How is Earthlink DSL?

[mosdef]

I am considering getting Earthlink Residential DSL. I think it's $50/month, with free installation (DIY) and hardware. But that price would be less considering I could drop my current ISP and my second line. How is the connection and service?

-mosdef

 

[Emulex]

Earthlink sucks

 

[mosdef]

Are they really that bad, or is this just the mandatory parody page against a prominent Internet company. And if not Earthlink, what is a good cheap DSL service? I am out of range of Verizon (telco).

-mosdef

 

[Emulex]

Maybe you don't understand, that the Telco's own the dsl, earthlink just resells it. If your local telco can't provide with you dsl, earthlink can't either. They don't own the wires, they are just a middleman, with crappy service none the less..

 

[PliotronX]

Emulex, thanks for that site, man that is funny. I've had horrible experience with EarthLink DSL!

 

[bunker]

mosdef, it depends on where you are located. I'm in the Atlanta area and DSL is supplied by BellSouth, even though you are paying earthlink. You will more than likely also have to pay the telco a charge for the service. I went through BellSouth instead of Earthlink because it ended up being cheaper. Check the local Telco before going with Earthlink.

On a side note, I had Earthlink dial-up for 2 years and never had a problem with them.

 

[jaybert]

personally i like them. It dies on me once a month but then again I'm not the best customer. Must of downloaded at least 200-300gb in the ~year I've had it and no one's said a thing to me

 

[LadyNiniane]

<< Are they really that bad, or is this just the mandatory parody page against a prominent Internet company. And if not Earthlink, what is a good cheap DSL service? I am out of range of Verizon (telco).

-mosdef >>


As also noted by Emulex, if you're out of range with your local telco, you are out of range for Earthlink or any other third-party DSL provider, regardless of what their cute little ads are telling you.

And given that scenario, I would strongly recommend that you wait until the local telco says that you are in range of the CO. The internal Earthlink newsgroups are full of horror stories about people who were told by EL that &quot;DSL is available in your area!&quot;, only to find out after they signed up and paid for the first month (or more) that DSL wasn't available to their address or that they were on the far edge of connectivity and they are getting lousy service. (No refunds, either, according to these people - the most any of them have gotten is credit toward a dial-up account.)

EL has been trying to tell me for a year that I could sign up for DSL, all while SWBell has been saying, &quot;Sorry, you're nowhere near a CO, and (until recently) we have no plans to upgrade in your area.&quot; Now SWBell says that they intend to add a switch close by, but it's too late for me - I switched my local phone service to AT&amp;T last year and have no intentions of letting Bell back into my house.

And don't get me started on the state of Earthlink's news server farm or what they laughingly call &quot;Technical Support&quot;. Talk about bad... :disgust::frown::|

Lady Niniane

 

[Stark]

I've had it for a year with no complaints. It's a pacbell line though, so I may drop ELN soon if I can get service for $40 directly from pacbell.

 

[Stark]

just checked, and it seems everyone charges $49 per month. However, I may be able to get a static IP for $49 instead of ELN's PPPoe connection. I use a dsl router, so I don't have to worry about winpoet, but it would be nice to access my home computer from work.

 

[Mark]

Mosdef:




I have Earthlink DSL and have had no problems whatsoever in the 6 months I have had it. Go and order it. fast, reliable and sub-50 pings.

 

[Crashedout]

I have had EDSL for over a year and I have no problems. Install took a month, and they don't charge you untill you log into the dsl for the first time. Their news server is great, its retention is good but not as good as the pay services. Way better than the @home servers. I also had the covad install and came into Earthlink via a covad install. And I signed up under mindspring..so that could be the difference. I would look for a static ip if you can get it for the same price.

 

[Fausto]

I have Earthlink DSL in Atlanta through BellSouth.

What I like:
-I'm close to the CO, so it's really fast (about 1250/350)according to the DSLReports speed tests.
-It rarely craps out, usually a modem power cycle will get it up and running again.
-Got all the hardware free (through the DIY promotion) and had minimal problems getting everything running.

What I don't like:

Their tech support SUCKS! I mean absolutely SUCKS. You'll be on hold for about 20 min even at off-peak times, and have to run through a bunch of keypad menu selections every time you call. If they're really busy, your local call might get farmed out to tech support 5 states away, who have no clue about your local telco or anything. I spent four really annoying days back and forth with them when my DSL started crapping out on long downloads. Turned out to be a dying NIC that I diagnosed myself. They couldn't fix the problem and didn't offer to compensate me bill-wise for the 4.5 days I had no service thanks to their incompetence.

I can fix most stuff myself and the service rarely has problems, so this normally isn't a big deal. But the one time I really needed help with the DSL, they had no idea whatsoever and were far less than helpful.

If you know of someone with better tech support, I'd go with them.

Fausto

 

[mosdef]

Thanks for the help guys. At first I was under the impression that Earthlink gets its lines from the local phoen company, but when Verizon said I couldn't get DSL and all the 3rd-party companies said I could I was confused. Thanks for clearing it up. I think Verizon should be up in my area within a month, so I'll just wait it out.

-mosdef

 

[Emulex]

Hmm dsl must suck. i pull 170K/sec sustained during iso downloads with atlanta mediaone (at&amp;t broadband) My upload is capped at 32k/sec but thats fair.

If i only got 125K/sec i'd be pissed.

 

[Emulex]

Oh by the way. With DSL you have to login/logout and you always get a new IP. With cable modem, you lease your ip and it usually sticks around for 3+ months before they reset their dhcp servers..

Its quite easy to setup a linux box (using dhcp) or a pc, its totally brainless and you don't need PPPOE which robs bandwidth inherently by encapsulating PPP frames withing ethernet frames.

 

[Stark]

<< Oh by the way. With DSL you have to login/logout and you always get a new IP. With cable modem, you lease your ip and it usually sticks around for 3+ months before they reset their dhcp servers.. >>


Uh, no.

some dsl service providers offer static ip, some offer dynamic through dhcp, and some use pppoe.

check it out here :DSL Reports