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Review by wilbywilson 
UPDATED: 2.5 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 610 visits, last login: 120 days ago
 Arlington,Arlington,VA
 $50 per month
 about 90 days
 Verizon
 "it's fast when it's working"
 "long hold times for support, somewhat frequent downtime"
 "I don't recommend CavTel"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
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(ratings below consensus)
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I recently moved to Arlington, and vowed to stay away from the cable companies. There were numerous options for DSL, but essentially they would all have run over the same Verizon infrastructure, at least in my neighborhood.
I kept hearing commercials about Cavalier Telephone, which had a deal for $50 for DSL plus a local phone line. The speed "could be up to 4mbps", but depends on your distance from the CO and quality of the lines.
Even when I called and talked to the reps, they couldnd't tell me what kinds of speeds to expect. For the money, I thought I'd go ahead and give it a shot. It took about 5 phone calls to finally get the service ordered (they couldn't figure out if I was in service range, I ended up being about 10,000 feet I believe). Install coordination was quite poor actually. The only way I knew the service had been turned up was when the DSL modem arrived at the front door. At least basic instructions with my static IP were included in the box.
I hooked everything up with no problems, but someone that's not familiar with this technology may have had troubles due to the lack of coordination/instruction. Currently, I've got 5 computers running over a wireless network and everything is running smoothly. Speed is about 500k/s down, 250k/s up. Not that fast for DSL, but since I'm not a gamer and don't download huge files, it serves my purposes. Sure I'd be happy to get faster speeds, but overall, it's probably worth the money since I get a local phone line as part of the deal.
If you lived really close to the CO and could get really high speeds (for the same $50 price), then this would be a real bargain.
Tech support: another downfall of Cavalier. I've sent in 3 emails, and got the exact same canned response 2 times. Too bad the canned response had nothing to do with my question. The third time I received an auto-reply saying their support box was "over quota." Solid support there. I hear you can get better support if you call and wait in queue, and hope you get a good tech, but frankly I don't have the time or patience to play games. I'm still without an email address at Cavalier....oh well I'll continue to use Yahoo, and hope they don't need to contact me via email.
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11/29/05
Lowered the "Value for money" to 40%. The reason being, is that you can get much faster speeds for similar prices from other ISPs. However, I still refuse to give in to the cable companies, so until FIOS becomes available, I'm still sticking with Cavalier DSL.
07/06/06
In December of 2005, I requested an upgrade to ADSL2 + Phonom VOIP through Cavalier Telephone (I didn't really want VOIP, I just wanted the better speeds that would supposedly come with ADSL2 and new DSL modem.) I called every couple weeks for the next 3 MONTHS to check status, and the order was finally fulfilled in March of 2006. I heard everything from "we lost your order" to "something is wrong with the system," etc, etc. In summation, 90+ days from order to fulfillment.
Once again, the only reason I knew the upgrade finally happened was the new modem was at the door when I came home one day, and the former DSL modem had no sync lights. Well, after finding out I had a new IP address (by calling CavTel), and having to call support about 8 times until they got my "profile" working, I was online 3-4 days after the ADSL2 + VOIP upgrade. Quite a painful transition, but the speeds were indeed a lot better. About 4-5MB down, 1MB up. They will only support the VOIP box being the "front door", and the thing is so limited in being a firewall/filterer, that I refuse to leave it as my initial device. It's sitting behind my D-LINK router, and it's not working despite my opening various ports to it, and even making it a DMZ. So basically, I'm paying for VOIP, but not getting VOIP. At least I *had* quite good speeds and a reliable connection...until about a week ago.
Last Thursday I came home from work and the roommates were complaining that the 'Net was down. Sure enough, no sync lights at the DSL modem. Called CavTel, waited for 20 minutes and got a dial tone. Called a few more times and eventually got a rep, who said a technician needed to be dispatched...in 5 days. That was yesterday, and no tech ever called or showed up (they said they would call 30 minutes ahead so I could come home from work and meet them). I called again last night, and the new story is that there is a problem at the CO, and lots of people are being affected. You mean we've all been down for a week? Seriously, I have lost faith in CavTel. I always knew the support was weak and inconsistent, and I feared that if I ever needed support, this exact scenario would occur. I can't recommend CavTel's service to anyone.
5/11/2007
Last week, I had a couple days of downtime. After I finally got in touch with a support rep (still very long hold times, and sometimes you get transferred to a dial tone), she told me that something must be wrong with my personal router. I pleaded with her to check on CavTel's end, because I wasn't getting all my sync/blinking lights on the DSL modem, and apparently the modem configuration was wrong. Seems that a "new tech" must have accidentally removed me from the VLAN, according to the support lady.
Here is what I've learned from being a CavTel customer: when the DSL line is up and running, it works quite well (don't ask about VOIP, because I never got that working through my D-LINK, despite forwarding every port I could think of. For all I know, Phonom could have an issue on their end). But when the DSL line is down, it's really painful to get in touch with support, and when you do, resolution to the problem is not always clear. If a tech needs to come onsite, be prepared to be without internet for up to a week.
A few years, ago, I remember the $50 deal of DSL+phone being a good bargain. But nowadays, a lot of companies can match or beat that. And most every other company has better support than CavTel. It really makes no sense to stick with them in the NOVA area, with all of the other options that are available. (I guess if you have a need to run personal servers, then CavTel could still be a viable option since I don't believe that violates their terms of service.)
At any rate, my next update will probably be from a new ISP...
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Review by salex99
Posted: 2.5 years ago
member for 7.8 years, 179 visits, last login: 7 days ago
Ardmore,Montgomery,PA
$25 per month
about 30 days
Cavalier
"good price, fast speed, pretty reliable"
"takes long to resolve problems"
" once it is up and running,works fine"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
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(ratings match consensus)
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I have had cavtel since oct.2004. I was one of the first ones to sign up for cavtel in my CO. I got the modem in couple of days, hooked it up and nothing(btw I alredy had their phone service and my work provided dial-up service). It took about 3-4 weeks to get it going, after countless calls to tech support, scheduling techs from Verizon And Cavtel to come to my house to see the problem. I had the DT all the time but no DSL. There was no problem on Verizon side, but on like 3d visit of Cavtel tech he said ,that he had more new customers on the same card in my area with the same exact dsl problems.
At some point someone figured it out and it started working.My speeds were somewhere around 768/128(paradyne box) which was great after dial-up. But after reading alot of reports on this message board,that cavtel customers who live close enough to CO(iam 6-7000ft) qualify for hihger speeds like 5000/800. It took me awile(7-8 months may be) to go ahead and order higher package(thesame price $25/month),after a bad start with original dsl.In couple of days a got another DSL (this time it was westell box) .I think I had to call support and they changed IP addrees. So it went pretty smooth that time. And the speeds were accurate 5000/800
Things were fine for a while, until I tried to use their Voip Phonom to save $20. It wasnt worth it.Bad Mistake. Cavtel phone is $25+dsl is $25+$17taxes=67+long distance 5c/min.Phonom is 15 or 20 with 200 min long dist+the same $25DSL would be around $45.
I had their VOIP for about 2 weeks.The qualitty was not acceptable. The calls would drop all the time,was some echo, if you download something or play somevideo clipon your pc,there would be no dt. You would have to refresh the page, wait for 20secand dt would come back. I was just tired doing all these tests with the support,using just one cordless phone connected directly toVoip box(trying to illuminate the possibilaty of old house wiring ).
So i simply requested to switch me back to POTS DT(from phonomto cavtel).It was a nightmere. For a week thier techsupport actually called me and tried to convince me to stay with phonomand tried to resolve the issue.No luck I was willing to work it out, but still bad phone quality,so finaly tech support transferred me to a rep who canceled my phonom account and had to create a new cavtel account. For some incredible reason they had to port my number back from Verizon, even though cavtel and phonom are pretty much the same company.And they told me that port wouldbe ready in 2 weeks. 2 weeks goes by,nothing happens. I call them and there is no record that i ever requested to switch back to cavtel. Lets say I was pretty upset(at this time i am still using VOIPwhich works 90%of the time).They put my request back in the system.Another 2weeks go by, i loose my VOIP DT, but there is no POTS DT. It was great, i was fuming.Now all they had todo is to put my old POTS line backtowhere it was.
So at this time I still have one line going from the pole to my house, that is dry dsl and voip on the same line.
At some point in time Verizon tech comes out and runs a new loop with my POTS line.
Also i got another DSL box in mail.So they transferred dsl and pots to a new loop for some reason and left the old loop . I was very patient. Those were 3 long months with phonom.
but for the past 1.5 years ihavent had any changes and everything is working fine.
Speeds are great , no downtime
»/speedtests/71···29581072.
my space bar doesnt work too good
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Review by Clifffender
Posted: 2.7 years ago
member for 2.7 years, 1 visits, last login: 2.3 years ago
Essex,Baltimore,MD
$25 per month (12 month contract)
about 45 days
Cavalier
CLEC party: Cavalier
"Service is fast and reliable"
"Installation was slow with problems"
"After installation, everything was very good"
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Ordered Cavalier DSL (Maryland Area ...Feb '06) 3000 kbps speed for $15/6 months ($25 after) and the modem arrived about 5 days later. Then trying to access the service, I ran into many problems: First, a delay in the time the service would be turned on...Then a very long delay because of a problem supposedly with "piggybacking" onto Verizon....then other problems (which I can't remember all of them) just getting the service turned on.
Finally about 45 days later, the service started working and it has been working great for me ever since. I average about 2700 kbps speed (as compared to Comcast cable, which I had before, around 1000 kbps). When I have had outages, the Support Techs at Cavalier have helped me quickly, and they seem very knowledgeable. Most of my problems have been with my Linksys router....and they even helped me with that!
I am very satisfied with Cavalier, as I have the long-distance plan telephone service and the DSL. But, both were plagued with problems when they were being "installed".
Followup comments:  Lenagainster
join:2005-01-07
Silver Spring, MD | Problems Interesting that a review indicating very long installation time, and problems during the installation, and problems afterward as indicated by your need to call tech support, wound up still in the smooth ride category. | |
| | Clifffender
join:2007-03-09
Essex, MD
| Re: Problems I am new to this forum and I don't exactly know what you mean by "the smooth ride category".....
The installation was a horror...but I still had Comcast Cable during this period..On an average, the Internet would stop working once a month with Comcast....with Cavalier it has been out 4 times (in a year), and 3 of those times were because of my router. (The other time was because of line/Verizon problems in my area.)
So a charge of $25/month compared to Comcast's $50/month is well worth a delay in the installation...if you have some kind of back-up internet. | |
| | | Lenagainster
join:2005-01-07
Silver Spring, MD
 ·VoicePulse
 ·DIRECTV
·magicjack.com
| Re: Problems said by Clifffender :I am new to this forum and I don't exactly know what you mean by "the smooth ride category"..... If you go to this link:
»/
(dslreports(dot)com)
You will see the categories of the recent reviews.
Smooth ride, mixed, unhappy campers.
Yours fell into the first category, I would think it fits better in the mixed category. Shouldn't really matter too much as the numerical ratings you gave reflect the problems you had and will be compiled into the overall rating for Cavtel.
BTW, my experience with Cavtel has been that once things are working, they generally go o.k., with an occasional outage here and there. But if you try to make changes and get Cavtel people involved, prepare for disaster. | |
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Review by CavVendor
Posted: 2.7 years ago
member for 2.7 years, 1 visits, last login: 2.7 years ago
Arlington,Arlington,VA
$39 per month
about 47 days
Verizon
CLEC party: Cavalier
"It is cheap"
"No customer service; no coordination; Depriving villages of idiots"
"DON'T Switch! It's not worth the savings"
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I tried to get Cavalier DSL. WOW did it suck. They disconnected my Verizon Line smoothly. But in the telco closet of my condo they reconnected it incorrectly. The result was a phone line that had a lot of crosstalk. When I called, and they could be bothered to come back, they fixed the crosstalk, but the Internet Connection was STILL not working. I went to our condo telco closet (The door is never locked -- don't know why) myself. I was able to adjust the wiring and after another call to Cavalier (#3) I was up and running.
That said the service was slow, so I wanted to increase my speed. This is where the problems started as I was on what is known as ADSL 2+. It's a long story, but basically you have to be within about 12,000 of your LSO/CO to get better speeds, and fortunately I am. Unfortunately I did not get those speeds.
I would continue with my litany, but it's more of the same. As positive, I did get my "friend" who referred me $25. However I quickly went back to Verizon, even though it's more expensive they are capable with their support, understand basic Telcom, and even though they're gouging you, you can rely on the service.
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Review by madcurt
Posted: 2.8 years ago
member for 2.8 years, 0 visits, last login: 2.8 years ago
Philadelphia,Philadelphia,PA
$25 per month (24 month contract)
about 5 days
"my speed"
"disconnects about once a month for some odd reason"
"did i mention the speed is great"
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I've had this ISP for about 7 months. When I first signed up for this ISP my download speed was about 700 kbps and upload was about 200 kbps, I called them and told them my speed wasnt at 1.5 like they promised, and they have been pushing my speed up ever since, now my download speed is at about 9.5 mbps, and my upload speed is at 2.3 mbps.
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Review by geetaar
Posted: 2.9 years ago
member for 2.9 years, 0 visits, last login: 2.9 years ago
Philadelphia,Philadelphia,PA
$50 per month
about 14 days
Verizon
"reliable bargain.. they seek to deliver what they promise; good customer service"
"the coordination with Verizon -"
"a good deal for the money"
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Verizon owns the lines, but my CAVTEL is faster than Verizon.. we have both DSL accounts at the same residence. CAVTEL is superior in customer service and in service delivery.
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Review by mdavis4
UPDATED: 2.9 years ago
member for 9.4 years, 1136 visits, last login: 24 days ago
Baltimore,Baltimore City,MD
$25 per month
about 17 days
Cavalier
CLEC party: Cavalier
"I like paying just $25 a month for DSL and the speed is good too."
"None so far"
"Good Service, customer care was pretty good at resolving a minor error on the DSLAM."
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UPDATE: Well it's been over a year or so that I have had Cavelier and I can say that I am still pleased with the service. I have not had an outage or down time since the service was installed and the minor problem with the Alarm system. The service is reliable and the speed is decent for the price. I get about 8.79 Megs down and about 1.2 Meg up on average. The cost of the service remains the same but the phone did drop a few dollars so I am happy about that. I am also happy to say that customer service has been very good with the few calls I have made to them and they are very prompt on resolving or answering questions that I may have.
Well, I ordered DSL the beging of January along with Cavelier's phone services for a total of $69 plus taxes for unlimited calling and DSL. This is a big savings over MCI for phone of about $198 a month, Comcast for TV about $200 since I now have Direct TV and Comcast for Internet $60 a month. So now with Cavelier for phone/DSL and Direct TV for TV I am paying a total of $156 for TV, Phone and DSL. I LOVE IT!
The sales person was very nice and worked with me every step of the way on getting the services started and she went over every detail including all the taxes and other small print stuff very closely. She was so nice on the phone and she gave me periodic calls to see how things were going and that they had the DSL line turned on yesterday but I could not get on yesterday so I called today and the tech said that a typing error had caused a setting on the DSLAM to be wrong. He fixed it and the connection was live in seconds flat.
I understand that mistakes to happen and I don't penalize someone for a mistake as long as they admit to it and they fix it and that is exactly what happened. The tech also answered any question I had and he tried very hard not to put me on hold to much. I did call during a busy time but the call was still answered in about 30 min and the notified me of that before I went on hold. The email is pretty advance with it's spam filtering software and the organization of the screens. I can do alot of customization and even give my email numerous aliases for one address. The connection is stable as of now and is fast for what I need it they do say speeds capable od 10 meg a second and 1meg upstream. The normal speed I am getting is between 3-6 Megs and a consistant 780 to 900kbps upstream which is fine with me.
I am happy that I can run servers on the line and that my network is not affected by much changes to it's original configuration making setting this thing up easy. The install was effortless you install the filters but since the house had DSL before we moved in we had a splitter next to the NID and so the filters were not needed. I just plug the ethernet into the router, plug modem to wall and phone line and add my phone, and fax to the modems seperate phone jack and put in the static ip information and I am online. That was a 15 min install.
The modem lit up in just a few minutes. the modem is a ADSL2+ with DSLreach technology making it capable of speeds up to 20MBPS for future use.
I will give an update as time pass as to speed and reliability. I have had good compliments from family and friends about Cavelier and so far I like them.
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Review by TheDeuce
UPDATED: 2.9 years ago
member for 9.1 years, 685 visits, last login: 70 days ago
Richmond,Henrico,VA
$45 per month
about 4 days
Cavalier
CLEC party: Cavalier
"Inexpensive alternative to cable company or verizon"
"customer service/tech support is almost worthless"
"Good value for money if you are patient"
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DSL was connected within a few days of ordering and actually work. I did have a problem with the signal dropping, but that was remedied. Currently I get 2-5mbps down.
I do not like the fact that you have to get their DSL service with local phone service, which adds another $25 per month plus taxes. I opted for their phonom VOIP service instead, but that required a 12 month contract. Getting that up and running was a nightmare to say the least. I will place that review under the appropiate section.
I wanted to go with Cavalier because they are a local company (Richmond) and not Verizon of Comcast. Of course this came with headaches as their customer service and tech support are lacking. I knew what I was up against since I have read previous reviews on this site. Hopefully I can cancel the phonom service at the end of my contract and keep the DSL service.
Update 12/9/06 - Connection has not worked all evening, tried power cycling modem & router prior to calling customer service. Hold time was in excess of 20 minutes & connection miraculously works once customer service is contacted (even though they claim no technical difficulties).
Also, connection speed fluctuates between 2 mbps & 6mbps without any reason. Connection is extremely unpredictable and unreliable. As soon as my 12 month phonom account is up, I am dropping Cavtel for VOIP & DSL.
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Review by jello44
Posted: 3 years ago
member for 3 years, 14 visits, last login: 2.7 years ago
Philadelphia,Philadelphia,PA
$50 per month
Cavalier
CLEC party: Cavalier
"it's cheap"
"packet loss, high latencies"
"only get it if you don't want to pay out the wazoo for high-speed"
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I called and changed to Cavalier because I though I'd save a little bit of money. The price isn't bad but the overall service is just alright. I get ok speed but I am getting at least 5% (sometimes 25%!!!) packet loss ,which is really bad for me, since I am always playing online games and the lag is really noticeable. Though I am almost positive that it is just the phone line itself and not the DSL, though I could be wrong. I did call tech support and the guy said that he cleaned up the line, and I should be fine, but it's not, he did seem to know what he was talking about. So, I basically called earlier today to shut off the DSL from the line (which takes about 10-15 business days), and they really didn't argue with me about it, they did try to send a technician out, but I wasn't having that. On Monday I am going to call Verizon to switch back to their phone line service and stick with Earthlink DSL.
Though installation was flawless, I even got a call telling me that the switchover was going to be the next business day (11/22/06)
Overall, it's not bad if you want cheap DSL and aren't staring at a computer screen for hours on end like I am (I need a new hobby), you probably won't even notice anything.
I just hope verizon can get it back up and running quickly, I am still paying for my Earthlink account :P
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Review by espionage007
UPDATED: 3 years ago
member for 6.4 years, 396 visits, last login: 42 days ago
Alexandria,Fairfax,VA
$88 per month
about 45 days
Cavalier
CLEC party: Cavalier
"Cheap Dsl, no ports blocked"
"speeds are horrible, packet loss, customer service are clueless monkeys"
"it's ok if you'd like cheap dsl without signing contracts"
| Pre Sales information:
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I ordered Cavalier DSL back in September and received the modem 45 days later! that was one of the most agonizing things I've experienced. I pay $75 a month for the Flexdsl package which includes a phone service plus dsl of up to 960/960. Now, the speeds arent guaranteed, meaning you can get anywhere from 10/1 to 960/960 which almost never happens. my average speeds are 512/142 if you'd like to see more speed test results just search for cavalier speedtests and look for my username. Customer service is awful, they put me on hold for 20-30 minutes just to speak to a CS, which usually is no good because they're clueless and dont know jack. their internet service is a "best effort" service, nothing is guaranteed not even up time. packet loss is very common anywhere from 5-20%. and for installation they give you a crude printed copy of instructions for windows 95/98.....very unprofessional and you're required to do everything manually. But on a lighter note they dont block or filter any ports and they give you 1 static IP, that's about it.
Cavalier has it's own forum on this website, please drop by. Mellow will probably answer most if not all your questions regarding this ISP.
UPDATE(11/10/06):
I moved and cut off cavalier. I no longer need their inadequate services. Do I really have to say much? Almost everyone that has or had Cavalier as a [telephone/internet provider can agree with me here.
...Where do I start...The awful connection speeds.. The dial Tone problems...The Phone Ringer problems..Incompetent customer service representatives. I mean I usually wait anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour to speak to someone. That, is a LOT of time wasted. And for what? To have someone tell you they cant do anything to resolve your issue. I don't even think Cavtel employees care enough about their jobs. Anyway I've gone off on a tanget...
I was too lazy to cancel with them but after moving to another city I finally cut their service off.
I say good ridance. I switched to back to verizon dsl and they had me start before the service ready date. I ordered verizon 768k/128k at a very low price and I'm getting faster than the speed advertized. SO I cant complain there.
[My new best friend VOL  ]
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