 Review by Racerbob 
UPDATED: 194 days ago
member for 8.4 years, 3482 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Webster,Monroe,NY
 $29 per month (12 month contract)
 about 3 days
 "Reliable, recent speed increase, excellent pre-install help"
 "Nothing yet this time around."
 "I am quite satisfied so far with Frontier DSL this time around."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
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Well I must say that after exactly three months of Frontier DSL, I have switched back to Roadrunner. Anyone who is an average customer who is not interested in latency and speed testing would be very happy with Frontier. I had issues that cropped up in the last several weeks that were a bit annoying, but I never lost connection here at my home. It is just that the speed would fluctuate a great deal and in doing some tracerts, the first and second hops would often times be up around and over the 200 ms mark. At any rate, all of the folks that I have talked to at Frontier have been great. They are a good bunch of people. It is just that their infrastructure isn't quite up to par with Time Warner's in this area.
Ah ha !
My most recent experience. Here is the update...had DSL installed again on May 14th, 2009....
All of this recent talk by Time Warner about placing caps on our internet service has turned me off... big time. So I decided to once again explore my options with the only other somewhat viable broadband provider here in town.. Frontier.
Frontier now offers what some people call "naked DSL". You no longer need to have phone service with them in order to get DSL service. That to me is a selling point because we use the MagicJack phone here at home and we also have cell phones.
So on Thursday Frontier was here to install DSL Max. I live around the corner from one of their remote units...think that they are called DSLAM's ? And early last year we had Frontier here for a while and even though the speed was very good, there was a considerable amount of latency that we were experiencing and Frontier let me out of my contract. So the install this time went well and I started running some tracerts and ping test and was pleasantly surprised at the results. Obviously some work has been done on the system because we have low latency now.
The other thing that I noticed was that the download and upload speed was lower. After talking to their support department yesterday a ticket was put into their provisioning department and late yesterday afternoon the net went down for a bit... and when it came back I discovered that they had substantially increased our upload speed. The download is still the same at about 6.4 mb/sec. But the upload is over 800 kb/sec and that blows the regular speed Roadrunner away ... they are maxed out at 384 kb/sec in Rochester. I am not sure if they are done tweaking my line in or not, but I can live with this current download speed for what we do on the net and as long as the connection stays stable as it is right now with low latency, then we shall be happy campers here.
I turned in my Roadrunner modem last night and service was discontinued. The man at the local Time Warner store seemed genuinely disinterested in why I was canceling service and I can't help but think that this exemplifies the whole corporate attitude at Time Warner. They could really care less about what the customers think. Someone correct me if I am wrong here.
My dealings so far with Frontier have been all good. They were good to me last year and so far this past week they have treated me with respect and answered all of my questions and concerns . I am basically in a one year price guarantee contract with them ( which is another thing that they have changed... you have a choice of one or two years now ) and I am locked in at $29.99 a month. The other thing was that when I ordered the service last Monday I was told that there would be a $4.50 a month charge for the modem. I told the guy ( he was in Florida ) that I had my own DSL modem and he said that he had to include the $4.50 a month charge anyway. ( guess that this is the case when they initialize the order ) And the installer used my modem when he installed the service. Yesterday I called them back and the $4.50 a month modem charge has been removed from the monthly billing. They are also crediting my first bill for the install charge of $34.95.
So.. DSL may not be for everyone because of it's distance related limitations. But for people within reasonable range of a DSLAM or a CO, it is worth a try. I was given a one month grace period in which I can cancel service, but I do not anticipate doing so at this time. Sorry for making this so long, but I felt a need to let the locals here know about one of their other options as far as high speed service is concerned.
I still have cable TV with Time Warner, but the less money that I have to send their way , the better as far as I am concerned right now.
Also, Phil Dampier ( www.stopthecap.com ) tried DSL recently where he lives in Brighton and the speed was just not adequate enough for his needs . He has reported on this at his website. So this shows that DSL is not good for everyone in the county. All depends on where you live. We can only hope that eventually Frontier in Rochester sells out to a company that can start stringing fiber around town. Then Time Warner would have a much more legitimate competitor to worry about here.
First image was from this year......second is last year's...
Attachments:
Followup comments:  
ruko
@frontiernet.net | Ridiculous Modem Rent Buy your own modem. Send theirs back. You still get service but if it turns out to be a modem problem....
ruko | |
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Racerbob
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY | Re: Ridiculous Modem Rent I do not think that buying my modem would be an option. I am locked into a 2 year deal that guarantees me a certain price and that includes the $3.99 a month for the modem charge. | |
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spewak
R.I.P Dadkins
Premium
join:2001-08-07
Elk Grove, CA | Leaving Frontier? You really left Frontier Maz? | |
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Racerbob
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
 ·FrontierNet Intern..
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Leaving Frontier? Yes. For the average customer here in this town, the service is fine. For a part time geek like myself , the service degraded a bit. Tracerts would sometimes be fine, and other times the speed to the first couple of hops would be very high. The folks at Frontier are fine. No problem with them at all. I was let out of my contract also. And now as of yesterday, I am back on Roadrunner. | |
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Racerbob
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
·FrontierNet Intern..
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Leaving Frontier? Ah...don't feel bad for me. The average customer would not have noticed a thing here wrong with the service. I feel good about the fact that Frontier treated me very well and I get the impression that they are aware of their limitations. They let me out of my contract...no harm, no foul. I am back with RR now and I can only wish that they turn the upload up a bit from the present 384 speed. | |
| | | | | jdre
join:2008-03-27
| Re: Leaving Frontier? That is kinda slow for some of us  I may try Turbo later, it has 1 mbps upload. It really only matters to send larger files. At my work, there is a 5 meg upload and download, can't say it's better than my RR. | |
| gnm109
join:2003-03-15
Wilton, CA
| Frontier DSL in Rural Area. I've had Frontier DSL for about 5 years. They originally advertised it as 1000/128, When first installed I was getting 3000/300. Recently, I called to see if I could get more speed and greater wireless range for my upstairs computer. A rep came out with a different modem and connected us to a 6000/500 line. Most of the time, I get 4-5000 down and 4-500 up, I can't complain about that, especially since I'm in a rural area and the only other option would be satellite for much more a month.
No complaints here. | |
| hottboiinnc
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH
·Time Warner Cable
·buckeye cable
| RR Caps Frontier was one of the first providers to announce caps so now you're going back to them? Talk about doing business with the devil.
Also if you didn't know BOTH companies decide against the caps. TWC even posted a letter to all customers on the TWC website. | |
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Racerbob
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
·FrontierNet Intern..
·RoadRunner Cable
3 edits | Re: RR Caps Trust me, I have been following this very close. Frontier has no caps right now and neither does Roadrunner. Time Warner is a bigger devil than Frontier in my eyes and the less money that I can send their way the better. If Frontier decides that we use too much bandwidth and shuts me down, we shall go back to the other devil. Right now, for what we do on the net, I do not anticipate that happening. Also, having decent upload speed is something that I have been complaining about for years. The local RR is stuck in the stone age with 384 kb/sec and I am testing over 800 kb/sec with Frontier. The less money that I send Time Warner, the better. Just my little way of letting them know that I am indeed unhappy with them. And ... Frontier is saving me money. When you are on furlough weeks, this is an important thing.
Also, I am firmly convinced now that the issues that I experienced last year were as a result of them trying to pump too much speed my way. After talking to the fellow who stopped by yesterday he said pretty much the same thing.. that with the limitations that are in place with the older lines, etc, that if he tweaked my connection more to get me a bit more download speed that the instability and latency could and would possibly return. | |
| | | hottboiinnc
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH
·Time Warner Cable
·buckeye cable
| Re: RR Caps No, trust me you're not following it very closely. You don't make sense when giving your review. You left RoadRunner due to they were explorering caps. And when to a company that was one of the first ones to even say anything about it.
Sounds like you want it both ways, and are trying to do to bait and switch for promos. And if you do/are they'll catch on. | |
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