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Review by topgun25 
member for 11.3 years, 49 visits, last login: 2.8 years ago
updated 2.8 years ago
 Cabot,Butler,PA
 $39 per month about 10 days "768kbps down and up for $39.95 a month" "Problems corrected, no problems to report!" "If you have NPTCO, Stargate Rocks!"
| Pre Sales information:
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UPDATE 7/09
Stargate was bought out by Expediant a few years back. They are now dropping all residential accounts effective August 4, 2009. So it looks like the party is over. No real issues over these past 8 1/2 years, actually it is 13 years if you count the time I've been with them before DSL was offered (formerly USAOR). It's been a good run. Going to try Consolidated's service. Haven't heard much about them but their speeds are higher and for less money so as long as the connection is reliable, I'll be happy.
Update: The bandwidth problem has been corrected. The last few calls to tech support resulted in a very short hold time, definitely an improvement. No complaints whatsoever now! Speed tests show around 600Kbs up and down no matter what time of day. I am going to try a dedicated line from the protector box to my modem once we get better weather to see if I can tweak out a few more kbs. Will post the results of that upgrade when available. Stargate Rocks!
I decided to switch to broadband at the end of November. My choices were Armstrong Cable internet, Stargate DSL, and Nauticom DSL (I have NPTCO). Decided on DSL, went with Stargate because Nauticom wanted a 2 year contract and as a bonus, being a customer of Stargate's already, I could keep my email address. For $39.95 per month you get 768kbps down and up, up to 4 emails, and a 5 mb personal web page. Cost's involved were $99 for the modem, $95 for the service activation.
Less than 10 days from time of order request to line activation. The modem is a Paradyne Hotwire 6310 MVL. According to my instructions, it was recommended I purchase a Linksys or 3 COM NIC card. Local store had the Linksys for about $20 so I went with that. Upon trying to use the service, I ran into trouble. For some reason, the connection would go out of sync and the packets were getting lost. Many calls to tech support, long hold times, and told "We'll respond in 24-48 hours" went without any answer whatsoever. The least they could do is if they tell you they are going to call, just let me know "Hey, we are working on it, haven't figured anything out yet." After a little over a week of this I decided to try a different NIC card. I have heard both good and bad about the Linksys card so I figured I would give another card a try. I bought a 3 COM card for about $50. Installed it and everything worked great! Up and Down speeds over 600kbs were routine. I was satisfied, until......
The present: I have had Stargate DSL now for over 2 months. Initially, the speeds were acceptable and reliable. They have gradually gone down during peak times to recently, slower than my dialup modem. Upgrades have been promised for a few weeks now, most recently "Will be corrected by 2/18/01". Based on past experience with Stargate, I believe they will indeed do the upgrades, question is , when? The dialup service they offered was always superior with upgrades happening continually. I just don't know why they sold way more bandwidth than they had available at the expense of there current customers. Not like them at all.
Overall, if the bandwidth issue gets corrected, this will be the best service available in my area for the price.
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Review by adp1207
member for 7.1 years, 2 visits, last login: 6.9 years ago
lodged 6.9 years ago
- Pittsburgh,Allegheny,PA
- $56 per month
- about 3 days
 Penn Telecom- "Static IP, 'decent' upload speed"
- "Terrible Tech Support, Frequent Outages, Price"
- "Go with a different provider"
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When I moved off campus from the University of Pittsburgh, I was looking for a service provider that would not monitor my ports, and allow me to have a static IP on a residential account. Verizon was out of the question, and Telerama couldn't offer at least a 512MB upload speed. So Stargate was the only option.
The basic price was $45/month and they only charged an extra $10 for a static IP (after negotiation). They were also able to provide service through a 'dry line' which was nice.
Initially, I could not attain a true 512/512 speed, so they bumped me to 768/768 to compensate and I got speeds very close to 512/512 (this may have been due to the fact that I was in a VERY old apartment building).
So this was fine for about a year. THEN, they were bought by EXPEDIENT and the problems began to occur. I often suffered outages on Friday evenings, and when I called technical support (which is American and 24/7), they said the problem would have to wait until Monday. Then, Monday became tuesday, tuesday became wednesday, and before I knew it, I didn't have service for a week. They attributed the problem to Verizon (figures), and they never really told me how it was resolved. The connection just started working.
So, being a college student, I needed an internet connection all the time so that I could do my homework. Eventually, I graduated from college, and when I went to cancel my service, they said I had to give them 30 days notice. The guy was extremely rude, and said "Well, I understand you have to leave college, but understand that we want your $55." I asked to talk to a manager and he said that I wouldn't have to pay the 30 days of non-usage. But still, it was annoying that they would treat a loyal customer like that.
Bottom line: This company was A LOT better when it was run by some Pittsburgh entrepeneurs, but since the Ohio company, Expedient, took over it has been nothing but rude technicians and frequent outtages. The good part is that they did offer a 512 upload speed and a static IP (with no port blocking) on a residential account. But if I were to do it over, I'd probably go with Telerama. They are a young local company as well who seems to be like Speakeasy. I've dealt with them through web hosting and they were nice. Other than that, you have Verizon (who sucks) and Comcast (who sucks more).
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 Review by Mike
member for 11.6 years, 6584 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 7.2 years ago
- Pittsburgh,Allegheny,PA
- $72 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 16 days
- Verizon
- CLEC party: Verizon
- "The people are TRYING to help picking up for Verizon asinine ways, direct connections to any department"
- "Verizon, Verizon again. Administration. I have to pay for it *cough*"
- "Stargate kicked ass... now they kicked the bucket, e-xpedient broke the bucket"
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Note: All recent updates to review are at bottom of page.
I switched to Stargate's Hellrizon's DSL from their Northpoint connection when Northpoint died and Covad "couldn't" give me 1.5mb/384k ADSL. (Did I mention Verizon sucks?) Instead of getting the 1.5mb/384 package, it was practically useless with the non-routable IP. I'm on a 768/128k Static non-routable IP. 4 e-mails, backup dial-up.
Northpoint was much better speed/ping wise, but what the heck, after 1 month of dial-up after 2 years of DSL, I'll take it!
The company is great, the people are great, Verizon sucks though, but the people are willing to go the extra mile to pick the slack up for Verizon.
Verizon caused a 9 day "outage" with my DSL. They said I should of been up 9 days before I really should of been. The install was no problem at all for me, I just had to switch from a SDSL jack to a regular POTS jack.
I now have 3 DSL modems, a CopperRocket, a 3com, and this new bulky Westell Wirespeed (looks like a piece junk glued together with paste and extra plastic). I like the people, I sorta like the service, I don't Verizon's envolvment other than the Telco role. Maybe I expect too much from them?
Stargate good. Verizon bad.
Update;
Friday March 29, 2002
Stargate still good, Verizon evil communist empire that just upped my speed.
I'm at 768k/160k, actually getting 739k/142k. I wonder what will happen next month. 
Nothing against Stargate, I'm waiting until Speakeasy builds that local POP before I jump ship. I blame Verizon for not being able, ok they're able, but they won't turn interleaving off or at least turn it down some, jeez.
Pinging dslreports.com [209.123.109.175] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 209.123.109.175: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=241
Reply from 209.123.109.175: bytes=32 time=31ms TTL=241
Reply from 209.123.109.175: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=241
Reply from 209.123.109.175: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=241
Ping statistics for 209.123.109.175:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 28ms, Maximum = 31ms, Average = 29ms
Used to be in the mid teens with SDSL, oh well.
C:\>tracert www.dslreports.com
Tracing route to dslreports.com [209.123.109.175]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 13 ms 16 ms 15 ms 172.16.128.1
2 15 ms 16 ms 20 ms f0-0-2.eth.cr-1.crane.pa.stargate.net [209.166.1
64.174]
3 14 ms 17 ms 21 ms f0-0.eth.gr-0.crane.pa.stargate.net [206.210.75.
4]
4 16 ms 17 ms 16 ms s3-1.hdlc.gr-0.cc.pa.stargate.net [209.166.164.9
]
5 18 ms 16 ms 17 ms 500.POS3-1.GW3.PIT1.ALTER.NET [157.130.6.77]
6 23 ms 25 ms 23 ms 518.at-3-0-0.XR2.TCO1.ALTER.NET [152.63.37.6]
7 27 ms 27 ms 24 ms 292.at-7-2-0.XL2.DCA8.ALTER.NET [146.188.162.253]
8 34 ms 31 ms 27 ms 0.so-0-0-0.TL2.DCA6.ALTER.NET [152.63.38.73]
9 31 ms 33 ms 35 ms 0.so-6-0-0.TL2.NYC9.ALTER.NET [152.63.13.10]
10 31 ms 29 ms 29 ms 0.so-1-0-0.XL2.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.17.26]
11 32 ms 30 ms 30 ms 0.so-7-0-0.XR4.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.18.30]
12 33 ms 31 ms 31 ms 188.ATM7-0.GW7.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.25.109]
13 29 ms 28 ms 29 ms internap-gw.customer.alter.net [157.130.50.86]
14 34 ms 29 ms 28 ms border11.ge3-0-bbnet2.nyc.pnap.net [209.191.128.
145]
15 30 ms 28 ms 31 ms nac-1.border11.nyc.pnap.net [209.191.130.94]
16 34 ms 35 ms 31 ms a9-0-1165.msfc1.oct.nac.net [209.123.11.10]
17 37 ms 35 ms 39 ms dslreports.com [209.123.109.175]
Trace complete.
Still happy.
hmm, uh.... we'll make this update the 31st of August.
So far ok.
Pings are down 5 - 10ms from previous trace route even though it seems to be I'm on the AT&T backbone. If you're not really familiar with backbone routing, AT&T is the thorn in the ass of routing. Every router they have wants to touch the packets and play ping pong with them adding latency.
Besides that, they moved from real static IP to a NAT-static and new installs are PPPoE. Would I recommend Stargate now? No.
There are better fish in the barrel.
I am getting a $5 discount per month now due to one of those "Strategic Corporate Alliances" or what not. Not bad I suppose. If I might add again, there probably are better.
Update: 11-1-2002 (part 2 - spelling fixed)
Would I really recommend Stargate now? If I didn't like the person, probably.
I placed a speed upgrade last week (768k/160k -> 1.5mb/384k) with SGI as well as an account update. The account has been updated, but there are no records of any upgrade requests in the database. Ok.
It seems I am only allowed to speak with the person I originally placed the account with. Any mention of talking to another person previously is like an auto transfer to their extension or a dead extension. Yes, I attempted to talk to more than one person to come to the conclusion.
As much as I am attempting to have patience.. it isn't helping. I'm sure they're good people, but... I think my "Buddy Christ Action Figure" will generate a better / straight response.
Oh yes, did I mention the mail server sucks?
Update: 3
Ok, I called the provisioning department, kind of. They're not supposed to give the number out, but you have call sales to get a forward to provisioning... kind of dumb if you ask me. Anyhow.. The guy I spoke to probably missed provisioning and I got some guy from the corporate office. I explained the situation and either he was playing pissed off or actually was pissed off at the end of my little story.
The reason why it was taking so long was because someone screwed up the order and it was on hold for no apparent reason. Anyhow, that's fixed and the provisioning date it November 7th from October 30th. Stargate is not getting the "asshat award" just because that one guy in the corporate office was getting mad as I was telling the story (angry not at me, but the peons in some department).
Oh well... let's see what happens now.
Update: November 14th, 2002
Ok, the line was activated this morning.
Verizon wins the asshat award making a 3 days process 3 weeks. Burn in hell and die, Verizon. Those monkey weenies delayed my activation 3 times. GRR
Now Stargate for Stargate, yay.
How about these speeds for $72 a month, with a static IP?
1486kbps/353kbps... eat that dial-up.
»/speedtests/14···37313810
The average speed test is between 1501kbps - 1474kbps / 371kbps - 345kbps
My pings are down too, YES!
Tracing route to dslreports.com [209.123.109.175]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 * * * Request timed out.
2 10 ms 9 ms 10 ms 172.16.128.1
3 10 ms 14 ms 11 ms f0-0-2.eth.cr-1.crane.pa.stargate.net [209.166.1
64.174]
4 11 ms 11 ms 12 ms v1.eth.ha.crane.pa.stargate.net [206.210.75.1]
5 10 ms 12 ms 14 ms g2-0.eth.gr-0.pitdc1.pa.stargate.net [206.210.91
.230]
6 21 ms 26 ms 23 ms 12.124.237.25
7 25 ms 21 ms 22 ms gbr2-a80s12.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.123.8.178]
8 * 28 ms 247 ms tbr1-p012801.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.122.11.165]
9 39 ms 32 ms 30 ms tbr1-p013701.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.122.10.53]
10 29 ms 28 ms 32 ms gar1-p3100.nwrnj.ip.att.net [12.123.214.181]
11 42 ms 42 ms 40 ms 12.119.140.30
12 31 ms 32 ms 30 ms at-0-1-0.1180.gbr1.oct.nac.net [209.123.11.42]
13 31 ms 31 ms 30 ms gi-1-1-95.msfc1.oct.nac.net [64.21.102.2]
14 32 ms 41 ms 44 ms dslreports.com [209.123.109.175]
Trace complete.
More crappy AT&T routing. That does not matter as much as the gateway / ISP domain ping. The mail server still kind of sucks, but oh well.
Yay for Stargate! Death to Verizon!
Update: January 19th 2003:
Happy new year / birthday has passed. Something else has passed, a new hard drive. I forget my settings, I call tech support. The guy said they can't really help me because they don't support Debian Linux. JUST GIVE ME THE GOD DAMN NUMBERS you ASSHAT(s).
As you can see, the lack of support for unixy people... really took a toll on the rating, besides the sucky mail server. I expected more.. like, n-u-m-b-e-r-s. When whoever said Debian or Linux, it must of struck the old spanish inquisition / salem witch teachings of their MSCE courses. Burn us heathen bastards with our stable operating systems, all of us! Of previous encounters, I give them some credit. When they said they don't support unix... that's a low, low blow.
I KNOW SPEAKEASY DOES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (or for any local folk, Telerama does too!)
Other than this heart stopper, I'm still happy with the actual link from the computer to the backbone. At least the guy attempted to e-mail me a link to helpful unix commands.. to bad they were all for PPPoE, when I have a static IP (whatever the hell that is, have to rumage through notes, feh)
--- Tuesday, April 1st 2003. 9pmish
Interesting. My line basically just dies in the middle of me webbing and after the basic troubleshooting on my end, my head drops and I get to battle a phone tech.
SOOO... I am a little shocked now. The guy knew linux stuff. Actually helped me, nice.
+2 stars on Tech Support just for John or whatever his name was. -1 for crappy phone hold music and I couldn't really hear the guy after I told him I couldn't after speaking up.
Mail server still sucks.
Kind of happy now.
Update: 11-16-2003:
Chapter 11. Congrats Ruscitto brothers for putting Stargate in the shitter! I really appriciate the signed up for every spam list you can sell our asses to and turn off the spam filter I still pay for. I'm not sure if it was the multi-trillion dollar advertising campaign or the AOL-like CDs or it was you guys own ripped a new one in the national market, just like everyone has within the past 3 years.
I also like to thank stargate for sending me a letter saying "I've been bought and sold to Earthlink, all your base are belong to us". Not to mention I got it about a week after the decline date... Burn in hell you bastards. The stargate network is smoking fast now that everyone and their mother has bailed from the borg cube that is Earthlink. Surprisingly, the mail server still sucks.....
Update: March 27, 2004.
Now that e-xpedient or whoever took over, they fixed the mail server.. yay!
Of course, not that it matters because I can't connect to it with micro-outages every 2 hours for about 20 - 30 minutes at a time. Though, today was fun with the 4 hour "emergency outage".. aka: something probably caught fire. Pings suck, packet loss is covering around the average IQ, and the tech people really can't do anything about it. Now I understand how ex-Mindspring users feel.
Mini-Update: March 27, 2004.
Finally, an answer. It's a piece of Verizon peer hardware between Stargate and Verizon. Figures, Verizon is to blame.
Update: February 22, 2005.
A ton of micro outages for the past couple weeks or so. I'm still paying $72 a month for the same thing Verizon could do for $35. Strange that I still stick with them, but I forget how many e-mails I have attachted to different sites and what not.
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 Review by mikesb
member for 10.5 years, 1818 visits, last login: 50 days ago
updated 9.1 years ago
- Pittsburgh,Allegheny,PA
- $50 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 10 days
- Verizon
- CLEC party: Verizon
- "Quick install."
- "Over-priced; disappointing support."
- "An ethical business...."
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After holding out on DSL through its growing pains, I finally decided it was time to give it a chance. I stuck with my dial-up ISP Stargate, mainly for their tech support. They seem to really care about their customers, or image. Whatever their motive, you'll get the extra effort from them.
The ordering process involved filling out an online form and sending an e-mail. By the end of the week I had my equipment from Verizon. 9 days after ordering [including a 3-day weekend], I was called and told the line was ready. But authentication issues prevented me from logging in. They tried to give me a static IP until the issue was resolved, but had problems there too. But my dial-up account was still active, and that was more than other ISPs would do. The next day a couple timely phone calls back and forth got the matter fixed, and I was in the 21st century.
But here I discovered my biggest problem. It's stated in their TOS that they won't support connection sharing. But beyond this, the Westell modem's router software entirely prevents it. There's a quirk in the software that forces you to view the router's main page before you can access an outside address. This keeps you from using a hardware router. [Maybe I shouldn't be naive, this could be intentional.] But a post to the DLSR forums revealed that simply not logging in with the modem's software allows it to perform like a normal modem, so I could let my router perform the login. Now I have the three PCs in my house off dial-up.
So all in all, it is much better than dial-up, which is worth the $50 a month for 768/128 PPPoE. Gaming is vastly better, I can actually watch streaming video, and 100MB downloads are done when I finish dinner. It's too bad Stargate has to offer Verizon products. Although the connection has been very good, with pings of 20 through the network. And only two evenings over the past month where ping times were 600+ with packet loss.
Update: 040203
I wrote a long update, describing in detail the fun I had with Stargate's support, only to decide not to bother posting it anyway [if you really want to hear it, you can IM me]. Briefly though, I'll tell you that: 60+ pings through their network is "within acceptable limits," even after months of 20 pings. Stargate would rather you initiate communication weeks after they began 'looking into things.' They refuse to acknowledge that there is a ploblem worth attention unless your modem is actually desyncing. I'm updating this now that the problem appears to be fixed, assuming Stargate will never bother to give me any update, since the case is listed as closed at their site.
I'll also add that DNS sporadically drops out, news is capped at 20KBs, and mail is wonky.
Granted, all connections will have their problems, but when you're paying $50 a month for a connection as mediocre as this, you expect some degree of quality. Maybe this is an isolated incident though. It's just my experience.
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Review by Snitchy
member for 9.9 years, 1414 visits, last login: 1.7 years ago
lodged 9.9 years ago
- Coraopolis,Allegheny,PA
- $49 per month
- about 19 days
- Verizon
- "Good ping to gameing servers!"
- "Slower download then my satelite connection"
- "SDSL at an affordable price."
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When I finally moved to a place that had some type of land line broadband I was very excited. Then when I called up verizon they told my dsl wasn't available in my area so my hopes were a little dashed, but I didn't give. I tried several other places, all of them wanted contracts though till I came to Stargate. I was offered there PPPoE 512/512 SDSL threw Penn Telecom. When verizon came to install the line the Penn Telecom guy came at virtually the same time, when he wast even sapose to come to do the inside wiring till the next day, but I wasn't even gonna complain.
So far ive been up for 6 days with one minor outage for 10 mins. Had something to do with Stargates authentication servers or some such and not the dsl line. Other then that IM quite happy with my service and lovin the 50 pings as apposed to 450 pings on a 26.4k connection in games.
So anyway if your looking for a good SDSL service provider id highly recommend Stargate.
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 Review by bkp57
member for 11.8 years, 167 visits, last login: 356 days ago
updated 10.4 years ago
- Washington,Washington,PA
- $49 per month
- about 2 days
- Verizon
- CLEC party: NorthPoint
- "Transferred over in two days... speed is consistently excellent!"
- "Minor e-mail problem resolved within days."
- "Stargate was my lifeboat from Flashcom's sinking ship!"
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I previously posted a favorable Flashcom review. I don't really have any complaints about Flashcom (especially about the fact that they never billed me once), but I see now that I chose poorly. Stargate rules.
Over the span of about two weeks I began to realize that I was not going to be with Flashcom much longer, the warning signs were piling up. So I began to look around for an alternative... then I got 'the e-mail'. The one from Telocity/Northpoint. Well, Telocity was not on my short list... but Stargate sure was. I had been a dial-up customer of theirs for about four years before I switched to Flashcom.
I got comparable service (768 SDSL) for only $10/month over what I had(n't) been paying, plus extra e-mail addresses and web space which I didn't get before. After calling Stargate and authorizing the transfer, I got my e-mail addresses and IP information almost immediately. Inside of two days I was up and running on Stargate's system. The only hitch was that I could not send e-mail from home (received OK, but I had to send through their web-mail application). After determining that this was a by-product of the switch-over itself (the SMTP server recognized me as a 'foreign' IP address, easily corrected once it was discovered), I was good to go. No installer necessary, no techs at my house, no phone company... not this time. That was about the only thing that Flashcom was good for: the free modem and the free installation. Saved me about $200 I didn't have to fork out to Stargate! In fact, the only fee was a $99 transfer fee, which I understand is discounted down from $199 (this fee is a Northpoint fee).
My speed is great! It seems so much more... zippy. I guess because my connection doesn't go to California now must be the difference I am noticing.
You can't go wrong with Stargate's DSL. 24/7 tech support from humans (who read and return e-mails too), friendly and knowledgeable sales-people who return phone calls... you can't beat it with a stick.
Only one other thing: I forgot to ask if there was a contract involved. I don't think I care. I'm too happy.
Bye Bye Flashcom, I'll miss you (NOT)
Brian
UPDATE 2-22-2000: No problems, enjoying 768/768 SDSL service with no interruptions whatsoever. Waiting for Northpoint to hit the ground again, hoping that some other company will buy them up soon. Stargate ROCKS!
UPDATE 12-4-2001: Since Northpoint's death I have switched to AT&T@Home and I have been a happy customer for a few months now. Except, of course, for the @Home service going Chapter 11 and disconnecting AT&T's customers... but I got my call that I would be up on Wednesday December 5th so we'll see what happens when I get home from work. I'd give AT&T a good review too, and I probably will here soon...
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Review by AndrettiFan7
member for 10.6 years, 70 visits, last login: 6.7 years ago
lodged 10.6 years ago
- Pittsburgh,Allegheny,PA
- $80 per month
- (12 month contract)
- Verizon
- CLEC party: Verizon
- "Good Plans in Theory"
- "Never contacted when verizwhoo said that they couldn't complete order"
- "Switching to Speakeasy because of better installation notices / service"
| Pre Sales information:
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I ordered the 1.5m down / 384k up for 79.95 special. They tested my line as being 8000 feet from the CO, great in theory. the day before the install was scheduled to be up and running I called to check up on where the hardware (modem) was in shipment. I then found out that Verizon flagged my account that they could not provide the service due to distance from the CO. I was NEVER contacted about this and would probably never have known until I took the initiative to call. They then proceeded to offer the lower plan 768/128, but then proceeded to tell me it would be another 2-3 weeks. NO effort from Stargate was shown as to make up for their lack of consumer support even though they allegedly have an account "activation team" looking after my order. I found out about Speakeasy from a friend nearby who gets their 1.5M service only a few hundred feet away, and am now in the process of cancelling my stargate order to go with them. Lots of promises, no follow through, c ya later Stargate.
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Review by TA99
member for 11.1 years, 24 visits, last login: 9.3 years ago
updated 11 years ago
- Cranberry Twp,Butler,PA
- $40 per month
- "Excellent pre-sale support and information"
- "Slower than expected"
- "Long process --- but satisfactory"
| Pre Sales information:
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UPDATE (5/24/09): Several months later, after numerous phone conversations with Stargate and a visit from NPTCO I have a more reliable connection running up to 500K/500K.
No one has explained to me what's changed to improve the speed, but it's running better at this point, and I'll take it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------
My Stargate DSL/NPTCO connection is unreliable and slow. After hours working with Stargate tech support to resolve these issues. This is what's been accomplished.
- They blamed the NIC -- I replaced it.
- They blamed the browser -- I upgraded
- They blamed the cordless phone -- I removed it (converted to corded phone)
- They blamed flouresent/halogen lights -- I do not have these
- They blamed a fragmented hard drive -- I defragged
As a bonus, when I called to check on the progress at their end, I found that my issue had been closed without notifying me. I asked to have a new issue opened and hope that some action will be taken before this one's closed.
Bottom Line: Hours on the phone with numerous stargate tech support personnel, and no results. I'm looking into cable.
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Review by bigburger
member for 11.2 years, 1 visits, last login: 11.2 years ago
lodged 11.2 years ago
- Brackenridge,Allegheny,PA
- $39 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 30 days
- Verizon
- CLEC party: Verizon
- "Stargate has the most informative sales people - great turn-up staff!"
- "Verizon takes too long to do their part"
- "STARGATE RULES"
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I have been a customer of Stargate's for two years. They have always been great at technical support for someone like me who isn't very technical. When I signed up for DSL, the sales people were really nice and seemed educated on this service, as I had no idea how it worked. Then, a support rep from their DSL team called me and helped me get set up. Once things were up and running it was great! It just took a long time for Verizon to set their end up. THey don't seem to have a very good procedure for getting things done. I'm happy that Stargate went to bat for me and dealt with them so I didn't have to. I am psyched! Stargate RULES!
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Review by StanWilson
member for 11.4 years, 3 visits, last login: 11.2 years ago
lodged 11.2 years ago
- Monroeville,Allegheny,PA
- $49 per month
- (month by month)
- about 8 days
- Verizon (ex GTE)
- CLEC party: NorthPoint
- "Superb Technical Support / 13-14 ms Latency"
- "Slight slowdown at peak times"
- "If reliability and service is important, they should be your Pittsburgh/Northpoint choice!"
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My original ISP was PSN.NET, whose service was much worse than even its most negative reviews indicated before its final collapse in mid-December. Even though my contract was sold to Telocity, I relied on their local reputation and paid a slight premium to have my ISP transfer made to Stargate.
From the date of my order shortly before Christmas to reinstatement of my service, a total of eight days elapsed. This was a marvelous contrast to the three months that it took PSN.NET to get my original service stabilized with an almost 300 ms latency. They were able to utilize the 4-port XSpeed DSL modem that had been provided by PSN.NET. The other major change was going from multiple hour wait times for technical support to several minutes from Stargate.
After two months I have become accustomed to their stable 416/416 SDSL service. At this point, I have a static IP address, several distinct mailboxes and VPN connectivity that actually works. My only fear now is that Northpoint may somehow go under since they filed for bankruptc in mid-January.
Stan Wilson
Monroeville, PA
Allegheny County
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