Review of DSL EXTREMEAll reviews of |  about |
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So, I decided to try out the folks at DSLX, whom I had wanted to use since 2005. I ordered the 1.5/384 package, knowing that it would likely be as good as I could manage with my distance from the CO (14k feet, according to David in ATT Direct). I ordered on a Friday and it was to be active the following Friday. On Wednesday, the DSL light on my 2wire went from red to green and I was flying (so to speak) at 1.5/384. I decided to look at my line readings, which on my AT&T line are just horrible. I was ecstatic to see that my DSLX readings are better than almost any other readings that I have seen on BBR, and they were more than good enough to support the 6016/768k package. In fact, my reported max rate was pushing 10000k down and 1200 up. I don't know how this is possible, since my ATT line max rates at 1200/700, but I decided to go for the upgrade to the 6016 package anyway. Once again, I ordered on a Friday and the activation date wasn't to be for another week. That week came and went, with no change in my sync rates. I waited for several more days to no avail, so I opened a ticket with DSLX. A few days later, I got a call on my cell and home number from a clearly non-foreign tech support guy from DSLX. He informed me that ATT sprung up some kind of error when they tried to push the upgrade, which I am not surprised about because of the poor capabilities of my other line. I believe that ATT didn't want to do the upgrade because of what their database said about my address, but regardless of the reason DSLX pressed on and told me that they would give me a call with an update. Several moons later, no call, no update to my ticket, nothing. I know that Zak and George and the rest of the crew in the DSLX forums would be able to help me, but my ticket was still open so I decided to wait. It's now Monday, December 22, and I am now synced at 6016/768 with no issues. While their correspondence with me has been touch-and-go, they did get things done for me and I am very impressed. This is a company that I am proud to support. Edit- Speak of the devil, just got a follow up call. Keep up the good work, guys. Update 2-5-09: Service is proving to be bulletproof. Pings to some BF2 servers in CA are less than 10ms, which is less than a third of what my interleaved line pings the DSLAM at. Speed never wavers outside of 5000-5200 / 620-650, and it has been put through it's paces at all hours of the day with no hesitation. I'm very pleased. Update 7-28-09: Nothing new to report. The line has been used to its potential over the past few months and there have been no hiccups or threatening letters. Speed is identical no matter what time of day and pings continue to be excellent. Followup comments:
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I occasionally trade video files with customers, so the ten 25-megabyte web/FTP sites are much too small to be useful. I have to maintain a 250-megabyte site with another provider. The limit on the size of email attachments (10 megabytes, I think) has occasionally caused real inconvenience. Converting to dry loop DSL was a miserable experience. See this thread for details: »Northern California Verizon Dry Loop . But that was the fault of the ILEC, not DSLExtreme. At the end of the initial contract period, other ISPs I have used let me continue on a month-to-month basis for the same monthly rate. DSLExtreme requires either a new one-year commitment or charges a higher month-to-month rate. I will probably move within the next year, so a new one-year contract is not an option. The rate increase after one year does not seem reasonable. I compensated by downgrading to a lower speed. Customer support is conscientious about resolving problems. First-line technical support is usually OK. Support by senior staff is superb. Support through the DSLExtreme BBR forum is a model for the industry. It would be great if more companies provided this kind of support. Update 2008 November 29: when the underlying CLEC (Verizon) offered a speed increase at no extra charge (possibly in response to competition from Comcast), DSLExtreme promptly offered the speed increase, also at no extra charge. The upgrade was painless: service was interrupted after midnight for just a few minutes. Update Service has not worked from June 24, when I transitioned to PPPOE, as mandated by DSLExtreme, to the present (July 23). After many attempts at contact with customer support, I finally learned the correct user ID to use for PPPOE on July 21. On July 22, with cancellation pending, I finally had a productive troubleshooting session with a support person. His recommendations: - If I want to use my Windows 2000 computer as a router, download additional software to support PPPOE. - If I want to use my Windows 7 computer as a router (and I do), download additional software to hopefully fix problems with support of PPPOE. - Alternatively, buy a hardware router. I do a lot of VOIP testing. The last two routers I used actually crashed when presented with incoming IP-dialed calls. So finding a suitable router for my work is a non-trivial assignment. That's why I originally chose DSLExtreme's 5-IP service. I did not request the transition to PPPOE. It was mandated by DSLExtreme. So I hoped DSLExtreme would be proactive in smoothing the transition. That did not happen. Customer support seemed unclear about why I had requested the change and what kind of service I had. One thought I had regular DSL, another thought I had fiber. (I have dry DSL.) The Transition to PPPOE was basically left to me to manage. But my workload is much too heavy to take on an additional assignment, especially one that would result in reduced capabilities. The transition to wireless broadband Internet access on the other hand, has been straightforward. And it has the advantage of not being tethered to a specific location. So I have decided to use wireless for all my Internet access. I might have been more sympathetic if DSLExtreme had explained, in terms that a technical person could understand, why they had to mandate the transition to PPPOE. Such an explanation could at least have helped me to empathize with their situation and got me on board with the change. But in the BBR DSLExtreme forum, I got no satisfactory explanation for the change. I hate it when companies keep their information so close to the chest that the customer is left completely in the dark about what is really happening and why. Regrettably, my business relationship with DSLExtreme has ended on an unhappy note. I am acutely aware from my own business that it takes work to keep a customer happy year in and year out. But without that work there wouldn't be a business. A business has to do whatever it takes to make things right when there is a problem. In this case, I think DSLExtreme dropped the ball. Followup comments:
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Just signed up for my 4th great year!! __________________________________________________________ I have been with DSL Extreme going into my third year. I have no complaints really, occasional glitches etc. but that is normal. A great deal and much better than SBC ....I get 5 megs. consistently down and 634 up also. With that great upload speed my VOIP line works so well. What do I have to complain about? SBC (AT&T now) was ok when I started with them but after a while, the service started to deteriorate. I began to be on first name basis with ASI techs they were here so much. Then they tried to pull some shenanigans when I didn't renew my contract. Tried and tried to talk me into signing back up. I just couldn't put up with them any longer.. As far as DSL X: I see no drawbacks to this ISP in anyway...They are polite, and this board is extremely helpful... The DSL Reports forum for DLSX is extremely useful the the techs are quick to get to you. George the GM is on the board all day long to assist. I'd get it!!! Steve Followup comments:
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Had one question. Called in, someone picked up immediately and oddly enough they didn't sound like they were from India. Very refreshing! Question was answered in 2 seconds. Followup comments:
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+ I moved houses and wound up in a rural Verizon area, but kept DSL Extreme  + Wound up with 8 IPs, 3M/768 for $57.83 (inclusive) This week, I was notified that I had until 2009-08-01 to move my service to the new plans - none of which include static IPs (on of the biggest reasons I chose them)  After alot of searching, I wound up paying *alot* more for COVAD - using the same DSLAM that DSL Extreme wouldn't move me to for some reason (they wont say). After the new dry-run is shaken out, I'll consider Speak Easy or other rational players (cheaper, but by alot) - but thought for initial setup, the fewer players, the better. I've dropped DSL Extreme's rating somewhat due to this issue, it remains to be seen if it a fight with COVAD, or a harbinger of further changes to come at DSL Extreme. I would still highly recommend them for the average user, but will no longer do that for the more technically include, or power user. Original review: $42.95+fee Promo deal on 1500-3000/384-416, 2 static IPs, providing my own modem (Netopia 3574W). I'm fairly far from the CO, and just hope I can actually get close to those speeds. 2004-07-02 Got home last night and while doing the final modem updates, noticed I had SYNC (and even Surf) I'm not yet sure about the profile, but I'm SYNCing at the published rate.Side note: Its hard to see any improvement in speed when one is using traffic shaping set at the older (1.5/256) rates !!! A quick change to the script, and things are *MUCH* better 2004-07-01 Waiting ever so impatiently for SBC/PacBell to activate the line. 2004-07-01 Spent too much time reading the DSL Extreme forum to find some nice info - * They have a good presence in the dslextreme forum * It was trivial to add the second IP via their website * It is as easy to remove the outbound port 25 (smtp/mail) block * They'll do RDNS for a $25 setup fee (per order, not IP) 2004-06-30 Tried to check my order status via their website, but only received an error popup I mailed their support and was quickly notified that they were working on it and it would be fixed by the next morning (actually corrected a few hours later ). I did, however, shortly thereafter receive (via email and phone call) an install date of 2004-07-07. The mail info included everything I needed to setup my own modem in bridged mode for one of the static IPs.2004-06-29 Ordered service via website after spending alot of time perusing DSLR and calling the local providers (including Covad - bad phone staff) and MegaPath... DSLExtreme seems to have a very nice niche betwixt the cheap and luser based ISP/ILEC and the nicer, but much more expensive CLEC. Followup comments:
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Install was nice and clean 2Wire 1800HG, 2Wire USB adapter, 2Wire HPNA adapter. (5 computers) Sorry, I don't know all the buzz words so I can't answer everything.. All I know is that all is perfect with DSL Extreme. I have been with DSL Extreme for a little over a month now and have had absolutely no problems nor do I anticipate any. Update 03/05/07: I have been with DSLX for almost 9 months now and all is still well. There have been only two minor outages during this period. Very close to 11 months with DSLX and all continues to be well. No problems at all. (5/11/2007) I year of DSLX now and I have renewed my contract. All continues to be well. 8-21-2007 I was just thinking today, when is the last time you sent an IM to the general manager of your ISP and received a reply? Did you ever do it with AT&T? I can do it any day of the week with DSLX. A great reason to sign up with them or... isn't that important to you? It is to me and I love it. 1-8-2008 Still running fine. So happy I stayed with DSL Extreme. 5-1-2008 Here I am again. Have just renewed for the third year and am very happy with my monthly cost as well as the reliability of my DSL. I recommend DSL Extreme to anyone not happy with their present ISP.. 6-7-2008 Back again. I have been helping friends who have AT&T with their Internet problems. When they call tech support, they get shuttled off to some foreign country and on many occasions, the tech support people are difficult or impossible to understand. Not so with DSL Extreme where the people speak North American. What a pleasure. Well, I "reenlisted" on July 1 and all continues to be great. New monthly cost is $23.83. Bear in mind that I'm a guy who is on line probably 18 hours or more a day so if anyone would notice problems, I would. No complaints at all. 9-18-2008 No loss of DSL at all. Finding my way through the new email setup. I will resolve the unusual things I have observed. For the record, I am usually not resistant to change but I prefer the old way this time. June 1, 2009 I got my renewal notice this morning. With a contract, my monthly cost remains the same ($23.83) so I re-enlisted. I am very satisfied with the service I get from DSLX. Have only had a few very minor email problems and that's about it. Again, I encourage anyone who is not happy with their current ISP to give DSL Extreme a try. 7/2/2009 Well, here we go with another year with DSL Extreme. Hopefully, this year will be as uneventful as the previous years. I sometimes wonder why people have so many problems with DSLX. as reported on their forum. I also wonder why they don't call tech support instead of taking a shot at the ISP on line. Oh well. Followup comments:
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I'm using my old Speedstream 5100B from when I was using AT&T DSL, and it seems to be working good. From what I can see, DSLX is using AT&T's backbone for everything - my IP is an AT&T DSL IP. Latency is good, ~10ms to a dedicated server I have in Chicago. However, at times, the connection will drop out, I'm guessing that's because of my distance from the CO though. All in all, good value, well worth the $30/month. Followup comments:
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Upgrading services with DSLExtreme is easy. DSLExtreme mentioned that I was one of the first customers to get Fiber. I saw DSLExtreme Internet here on DSL Reports. »DSL Extreme Launches Rebranded FiOS Followup comments:
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DSL EXTREME
(31)
(43)
San Jose,Santa Clara,CA
$34 per month (12 month contract)
about 3 days
AT&T
"Great service. And reliability for three years."
"...Encountered a small problem during the upgrade"
"I think just be patient and they will take care of you"
Business customer
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