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Review by sswanson 
UPDATED: a few hours ago
member for 7.8 years, 51 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Washington,District Of Columbia,DC
 $89 per month
 Verizon
 "Installed 3.0/768 - unable to maintain without high error rate"
 "Slippery practices"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings match consensus)
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Installed 3.0/768 - unable to maintain without high error rate. Techs unhelpful in getting lower error rates. Had to be put into "safe" mode at half speed, but full $s. Have now canceled and they required 30 days to terminate. They say the contract requires 30 days, however, that would be 30 days at 1/2 speed. I have disconnected and am not using service.
Sorry company- stay away.
»covadsucks.info
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Review by dvarona
UPDATED: 24 days ago
member for 8.8 years, 957 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Richmond Hill,Queens,NY
Contract price not specified.
Verizon
 "Reliable enough to ignore"
"Behind-the-times webmail interface"
"Does what it should, keeps on ticking"
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Signed up for Covad's ADSL2+ 8Mbps service in October 2007 via a web page sign-up for $159/mo. Hookup was quick but was not without the typical local carrier / ISP confusion. Service has been running without a glitch since it was installed so that I don't even think about it, and that that is exactly what it should do. My download speeds are reliably about 600-800KB/s, which is pretty close to the theoretical limit.
Covad provides a wireless router that they manage, but will allow you to control it yourself if you know what you are doing. I haven't taken advantage of this self-control possibility, but I might in order to prevent wireless thieves.
Their tech support / webmail interface is far from slick, but is functional. When/if FIOS becomes available I might switch, though I hate the idea of Verizon being able to rip the copper out of the wall just because competitors use it. Until they get around to serving us city folk I'll keep my DSL.
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Review by dagg
UPDATED: 92 days ago
member for 7.5 years, 224 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Rio Linda,Sacramento,CA
$109 per month (12 month contract)
 about 35 days
SBC
"3.0 down/768 up its a real connection"
"Major snafu when I ordered added a LOT of time to turnup"
"it costs more, but I dont really have too many problems with them"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings match consensus)
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Pre sales: I previously had 1.5/384 Line Shared and was going to need a lot more bandwidth so I decided to go with the 6.0/768 service which I did preqal for. turns out that the LEC had bad info on the loop length and my line was actually a few hundred feet longer than the prequal said it was. Well, this meant that Covad had to cancel the order & could not place an order for the 3.0 circuit untill the existing order cleared out. That was supposed to take a week. After two weeks Covad had to escalate the issue to manually clear out the order which took an extra few days. It took 2.5 weeks just to place the order. Once that was done my next hurdle was the fact that I asked for a wireless CPE and because of the problems that I was having, I thought it would be really nice of Covad if they waved the charges for the upgrade... The rep I talked to agreed and apparently so did his supervisor as they informed me that it was taken care of and I would get a free upgrade to a wireless router.
Day of install: When the day for the install came, I wound up getting a brightport 8120. I was less than thrilled. The really great part was the fact that even though one of the customer service reps found the notes, they informed me that I would not be able to get the wireless because the installer had already used a non-wireless CPE and his notes didnt show that I should have gotten a wireless CPE. Since I had a couple wireless AP's laying around the house, I wasnt too worried about it because I was just relieved that the Circuit had finally been installed. My joy would be very short lived. The Brightport worked better as a door stop than it did a CPE (I now use it for target practice after finding my own solution) and the circuit would not stay stable. Since the original line share circuit had not yet been canceled, I was able to place it on that circuit & prove to support that it was in fact the CPE that was causing the problems. So they shipped me out a new CPE (no I was informed that I would not be getting the wireless that I had previously been promised unless I paid for it). A few days later, an installer showed up with a new brightport and put that in place. Again, same exact issues. I was again able to use the old Zyxel to show that it stayed in sync just fine on either circuit and that the second Brightport was little more than a door stop. I gave up at this point & just said I would use the zyxel if they were planning on sending me another brightport.
The next problem after that was a huge billing nightmare. By this time the first bill was coming due very quickly. I was supposed to have about $300 in rebates that I had to send in with the first payment. Because of all the hassles I had with the install, I asked them if they could just place a credit on the account and skip the rebates. After a long conversation on the phone, I was told that I could do that. Imagine my utter LACK of surprise when the bill came and there were no credits on there. A call to customer service informed me that yes, again the notes were there that showed they said I COULD do that, but now that it had been billed, I would have to pay the full amount and send in the rebates. This is the point that I determined that while I have rarely over the last 3 years had a problem with tech support.... customer service must be staffed by rabid hung-over baboons with a severe lack of social skills. I finally caved to the simians and paid the bill and sent the rebates in... but I was very unhappy about.it... ultimately I suppose that doesnt matter because they still got their money in the end.
I have had very few problems with support at covad except for the rare times that the problem I am experiencing is just very unusual... then it can be somewhat difficult to get the concept of what is actually happening across. Even those times however are not that big a deal as I usually get escalated to the next level of support & they just go "oh... well do this..." and generally it works (or at least makes sense to try it).
Services: I get an IP and I get bandwidth... anything else on top of that is gravy to me...
Value: Its a bit more expensive. There are three different providers that I could switch to all with lower costs, but I have found that its better to get as many middle men out of the way as possible and since I hate SBC with a glowing red passion Covad fits the bill there. The other thing is that its not a standard residential service. If it goes down I like to know that I am paying for the right to be extremely cranky with them until they get it back up... so far though, I have never had an outage that lasted more than one continuous day. (knock knock knock).
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Review by Skandalis
UPDATED: 117 days ago
member for 256 days, 34 visits, last login: 5 days ago
Bloomfield Hills,Oakland,MI
$109 per month (12 month contract)
about 22 days
AT&T
"Rock Solid Stability"
"Rough Installation Experience"
"Would recommend if you dont mind spending a premium as my home office has never once lost a connection"
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I purchased a 3mbs/768 dry run connection. After one conversation and fight with AT&T about the line being TNF (Technically not feasible) they finally completed the dry run in 18 days. Three days later, Covad was out to step up the connection and it has been smooth sailing ever since. I am currently paying 109/month and have no problem paying that because of my lines reliablilty. I used to have a Comcast connection and would lose connection twice a week. My Covad line has been running for 8 months straight and not once have i had a loss in sync. My average speed test is registering 2912 Kbps down and 718 Kbps Up. I have had overall a good experience but also have a speakeasy connection and would recommend them over Covad due to their technical team. Best wishes
8/12/07:
Service speed has been seen to now be significantly slower. We are registering speed tests of about 2250 Mb down with 518 up. That is a change of nearly 29% on the down and 38% on the up. They have now stated that it is "within spec" and will not correct the situation until my connection becomes slower than a 60% of the rated service speed. This is really starting to anger me!
06/09/08: Update
It has been nearly a year now and my contract is running out. I have had wonderfully stable services for nearly all of my time with Covad. However stable services are not everything when you need them coupled with speed as well. I have found myself needing higher bandwidth and Covad is just unable to provide me with services that are speedy and price worthy. They keep telling me that the next bandwidth tier that they can provide me with is a T1 or Bonded T1. I however do not want to spend 347 or 719 a month for either of those services. I have done my research and have my eye set on Comcast Workplace. I guess I will see what there sales department may be able to do for me.
06/16/08: Update
My Covad service will officially be disconnected on 6/19/08 and I will not be repurchasing service. I am however already moved my services to Comcast Workplace. They offered me a buisness plan with services at 16Mb down and 2 Mb up. I had service installed last friday and speedtest well into the 20Mb down and 3.3Mb up. I am a highly satisfied customer who now has service that is just as speedy and maintains a very similar average ping time of 31.2 ms. Make sure you do your research with companies before you purchase, It will pay off.
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Review by racer7949
Posted: 161 days ago
member for 161 days, 4 visits, last login: 122 days ago
Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
Contract price not specified.
AT&T
"Tech call center {India} answers right away."
"Flummoxed by phone company issues with aging infrastructure."
"Covad talks a bettter game than they give."
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My point of service is the last structure on the border of the city limits {Los Angeles} and is the end of the line from the central office of the phone company. The entire area was developed in 1963, and I suspect that all or portions of the cables from the central office date from this era.
As the cables are old, the phone company depends on the ring signal {voltage} running through the lines to dry them out and remove intermittency caused by the water seeping through brittle, cracked insulation. I know this now because the Covad tech did this right front of me; he showed me that the line measured high "stress," then he applied voltage down the line, then he re-measured and showed low stress.
Here's the issue, before I knew all of this, a computer consultant assured me that I would receive better service by switching to a dedicated DSL circuit. But since there's no dial tone on the circuit, voltage is never applied to it because the phone never rings {if you didn't know, that's how phones ring, telco sends voltage down the line} so now I'm receiving worse service.
The deal is that the Covad tech in the field know all this {and told me}, but the tech call center knows none of this. Their records show that the phone company switched pairs and "fixed" the problem. What they don't know is that you can switch pairs all day in a 40 year old cable, and each pair will have the same problem.
Why doesn't Covad know this? Or they do know it, and their just hoping that I will go away, because the phone company will never upgrade the cable becuase it's unprofitable and Covad is 100% dependant on a variable that they do not control to maintain their "good" name.
Soon, I will go away. Landline phones are as dead as printed newspapers and DSL will die with it as we all go wireless!
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Review by coopzach
UPDATED: 162 days ago
member for 171 days, 7 visits, last login: 41 days ago
Seattle,King,WA
$60 per month (12 month contract)
Qwest
"Tech support"
"Looking to leave"
| Pre Sales information:
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Been with Covad for about 3 yrs now, DSL, BritePort modem. Added my own router over a year ago, configured it myself without too much trouble. Then in March of this year, Covad apparently was bought out. Email notification said only the name was changing, no mention of buy out or different packaging, etc. Lost Internet connectivity and tech proved to me that the DSL was fine, it was the router. Bought a new router. Have yet to get a configuration that works, despite talking to Covad techs and Linksys router techs. They've had me try static IP, auto-DHCP and PPPoE configurations to no avail.
Covad apparently does not run a CRM package that allows searches by customer name as they ask for account number or circuit id, however one tech was able to find me by address. Seems kind of odd that name is not a searchable condition, but okay, I can see requiring an account number.
Come to find their tracking database is off, too. Tech was under the assumption that I had their router. I questioned his responses and said I had the modem, he said database indicated I had their router.
Not many options available to me in inner city. Looking like Clearwire may be in the running, Comcast and Verizon are not.
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 Review by DC DSL
Posted: 167 days ago
member for 8.2 years, 3183 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Washington,District Of Columbia,DC
 Business customer
$120 per month (24 month contract)
about 6 days
Verizon
"Rock solid connection, one outage in 3 years."
"Costs a bit more than Verizon's current offering."
"Still the gold standard for business DSL in the DC area"
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Several of my clients in downtown DC were in buildings that included shared T1 service. The speed wasn't enough, and then the provider said they were getting out of the business. So, I compared Covad and Verizon's offerings. Verizon has the edge price-wise, but at the time (2005) was having some serious service issues in DC (my own service was frequently resetting every few hours for a several motnhs). So, I spec'd Covad.
They had told us allow up to 14 days for service-ready. It was up in six. The premises visit took all of 15 minutes for the tech to punch the dry loop to the modem. Since then, only one outage, which was really a Level3 backbone problem. In contrast, Verizon at my location randomly resets for no reason..
I have 20 clients now on Covad and every single one is completely satisfied. If they are, then I am, too.
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Review by peharris
UPDATED: 169 days ago
member for 6 years, 137 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Indianapolis,Marion,IN
$49 per month (12 month contract)
about 20 days
AT&T
"Price, will be 21.95 1st 3 mo."
"Modem & tech supp. Modem tweaked by Covad no telnet to modem"
"Except for when it was in safe mode it's been pretty good"
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4/24/08 COVAD is TERRIBLE, line does not drop but speed is horrible. My speeds drop to 256 regularly. Call COVAD, speak to people you can't understand they then re-provision the line the speed goes back up to about 1.5. Then it goes back down soon. Call COVAD same stuff. Then COVAD gives me some excuse about I am to far from the CO.blah, blah, blah, and the want to put me in safe mode and they can guarantee that I will get better than 256 but not 1.5. NO WAY.
I switched to ATT, much better. BETTER deal and better service.
-Ordered 1.5/128 get abt 1.3/108 for $21.95 fro 1st 3 mo and $49 afterwords.
-Abt 20 days from order to finish installation (it could have been 15 but I was involved in a big audit at work and did not have time to mess with self install kit). I also ordered through a 3rd party but Covad is my clec.
9 days from order until self-install kit was shipped. It was shipped on a Friday and was sitting on my front porch when I came home from work on Monday night.
-Eq sent: Zyxel Prestige 645 modem, but Covad has it tweaked to not allow telnet to it. I have to update firmware.
-Dynamic IP w/ PPPoE. That silly Enternet300 loads up every time I reboot my computer which is annoying but I can live with it.
Service so far has been good except that some of the tech support you get on the phone I'm not sure if they know what they are doing. I'm glad I found DSL reports or I would have been lost w/o the people in the forums here.
I some how for a couple of days was put into safe mode by Covad, I'm not sure why or how. Just did speed test and I was 1221/107. so this is 81% of my rated sownload speed so I'm very happy.
-Using a Netgear MR314 router and Netgear wireless card. Tech support no help with that, of course they wouldn't be.
Overall very satisfied as long as I don't get into safe mode again.
Pat
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Review by rmoonin
UPDATED: 185 days ago
member for 8.1 years, 1369 visits, last login: 7 days ago
Newtown,Bucks,PA
$69 per month (12 month contract)
about 37 days
Verizon
"Fast and very reliable..good support"
"None I can think of"
"You get what you pay for."
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(ratings well above consensus)
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I previously used Earthlink but ran into serious reliability problems for about 2 weeks and cancelled them. Getting the line released by Verizon took several phone calls and a lot of assistance by the Covad technical people. They worked diligently with me since Verizon was pretty slow in getting the line provisioned for dsl service even though there was dsl service already on the line. They rushed the dsl router to me on an expedited basis and I had the service working with 30 minutes after the UPS driver delivered the box to my home office. I am a CPA and do a lot of work at my home and use gotomypc.com to communicate between my office in NJ and home office in PA. The service includes a static ip and is very fast...last dsl test showed 1297/300 which is excellent. It costs more but you get what you pay for.
Service and support have been consistently good. Any email questions have been answered (correctly) within a few hours. Solid throughput during busy evening hours.
I am updating my valuation of Covad having used them now for 6 months. They have been extremely reliable and I have had zero problems. They lowered the price of the Telesoho service by $20.00 a month. They get and deserve 5 stars.
I liked them so much that I replaced Verizon for our accounting office in NJ..Covad has excellent service and support. The statis ip and courteous customer support is wonderful.
This is an update having used Covad for over 2 years. Excellent choice for a busines person. Support is excellent and calls are handled by professional experts located in the USA and Canada.
You get what you pay for!
This is an update to my review of Covad. It is December, 2005 and I have used Covad for over 3 years and very happy. Verizon needs to learn a lesson about customer service and support support. Covad has upgraded the service to 6.0..actual speed is around 5.10. Had initial problems getting sync but Covad had its expert techician Mike out to my place with 12 hours from the placement of the service ticket. Within about an hour he fixed the minor problem and the service is rock solid and works properly. We have had consistently good service with Covad. The tech support personnel are largely in Canada and know the product. Very quick responses to all of my questions. A pleasure to deal with.
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 Review by sgtfrank
UPDATED: 187 days ago
member for 8.1 years, 2942 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Aurora,Kane,IL
$65 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
Ameritech
"Consistent speeds and uptime. They answer the phone."
"Price and having to go with PPPoE."
"I am 'Broadband Spoiled' and Covad.net has been excellent so far."
| Pre Sales information:
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As stated in Dec 2003 I no longer have Covad as of 03 Jul 2003.
26 Dec 2003 I should have posted this before but completely forgot. I no longer have Covad as of 03 Jul 2003. It had nothing to do with Covad as they were always good for me. I finally became able to get ComcastHSI and the choice between IDSL at 144 and Comcast Cable (already had cable TV) at 1.5/256 was not difficult to make. I did post Comcast when I first started. Thanx Covad, maybe again some day.
It is now 05 Feb 2003 and I haven't updated since the last time as there is really nothing new to add. Price is still the same, the few times I have had to call I received prompt (2-5 mins) answering of phone and techs I talked with were quite knowledgeable. I did have one outage I almost forgot. It was at a time when there were a lot of problems through-out the country that were weather related sol I wasn't too concerned burt when I finally called it was discovered that those problems were fixed and my problem still existed. I was found that a router on their end needed re-booting and have been up consistently since. I keep waiting for something faster then IDSL but "no one" in my immediate geographical location can do any better. No cable, no SBC, nothing. I do not wish to leave Covad and if something would open I would talk with them first to see if their situation had changed.
In Jan. 2002 I was going to update this and forgot or procrastinated (or, both). I have only had to contact Covad twice in over a year. 1st.- May 2001 when on a Sat (of course) evening I lost my connection and could not get it working. Got someone right away and was told they would be checking line then get back to me. Not having to call before and prior experience with Bazillion I thought, right, next week. I was wrong, that same evening caller stated there was a problem with a device on the line and they would have to contact Ameritech which meant Monday AM. again I thought, boy there are a lot of Mondays left in the year. Early Sun. PM I noticed all the lights on my Flowpoint working again and sure enough I was back on line. I called and they stated they would still keep ticket open until everything was checked on Mon. Covad called Tue. stating they showed line still working ok and they would close ticket. Later that same day I received a call from a Level II Tech. reviewing everything with me to be sure all was ok. I received more and faster help in a few days then in 17 months with Bazillion. Had a 2nd incident in Nov. 2002 where I received an email from Covad stating they had reason to believe I had a virus or trojan in my system. There was not and it was all settled same day. I am still extremely satisfied with Covad. I still don't like IDSL but that is nothing they or I have any control over and it sure beats 2 modems. I more or less solved the PPPOE problem by installing my own Router (SMC7004BR) between Flowpoint and 2 computers. Router takes care of keeping me online most of the time and I gained a print server also.
I had Bazillion since August 2000. When they quit handling DSL I went with Covad using their Safety Net as they had done the install for Bazillion. Everyone I had contact with was excellent (what a change). I called on Mon. 01/15/2001 and was online by Sat. AM 01/20/2001. I did not want to go with PPPoE from what I had read here on DSLR, but had no choice and I cannot be too fussy as all I can get is IDSL because of my distance from CO. I have a Dynamic IP but that is what I had before. Also the Tech. I talked with told me how to set up my 2nd computer which is on a LAN so both can function independently for Internet Access. For now the downside is PPPoE, price increase from $49.95 to $64.95, and losing the 400 minutes I got from Bazillion each month. Uptime has been good although not as good as Bazillion was. Line speeds are consistently above 130 and I only have with IDSL. The Router that was already in is a Flowpoint 144 and I have not had any problems with it. Covad allows you to make all profile changes and download all software needed from their web-page which is quick and saves a lot of time on "hold". If things continue like this I can get used to the price. 'Install Coordination' not checked as equipment was already set up.
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Covad Communications
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