BTW, no Reader's Digest version. If you don't want to read it, don't. If you can't concentrate, get some Ritilin
Amazing, Speakeasy.net used to be great. Fast speeds, low pings, local POPs, excellent customer service, static IPs, no PPPoE, and allowed for your own servers. Of course the cost of it all was well..... cost. The service was literally 50% higher than competing DSL packages.
So how does Speakeasy reward its loyal customers? By taking away local POPs and putting in NAPs. Although my pings have increased 5 - 10ms, things are still quick. I pity those in the Rockies and West Coast who have seen ping times go from 10 - 20ms to 100 - 150ms just to hit the internet. How can an ISP claiming to be game server friendly think those ping times are acceptable? They have also raised their prices on static IPs and tacked on official sounding "regulatory fees" that jack up package costs by $5 - $10 per month. It has come to the surprise of many that those are not government mandated charges like the USF and 911 Surcharges for standard voice lines. Rather they are a way to raise the monthly service fee behind subscribers backs.
As for my service, I am now in the fourth official network outage this month. Yup, February has seen four major service interruptions. Today should actually count as two outages since Speakeasy brought service back up only yo have it go down again. Everythime you call tech support, there is a new excuse. "It's Covad's fault," "Level3 is having issues," "We are sure it's Verizon's fault." Now I say "official" outage because there have literally been dozens of "unofficial" brownouts. At first I thought it was just me but others at DSLReports.com have seem similar connectivity issues. Service would simply drop out for 30 seconds - 20 minutes at a time. Speakeasy either does not acknowledge the problem or keeps you on hold long enough for things to get kicking again.
Don't believe me? Just check out their system status page. Officially you are only allowed to go back four days. I guess they feel subscribers have goldfish memory and forget past outages. By simply changing the URL, you can see the issues this month. Notice Boston has had four "Sync No Surf" incidents. For those that do not want to browse the list ot follow the link, here is summary (in Pacific time). Note that the time they acknowledge a problem is usually 30 minutes to one hour after the users see problems:
2/3/2004: 10:47PM - 8:34AM (the next day)
2/12/2004: 8:34AM - 11:11AM
2/23/2004: 12:51PM - ??? (No official resolution time but it was many many hours later)
2/27/2004: 8:48AM - 12:21PM (Supposidly fixed but.......)
2/27/2004: 12:59PM - NOW (Up for 38 minutes. Great job guys. Even Viagra and Levitra couldn't help)
If anyone is considering DSL, steep way clear of Speakeasy. Lots of other CLECs are providing the same type of service (static IPs, servers welcome, no PPPoE) for much less. I am in the process of switching providors and it can't come soon enough. I'll get more bandwidth, more static IPs, no contract, and all for $15 less than Speakeasy.
EDIT: I'll probably get banned but the question must be how I can post if my DSL is down. Nothing like unsecured wifi.
Amazing, Speakeasy.net used to be great. Fast speeds, low pings, local POPs, excellent customer service, static IPs, no PPPoE, and allowed for your own servers. Of course the cost of it all was well..... cost. The service was literally 50% higher than competing DSL packages.
So how does Speakeasy reward its loyal customers? By taking away local POPs and putting in NAPs. Although my pings have increased 5 - 10ms, things are still quick. I pity those in the Rockies and West Coast who have seen ping times go from 10 - 20ms to 100 - 150ms just to hit the internet. How can an ISP claiming to be game server friendly think those ping times are acceptable? They have also raised their prices on static IPs and tacked on official sounding "regulatory fees" that jack up package costs by $5 - $10 per month. It has come to the surprise of many that those are not government mandated charges like the USF and 911 Surcharges for standard voice lines. Rather they are a way to raise the monthly service fee behind subscribers backs.
As for my service, I am now in the fourth official network outage this month. Yup, February has seen four major service interruptions. Today should actually count as two outages since Speakeasy brought service back up only yo have it go down again. Everythime you call tech support, there is a new excuse. "It's Covad's fault," "Level3 is having issues," "We are sure it's Verizon's fault." Now I say "official" outage because there have literally been dozens of "unofficial" brownouts. At first I thought it was just me but others at DSLReports.com have seem similar connectivity issues. Service would simply drop out for 30 seconds - 20 minutes at a time. Speakeasy either does not acknowledge the problem or keeps you on hold long enough for things to get kicking again.
Don't believe me? Just check out their system status page. Officially you are only allowed to go back four days. I guess they feel subscribers have goldfish memory and forget past outages. By simply changing the URL, you can see the issues this month. Notice Boston has had four "Sync No Surf" incidents. For those that do not want to browse the list ot follow the link, here is summary (in Pacific time). Note that the time they acknowledge a problem is usually 30 minutes to one hour after the users see problems:
2/3/2004: 10:47PM - 8:34AM (the next day)
2/12/2004: 8:34AM - 11:11AM
2/23/2004: 12:51PM - ??? (No official resolution time but it was many many hours later)
2/27/2004: 8:48AM - 12:21PM (Supposidly fixed but.......)
2/27/2004: 12:59PM - NOW (Up for 38 minutes. Great job guys. Even Viagra and Levitra couldn't help)
If anyone is considering DSL, steep way clear of Speakeasy. Lots of other CLECs are providing the same type of service (static IPs, servers welcome, no PPPoE) for much less. I am in the process of switching providors and it can't come soon enough. I'll get more bandwidth, more static IPs, no contract, and all for $15 less than Speakeasy.
EDIT: I'll probably get banned but the question must be how I can post if my DSL is down. Nothing like unsecured wifi.
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