pre Sales information:
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I've been using DSL since 1999 through a variety of ISPs that have folded. Speakeasy SOHO account for more than 4 years now. Extremely reliable - issues have mostly been physical connection through Verizon. Their technical support doesn't begin a sentence with "press the start button"! They know Linux and OS X! Amazing! I do think about switching to something cheaper, but I worry I would miss the high quality support.
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Review by tucci
Posted: 1.4 years ago
member for 1.4 years, 4 visits, last login: 269 days ago
Piscataway,Middlesex,NJ
$85 per month
Verizon
"no port blocking- you have have your own servers"
"reliability sucks.. and they don't pursue their vendor to fix it seems"
"I hope you don't have a job that heavily relies on your Internet connection"
| Pre Sales information:
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I've had them for 3 years now.
They always answer the calls quick- however it usually ends the same.. run diag, reset circuit, request a full diagnostic. The full diagnostic mean more disruption later, and the ticket always ends up closed. Wait X number of days, repeat process... 5 or 10 second interuptions 3 to 6 times a day- just enough to throw you off WoW or Conan.
Those same interruptions are a pain when you are trying to diagnose your work lan remotely.
I ended up using my Blackberry Internet on my desktop as a backup connection it was so unlreliable.
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Review by JeffBatHome
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 1.4 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
Acton,Middlesex,MA
$53 per month
"A real Internet connect, reliable, and good tech support."
"May be too costly."
"Aside from cost, Speakeasy has given me NO reason to want to switch."
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Hi,
I use Speakeasy as my ISP. A few notes:
1. I am happy with their service. I have had them now for years first
as a dial-up provider and now as a DSL provider.
2. When I have a technical question I find their answers usually
competent, and I am in a position to know being, as I am, a hard-core
programmer with decades of experience. Additionally everyone I have
spoken to at Speakeasy has no foreign accent.
3. I like the fact that they give me a REAL Internet connection, ie
they do NOT do things like block port 25 so that I can run my own
eMail server. Just try that with a company like Verizon.
4. I am NOT happy that they are charging me $49 + tax per month.
However, I suspect that if I wanted a REAL Internet connection from,
say, Verizon, that I would end up paying business rates, and that
would probably be as much as or more than what I get with Speakeasy.
Bottom Line: I probably should review services offered since it has
been a while since I signed up with Speakeasy. However they have
given me no cause to change.
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Review by teamnoir
Posted: 1.4 years ago
member for 1.4 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
Menlo Park,San Mateo,CA
$80 per month (12 month contract)
about 8 days
"knowledgable, attentive, responsive"
"not on site, slightly pricey, recently purchased by Best Buy"
"Capable and good if you need their services, but there are better options today"
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I went with speakeasy after numerous problems with SBC. My primary goal was fixed IP and to never need to dial an SBC phone number again. And with Speakeasy I got that.
Speakeasy answers the phone within 4 rings and the person who answers is both technically knowledgable as well as being empowered to address billing issues and technical issues directly. After spending many hours on hold with SBC, this was a god send.
However, my line has been a problem line since it was first installed in the 90's and Speakeasy couldn't help with that. They weren't capable of getting my line drawn from a remote terminal rather than the much more distant central office. So the line and band rates were still abysmal, but there were service people to talk to and they did eventually get my service to something more consistently reliable, (albiet very slow).
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Review by gruagach
Posted: 1.5 years ago
member for 1.5 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.5 years ago
Arlington,Arlington,VA
$54 per month (12 month contract)
"Finding another provider"
"everything"
"Striving to be Bangalore with an american accent"
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(ratings below consensus)
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Reaching a competent tech support rep is akin to winning the lottery. They're giving burger flippers scripts which consist of the things most people check before they even think of picking up the phone. You could set your clock to my outages. I had already figured the problem with my connection was in the central office. The burger flippers wanted to charge me $200 to have my flat rewired. Bad wiring doesn't cause outages on schedule. And finally I reached a rep who knew something more than a script and traced the problem to the CO and a bad circuit card. Speakeasy is reluctant to bring in Covad, because Covad doesn't want to do anything. However, the good rep spotted another bad line off the same card. Covad reseated the card (and probably spit over his shoulder and clapped his hands, too). That lasted a few days before resuming the scheduled outages. And of course, I couldn't reach the same knowledgeable rep as before, and spoke with another burger flipper reading the same old unconvincing script.
So what are we paying premium prices for? Nothing.
For my last month, I received a couple rambling, barely coherent, messages on my voice mail repeating the script until the time ran out. Who knows what the burger flipper was trying to say. He certainly didn't mention that my speed, when the line was working, would be 20% of what I was paying for.
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Review by ckm14
UPDATED: 1.5 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 9 visits, last login: 1.5 years ago
San Francisco,San Francisco,CA
$149 per month (12 month contract)
AT&T
"Seamless upgrade"
"Unclear pricing, techs don't come at a specified time"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings match consensus)
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I'm currently upgrading from SDSL 1.1 to ADSL Plus 8/1. I've had Speakeasy for around 7 years (migrated from another provider) and I've been pretty happy (only 2 unattended downtimes).
I've read all the middle of the road to poor reports on Speakeasy, but other high-speed broadband would require me to either get a landline or cable and I have neither (not even a television). So I'm trying this out to see how it works. Also, I no longer need SDSL since don't have any servers at my house anymore, and ADSL is actually cheaper and faster ($220 vs $150).
The only real issue to date is that they scheduled the Covad install on a hectic day (one of us was leaving for a last minute Europe trip, the other had a bunch of business meetings). That would have been fine if, as requested, we had been the first appointment, but we were the third, so we told them to go away. The install was rescheduled for a week later (today), hopefully they won't show up at the last minute.
To be fair, this isn't really Speakeasy's fault so much as Covad's doing. We'll see how Speakeasy performs when it comes time to switch all my IPs from the current SDSL to the ADSL line. Hopefully there won't be much downtime, but who knows.
UPDATE: After Covad came this afternoon, I called Speakeasy to find out what I needed to do on my end. The tech transfered the existing IPs while I was on the phone and I re-route the ethernet cable. It took a little more time to deal with VoIP, but, overall, it was less that 20 minutes to switch from SDSL to ADSL2.
Speed is much improved and everything seems to be fine. I had to leave after all this for dinner, but the only remaining piece to sort out is the VoIP system. Seems that only outbound works, but perhaps rebooting the TA will fix it.
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 Review by borborpa
UPDATED: 1.5 years ago
member for 7.7 years, 2291 visits, last login: 3 days ago
New Cumberland,Cumberland,PA
$133 per month (12 month contract)
about 42 days
Verizon
"Quick install, great pre-support, awesome speeds, runnign servers"
"Cost, if you can't justify the quality"
"They say you pay for what you get, and this is definately worth the money"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings above consensus)
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After reviewing ISP's for a few months, I settled on Speakeasy due to all the great reviews on here. I've seen some horror stories, but definately more good ones about them. I was previously with Earthlink, and though I didn't have too many problems with them, I needed more than one IP address, and also wanted a bridged connection instead of PPPoE. I was moving down the street at the end of June, so I figured I'd just do my switchover then.
After numerous e-mails to Kat and a few phone calls with Speakeasy to verify a few things, I finally placed the line order on Monday, June 24. It took me probably 10 minutes to do the whole thing! They had me set up on the TAC so I could follow my install progress as well. That night I noticed they had an addres mistake, and was able to correct it online before they even had to contact me. On Tuesday they received confirmation the line would be live on Friday (4 days...quite impressed).
Friday rolled around and the line would train...but no connection. I called Speakeasy and the support guy said that Covad hadn't sent the confirmation over yet, and that they send it every 6 hours and it should be up soon. Well I spent Saturday moving, so the DSL wasn't a priority. Sunday I still wasn't up, so I again called Speakeasy (since there's no local dial-up for me) and was informed that Covad doesn't send the confirmation to them for 3 days, so as to test the line. The tech said he could try and bring it up...and with one click I was up and running.
The speeds are great, I'm getting 1300/202 with no tweaking yet...so I'm sure maybe I can push that up a little. Minus the high cost (which is very quickly being justified) everything is great!
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Update 5/9/03
Everything is still awesome with the SE line. I upraded to 1.5/768 last month for an extra $10, and I've very happy with the new, faster upload speeds. So far, since July of last year my line has only gone down once, which was when the POP was down for 2 hours. Otherwise it's been rock solid!!
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Update 8/27/03
Everything is still awesome with SE. I received an E-Mail yesterday letting me know they were reducing my DSL bill by $10/month, which is a welcome surprise. Not that it wasn't worth it at $99, but $89 is still nice... 
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Update 10/23/03
Still going great. There have been some problems with latency and packet loss in some of the other SE POP's, but everything's going great here! Still extremely happy with the level of service I am getting
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Update 1/15/04
SE has eliminated the PHL POP, and converted it into a NAP. This has added a couple ms on my pings, but nothing bad at all. I'm still getting great speeds (1307/647). I'll be upgrading to 3000/768 here soon when I move at the end of Febuary, so we'll see how all that goes.
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Update 7/30/04
I have moved, and the service in my new place is great. I had the 6.0/768 package installed, but after a few weeks I started to lose sync horribly. SE ran an MLT, and we found out I was 15,500' away....not 7,500' as originally thought!! That makes quite a difference. Fortunately my noise margins are clean enough that I can maintain 3.0/768 quite well.
I'm still 100% satisfied with their service. I understand DSL enough to not bitch that I'm paying for 6.0/768 while only getting 3.0. I only wish some other people did...
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Update 11/9/04
Well, I finally switched to OneLink, and I must say I love it!! Due to my distance I'm in safe mode, but my speed tests for 4000/768 are 3236/635. Not too shabby!!
The install took over a month, but OneLink normally takes longer, plus there was a busy pair with Verizon that took weeks to sort out. The biggest problem I had was when SE told me I had to be home for the Verizon install, because Verizon East is my telco. I argued this with them twice, but they insisted, so I took a vacation day and of course Verizon never showed up, because they didn't even need to come to my house. SE was very apologetic for the mis-communication to their people, and credited the $99 install fee to help compensate for that. They even tried to get Covad here on a Saturday, but they don't work on Saturdays here in PA.
Covad showed up yesterday, and the tech was great. Since I had a NID splitter installed, and CAT-5 running straight up to the third floor, he swapped it onto the dry pair, and we were up and running. It took about 20 minutes on the phone with SE to get all the IP information switched over, but they did a great job. I think all in all I was down for an hour.
I'm still very satisfied with SE, and very happy to pay the premium price for a premium service.
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Update April, 2008
Well, it was a wonderful time with Speakeasy, but when Verizon finally came out with a reasonable FIOS Business plan, I had to switch. 15/2 with 5 static IPs for $119.99 a month - I just couldn't pass that up!
SE was great while I was with them. I had rock-solid speeds and uptime, and the tech support was amazingly helpful whenever I called. In the end, it came down to the money and speed...and with ADSL+ not an option at 15,500'.
Thanks for the great ride SE!
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Review by kulick
UPDATED: 1.5 years ago
member for 8.3 years, 4 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
Mountain View,Santa Clara,CA
$90 per month (12 month contract)
SBC
"Amazing uptime, great latency, flexible services (static IP, etc.)"
"Not cheap"
"Want great service and willing to pay for a company that does it right?"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings match consensus)
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I've been a Speakeasy customer for a long time (maybe 10ish years). I've had both SDSL, naked ADSL and line-shared ADSL with them. Every service was exactly what they advertised. In all cases, the service had phenomenal uptimes and great latencies to my nearby NAPs. The service isn't the cheapest, but, in my opinion, if you want static IPs, no port filtering and high quality, it's absolutely the best.
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