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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain peakpeak.com)
lodged 10.7 years ago
 Boulder,Boulder,CO
 $50 per month- (month by month)
 Qwest "Fastest DSL in the West" "Tech Support a Mixed Bag" "Peak to Peak: Not the Summit, but not the Valley, either"
| Pre Sales information:
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I have been telecomputing in Colorado since about 1987. My first
Internet ISP was Internet Express (iex.net) of Colorado Springs. They
weren't the cheapest, but the service was hands down the best anywhere.
I stayed with them when I made the move to DSL, and again was spoiled.
Then iex.net was acquired by First World (read "WorstWorld"). About
a year ago, WorstWorld decided to get out of the upstream DSL
residential business, a good deal for all of us. Qwest was ready to
switch us all to msn or earthlink, but I wanted to stay local and
support our local ISPs, and went with Peak to Peak.
I am about to switch to cable modem, which means I will be leaving
P2P. While I was out here at DSL (now Broadband) reports, I thought I
would read the reports on P2P. After doing so, I thought I should add
my own.
The reviews are a mixed bag, a microcosm of my own experience with
P2P. They also bear out that common wisdom that if you make someone
happy they will tell one person, and if you piss someone off they will
tell 100. I can only relate my own experience which has, for the most
part, been quite satisfactory.
The change over was easy, though, like another reviewer, I am still
amazed at the simple webpage P2P has. It could probably avoid several
phone calls if it just put a little work into it. However, P2P has
typically been very responsive, both during installation and the rare
problem I have had (more about that later).
My through put averages from 300 to 550 kbps, which for basic DSL is
great. It has steadily improved. I have had very few problems, though
there was a spate of them about 10 month ago I suspect that was more
Qwest hooking things up in our neighborhood. Most "outages" are of the
normal hung Cisco Router type, and are fixed with a simple reboot of the
router.
The only real problem I had that P2P wasn't on top of turned out to
be a blessing in disguise. In December 2001 I noticed my service was
slowing to a crawl until, one day, it stopped altogether. I called P2P
which assured me it was nothing on its end. They pointed me to Qwest
which, after "pre-qualifying me," i.e., making sure I wasn't an idiot
who was doing something stupid, they send a GREAT lineman out. Our
house is about 27 years old and has a rats maze of old telephone wiring
in it. Something like 3000' the lineman indicated. He split our DSL
signal at the box and ran a separate line for the DSL just to my PC. He
tested the signal and it was going through fine (and better than ever,
thanks to the shortened, dedicated line).
Armed with this information, I called P2P back. Cornered with the
knowledge that the problem had been isolate to it, the techie checked my
connection, flipped some electronic switch, and my DSL roared back to
life at full throttle, better than ever, and hasn't missed a beat
since. I don't fault P2P because it had an electronic glitch. Hey,
shit happens. I do fault the first tech I spoke with for being a little
lazy and too fast to point the finger at Qwest. However, since the up
shot was a better phone line, I can't be too mad. I make mistakes now
and then too, and I am not going to hang, burn or flame anyone for that.
On the plus side, P2P has generally been very fast and good with
tech support, though I am not your average bear of a user. I built my
first hard wired computer when I was 12 and probably have forgotten more
about telecomputing than most of the folks handling a help desk ever
knew. P2P is a bunch of techies, and from my service they are very
good. However, from some of the reviews, P2P support may appeal to more
tech oriented users.
Also, there are a couple of marketing things, besides the primitive
and unsupported P2P website, that drive me crazy. With P2P you get two
e-mail boxes with your account. You want more, you pay for more.
That's not exactly "family friendly," and I think short sighted
marketing wise. AT&T Broadband, on the other hand, is going to give me
6, plus 10 megs web server space for each account (vs. 10 megs total
from P2P, more if you pay).
But those are relatively small glitches. I am not leaving P2P
because I am unhappy. In fact, I wish I could keep them as my ISP when
I jump to cable. My sole reason for moving is speed and price. About
2250 kpbs vs. 300-550 kpbs for the same $50, but more web space and
e-mail accounts. It's simple economics. If I don't like cable, P2P
will be the first ISP I call.
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Review by ddspock1 
member for 10.8 years, 1 visits, last login: 10.8 years ago
lodged 10.8 years ago
- Longmont,Boulder,CO
- Contract price not specified.
- Qwest
- "Great customer support!"
- "None..."
- "Excellent ISP with great customer service"
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I've been with Peak to Peak for a month now with Qwest at 640/256, and I don't have any complaints. Very reliable connection, and great speed. All of my customer service/questions have been answered in a day or two via email.
I'd recommend them to anyone looking to switch their ISP...
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Review by chibianh
member for 11.1 years, 3256 visits, last login: 83 days ago
lodged 11.1 years ago
- Littleton,Jefferson,CO
- $52 per month
 about 16 days- Qwest
- CLEC party: Qwest
- "tech support surprisingly helpful!"
- "minor installation problem"
- "first isp to say i could get DSL and helped me set it up"
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I just moved to the area and began shopping around for DSL service in my area. I've read reviews from ISP's I was looking at here and had called them all, including Peak to Peak. Not ONE ISP said ADSL was available to me. Then I called Peak to Peak and they actually said yes! I was reluctant at first because of all the reviews I've read about them on here. However, I needed a broadband connection and so I signed up. Coming from my previous provider (MHO, a very superb ISP, but said I couldn't get DSL), I was expecting to run into some of the troubles others had in their reviews. Well, so far, so good! Except for one minor trouble at the beginning. I guess they and I had different passwords for logging in, but I called tech support and they found the problem right away, a 5 minute phone call. Emails I sent with questions on help for setting up the modem were answered surprisingly quickly. I'd have to say that coming from a superb ISP, this one has to be up there with them!
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Review by tvilot
member for 11.5 years, 11 visits, last login: 6.3 years ago
lodged 11.2 years ago
- Boulder,Boulder,CO
- Contract price not specified.
- Qwest
- CLEC party: Qwest
- "Nice and competent pre-sales"
- "Pathetic customer service"
- "Abandon all hope ye who enter here..."
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I tried Peak to Peak, but it was a pointless waste of time. They never emailed me the instructions for setting up the DSL modem (I had to get that from another customer since requesting it from Peak to Peak was futile).
Their subsequent technical support was pretty much non existent.
I made repeated attempts to close the account, most of which were simply ignored. When someone finally replied, they were infantile and abusive. I therefore responded in kind.
Avoid these people. I don't know what kind of business they're trying to run, but "customer service" from them is much in line with George Carlin's definition.
--------------------------
"Whover coined the term 'customer service' was probably bleeding from the a**hole."
--George Carlin
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Review by arcie
member for 11.2 years, 17 visits, last login: 6.1 years ago
lodged 11.2 years ago
- Boulder,Boulder,CO
- Contract price not specified.
- Qwest
- CLEC party: Qwest
- "Fairly solid; good and detailed info on how to set up the DSL modem"
- "Vindictive, nasty, uneven support"
- "Unbelievably childish people make this place a MUST to avoid!"
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Config: Windows; residential; "640" down and "256" up; always on; fans out to two main computers via LAN.
When I heard Qwest was selling its ISP accounts to MSN, I bailed in a hurry. Unfortunately, I chose Peak-to-Peak. On the positive side, they have very good prewritten details on how to program the DSL modem (Cisco 675 in my case), and installation was reasonably pain-free, considering the Qwest environment. In the several months I was with them, there were few outages, and those that happened were reasonably short. More frequent were SMTP mail server problems; I might not be able to send mail for an hour using their servers (my default), so I would have to use my own site's SMTP server (not default, since it always took longer) just to get mail out.
Suddenly service was disconnected. We called P2P to find out why, and were told it was because we hadn't paid our bill. We pointed out that we were on credit card billing, so why didn't they charge the card? The billing rep ADMITTED that the credit card number had been entered in their system, yet they hadn't set it up right to actually charge the card. They told us it would be HOURS before they would allow us back online. WHY? It's THEIR mistake! We called back to see if we could get them to go faster and got the same rep. He was abusive and nasty, and no matter how we explained that we HAD attempted to pay, he acted like we were trying to cheat them somehow, and said there was no way to speed up the reconnection process. We called back a third time and finally got someone with a brain who said there was no reason for us to wait hours, and he hit a few keys and put us back online while we were on the phone!
But what really cinched it was when a friend needed DSL and asked me who I was with. Service was stable at the time, so I told him about Peak-to-Peak. He signed up, but was not able to get his service up and running; P2P insisted it was his problem, not theirs, even though he followed their directions precisely. Just as other reviewers have noted, they became very argumentative with him. The clincher in this case was that they then BLOCKED *all* their customers from sending e-mail to my friend, including me (even though they had no idea I was involved at all). When I asked why, they sent me a copy of an e-mail that my friend had written them in complete frustration where he berated them. (Yes, sent me a copy of a private e-mail!) They said that such wasn't nice, so they were blocking him.
THAT is their response to a support problem? Block you, deactivate your account, CENSOR your e-mails, threaten to report you to the police for telephone harassment? Because you simply want the service you're PAYING FOR?! That's not running a business, that's acting like spoiled children.
I ran like hell, and so should you. I switched today to 4dv.net, and will write a review of that service as soon as DSLreports includes them on the ISP list so I can!
* * * * *
3/8/02 addition: Chris at P2P called today, upset at the above review which, he said, contained "several factual inaccuracies".
Chris complained that I had not called P2P to report SMTP outages. Fair enough: I hadn't. That doesn't make the problem "factually inaccurate". He insisted that it was a problem on my end. Like what? Very clearly it's a NAT translation problem in my router that I'm using to network the DSL to multiple computers. Problem is, I don't have a NAT translation router; I'm using a simple $19 4-port hub for that. He also said that NO ONE else had any such problem with the SMTP server. Really? No one has EVER complained in the last several months about SMTP problems? Unlikely, but maybe so -- though I doubt many wait on hold to complain to their ISP when the problems they see have cleared up.
In fact, he went on to say, we had only called in *once* about anything at all (when they disconnected us for non-payment -- more on THAT below). I said that's not at all true, and related several other instances. Ah, he explained: that's because if a problem is cleared up immediately when the customer is on the phone, a trouble ticket isn't created. Sounds reasonable, but perhaps when there's an intermittent SMTP problem and the customer calls to complain, and the tech checks it and it's working -- that call wouldn't be entered into the log, right? Right, he admitted. Ah, so there could have been MANY complaints about mail problems. This problem is sounding less "factually inaccurate" every second.
He kept coming around again and again to the problem that we had not been paying our bill. We pay every bill we get, and have never, ever received a bill from them. We pointed out again that (as mentioned above) they accepted our credit card for automatic payment and, again, they admitted they hadn't even tried to charge it by the time they cut off our service. He claimed that since then, they had tried to charge the card, but that it did not go through. Funny: we haven't hard a problem with that card with anyone else, but sure: things happen. So why didn't they call us to get a different card? Obviously they have our number! No explanation. Why didn't they send another bill? They said they had, claiming it was sent by both snailmail and e-mail. We never got them. His claim: there must be something wrong with our incoming mail and snail mail.
We get hundreds of e-mails per day, but not theirs. We get a large volume of snail mail, but not theirs. We use our credit cards all the time without incident, but they have a problem with them (including, as they admitted, forgetting to try charging it). What is the logical conclusion? Is the problem at our end or theirs? "We don't have control over the post office" was the reply, and he said he would send the final bill by certified mail. I confirmed that the address he had was correct. The bill, of course, will be paid immediately -- if they manage to deliver it.
He defended their practice of telling frustrated callers not to call ever again or they would be reported as harassers (see other reviews). "Telephone harassment is against state law," he says, and should they accept being the victims of a crime? I said that when people have paid for a service, are not getting it, and are getting the runaround, they can get quite frustrated. As someone who has witnessed it first hand, I can believe that several of their customers have become very upset. But to treat customers like that is wrong, I said. But they *aren't* customers, he responded, since if the customer gets too upset P2P cancels their service on the spot ("that OTHER guy who wrote a review cursed at our CEO! He used swear words!") So how can they expect to get customer service when they're not customers? Nice logic: they'll be happy to help customers with problems, but if the customer gets upset then POOF -- they're no longer a customer, and the problem solved!! Is that what you really want from *your* ISP?!
He does have a point about people violating the law in their dealings with them. He's being fairly anal about it, but if that's the way they want to do business, that's their choice -- and it's YOUR choice as to whether you want to deal with such people. So how, exactly, do THEY follow the law? Remember above: I said that when we complained about the e-mail block of my friend, they sent a copy of his e-mail to us to justify their action. Copying private e-mail to a third party is a violation of federal law, title 18 -- copyright. (Sure it's anal! If they want to be, why not the rest of us?) When you send a complaint written in sheer angry frustration to your ISP, do you really want them sending copies to other customers? He said that the total block of my friend was a total mistake ("mistakes happen"), that they only meant to block incoming mail to support from him, and that when we complained about it they removed it. I pointed out that when they removed the block they said they would put it back if there were any more problems. How, then, is that a "mistake"?
After this discussion, we called P2P's billing department to give them a different credit card and settle the account. They said that we "agreed to pay within one week of receiving the invoice in the mail" (true) and therefore they REFUSED PAYMENT OVER THE TELEPHONE. They complain we won't pay, but they continually fail to even TRY to process our payments. Again, on which end is the problem?!
Last, we're now getting e-mails from them saying THIS part of the review is "inaccurate" too. NOTICE TO P2P: continued e-mailing is harassment. Stop it now. If you want to reply to this review, use the procedure provided by this forum.
Read the other reviews. Notice the patterns. And only then make a careful choice of who you want as your ISP. There's nothing "factually incorrect" about that advice!
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Review by drfundrfun
member for 11.5 years, 305 visits, last login: 4.1 years ago
lodged 11.3 years ago
- Longmont,Boulder,CO
- $52 per month
- (month by month)
- about 21 days
- Qwest
- CLEC party: Qwest
- "Fast response to email from tech support"
- "Download speeds are slower than Qwest/MSN"
- "Very reliable; 100% better than Qwest/MSN"
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Switched from Qwest/MSN to Qwest/Peak-to-Peak so that I could use email tools of my choice. The switchover was delayed because it was processed through Qwest as a cancellation rather than a transfer. Otherwise, conversion was flawless.
Tech Support has gone the extra mile to help answer questions and resolve problems that should probably have been routed to Qwest. Tech Support and Billing have responded to all email very quickly and resolved all problems promptly.
All-in-all, I'm very satisfied.
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Review by sales
(review was emailed from domain idromdenver.com)
lodged 11.3 years ago
- Denver,Denver,CO
- $45 per month
- Qwest
- "Seemed interested in my business but couldn't get it to work"
- "cut me off with no chance to change service"
- "don't even think about Peak to Peak, they drop you like a hot potato if there's problems"
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I was not happy that I could not use Netscape or my domain name
e-mail with MSN so ... I had to find someone else. I, unfortunately,
chose Peak 2 Peak.
After many hours on the phone over two days they could not get my
incoming e-mail to work. The employee (4th or 5th) I ended up with
insisted that it was MY problem, not theirs, and disconnected my
service 5 minutes after hanging up on me. He also told me that if I
called back he would report me for telephone harassment. I called the
next day and was told that I was "blacklisted" and that my account was
"locked" and instructed employees not to talk to me. The one who
answered the phone refused to let me talk to a supervisor or provide
me with contact information for a supervisor. I wrote a letter to the
company's POBox, but it has not been responded to in over a month.
The bottom line is that, after several days without Internet or
e-mail, when I got Qwest to "point" me to another ISP, I got a flood
of e-mail as soon as I logged on. The other problems I had with Peak
2 peak also, miraculously, didn't exist with my new ISP -
Interfold.
--
David Cerullo, Inter-West Consult
(303) 698-9592
Please visit: »www.idromdenver.com/
david.cerullo@lycos.com
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain att.net)
lodged 11.3 years ago
- Littleton,Jefferson,CO
- Contract price not specified.
| |
Please send a copy of reviews to cjw1225@att.net
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Review by doug
(review was emailed from domain pilkin.com)
lodged 11.4 years ago
- Boulder,Boulder,CO
- $42 per month
- (month by month)
- Qwest
- CLEC party: Qwest
- "Excellent customer service and technical support"
- "Some technical glitches, but they were resolved quickly"
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I was a relatively happy Qwest.net customer until the "transition" to
MSN. I grudgingly made the transition and only then discovered that
MSN filters its SMTP traffic in such a way that only "approved" e-mail
clients can connect to send mail -- "approved" clients being variants
of Outlook and "MSN Explorer". (It took several frustrating conversations
with MSN reps before I finally figured out that this is the case.) I
decided to switch ISPs.
Based in part on reviews on this site, I chose Peak to Peak Internet.
The customer/tech support reps were knowledgeable on the phone, and
Peak to Peak was the only ISP that even offered to handle the ISP
transition with Qwest. (I've spent enough time on the phone with
Qwest in my life, so I was happy to have them handle this change.)
I received the setup information in the mail as promised, and the
switch happened during the 8-10 working day time frame they specified.
When the switch occurred, I was able to get on-line immediately, but
I also immediately experienced some problems. I was not able to connect
to my Verio virtual server directly, and certain web sites were also
unavailable. I contacted the Peak to Peak tech support folks, who at
first suggested that the problem might be at Verio, but eventually
located and resolved a routing problem. For me, the period of
less-than-complete service lasted less than 24 hours -- I suspect
that other customers (perhaps even some who have posted here) may
have experienced longer delays. In my experience, the folks at
Peak to Peak were courteous and efficient throughout.
Doug Dirks
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Review by Jeff.Leveroni
(review was emailed from domain openwave.com)
lodged 11.4 years ago
- Colorado Springs,El Paso,CO
- $52 per month
- Qwest
- "Solid access to date"
- "Initial problem with Customer Service, but resolved by Peak"
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Review (update) for: Peak to Peak Internet
My location: Colorado Springs, CO, 80919
Type of Service: DSL (via Qwest), ISP: Peak to Peak
This is an update of my review posted on 1/17/2002. I'm happy to say that
Peak to Peak responded to my previous post and made a best effort to resolve
the issues documented earlier. After trading multiple e-mails, and having a
discussion with the founder of Peak, I believe that my concerns were heard.
As I stated in my earlier post, I have had no problems with the service
besides a Qwest-induced outage. The start up was easy and everything worked
on the first try (read: clear instructions). Customer service is
everything. I'm glad that Peak responded to the challenge.
Jeff
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