Review by rickpark
Posted: 10 years ago
(review was emailed from domain earthlink.net)
 Manhattan Beach,Los Angeles,CA
 Contract price not specified.
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Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I've been an Earthlink dial-in subscriber for a number of years and recently decided to go for the ADSL service due to their program offering free installation and connection equipment (with 1 year service commitment of $50/mo. The service for my area is GTE's Bronze Plus package which is 728K down/128K up). As I had an existing second phone line costing me around $30/month and Earthlink service for another $20, it made it almost a no-brainer decision. A few months ago, I contacted GTE to see if they supported ADSL in my neighborhood. At first, they said no because of the way my connecting office (CO)supported my phone line (fiber multiplexer). So a few weeks after that, I contacted Earthlink about their DSL and now, my existing line is now supported. I used DSLreports to check it out and it confirmed that the CO now supported it. I called GTE to set up a time, they never got back to me so back to Earthlink who then set up the time and date (Nov 2.) A week before the install day, I got a voice message from Earthlink at work saying that the install date was now Nov. 3. A day later, I got Earthlink's DSL welcome package with the WinPOET high-speed access software and travelling access disk.
On Nov. 3, the tech from GTE arrived and proceeded to install the splitter box and RJ45 for the ADSL modem. He straightened out some existing wiring after finding a ground of some sort. All of this took about 45 minutes and John the tech was very diligent and professional. He told me that GTE had recently run a fiber from my old CO to a closer one so instead of being 12,000+ feet away per DSLreports, it was actually only 8,000 feet away. We hooked the DSL modem (Fujitsu Speedport) up to the line and then a straight-through twisted pair jumper from the modem to my hub (if you go directly to the NIC, you use a cross-over cable). The connection appears to be PPPoE.
At first, there was no sign of life on the modem lights, John called GTE and found they had not activated the line as ADSL. John took off for a coffee break after telling me the line would activate in a few minutes and that he'd be back. In about 15 minutes, the lights went on during which time firmware updates were uploaded and installed automatically to the modem. John wasn't back yet so I went ahead and installed the WinPoet software. After setting up the login info, I launched the application, it logged me in and I was browsing. At this time, John arrived back, everything from his end seemed OK so he left.
I started Windows System Monitor with connect speed, download and upload Byte rates enabled and used IE and Outlook express to test download speed and was very disappointed as it was barely better than 56K dial-up. I called Earthlink's DSL support and told the tech about the situation. At first, he was somewhat condescending, implying that I didn't understand the difference between Bytes/sec vs bits/sec until I told him what the rates were from System Monitor. He then had me go to computingcentral.com and run their bandwidth test page and sure enough, I wasn't getting anything above 50Kbits/sec download. Next he had me go into Windows Registry to edit a bunch of parameters which eventually got the download rate to 200-250Kbps - better, but far short of 768Kbps which is what Earthlink/GTE says they provide. The tech then said he would open an incident with GTE to check the DSL line.
Today (Nov.8), I tried to get Earthlink DSL support again but after 3 tries with waits of 15+ minutes, I gave up and called GTE directly. The tech there told me there was no existing incident so opened a new one. I talked with her while she checked out the line and said that everything looked OK and that I needed to go home and check the line out again. Now, as I'm writing this, the computingcentral.com bandwidth page reports download rates as high as 1500kbps, with an average of around 750Kbps and Byte download rates of 25 - 40KBps, so it appears the problem was fixed.
I have good things to say about GTE's tech support, I feel that Earthlink is going to have to fix a few thing with theirs, but overall, I'm happy and the speed is great. For the price, I'm glad I did it.
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