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Review by fitz2 
member for 11.2 years, 1 visits, last login: 11.2 years ago
lodged 11.2 years ago
 Arlington,Arlington,VA
 $80 per month- (12 month contract)
 about 70 days "Fastpoint sales good at B.S. I was told all servers were inhouse" "News groups are bandwidth limited to 128K News server outsourced (Super News)" "Customer support ducked me for 6 months on news group issue I called 3 times a month."
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Im stopping service after 6 months, Fastpoint wants to sue me for more than the remaining cost for 6 months service. Im going all the way with them to litigation on this one.
There supplying high speed internet should include News groups, after all Coved runs the line & the line works fine. Its the ISP (Fastpoint) thats the problem.
Thet tell me that 128K for news group access is normal & acceptable to them.
(BULL)!!!!!
Hello CAPUNET here I come........
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Review by rollinvw
member for 11.5 years, 6 visits, last login: 11.2 years ago
lodged 11.5 years ago
- Torrance,Los Angeles,CA
- $69 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 40 days
 SBC- CLEC party: Covad
- "Reliable bandwith. Reasonably good up time record. Helpful tech support."
- "Management and organizational changes."
- "Currently happy with the service, and hope they survive."
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In early summer 1999 I started researching DSL and ISPs. After narrowing it down to about 4 who at that time provided service in my area, I selected Fastpoint Communications because of their apparently neutral analysis of technology issues in DSL service. I took their word that they had a solid network infrastructure in place that would guarantee the consistant high bandwidth needed for DSL. An important consideration for me was their static IPs. I ordered their 384/128 kbs ADSL home service.
My service uses a dedicated line and a bridge. COVAD ordered the line from PacBell and came to do my installation about a month after I placed my order with Fastpoint. The COVAD guy was good, and he had things working in a reasonable amount of time. Since that time, I have had a mostly up service. In late summer this year Fastpoint had a couple of technical glitches. I called Tech Support to find out what was happening. In one case someone accidentally broke one of their cables, and it took them a day to route around it. In the other case they put a new Domain Name Server online, and I think there were a few problems with their name table entries in the beginning. My wife's machine couldn't find AOL for a day or two.
Next I'll give my assessment of Fastpoint as an ISP and my feelings about them. After that I will get into some stuff that people may not want to wade through unless they are techies. The SALES STAFF were pretty much what you would expect, and sometimes made promises the company couldn't deliver. At that point in time DSL was pretty new, and Fastpoint was scrambling to carve out a market share. I had a salesman assigned to me, and he was the only one who could find out the status of my order. The only way I could get good information was to get hold of him. After my service was up, my interest moved to TECH SUPPORT. My experience with them has been mostly positive. They have me in their computer and can find me immediately when I give them my address. The reps seem to be young, but reasonably knowledgeable about common problems. They can ping my machine and my bridge and can usually tell if a problem is on their side or from COVAD or the TELCO. In a couple of cases they have spent up to an hour on the phone with me in resolving a problem. The tech reps seem to be learning as they go. They have support from engineers, if you can wait in line for their help, who can resolve more difficult problems. Right now I have some concerns about the COMPANY itself and the ORGANIZATION. Fastpoint has gone through some changes over the last few months. My impression is that Fastpoint was started by some good technical people. I don't know if they had venture capital support. Recently they have had major management changes. Their web site has a whole new look. The packages they now offer are quite a bit different from what they had a year ago. I have the feeling that Fastpoint is very solid technically, but I sort of worry that they may not make it through the shakeout that is happening with DSL providers. It would be a shame if they go under, because I believe they are much more mature than some of the DSL "jonny come latelys" like Earthlink.
OK, here's the stuff with the technical jargon and all that. In my job I work all day with computers, then come home and do the same. This background makes me patient with outfits that provide a technical service, and especially their tech support staff. Even before I got DSL I had a LAN with a PC, an Amiga 3000, and a BeBox. The PC runs WinNT most of the time (Earthlink DSL doesn't even SUPPORT NT!), but multi-boots with LINUX and BeOS. All three of these OSs are set up for DSL. Until recently I also had dialup service from Earthlink. The BeBox runs BeOS, and the Amiga runs AmigaDOS and Amiga UNIX. When I got DSL, I added another network card to the PC, so that it is really on two different networks. NT, LINUX and BeOS support multiple networks, but I don't think Win9x does. For a while I had PD routing and firewall software running on NT, but Fastpoint engineers frown on home customers using proxies and Network Address Translation schemes, so I took it off.
Until recently my wife's PC was isolated and used the Earthlink dialup service. She got tired of getting random hangups while in AOL, so I decided to add her to DSL. From Fastpoint I ordered a second IP address. Then I got a network hub to use with the ADSL bridge and put both of our PCs on that. She didn't realize what the difference in bandwidth would do for her, and now she is SO pleased! In the last few months I have downloaded the Zone Labs firewall program. I like it a lot because it lets me decide who I want to let in, and the alerts show me who is TRYING to get in.
Since I had dialup service with Earthlink for a long time, why didn't I switch to them when they started offering DSL? Actually, they sent me lots of their info, and I looked into what they are doing. They are using shared lines, which means you have voice and DSL on the same line. That means you have to have a POTS filter to keep the voice out of your DSL signal. Maybe that's OK, but I am still worred about crosstalk. The Earthlink approach in the home customer market is a "one size fits all". They provide support for Windows 9x or Mackintosh--that's it. They don't have anything for the home user who wants to do his own thing. They seem to be tiptoeing into the DSL world and are learning the technical ropes as they go.
The bottom line is that even though Fastpoint Communications is not perfect, I am satisfied and comfortable with them and plan to stay with them as long as there are good indications that they will make it.
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Review by apapp
member for 12.4 years, 40 visits, last login: 6.3 years ago
updated 11.5 years ago
- Astoria,Queens,NY
- $60 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 30 days
- Verizon
- CLEC party: Covad
- "very reliable service, speed as stated, helpful support"
- "nothing comes to mind"
- "very satisfied, got much better since the installation 1 y ago"
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It has been a relatively pleasant experience. I got the number from a radio
ad, i called and a guy called Navid responded, he was courteous and not
pushy, I checked out 2 others (Red and Flashcom) before signing up with
them and he waited patiently. The wait was not too bad, 4 weeks,
BellAtlantic actually did what it was supposed to do (installed a thicker
cable or whetever), then the Covad guy came who was a real jerk, he wired
the house and plugged in the bridge then left without setting up the
service. I had to call Fastpoint myself and they walked me thru the TCP
setup which was actually easy and in 5 minutes I was screaming with joy
when I saw the Apple site's huge graphics loading in seconds.
There have been two major and some minor glitches: the minor ones consist
of 1-2 minutes of unavailability of the service that occur every once in a while, the major ones, - this happened twice already - the service was unavailable for close to 12 hours.
Tech support is friendly and helpful - if you have the patience to wait, at
times as long as a full hour.
Today I checked the speed with your speed checker and it was actually
faster than the nominal speed with ADSL. So overall - I am satisfied but
they have to stop having these periods of blackouts.
I also wish they had a less dreadful email domain name than "mail.fastpointcom.com". Most people misunderstand it.
------
added on 11/3/2000: The service has been very reliable in the past 6-8 months. The very few times I had to call them they were always helpful. I have only good things to say.
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 Review by jbgroup1
member for 12 years, 4711 visits, last login: a few hours ago
lodged 11.7 years ago
- Hyattsville,Prince Georges,MD
- $79 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 28 days
- "Quick response from order to install."
- "High ping times because the ISP is on the west coast."
- "A relatively decent ISP."
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Hello, my name is C. Cornell Joyner. I have had FastPoint Communications DSL for about four months or since May 4th . Unlike the installation horror stories I have heard from other people installation was a breeze. It took four week from order to install. The installer was an hour late but I was informed in advanced. Installation took a little over an hour. It would have been only three weeks from order time if I had not been asleep when the installer came the first time. I have not had any known outages or any problems of any kind. While I do suffer from high ping times in the 200-300ms range I don't play any games and have very fast downloads; as fast as 1800 kilobits/sec. Mode, or most, download speeds are 1100-1200 kilobits/sec. Average surfing speed are about 300-700 kilobits/sec. I have a static line. Thanks to DSLreports for getting me to take the broadband plunge. As I often say, "Having tasted broadband I will never go back [to dial-up]". I have yet to call for tech help but then I haven't been one to call for help. There also have been no problems. Thanks for reading my review.
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Review by me
(review was emailed from domain purok.net)
lodged 11.8 years ago
- Astoria,Queens,NY
- $80 per month
- (24 month contract)
- "Hardly any hold times at tech support."
- "Bad management"
- "Fastpoint sux."
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Great ! Ordered Service around April 10th. Bell Atlantic came in the
following week and installed the data line. Now, everything is set (?),
was waiting for Covad to set an inside wiring installation date. Welcome
Problem One. Loop erros, no circuit availability, etc. All this took
about 5 weeks to resolve and finally the service was installed. The 2
Covad dude was real nice and did the inside wiring nicely. I was jumping
in joy getting ready to surf at my promised speed of 1.5/384. Tough Luck
sucker. Nowhere close to that. Btw, I am only 1986 feet from my CO
(Actual loop length). All calls to the "know-it-all" tech support guys
gave no result, they are always there to help you..but they dont know
crap. Finally, called in other ISPs to find out about switching, called
up Fastpoint billing..and they wouldnt let me get off the contract. I
had a hard time explaining to them that I was purchased the 1.5/384 deal
and that guy kept saying I was on the 608/128 line. So I called the
pre-install dude and made him call Covad and confirm this. True, I was
on the 608/128 line, so they upgraded my line and now I can get
downloads upto 120 k. Latency is bad as they dont have any gateways in
the east coast yet, they always seem to say it will be ready "next
month"..and from what I read on the reviews here..looks like this "next
month" thing going on for awhile. Interestingly, I never had any service
outages as of yet..so that looks good..if they indeed put up a gateway
in our area and the speed improves, fastpoint aint bad after all. I
should get Cable in our area soon..so I will subscribe to that as well
to pacify myself for lack of a East Coast gateway. Anyway..if you guys
are on the east coast, stay away from these people. Their tech support
is always there..but they dont know anything. And all problems seem to
be escalated all the time until the next time when u call and they will
seem to know nothing about it.. and so on...
Purok
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Review by bmwm3ag
member for 11.9 years, 4 visits, last login: 11.9 years ago
lodged 11.9 years ago
- Placentia,Orange,CA
- $150 per month
- (24 month contract)
- "Knowledgable Sales Staff - Know what they are selling."
- "Have to pay for installation before I get a rebate check."
- "Many different packages that will work"
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My first interaction with Fastpoint was with one of their sales people calling me from a qualification I did on their website. A shocked at first that they had contacted me by phone and not email, I spoke with the rep. and got some pricing information for the services that were available to me. Not knowing that much about DSL myself, the rep. asked me what my needs were and suggested a package which I thought was a bit too expensive for my needs so I told him that I'd think about it and call him back. He recommended a 384K speed for a 5 computer setup that I have at my office. I called around and spoke to a few other companies (who will remain nameless) and found out that their reps. were simply there to take orders and didn't care what package I purchased or if it would actually work for my needs. Not to mention that they didn't seem to know as much about their product as the Fastpoint rep. did. After a few more phone calls and questions with the Fastpoint rep. that initially contacted me, I got my questions answered by hime and decided to go with Fastpoint for my DSL Internet...
I purchased the 384K package for $149.95 per month and a 2 year contract with a price protection guarantee.
The installation process was fairly simple. I had my order confirmation the same day via email. It took about 35 days or so to get the service installed due to some issues with the phone company but I can't blame Covad for the problem.
I got 1 static IP with a Netopia Router that lets me connect to my other computers with a simple configuration of my computers.
The speed is working great. It's amazing how much faster it really is than my old connection. I'm going to give it a few months and maybe buy a line for my house as long as I don't have any problems.
I've talked to their technical support twice. Once to get my computers setup. (For some reason Covad wouldn't set them up when the did the installation). The second time was to get my email setup.
I have to say that I was very impressed on how much they cared about what I ordered and am happy to be with them. I hope everything goes as well as it has been going so far.
J. Hujasak
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Review by michaelschwartz
member for 11.9 years, 4 visits, last login: 11 years ago
lodged 11.9 years ago
- New York,New York,NY
- $49 per month
- (24 month contract)
- "Very professional"
- "None"
- "Very impressive service"
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From beginning to end, one of the most professional ISP experiences I ever
had. (1) The sales person called me right away (2) They submitted my order
to Covad quickly (3) When I called for an update, I did not have to wait
on hold--a person answered right away (4) the support person was always
able to identify me and to quickly figure out the status of my order (5) I
got emails with the setup info (ip address, gateway, dns etc) well before
the install was completed (5) I got a follow-up call from Fastpoint to
make sure the install went ok at 8pm.
I can't say enough good things. This is clearly a very well-organized
group, and if they keep up the good work, they deserve lots of business.
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Review by spolak
member for 11.9 years, 5 visits, last login: 11.9 years ago
lodged 11.9 years ago
- Hartsdale,Westchester,NY
- $200 per month
- (24 month contract)
- "1.1 SDSL for only $200"
- "Seems like a relatively small-time operation"
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Signed up because this was 1.1 SDSL and it was only $200. At the time I couldn't find any other provider that offered that speed for under $300. This service is through Covad. Install took close to a month and a half due to problems with Bell Atlantic. Being a network engineer I did the inside wiring myself, but they and/or Covad refused to just mail me my DSL modem and insisted on setting up an appointment to have a Covad technician come in. All the technician did was plug it in.
I have a static IP, which is nice. The DSL modem is actually an Efficient Networks bridge with no user-configurable settings whatsoever. That also means that the only way to troubleshoot it is by looking at the 4 LEDs on the front panel. It is also not wall-mountable, which is a hassle.
When the line was first installed, I saw speeds comparable to a 56k modem. First call to Tech Support resulted in the technician recommending a dumb utility which he claimed would "tune up" all the network settings in Windows and speed up transfer rates. It was actually a simple caching system. Second call had the technician talk to Covad. After re-provisioning my line speeds increased dramatically. I now see transfer rates at approximately 70% of my supposed bandwith.
The service worked for a week and was great. Then, on 5/15 I came home and found two of the LEDs off. DSL was down for me. FastPoint said they had an outage in the northeast and to check back later. I did, and my line was still out. Ever since then (today is 5/31) I've been on the phone with FastPoint and Covad through them, trying to resolve the issue. Seems there's a problem with the Bell Atlantic portion of the line. Horrible communication between them and BA and myself on when a technician would be coming. My attempts to deal directly with Bell Atlantic failed miserably. After I finally got my circuit ID BA repair would talk to me, they would set up a trouble ticket, and then I would call back to find out that the ticket got cancelled. No one seemed to know who cancelled it or who I should talk to. Attempts to find the department at BA responsible for this line failed. A request to have a BA Field Foreman call me back (a suggestion given to me by BA repair) went unanswered. Finally today there was a technician on site working on the problem, so I hope the line will be up and running. But who knows?
I've tried calling the NYS Public Service Commision to complain, but they said if there's no voice on the line, they don't regulate it. I called the FCC, but they were clueless (DSL? what is that?). I'm thinking of writing my congressman to have his office research and file my complaint.
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Review by realguy
member for 12 years, 7 visits, last login: 10 years ago
lodged 12 years ago
- Newbury Park,Ventura,CA
- $79 per month
- (24 month contract)
- "Fast installation time, about 2 weeks"
- "Misrepresented speeds/breached their own contract"
- "These people are one group you want to avoid at all costs."
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I saw the bad reviews a little too late. I will say one thing positive about these people, there technical support people are always there to be unable to help when needed. They talked me into allowing them to do the install, promising that if they couldn't deliver speeds faster than my cable modem they would allow me to cancel at no charge. Well, they didn't on both counts. I have been through hell dealing with these people. They told me speed is only guaranteed at 128 kbits on a 1500/384 line so the 300 that I'm getting is great! Wrong, I get 500+ on my cablemodem at half the price. I have read their contract top to bottom, it allows me to get out if they don't provide the speed I requested to my satisfaction, but Cynthia over there says that is only if they want to let you out. The contract means nothing to these people. I have over 2 pages of documented calls to these people and every request I have made to speak to a supervisor has gone unanswered. All I can say is protect yourself, stay away from these people. They are threatenig me with collections, if they try I'll have to take them to court, as I said before, I document everything! I'll let you all know what happens. By the way, as you noticed, I did allow my email to be shown, that is to lend a little credibility to my letter so they can't say I'm a competitor. I'm not, just a guy whose mad as hell at a terrible company!
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Review by JonnyReb
member for 12.2 years, 262 visits, last login: 3.2 years ago
lodged 12.2 years ago
- Puyallup,Pierce,WA
- $60 per month
- (24 month contract)
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I have filed a complaint with the BBB (www.bbb.org) about these people, this kind of service is mindblowing. I dont see how they even stay online themselves, I urge everyone who has this service to file a complaint about this "company". They are screwing people royally and we have to do something.
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