 Review by Smith6612 
UPDATED: 62 days ago
member for 1.8 years, 970 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Sanborn,Niagara,NY
 Contract price not specified.
 about 7 days
 "Fast, always on, good pings, great support"
 "None as of yet"
 "Is a good service for anyone escaping cable"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well above consensus)
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UPDATE Sept 19, 2009: Service is still great. Only wish I could get higher speeds than 3Mbps since my line will handle them.
Just like my Verizon review, I'm going to summarize this review.
We have had FrontierNet DSL for a couple years now. Was the first customer to get hooked up in the area, and began at 1Mbps/128kbps speed. A few weeks later, the line was boosted for free to 3Mbps/384kbps. The modem supplied was a SpeedStream 6520 which is still in use to this day. The modem itself is a wireless router. The router doesn't seem to be able to pick up the reception from the computers very well on the other end of the home, but it is certainly strong enough to get to the computer. However, not sure if this is due to config or not (most likely my config), the modem doesn't play very well with Steam's server list, and being the gamer I am, I tend to lock the SpeedStream up for a few minutes after running Steam's list.
In terms of the quality of service, the line has been rock solid since it's been installed. No dropouts, the SNR sits in the mid to lower 20s, sometimes peaking down to 6dB on a rare day but it never loses sync nor do the speeds or pings degrade in quality, and the service is 2 miles away from the CO in wire. The speeds hit a constant 3100kbps of download, and a constant 384kbps of upload, and the pings sit at roughly 12ms to the first gateway. I have to say though, even though Frontier's routing may not be as good as my other DSL line's routing, the pings I have gotten on Frontier's network are quite good. I've hit 200ms solid ping to Australia on several occasions.
I have had only one problem in the few years I've had service. This issue was when the service failed to get a PPPoA connection and I was without internet connectivity for a day. Calling up tech support, they were very helpful, and connected me with someone at the CO who told me of what may happen in order to get my line fixed. Though a truck roll was scheduled, no truck showed up but the line was fixed the next morning. There was also one time where the New Jersey portion of the network coming out of Rochester must've been down and Frontier had been loading their Chicago link down which did cause some degraded speeds and elevated pings for a day, but the issue was fixed within a day as well.
I have noticed that during the night times however, right after the holidays that the pings from an outside network to the DSL connection are starting to go up. This may be a wake up call, as though the speeds and pings remain the same on the Frontier connection's end, when pinging the same connection at my Verizon line, in the morning I'll be getting a good 53ms ping to it, where as at night, the ping will be from 60ms to 115ms ping. If it starts to get worse, I'll be sure to convince Frontier of a possible bandwidth issue and raise a yellow flag with them to see what is going on. Wouldn't want to see the service hit the fan after 3-4 years of great service now, would we? 
But Frontier has been great and I hope for anyone looking for service in Sanborn, to look for Frontier for your needs. I guess a lot of people already have them in Sanborn and every person I've asked about the service have been happy with it.
======UPDATE JAN 28, 2009======
I gave Frontier a call and it turns out the CO is running low on bandwidth. They are aware of the issue and are current in the works of installing more bandwidth, so things should be fixed up soon! See my topic on it called "Sanborn NY issues" in the forums for anyone wanting the full details.
Followup comments:  |  | | | | 
guypd
join:2008-05-08
Silver Springs, NY | Re: I wish their service was more uniform I just sent an e-mail to Frontier, asking if they would waive their ETF, if we cancelled, since we have a bad connection here. We will see what they have to say.
Plus, if they start to enforce the 5GB cap, we would use that in less than a week. | |
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spewak
R.I.P Dadkins
Premium
join:2001-08-07
Elk Grove, CA
 ·SureWest Internet
·FrontierNet Intern..
| Re: I wish their service was more uniform said by Smith6612 :I just hope Frontier doesn't implement the caps or at least keep them this low as they're proposing, as I'd hate to lower their ranking on this review just because of a cap. Smith,
What would you do if Frontier does lower the caps to the intended and publicized 5gig a month? I was reading that maybe the Term committed subs will be cap free.
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The weekend is here, grab a can of beer! | |
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Smith6612
Premium
join:2008-02-01
united state
 ·Dish Network
·Verizon Online DSL
·FrontierNet Intern..
3 edits | Re: I wish their service was more uniform Ultimately, I don't know really. I would call them up and ask them what is going on and how much they are charging per extra GB, and then ask them why they wanted caps in the first place. Really, Frontier's infrustructure and backbones are sound, no bottlenecks in there, but if anything, the slow downs are because of either your line losing sync, or because of a local bandwidth squeeze. Now, running trace routes from the Frontier connection, I'm pulling some very good pings and stable data streams over Frontier's network, even to the other side of the US in California.
Honestly, I'd just have to say that whoever wanted this cap is trying to get people angry, as caps aren't going to stop bandwidth crunches. When the caps are reset, you get more bandwidth crunching. Any person who knows a thing about offering internet speeds is to serve areas with at least an OC-3 (150Mbps symm), and that's what Frontier needs to do and stop using T1's and T3s to fuel areas unless it's THAT rural.
DSL was also not meant to be a capped service, nor was Cable for that matter. Basically, it's meant to have unlimited amount of usage in a sense, but have your speed capped via provisioning. Cable modems, sure you can hack them to get the max bandwidth for your area, but DSL, there's no way you can fiddle with the sync as that's done on the CO/RT side, and considering the way DSL works, if there was a way to mess with your sync rate to make it higher than you pay for like cable, there's no way you'd be able to max out an OC-3 or a T3 line for that matter unless you're on VDSL simply because many customers are just that far away, even on ADSL2+.
Frontier's chance at competing with cable, especially Time Warner and Comcast IS their UNCAPPED DSL product, while slower and maybe more unstable on crappy/long phone lines, having no caps will surely charge their DSL beyond cable when the cable companies cap their users. And as someone on this site stated before, you are paying to be provisioned/capped at a certain speed, not paying to have a certain speed AND data caps. The only reason Frontier should cap would be if they let everyone get the max line sync possible for their DSL line (which means uncapped speed, basically sync as high as it can go stabally) and say they can use as much speed as they can get. | |
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