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Review by dlauber 
Posted: 1.5 years ago
member for 5.9 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.5 years ago
 River Forest,Cook,IL
 Business customer
 $67 per month (12 month contract)
 about 14 days
 "Excellent tech support, good web mail"
 "Expensive for the speed"
 "I'm changing to another DSL"
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I started with Speakeasy several years ago and have generally been pleased with it as service has improved immeasurably and tech support has remained strong.
But $67 a month for 768 mb download and 128 mb upload is simply too much. In a two days my small business will start a 60-day trial of AT&T DSL, which combined with our phone service, will reduce our phone and DSL costs by $55 a month -- more than 20%.
If AT&T stinks, I'm going back to Speakeasy. My whole motivation for switching is to save $700+ a year. I'll miss it; it's been good. And if money is no object to you, go with it.
Again, the tech support is excellent.
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 Review by freerock
Posted: 1.5 years ago
member for 8.5 years, 2352 visits, last login: 277 days ago
Jersey City,Hudson,NJ
$90 per month (12 month contract)
about 15 days
"always up, static ip, customer service is great"
"upload speed is minimal"
"If upload speed was better it would be a great service"
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As soon as FIOS is available in my building I'll be jumping to Verizon unless Speakeasy can offer something comparable.
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Review by jaw1701
UPDATED: 1.6 years ago
member for 1.6 years, 1 visits, last login: 1.6 years ago
Atlanta,Fulton,GA
$55 per month (12 month contract)
 BellSouth
"None"
"NO COMMUNICATION"
"Don't bother!"
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Well let's see, considering that the largest phone company in AT&T doesn't have dryline dsl, I ordered from Speakeasy. The only thing that was pleasant was the order process. From that point onward there was zero coordination and communication. The crux of the problem in the installation was allegedly Bellsouth couldn't access the premises. What premises they need to access was never told to me, and they certainly had no problem accessing anything when installing their sub par service. The taps? Downstairs in the laundry room. My apt? ZERO phone calls, knocks at the door, nothing. I never heard a peep. To add insult to injury, Speakeasy sent me a modem I told the sales guy to NOT send, and are now billing me for it. I am SUPPOSED to be getting an RMA to send it back, but that is like all other elements of Speakeasy I have seen. Inefficient and incompetent.
I ultimately cancelled the order and then was told it was cancelled and there would be someone contacting me....yeah RIGHT!
Horrible experience and ultimately no dryline service and LOUSY LOUSY REPEAT LOUSY customer service.......
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Review by Mino Taoyama
Posted: 1.6 years ago
member for 6.6 years, 2469 visits, last login: a few hours ago
San Jose,Santa Clara,CA
Contract price not specified.
"Great TOS and Support."
"Cost a bit more."
"If you run your own domain they are the best."
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6/768 with 8 static IPs. Very reliable. Might get a retrain every 4-5 MONTHS! Record was 210 days between retrains.
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Review by jbebop
UPDATED: 1.6 years ago
member for 7.7 years, 32 visits, last login: 71 days ago
San Jose,Santa Clara,CA
$49 per month (12 month contract)
about 14 days
SBC
"Connection is good most of the time"
"Network maintenance events disruptive"
"Pricey and tech support is SLOW"
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1st, the 3rd party rebate company took 4 months to refund my $200 for the modem.
Speakeasy has been doing a lot of network maintenence lately. Since they started their network maintenance, my speed has dropped from around 1.3Mbps to below 500kbps. 48 hours after logging a trouble ticket, I still have no word from Speakeasy.
The connection rocks when it's working well. The install is slow and support seems to be slow.
Update 3/30/08
Given the cost of this service, I'd like a faster connection. I've been paying the same amount for the same speed for 8 years. Isn't this supposed to get faster or cheaper?
I can't seem to find anything else that's comparable despite living in Silicon Valley. I've moved since my last review and have had problems with line quality and some latency issues. You call tech support, they speak English and are easy to talk to but make you reboot everything (which you already did before you called).
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 Review by Stacy
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 8 years, 3635 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
New York,New York,NY
$67 per month (12 month contract)
about 19 days
Verizon
"Static IPs, Ability to run a server"
"Cost"
"Good if and when it works"
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This is the second time I've left Speakeasy.
After almost 10 years, on and off, I decided it was finally time to say goodbye to Speakeasy. It's been too many years since Speakeasy actually delivered the kind of speeds they promised and for that much money it doesn't seem unreasonable to want to be able to stream video from places like YouTube, or download a movie from iTMS.
So I chose Time Warner's Road Runner Standard Double Play package with cable tv. Initial speed tests are like 10 times the download I was getting from Speakeasy at a fraction of the cost. On the upside, I was able to keep my Speakeasy email account which makes the transition so much easier. I'll have to see how well Road Runner compares in the long run.
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Review by rcanebound
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 9.4 years, 19 visits, last login: 1.7 years ago
Chicago,Cook,IL
$60 per month (12 month contract)
"Stable connection"
"Low upload speed; somewhat overpriced"
"Good service"
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We ordered 1500/256 ADSL in May 2004. It was installed promptly and it has been running stable. However, the service is a bit expensive.
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Review by ashethar
Posted: 1.8 years ago
member for 6.7 years, 6 visits, last login: 1.7 years ago
Emeryville,Alameda,CA
$60 per month
AT&T
"incredibly, fantastically brilliant customer service"
"expensive"
"if you are far from a CO or having trouble, they WILL get you connected- no regrets"
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I had earthlink for a short while- it never worked, and the wait time for customer service was never less than 40 minutes. Speakeasy has been the direct opposite- no wait time, fantastic tech support fast set up, great service. I depend on DSL for work and speakeasy has NEVER let me down- and it's been six years.
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Review by dsavlin
UPDATED: 1.8 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 238 visits, last login: 1.8 years ago
Chicago,Cook,IL
$119 per month (12 month contract)
about 15 days
AT&T
"Good tech support; top notch networking, never slow; lots of services; ToS allows servers"
"Pricey"
"It's expensive but it runs nice!"
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Update 1/30/08: back in December 2006 I upgraded to 3.0/768. Rarely I will need to reboot the modem if service stops working (say ~6 to 8 months). Aside from that, service has been excellent, with no complaints at all.
Update 7/4/06: Thought I'd pop in and say that I'm still having flawless service. My bill is up around $100 give or take, based on taxes, for 1.5/768 service that performs well within reason. Some time ago, I forget how long, I'd gotten an email from SE saying that my 384Mb/s upload speed was being doubled to 768 for free. Since I run my own server, I was happy to hear that 
I'd called a few months ago to request a 3rd static IP. The person I spoke to was quick to get it done and gave it to me for half price for being a subscriber for some time now. Cool. I used the 3rd IP to rework my personal Zyxel router to dedicate one IP just to my server, using NAT but no PAT (which was killing teamspeak performance).
The only complaint I have, which I have not bothered SE with, is that my Zyxel TA loses sync when I start my dryer, which is unfortunately on the same circuit. Sync is regained on the first try, so it's less than 40 seconds to get back online. I chalk this up to bad electrical in my place, hence the big UPS.
Update 2/7/05: I had noticed my download speeds were a bit off, and submitted an online ticket. The tech was courteous and clear in his recommendation of testing the speeds (via the local POP speed test) without any of my own network gear hooked up or other phoneline devices. I did this and had the same results; about 900kb/s downlink instead of the usual 1200 to 1300 down. The next business day after I'd posted these results to the ticket, I had another message from the tech ("Joe M") apologizing that a "test mode" limiter had been put on my line from a ticket months ago and hadn't been taken off -- Joe said he was "embarassed" to have discovered that. He took the limiter off, and I'm back to the download speed I originally had. Kudos to Speakeasy for being honest about what had happened -- and on top of that, he arranged to issue me a full month's service credit as a way of apologizing. It's service and support like this that makes me a very happy Speakeasy customer!
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I'd previously had the local telco's DSL service, but was frustrated that they didn't support any changes to straight-up 768/128 and a huge step up in cost for 1.5/384. I called SBC's sales dept telling them I'm willing to pay for a pair of static IP's and all they could say was, then buy business class DSL. The burn on my wallet was too high there. I ordered a disconnect on my DSL service. Fearing, of course, that my phone service would suddenly go kaputz. That fear turned out groundless.
I called Speakeasy and ordered 1.5/384 service in Sept '02. Service went live in October, about 15 days in all. My modem (ZyXEL Prestige series, bridged mode) sync'd up two days before the initial install date and just like that, I was live. Two static IP's, 50mb webspace, shell acct, and fast, speedy service.
I live in the city and apparently not far from the CO. The service has gone out for brief periods during very stormy weather, but otherwise is fine. I have a big UPS on my gear and there have been times where my DSL and server are up during a total power failure. Outages are pretty rare.
Speakeasy upgraded my service, for free, without asking for it, to 1.5/768 thus doubling my outbound throughput. Since I run a game fansite's forums at home I welcomed that
It's expensive. But in my experience I am both lucky and getting what I'm paying for.
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Review by molasseskat
UPDATED: 1.8 years ago
member for 1.8 years, 1 visits, last login: 1.8 years ago
Portland,Multnomah,OR
$60 per month (12 month contract)
about 3 days
"generally knowlegeable and helpful tech support that isn't in another country"
"too expensive, billing system problems, company unresponsive to needs"
"I switched to Qwest"
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I was with Speakeasy for years and years. 8, I think. My customer number was 6501 - that's how long I'd been with them. I was willing to pay a bit extra for what I perceived as their excellent customer service - but their customer service has worsened over the years.
When I moved to my present location I signed up with them yet again. First issue: they neglected to tell me that if I didn't show up to the install (my phone box is easily accessible from outside and I am fairly technically competent, so I figured I didn't need to be there) they would charge me $300. Thankfully, when I called to say "what the HECK is this charge???" they removed it (and told me I should have gone to the link in the email they sent me that showed the terms of service and told me about the $300 charge. Excuse me? Should a business really be burying these sorts of things like that?) Second issue: my internet connection would go down, seemingly randomly, for 3-5 minutes at a time. When I called them about it the first time they had me run all sorts of tests (they even sent me a replacement modem as a test, which was nice), but when they were out of tests they told me it was probably an inside wiring problem and if they were to send someone out to fix it and it turned out to be an inside wiring problem I could be charged around $300 to get it fixed. Too expensive for me, and as I wasn't doing any online gaming or downloading, I didn't care enough. About a year later, my fiance moved in, started his own ebay business and discovered the world of bit torrents. He was online all the time, and the connectivity issue was driving him crazy, so I called about it again. This time I was armed with a bit more info: because my fiance had been using utorrent for days at a time, we were able to see that the interruptions in service occurred exactly every 4 hours. At first they completely ignored what I told them about all the tests that had been run before and wanted to run them all again. I told them I wasn't going to go through that month-long rigamarole for nothing a second time. They ran a few tests on their end and again they finally ended up by saying that it could be inside wiring or it could be some sort of equipment on the line (they could not determine what). I could either run the risk of them charging me a butt-load to fix it (if it was an inside wiring issue) or I could hire someone for slightly less money on my own to mess with the inside wiring - and HOPE that was the real issue! I got fed up and switched to Qwest. $15 cheaper per month. The Qwest install guy came out and said, when my husband mentioned the connectivity issue, "oh, you have an alarm system, I see - even though you don't use it it's probably still sending signals back to the alarm company - that could be your problem," and he turned it off. For free.
update 1/26/08
Something has definitely changed with their billing department... for the worse. I just called them to ask for a copy of my final bill (I can't get it online now that I cancelled my account). They gave me the option of scheduling a callback (to occur between 1h 45 m & 2h 49m from now) - "press 1 to schedule a callback, press 2 to learn more about callbacks. If you have a rotary dial or pulse tone phone, stay on the line to be connected with the next customer service representative." I opted to stay on the line, as I will not be here in 2 hours. 3 seconds go by... "Your response was invalid. Press 1 to (etc)..." You have to let it say that message 6 times before it actually lets you "stay on the line." Finally - hold music and a message - the hold time was going to be "between 1h 45m & 2h 49 m." (!!!)
And Qwest hasn't had the connectivity issue Speakeasy had - no more disconnections every 4 hours. Yay!
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