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Review by slow95Z 
UPDATED: 5.7 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 3 visits, last login: 5.6 years ago
 Algonquin,Mchenry,IL
 $50 per month
 about 90 days
 "Great high speed service and service after the sale"
 "Early radio problems have been mitigated."
 "Great service as long as you're lucky enough to be covered by a tower."
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Update: ****************************
As of right now a bad cross-over cable and a bad radio have both been swapped out and service is now flawless!!!! Connection is always up when needed and I'm a happy camper to be rid of dial-up once and for all. The 'long' lag time to final repair was my issue and not theirs due to my availability and me being so happy to have something better than 32K that the every morning radio resets were nothing. Customer support has been top notch all the way through the process. I'm considering upgrading to 10x10 in fact. :^) Thanks DLS for being there.
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I have been extremely happy with DLS all through the process. However, I am an engineer familiar with the limitations and capabilities of wireless networks and RF propogation.
DLS made three attempts at installing wireless at my residence. The first two attempts did not succeed due to lack of signal, even with new towers installed in my area. Recently a tower upgrade allowed them to get a great line of sight signal to the tower - even though it was farther away then the other towers. In the end that was an advantage because I didn't end up being limited to the non-line of sight limitations (lower data rates). Everyone from beginning to end was dead set on getting me great high speed service and would not accept anything less. Finally, Cindy and Jennifer in the office were able to slip me in on last Fridays install list only 2 days after the site upgrades were completed.
Unfortunately, for them and not me, the first two radios they attempted to install were faulty out of the box, a third radio (different brand) also appears to be having problems where it will hang connected but look disconnected from my end. I fix the problem by doing a hard reboot and they are scheduling an reinstall of the radio/modem soon.
The solution I have is their Basic Gold Package with dynamic IP over PPPoE at $50 a month + $200 install. This compares very well to what cable and DSL are getting after their initial 2-3 months of reduced billing rates. I can't get DSL or cable broadband anyway so that doesn't really matter to me. I'm in the great digital black hole.
I have my own wired router connected up to their radio. In the past I have used this network to support a shared dialup connection. With this high speed connection I can't tell if I'm the only one on my home network or not.  Up and down links vary of course depending upon utilization, etc., but generally I seem to be getting 180 Kbps up and 6K or higher down. Down link rates will occasionally dip below that rate, however, internet and server limitations are as much a cause of that as the wireless link is.
My wife originally had a 'don't care' attitude about high speed and she wasn't too excited about the short tower on the roof (a requirement to get a good connection that I'm happy to accept), but now that we can rid ourselves of the extra phone line and seeing the impact of the great data rates we are getting on browsing - she is now a convert and a VERY happy customer.
All I can say is
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Review by ebenjaminb
UPDATED: 5.7 years ago
member for 5.8 years, 10 visits, last login: 5.6 years ago
Algonquin,Mchenry,IL
$65 per month
about 5 days
"Customer Service, Technology, price...service...service!!!"
"None!!!!!"
"You won't believe the 10 Mbps Service!!!"
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I did it!!! I upgraded from the 1.5 to the 10 Mbps service...WOW!!!!
This service is unbelievable...I cannot believe I took so long to do this. The tech that came out, Greg, was fantastic. He assembled the new equipment on the ground so I could see what it would look like before he put it on the roof and replaced the lower speed equipment.
I was able to get clear line-of-sight access to their tower site and within 15 minutes of him running the cable into my basement I ran a speed test and got almost 7 Mbps down and over 5.5 Mbps up!!!
This service is wonderful and the staff at this company is top-flight. I continue to be impressed by this "little" company...I see their trucks everywhere and notice more antennas all the time.
I used to be an employee of an RBOC and believe me when I say this...this technology and perhaps this company may be the beginning of the end for SBC!!!
They've got VOIP in test...I have to believe video is close behind...check out the article in recent issue of business week magazine on Intel and read up on their entry into wireless...this is where it is going. For many years I believed the cable companies would win the last mile race. I have changed my mind. Wireless will win and what we are able to experience now is just the beginning.
Great Job DLS.NET!!!
Much Success in the future.
Ben B - Algonquin
(It is probably worth noting that as a customer I'm very difficult...this is the first company selling anything I've ever posted anything nice about. I don't work for them...I don't have any relationship with them...I'm just a customer. But midwestern folks are so used to getting poor service on just about everything it is shocking when you get great service!!!)
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Review by twigsusan
Posted: 5.7 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 9 visits, last login: 2.5 years ago
Gilberts,Kane,IL
$60 per month
"Great speeds, Great customer service, very helpful"
"None at the moment"
"I would recommend them"
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Well, I have nothing but good things to say about them. The install crew was very friendly upon arrival. In fact, they were suppose to show up at 11am and they accutally showed up at 9am. The install before mine was a no go. Said I would have no probs with installing the 10Mbs system. Got everything up and installed and then couldn't get a good signal. Come to find out, there was a Canopy system that was no more then 1/8 from my place. Interference, which I am use to since I work in the microwave and wireless internet industry. Put a a higher dBi antenna and were finally able to tweak it in. Had trouble with my download speeds. Could have sworn that it was setting with my account and not the equipment, which I knew since I have worked the the Trango system. Tech came out to the house at 6 or 7 at night to make sure everything was cool. Sure enough it was. Started to dig around my router until 10:30 at night to discover a setting the was causing the speed probs. Now I'm getting 1.5/1.5 almost all the time. Will upgrade to the 10/10 account in a few months, but going to wait until they have more backhaul at the water tower I'm on. Right now they only have 3/3 there. The owner personally called me with the problem I was having on my download speeds. Once I informed him that I have worked on every piece of equipment they use and then some, talked to me like I was a tech and not some idiot. Thanks Sam. That doesn't always happen in the Tech industry. Love the service and will recommend it to other people. Oh my account is rcarter.
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 Review by Dennis
UPDATED: 5.7 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 4801 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Algonquin,Mchenry,IL
$65 per month
about 10 days
"Only Broadband available in my area, and they are friendly"
"None so far"
"Bests bang for buck, costs a bit to setup, but you get what you pay for"
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Update 3/3/04
I cancelled my service with DLS roughly around 10/03. They came and picked up the antenna and all was well. I was very happy with the service while I had it, but was selling the house so I didn't need it anymore.
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I needed a broadband solution for the Algonquin area (west of the fox, and 20,000ft from the CO). So after running the gambit with DSL and Cable (which neither were available for me) I began looking into wireless and satellite solutions.
The satellite solution was a no go, due to high latency and inability to support certain VPN's, besides sharing it between multiple computers(the final goal) was not going to be pretty. After reading some reviews here (and talking to my neighbor's who had the service) I contacted DLS Internet.
So I called on Tuesday, June 10, 2003 around 4:34 pm and left a voice mail for the DLS wireless salesperson (847 854-4799, option 1, option 3). To my surprise I got a call back....after 5pm....from Cindy/DLS. She was very nice about answering my questions and such regarding sharing the connection, installation, cost, etc. So after making sure I could afored it, I called the next day to setup an installation. I was given the date of June 19, 2003 (as you can see, thats the day I'm typing this on).
Wireless is an expensive solution at first, however, I do not believe it is beyond it's value at all. Considering the only solution other than wireless is to use ISDN (which I've done), dial-up (which I've done as well and sucks), or get a T1 I feel that wireless is a great value, and worth the investment. The installation for the antenna is 400 dollars (at this time) and the monthly cost is 65 dollars (DHCP single IP, PPPoE, 5 emails).
So June 19th rolls around, and nobody shows up at 9am. I called Cindy, and while she put me on hold she tracked down the installers to figure out who was coming. Turns out the installer was on his way, and I was just a little anxious (you would be too if you were on AOL dial-up, lol). So Chad/DLS arrived and the entire install took about 2 hours (probably cause I kept asking him questions), and he did a very good job of doing everything including installation and running the wires down my house.
Here are some pics I took of the process (cut and paste)
»/forum/remark,···ode=flat
So far, everthing is going great. I'm just using the single provided ethernet jack for now and Enternet 300. But I plan on upgrading to a router later on when my needs grow. Here's my speed test:
2003-06-19 13:23:30 EST: 577 / 768
Your download speed : 577256 bps, or 577 kbps.
A 70.4 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 768147 bps, or 768 kbps.
Just note, that I haven't tweaked anything at all yet, and it is the middle of the day running through my work VPN.
Overall, I am very happy with the setup, and availability. I understand the price is intimidating at first, but the service is worth it. If you have any other questions please just IM me, or if you feel like ordering this service and feel this review is worth a referrel just IM me and I'll tell you my account name.
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Review by craigs60156
Posted: 5.7 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 3 visits, last login: 5.6 years ago
Lake In The Hills,Mchenry,IL
$75 per month
"Speed is very fast"
"can't use the speed because the new equiptment sucks"
"good, when and if it works right!"
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Their new equiptment sucks almost as bad as their tech support!! Sure a 10 meg connection sounds good, allthough I get arounf 6.5 on average. Well I have had problems with it since it was installed in December! I had to but a new router because their new equiptment doesn't work with Linksys, but hey they are a small company right? Now I have ping times to their system go from 5ms one second to 500 plus in the next. Then about every minute or even less I will get a connection timed out!!!!!!! Remember this is to their system! Well I broke down and called tech support and after having to wait for a return call I was told someone at a higher level had to look at it. Two days and one voicemail later still no response from Brian!! I have now left a message with Brad, his boss but it seems when you need to talk to someone they just dump you into voicemail. If you need BB service in the Lake in the Hills area I suggest you look elsewhere. There was a time when they cared but those days are gone! Comcast may not be as fast but what good is speed you can't use!!
Craigs@dls.net ............for now at least..........
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Review by lookman
Posted: 5.7 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 0 visits, last login: 5.7 years ago
Gurnee,Lake,IL
$85 per month
about 21 days
"Great customer service, high speed connection, & goodbye SBC"
"Need line-of-site to their tower for 100 megabit connection"
"Definitely worth it"
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I've been waiting for SBC's DSL service in my area for over 1 year. I finally got tired of waiting and looked into DLS.NET. Going with their Platinum service, I get 100 megabit connection speed and was able to add Voice Over IP (no extra cost for long distance calls) for only another $20/month.
I no longer need the 3 phone lines (2 for VPNs) I had nor do I need to wait until SBC gets around to activating their DSL service in my area. I can also ignore long distance carriers.
I have received excellent service: technical support as well as customer service. The connectivity to the web has been very good. When I consider that between my previous 3 phone lines, I was paying significantly more and receiving significantly less, I am very pleased with DLS.NET.
The technition arrived when scheduled. Everything was hooked up. The connection required a microwave antenna on my roof, but it is not unsightly. Since I ordered the VoIP service, he had to install a wireless LAN server as well. The tech cleaned up after he was finished. I couldn't be happier.
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 Review by Fr0zen
UPDATED: 5.7 years ago
member for 7 years, 1099 visits, last login: 47 days ago
Gurnee,Lake,IL
$65 per month
"Great Speeds Below Cap"
"Throttle bandwidth after 100mb to 130kb/sec"
"Good ISP, Great Support, Good Speeds Before Cap's"
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I just got my DLS 10/10 friday the installer was very professional and neat didnt make a mess. Im getting very low pings as for speed it hasnt gone under the 5mbit barrier I got 923k/sec download the 50mb test file from dls.net speedtests.
Speedtest:
2004-02-18 00:16:59 EST: 7843 / 7537
Your download speed : 7843459 bps, or 7843 kbps.
A 957.4 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 7537688 bps, or 7537 kbps.
Seems like broadband .. above the 1mbit barrier!
Follow Up February 2004:
DLS started throttling bandwidth to 1.3mbps around 130kb/sec after around 150mb if you got a bigger download you must disconnect and reconnent for the meter to restart to regain full speeds again.
During Speed Cap
2004-02-18 00:19:33 EST: 1535 / 7389
Your download speed : 102387 bps, or 1023 kbps.
A 127.87 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 7389162 bps, or 7389 kbps.
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Review by SecureTeam
UPDATED: 5.7 years ago
member for 6.1 years, 258 visits, last login: 4.1 years ago
Crystal Lake,Mchenry,IL
$65 per month
"Fast untill 120mb."
"120mb and i need a break :)"
"Good enough"
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Long time no see people what speeds are you getting on LITH 5 ?
OLD review:
that was then
7551/7134 DLS.net SecureTeam @ 60014 22nd 02:18AM dls.net
7352/6964 DLS.net SecureTeam @ 60014 16th 08:09AM dls.net
7140/6369 DLS.net SecureTeam @ 60014 16th 02:32AM dls.net
this is now
2004-01-28 22:20:11 Speed test @ www.dls.net 4669/3443 kbps
2004-01-28 22:17:20 Speed test @ www.chi.speakeasy.net 3991/3745 kbps
2004-01-28 22:17:03 Speed test @ www.dls.net 4739/3211 kbps
2004-01-28 22:16:28 Speed test @ www.dls.net 4341/3513 kbps
2004-01-28 22:15:13 Speed test @ www.dls.net 4333/3129 kbps
2004-01-28 22:14:42 Speed test @ www.dls.net 5109/3598 kbps
2004-01-28 22:13:25 Speed test @ www.dls.net 4740/3065 kbps
overall i was a happy customer.....when the speeds were little nicer
somtimes its gets much much slower, but today tech told me that he dosnt see anyproblem with the connection at the moment so for him everything is fine,
any ideas ? what should i do ? sit at home and wait for the connection to get shi... again ? i went to my neighbor's house he is at Lake In the Hills 2nd tower, and he is able to get like 7/5, i'm on Lake In the Hills 5th tower, was getting 7/7 now i'm down to 4/3 on avrage. Tech told me it can be my fault that connection is bad, my firewall can be the problem according to him,the strange thing is that i setup firewalls and linux boxes for the past 10 years never had a problem with any of them. I guess i ll just wait another week and see if it gets any better.
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Review by nissan350z
Posted: 5.7 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 1 visits, last login: 5.7 years ago
undisclosed location
$65 per month
"Fast & Stable"
"Throttled for larger downloads."
"Switching to W.O.W"
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W.O.W is able to provide me with cable connection so I decided to switch. Thank You DLS for being my ISP thru that short but good time. I'm a user who doesn’t only check emails etc. I actually download things and that limited "killed me" if not because of it I would never switch. Thx again and good luck in your business.
Recently, since it wasn’t like that before, a throttled downloads...but doesn’t seem like that applies to everybody. 24h/7days throttled downloads >180mb and it caps you at 130, either some towers are still without throttled, or it only applies to some customers. Okay I know that none of the companies can provide ~700 download at all time for everybody, but could you just make something like:
certain amount of users sign on and tower connection is equally divided among them and it caps all of them at certain speed or something similar.
Buying 10/10 only to visit few websites and check email, what about if I want to check out some demo games. Anyway if W.O.W gets here or Comcast I will be the first person to switch, true slower speeds but at least no one caps me.
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Review by patrickh99
UPDATED: 5.7 years ago
member for 7.2 years, 30 visits, last login: 5.7 years ago
Lake In The Hills,Mchenry,IL
$65 per month (month by month)
"Speed Rocks! 10M!"
"Antenna used to die almost weekly"
"Works great now, plenty fast (5M up, 7.5M down)"
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I started with the 1.5M service about 1 & 1/2 yrs. ago. Equipment was stable, but speeds were a little low due to the shared bandwidth.
Upgraded to 10M service two months ago. They installed a new antenna. Now the speed is great (typically 80-90% of max) but the antenna dies as often as once a week. Tech support can connect and reboot, which temporarily fixes the problem. They've upgraded the firmware once, which didn't help. Replacing the antenna may be the next step.
Same installer both times. Smart, neat, friendly, efficient. What more can I say?
Install price is steep, considering they're not selling me the equipment. Would I use them again? Definitely! Especially since AT&T/Comcast has promised cable internet & SBC has promised DSL "by the end of this year" for 5 years.
Connection (aside from my antenna problem) has low ping times and getting dropped is extremely rare. I'll adjust the ratings when they fix my antenna.
02/13/04
No antenna problems for over a month. Speed is a little slower these days (5M up, 7.5M down), but still fast enough. I adjusted the reliability rating up to 4 of 5. Still don't completely trust the antenna. Tech support did a good job of monitoring connection and calling me several times to check status.
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