Telocity DSL plus 2 freebies MAY equal Hot Deal (or Warm, at least)

[MisterE]

Greetings, all. I was searching for a new newsgroup service today (I use Bellsouth DSL, and their news service truly sucks), and checked the rates at UseNetServer.Com. $150 for 12 months for 12.5GB a month download. My previous ISP used UseNetServer for one of their newsgroup servers, and they seemed to be a pretty good provider. Not a real bad deal, I thought, and then I noticed that they had a promotion going with Telocity. If you sign up with Telocity, you get 12 months (12.5GB per month) free service with UseNetNews. Also, Telocity is giving a free $50 Amazon.Com certificate if you sign up (this deal expires at the end of March). Telocity costs $49.95 per month in my area (same as my Bellsouth DSL), their modem can connect via USB or Ethernet, I'm pretty sure that you get a static IP address (maybe someone can correct me on this). And, I think that Telocity is not very anal when it comes to a user running a private network. Heck, one of my co-workers has URLs pointing to his static Telocity IP address.

So, the deal is this: Sign up with Telocity (free installation and modem rental) and receive a $50 Amazon.com coupon and 12 months free (12.5GB a month) on a decent news group service. Kinda beats my current service and is a fairly-hot deal for me, at least. Only problem may be a couple of weeks down-time between Bellsouth disconnect and Telocity connect.

 

[Cheapest]

I sign up with Winfree, freedsl, and only paid $214 and got the USB external modem. I don't have to paid for monthly fee for about 3 months now and continue to get the benifit!! I could have been got the the same VisionNet Messager ADSL 100U modem from Dataquest technology and pay only about $20+ for the DSL kit instead of $214. I am happy with Winfire!!! I am sure I got the best deal!!

 

[mrCide]

I have to comment..

I live in southeast florida and telocity's really been sucking lately. Every other night theres problems with packetloss, routing problems, etc. I swear, they sent out an e-mail a while ago apologizing for the problems, this was during one of them.

Anyway, their news server is also really crappy, it downloads the groups quick but it takes forever to download headers/messages to look through.

A year ago they were great, no problems, fast.. now.. they're slow, they have problems, and terrible slow service (10 hops to get anywhere outside their isp). "problem tickets" that never get answered. I want to cancel but i'm worried I'm going to have problems with it.

sorry.. my 2c

 

[MisterE]

MrCide, thanks for the Telocity review. My co-worker loves his, but he is pretty easily impressed. As far as the UseNetServer 1-year-for-free thing goes, here is a link to the promo page. Are you using the UseNetServer feed, or does Telocity have another news feed that you are using? Maybe you can try the freebie if possible.

EDIT: I need to get my co-worker to check the number of "hops" to get out into the WWW.

 

[mrCide]

I'm not sure if existing users are able to take advantage of the promotion, but I should give it a try, I use telocity's newsgroups (news.telocity.com)..

But look at the hops to www.aol.com

1 10 ms <10 ms <10 ms dsl-64-34-233-14.telocity.com [64.34.233.14]
2 10 ms 20 ms 10 ms route-64-34-255-1.telocity.com [64.34.255.1]
3 10 ms 20 ms 20 ms fe1-2-core1.mia.tlct.net [216.227.80.65]
4 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms pos8-1-hfr2.atl.tlct.net [216.227.126.17]
5 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms ge-v5-hfr1.atl.tlct.net [216.227.126.57]
6 70 ms 80 ms 80 ms pos8-1-hfr2.dfw.tlct.net [216.227.126.22]
7 140 ms 80 ms 80 ms ge-v5-hfr1.dfw.tlct.net [216.227.126.53]
8 111 ms 120 ms 120 ms pos8-1-hfr2.lax.tlct.net [216.227.126.26]
9 110 ms 121 ms 120 ms ge-v5-hfr1.lax.tlct.net [216.227.126.49]
10 120 ms 140 ms 131 ms fe0-0-hfr0.lax.tlct.net [216.227.126.86]
11 * 120 ms 131 ms pos4-0-pbnap.sjc.tlct.net [216.227.126.30]
12 230 ms 130 ms 131 ms fe5-1-hfr1.sjc.tlct.net [216.227.126.166]
13 130 ms 140 ms 140 ms pos2-1-paix.pao.tlct.net [216.227.126.210]
14 130 ms 140 ms 130 ms core1.pao.above.net [208.184.129.242]
15 140 ms 140 ms * sjc2-pao1-oc48.sjc2.above.net [208.184.233.141]

16 210 ms 200 ms 211 ms iad1-sjc2-oc48.iad1.above.net [216.200.127.25]
17 150 ms 140 ms 150 ms pop1-vie-P2-0.atdn.net [209.249.203.230]
18 141 ms 150 ms 150 ms bb2-vie-P6-3.atdn.net [204.148.103.193]
19 140 ms 150 ms 141 ms bb2-dtc-P5-0.atdn.net [204.148.99.26]
20 150 ms 141 ms 180 ms pop1-dtc-P15-0.atdn.net [204.148.98.130]
21 140 ms 141 ms 150 ms ow1-dtc-P0-0.atdn.net [204.148.98.222]
22 141 ms 150 ms 140 ms www2-dr6-P0-0.aol.com [205.188.172.126]
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.

 

[beamrider]

13 hops just to get outside their network? GEEZ.......

 

[Tunchun]

for cheapest, I've concerned about freedsl for 3 months, but I couldn't get over for paying 200+ for the modem. Could you be more specific about getting a modem for dataquest technology and their website.

Thank you

 

[Tunchun]

about the freedsl modem, I thought they're using Efficient SpeedStream 4060
USB Modem, is this same as Visionnet one?

 

[jrofman]

Thanks for the tip on telocity newsgroups. I have telocity SDSL and I logged onto their news server and they have a ton of groups, particularly ones which AOhell deletes. But I am curious. Are they limiting usenet downloads? That would really suck if they are.

 

[chexi]

Telocity is no deal. And when you try to cancel you will keep getting charged month after month until you finally cancel the credit card number you gave them (with your credit card company) and get issued a new one. I know 3 people who had Telocity, and all three of them (including me) have been getting screwed trying to cancel. One guy has gotten charged every month for the last 5 months after he cancelled!

 

[bleuiko]

something more about buying a DSL modem for winfire plz!!!
$200 for a modem is expensive.. but free service is most certainly GOOD!!

 

[slucky]

Telocity has nothing but horrible reviews at DSL Reports

 

[Glich]

I just signed up for teliocity i looked thought dslreports 99% of the negitive is on teh east coast here where I live in socal its almost purely positive.

 

[Hgabriel]

I have Telocity service and I highly recommend you find another DSL ISP. Telocity is known for having the worst technical support and the most hideous DNS servers in history. During my 1.5 yrs of service there were at least 25 occassions in which my service would be out for periods between 4 and 16 hours. When talking about hops they extend everything to the max. IIRC a packet can only travel across 30 hops before it dies. Well Telocity really stretches that limit with all their routing.

Even with the Freebies, Telocity is not worth the time and effort it really takes to ensure your service is functional.

Also, Telocity is in major trouble. They are losing assloads of money right now. In desperation to sign-up customers they are offerring the Amazon deal. They have to sign up so many new customers every month or they will lose a boatload of venture capital. Be careful about signing any contracts with Telocity. You could sign a 1 yr contract that states you have to fulfill your contract even if Telocity ceases operations. Read the fine print.