Review by timpinson 
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 7 years, 554 visits, last login: 14 days ago
 Dallas,Dallas,TX
 $14 per month (12 month contract)
 about 6 days
 Southwestern Bell
 "Great reliable connection, decent speed, cheap price, good phone tech support"
 "Only 1.5MB download speed available in my area at this time, but hey it WORKS!"
 "Very reliable connection, price is very competitive compared to whats offered"
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Install Co-ordination:
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Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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OK, I had Comcast for 2 almost 3 years prior to getting DSLExtreme. Their service was great until Time Warner took them over and then within a month it hit rock bottom. I had a 8000/768 up/down connection with Comcast so that was going to be hard to beat, but my internet had gotten to the point to where it was off more then it was on. Their tech support was basically non existant, 8 techs out to my house and for a month no one could find what was going on, after awhile I just gave up calling them because it seemed a lost cause. So I started looking around and I found The Yahoo website and saw their special for $12.99 a month with SBC/ATT and thought wow! My friend has them and it works great for her. My first DSL ISP was the same, had them for 5 years and service was great but price was $50 a month at the time. Comcast got in my area and it sounded good so I switched. Big mistake. So to get the Yahoo DSL you have to be with either Verizon or AT&T/SBC and I had MCI so it was a no go. I switched my phone over and was told I had to either pay my phone bill by auto pay credit card or I couldnt get the DSL. I'm old school and like to get my bills in the mail so I can actually look at them. Well I didnt wanna sign up with the auto-pay so I didnt get the DSL, so I began looking around a bit more on the web. I thought this is Dallas for gods sake there has to be a load of ISP's here in the big city. I ran across DSLExtreme and checked them out. They basically connect thru AT&T/SBC or Verizon and set you up. The woman explained to me they "borrow" the lines. OK, so they offer the exact same deal as Yahoo per month, send you out the modem which got here with light speed via UPS. I got the Westell 2200 A90-2200115-04 which is a really nice modem and works great! The only thing I dont like is that its a discontinued model from Westell, I didnt get an install disc for it, and it's becoming almost impossible trying to find drivers to get the USB to work. I've just about given up on it. Works great with the LAN connection though. I'm getting 1500/328 up/down speed. Yea it's slower then my Comcast but guess what? It Works! It Works! Thank God Almighty It Works! As soon as I got the modem I tried connecting it up and my service was already on 4 days ahead of my scheduled date. Hook up was very easy and tech support was very helpful. They actually knew what they were talking about, can you imagine that? I never got that with Comcast, just someone reading a script trying to get me to always power cycle the modem on and off. Once I got it up and running I check speeds, did packet loss test and WOW what can I say but I am very impressed. I have an IP Address from SWB so I guess they are connected right thru to them. I'm very happy though with the service, it hasnt went down once since it began, just like it did when I had SWB/SBC before and thats what I was hoping for. Yea its slower then Comcast, but I'd much rather have a slower connection that actually works, then one thats faster and dont work. I just wish I could find the drivers for my modem, I found the ones for the 2100 but they dont work with mine. Anyway, I'm very happy with DSLExtreme!
Update: Someone in the forums here was nice enough to send me the correct driver for my USB and it worked like a charm so I am at this point extremely happy! Thanks!
Update 11/25/06: Still going strong! No issues, no downtime, no problems at all! Connection remains steady and online at all times, even during bad weather. Tried to call them regarding the faster speed thats offered by AT&T in my area, but with DSLExtreme for some reason they can only provide the 1.5MB download speed at this time. AT&T can go up to 6MB if I had service thru them, but I dont know if I really need that fast of a connection for what I do. I was going to try to get the 3MB speed, but DSLExtreme says they have some sort of contract with AT&T or something to where the faster speed is not offered thru them. No biggie. After my nightmare with Time Warner/Comcast/Road Runner I am so happy to just be online 24/7 with no issues! DSLExtreme says they may offer the faster speeds at some point.
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