Review by cconners 
UPDATED: 191 days ago
member for 7.6 years, 38 visits, last login: 164 days ago
 Vernon Hills,Lake,IL
 $45 per month (12 month contract)
 about 9 days
 AT&T
 "Can be very fast ( >6Mbps)"
 "Micro-outages (very rare); ugly antenna on 10' mast."
 "Mostly rocks; local alternatives will cost more and deliver less, so why change?"
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Update 5/25/08: Anybody reading following this website knows that Sprint is shutting down their Broadband Direct service. My letter states 6/30/2008 as the shut down date. I'd have preferred a little bit more warning, but I think I have only one choice in my area for broadband service - Comcast. (I will start looking to make sure that is true, but I'm not feeling very optimistic.) Hard to believe that after seven years, AT&T still hasn't been willing to deploy DSL in my area. I keep hearing that broadband competition is alive and well in America, but that certainly doesn't seem to be the case here in Vernon Hills.
Thanks to Sprint for seven years of decent service at a decent price. At least this makes my roofing work this year easier. 
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Update 2/1/07: No real news, but I thought some people might want to know that I still have the service, and am still satisfied. Hard to believe that it will be six years this spring. My roof is due for a new set of shingles, and I have some moisture damaged due to a dryer vent, so what will happen to my antenna and service when I re-roof? Stay tuned...
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Update 4/3/02: Price Increase?!?! Yes, I just got an email from Sprint wanting $5/month more to keep just the high speed connection or $10/month to keep the full service (connection and Earthlink ISP). Hmmmm....
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Update 3/26/02: Since I last touched this review, the service has been dazzling - I downloaded MS XP RC2 (489MB) from a MS site in 14.5 minutes last year. While I still get amazing speeds, all is not well in SBBD-land. The micro-outages have gradually increased in frequency, so although I may have days that are uninterrupted, most sessions have anywhere from one to 5 sub-minute interruptions an hour. Sometimes it can even happen every other minute. More troubling are the rare occasions when I'm using it in the daytime during the week. I've experienced outages that last an hour or more. All I can say is I knew this might happen when I ordered the service (thanks to all the feedback on DSLReports), and I've gotten my money's worth out of this service over the past year. I just got a flier from AT&T warning of service interruptions and work crews accessing our easement over the next several weeks, so there may be an alternative opening up soon. But I'll miss those massive 4Mbps+ download speeds when I switch. :-(
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What can I say that hasn't already been said about Sprint BBD. I read all of the reviews prior to going with the service, because my younger brother and his wife live in the Denver area and they were considering it. They still haven't made a decision, as they have other fish to fry right now, but when a friend forwarded me the Chicago Tribune article about Chicagoland availability, I was on the phone 24 hours later scheduling the installation.
I should state right now: Yes, I did really read all of the reviews, including the many horror stories from San Jose. A large number of people have had bad experiences with the service. But I also read the good ones, and decided to take the chance. I'm a (mostly) happy Sprint long distance and PCS customer, and figured that the odds were with me. We shall see.
*** NOTE: In Vernon Hills, you need a building permit. They are treating the antenna like a digital satellite dish. According to the 1997 ordinance, you can be fined $500 a day for installing without a permit. ***
The installation on April 5th was less than stellar, since the tech arrived almost 1 1/2 hours after my 7a-9a window. When he announced the need for a 10' mast to achieve line of site, I consulted both my wife and the local building department. Since this was the first install in the village, the department's electrical inspector wanted to come out and see what was going to be done. The inspector said that there was a height restriction, but he never said what it was - just that my installation was OK. They (the installer and inspector) debated over grounding procedures, but otherwise the install was OK. By the time he left, it was 2:30p, and I was very late for work.
Maybe I'm prejudiced, but I think the antenna and wiring look ugly as sin! The black coaxial cable looks ugly against the side to the house, and the beige ground wire looks lousy against the roof. And while all of the pictures show a nice white diamond shaped antenna, the back side is black (which is street-side) and is very visible day and night.
Right now, that's the end of the bad. I plugged it into my existing Comm server running Win 98SE with ICS, reconfigured it to share the NIC instead of the modem, and tweaked it using ICS Configuration (thanks to Harley Acheson and www.practicallynetworked.com). It works, sharing the connection with three other computers on the network. I think I've experience the micro outages that I've read about here on DSLReports, but they've not been significant enough to alarm me. I've done MS NetMeeting with my folks (who are using a 56Kbps modem) and that still works but I've yet to try it with another broadband user. I don't game anymore (three children really cramp you gaming style) and with the Sprint Unlimited weekends, I still use the phone for my long distance.
Downloaded and streaming video are awesome: I've become a real fan of NASA TV at 300Kbps, once I figured out that Win98SE ICS doesn't do high speed UDP. And the "always there, instant on" really makes it all worth while. So, generally, I'm a satisfied customer.
My first speed test on DSLReports was 520/204, and that's been my low water mark so far. I've achieved download speeds as high as 3.5Mbps+, and speed tests of over 4Mbps. I can live with 500Kbps if things should drop down that far, but will I be happy? With a large number of sites (such as my company's) limited by a T1 and restricting bandwidth, I'm used to seeing throttled downloads in IE of between 60-70KBps, but I'm no longer surprised to see it up at the 300KBps range.
I will always be "looking over my shoulder" waiting for the performance or reliability to drop. In the mean time, I'm livin' large and lovin' it!
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Sprint Broadband Direct
