how-to block ads
|
»next review in page
Review by wjtaggart 
UPDATED: 80 days ago
member for 2.8 years, 189 visits, last login: 78 days ago
 Cincinnati,Hamilton,OH
 $30 per month
 about 900 days
 Cincinnati Bell
 "it isn't Time Warner"
 "not constant on. Not dependable (mostly, but not always)."
 "not a proper utility connection."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I've been a Zoomtown subscriber since it was first offered in my area (Forest Park). I'm equidistant between two COs, at the outer range of each. My speed runs around 1250/530. Occasionally, I call for a speed bump after reading a press release about some tech improvement deal. It is bumped to maybe 1800/500, which lasts for a month, then back down. The only advantage to me is cost. I'd love them to care. In the meantime, they advertise 3000kbps continually. I'm told by their helpdesk that they only "guarantee" 768.
2009 update (waiting for Cincinnati Bell Fiber-optics):
After about 4 tech visits, over the course of several months this Spring, I have obtained consistently, 2560/768. The modem almost never looses connection, but it does, maybe several times a week (briefly). Not Utility quality, which makes it undependable to, say, work from home, which I do once a week. All bets are off during storms -- nothing but repeated redials. Not too bad on good days, though.
CBT just wired an apartment complex about 3 blocks away from me with fibre ("Fioptics"). I'm waiting.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Cincinnati Bell |
 | »next review in page (previous review)
Review by Heddly
Posted: 202 days ago
member for 1.8 years, 17 visits, last login: 5 days ago
Covington,Kenton,KY
Contract price not specified.
"Technicians were honest about the reason my connect was slow"
"Cinn. Bell would not upgrade my city's Trunk Line when a new one was closer for higher speeds"
"Get Cable with Phone,TV and Internet"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
I had Cincinnati Bell Zoomtown for 10 years and my internet connection averaged 700-800 download speeds. Technicians who visited my home to test my end of the connection all complained about the old lines that Cinn. Bell were using for my area of the city, while there was a newer,faster and closer Trunk Line available not 1/2 mile from my home.
They all said that my internet connection would double or more if Cincinnati Bell would consolidate the local connections to my city through the newer Trunk Line.
I had Satellite TV at the time but switched all of my Services to my local Insight Cable company and have been pleasantly surprised with all of their content.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Cincinnati Bell |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by jduffy
UPDATED: 273 days ago
member for 3.2 years, 303 visits, last login: 5 days ago
Cincinnati,Hamilton,OH
$40 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
Cincinnati Bell
"Reliable"
"Slow, line prone to interference, have to bundle to get $40 price"
"For a few more, bucks a month, Road Runner is much faster"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I was a long-time Cincinnati Bell Zoomtown subscriber. Gosh, I think it was more than eight years. Zoomtown was reliable, but being a ham radio operator, anytime I used any real power (greater than 25 watts) to my high frequency transmitters, Zoomtown would lose the link. This was a major problem especially when I moved one of my Cincinnati Bell land-lines to VOIP with Vonage. The other issue is the ADSL2 was supposed to be installed over a year ago to take the speed up to be competitive against Road Runner. It never happened. I think Cincinnati Bell is in such bad financial shape over the acquisition and disposition of Broadwing, that they simply cannot invest in their network.
Several weeks ago, I ordered a trial of Business Class Road Runner. 768 up and 6 down. I could also run my own servers for web (I could do this on Zoomtown) and email (I could not run email servers on Zoomtown). Also, RR gives me a dedicated IP address. The price is $59.95, about $20 more than Zoomtown. But ultimately I will move the home phone to VOIP. I am now paying Cincinnati Bell $40 for the Complete Connections phone package now, so when I go to VOIP that will run $25 a month so the net difference is $5.
I gave RR a try while keeping Zoomtown. Wow, what a difference in speed. I mean it is incredible and the upload is a bit faster than Zoomtown. So I had Zoomtown disconnected and keeping RR.
There was one other issue with Zoomtown. Tremendous latency with some websites - click and wait and wait and wait. Many other ZT users said it was problems with the DNS servers.
If I did not have the interference issue and if the speed would have been upgraded, I probably would have stayed with Zoomtown. But ZT stopped being competitive around here against RR, so I got tired of waiting and made the move. I am glad I did.
Now getting almost 10Mbs download and 1.5 Mbs upload with Road Runner. I have not seen anything comparable with Zoomtown. It was worth the change.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Cincinnati Bell |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by RedRSX04
UPDATED: 328 days ago
member for 1.1 years, 5 visits, last login: 249 days ago
Erlanger,Kenton,KY
$38 per month
about 8 days
Cincinnati Bell
"Easy to setup and install"
"No where near the advertised speed of 5Mbps"
"Not the best value considering cable options regarding speed vs price"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
We live in NKY in the Erlanger area. Recently we decided to switch from Insight cable TV/Internet to Direct TV due to more sports programming options. With Insight, we were recv'ing a SOLID 10Mbps down on our Internet connection (any machine in the house) for approx $30/mo.
Once DirectTV was installed, we contacted Cincinnati Bell to have their highest speed DSL package installed as well. Cincinnati Bell (Zoomtown or Fuse.net) offers users two packages:
1) 768Kbps down for $15/mo
--or--
2) 5Mbps down for $30/mo ($25 if you bundle)
Additionally, we had to pickup land-line telephone service in the house for DSL to work (we've not had/nor needed a land line in our house for several years as everyone has their own cell phone.) The total monthly cost for the DSL service and land line is $38/mo plus taxes and fees.
Our house is located less than a mile from the switching station.
Unfortunately, the most we've been able to pull from the new DSL service has been approx 1.2Mbps - which is nowhere near the advertised 5Mbps - even after tweaking (on any machine in the house.)
We contacted the Cincinnati Bell (Zoomtown) support department who provided every excuse under the sun as to why we may not be able to pull the advertised speed of 5Mbps -but- no solution to our issue. I complained as to the price vs. speed, noting that basically I'm not pulling much more than their 768Kbps service, but paying for their 5Mbps service - the rep offered to discount our service $5/mo.
I'm thinking seriously that I'll switch back to Insight cable - the speed/price value of DSL vs. cable in this area just isn't in the same ballpark.
Followup comments:  
Anon1
@fuse.net
| Speed & Wiring I think there are two leading culprits to low bandwidth results...
The Zoomtown modem will train itself to the highest possible sustainable speed. Based on your 1Mb comment, there are two probable culprits:
1. House wiring.
- Either the wiring connect at the demarc box outside your home has a "incomplete connection" or the wire within your home is spliced, respliced, twisted and taped together - creating significant signal loss and the net result is the speed you are seeing. My experience has taught me that all of the copper on the wires coming from your house needs to be connected at the demarc. With a voice only connection, a lousy splice is no problem. Lousy splice being where the wire jacket is removed, and along with it a fair amount of the copper inside.
- Your distance to the Cincinnati Bell phone cabinet / central office. DSL is design to work best within 18,000 feet of the central office. Distances beyond that can create bandwidth constraints.
Check and fix the outside box wiring and rerun a dedicated wire for the zoomtown modem. If that doesn't do the trick, the ball is in bell's corner. | |
| | ShawnJ
join:2009-01-20
Louisville, KY
| Re: Speed & Wiring I have done online speed tests for Insight and Zoomtown. The tests tell me that Zoomtown has a 15Mbps Download and 12Mbps Upload that is compared to Insight's 10Mbps Download and their 1Mbps Upload. With that said then Zoomtown is the better choice. I used to live in NKY and i had Zoomtown an it blew Insight outta the water for speed. | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of Cincinnati Bell |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by ff2366
UPDATED: 334 days ago
member for 1.7 years, 19 visits, last login: 231 days ago
Mason,Warren,OH
$25 per month
about 7 days
Cincinnati Bell
"Consistent, solid bandwidth. Modem doesn't require a lick of babysitting / reboots etc."
"None that I can think of."
"Best deal around. Threw Sprint and Time-Warner out on their ear 6 months ago and haven't looked back."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
A year later...
For a year I enjoyed a 5mb connection - my typical download speed was 4.1mb - uploads averaged 650k. All of the sudden this week, Cincinnati Bell downgraded my pipe to a 3mb download - which means I yield around 2.1mb.
So while it was a good thing while it lasted - Cincinnati Bell doesn't see the logic in leaving well enough alone. It does feel like a bait and switch and I will switch providers and pay the premium for the principal.
I work at home 3 days a week. All to regularly my Time-Warner connection would lose it's network access. I run a constant ping test in the background to a couple of DNS servers to validate when and where the link failures occur and it my connections would die several times a day. 7 visits by Time-Warner over a 3 month period, movement of router, replacement of wires, validation of signals - nothing could fix the fact that the Time-Warner network simply isn't built for high availability. My gut tells me that they perform network maintenance and restarts anytime day or night as they saw fit with no regards to the folks who subscribed to the service and used it for work. One day my VPN connection died - I looked out my front window and sure enough, the Time-Warner truck was down the street and the tech has his head buried in the roadside box. Service was restored 20 minutes later.
The other positive piece is the fact that I haven't had to look at the Cincinnati Bell DSL modem since it was installed. Haven't had to restart, reboot - nothing. It has worked well since day 1.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Cincinnati Bell |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by j0hn33y
Posted: 348 days ago
member for 348 days, 0 visits, last login: 348 days ago
Cincinnati,Clermont,OH
$44 per month
Cincinnati Bell
"Was reliable."
"Beware cuting upload speeds of long term customers."
"If you still have a land line it could be usefull"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
I have been a loyal customer for over 10 years.
Recently Zoomtown had cut my upload speed by over 50%. When called to complain they feed you the line "We cannot grantee upload speeds.”
Also a technician stated that the speeds I had been receiving “He had never seen”, even though it is advertized on their website. After calling BS on them the speed magically returned after pulling more BS by cutting download speeds to “compensate”. So shopper Beware, shenanigans appear to be in play at zoomtown.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Cincinnati Bell |
| »next review in page (previous review)
 Review by artesian79
Posted: 1.6 years ago
member for 8.1 years, 398 visits, last login: 40 days ago
West Chester,Butler,OH
Contract price not specified.
"Inexpensive - my company pays the bill"
"Too slow; tech support is more difficult than RoadRuner; bandwidth planning is not a strength"
"Didn't think I'd miss RR, but Zoomtown makes it so."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
It took 3 different techs coming to the house to get it working. They didn't show up at the promised time. They DID stay until we had service.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Cincinnati Bell |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by beaker87
Posted: 1.8 years ago
member for 9.3 years, 184 visits, last login: 267 days ago
Loveland,Clermont,OH
$15 per month
Cincinnati Bell
"bundle price [$30 reg], newsgroups"
"overall speed"
"to bundle or to not bundle..."
| Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
have had alternately cable and adsl, 2-3 yrs at a time, over the past nine years. all local offerings piggy-back the two main biggins' Time-Warner & Cincinnati Bell and are slightly cheaper but mostly watered down. It may be 'bout time to check TW's latest 7 Mbps option...although I know that I'd need to start paying for a premium news server as my previous experience with RR nntp's was crap [and a few folks that I know do cable say it's still the same]. Westell modem was sent next day comin' on 3 years ago when I was still using XP. Company sells ONLY "Up to"...5 Mbps/768 up. consistently got w/XP and get w/Vista 1.2 Mbps
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Cincinnati Bell |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by dualsub2006
UPDATED: 2.2 years ago
member for 2.3 years, 512 visits, last login: 14 days ago
Newport,Campbell,KY
$45 per month
about 25 days
"Connection was reliable. Slow, but reliable."
"Price, (lack of) speed, support"
"If you have the chance to sign up with Cincinnati Bell; don't."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
I had Zoomtown for years. The 3 Mb package that was never faster than 1.5. I hung in there with Cincinnati Bell forever. Kept paying and paying without getting anything. I called in to tech support about my slow speeds. Every time I was told the same thing, you're too far away for the speed to get any better. Nobody would ever answer why it was installed in the first place if I were too far away. I was always treated like a 2nd class citizen whenever I called Cincinnati Bell.
I switched to Insight and Vonage about a month ago. Best move I ever made. Got my speed up in the ballpark of what is promised (8.5+ on a 10 connection) and attentive support. They actually want to come out and "look in to this" speed issue. Wow. Cincinnati Bell never did that one.
Vonage call quality is PERFECT! I had always been told that my multi handset cordless phone system wasn't capable of delivering high quality sound. I only paid $50 for it so who knew. Vonage on the same phone system sounds crystal clear.
Cost savings is nothing short of amazing. For 2 phone lines and Zoomtown from Cincinnati Bell was $163 with zero (cell phone) long distance usage. With Insight Broadband (Internet only, DirecTV subscriber here) I pay $40 a month. 2 phone lines from Vonage (long distance included) $43. $80 in MY pocket every month.
Funny, when I called Cincinnati Bell to cancel everything nobody treated me like a 2nd class citizen. The dude even called me sir. He was shocked that I wanted it all shut down and shut down now. Didn't even want to talk about "specials". His last question was "do you want to make payment arrangements for your final bill?" I asked what he would do if I didn't, shut me off?
Bottom line, unless Cincinnati Bell is the only rat in the race do yourself a favor and try someone else first. None of these companies are perfect, but you can get a better product elsewhere.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Cincinnati Bell |
| »next page (previous review)
Review by Volomon
Posted: 2.6 years ago
member for 3.3 years, 1 visits, last login: 2.6 years ago
Batavia,Clermont,OH
$29 per month
"None"
"Sniffs Packets, Blocks Sites, and has Poor Service"
"Look else where for better speed and service."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
I've had Zoomtown for years I would not currently be using it if it wasn't for the fact that the apartment I currently live in would allow alternatives. It has poor service, my previous experience (nearly 2 years ago) was great until I started using my internet more and more. Then one day the internet stopped working all together. It took about 4 days of calling, not one single tech attempted to reach any higher level techs all the same level 1 techs kept giving me ignorant answers that even I who does not work in a tech field could figure out was BS. I switched to Road Runner and immediately it started working again.
Recently however I've found out they block sites with their DNS server I actually had to switch to an OpenDNS, they also sniff packets and throttle your bandwidth, and generally its just poor service they have copper wiring that when it rains the Zoomtown actually loses connection! This is the quality of Zoomtown.
What speed did you order, at what monthly price?,
I got the standard intro package its 29.99 for what is suppose to be 2-3megs but ended up being below 1 sometimes near 56k but recently they have boosted it and it has been stable around 2megs.
Followup comments: skutnar
join:1999-08-21
Milford, OH
| Hmm Do you have definitive proof that Cincy Bell is sniffing your packets and blocking sites? Those are some big accusations. Zoomtown's DNS has been flaky on and off for a couple years. The DNS servers will timeout, making sites seemingly unavailable. This usually happens during peak hours. If you have an example of a site that they seemingly "block", I'd like to know. I'd also like to know how you are determining that they sniff packets.
Your issues with poor connections and slow speed are most likely due to poor wiring between your apartment and the CO. It's not really Zoomtown's fault, per se, but Cincinnati Bell should guarantee some minimum service level for both voice and data. It might take a lot of work to get satisfaction. | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of Cincinnati Bell |
|
|
Cincinnati Bell
·
·