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Review by newbieuser 
UPDATED: 4.7 years ago
member for 6.8 years, 1640 visits, last login: 71 days ago
 Quaker Hill,New London,CT
 $37 per month (month by month)
 about 1 days
 "3000/256 for $37.95, low pings for gaming"
 "NNTP & web servers not up to par, $57.95 a bit steep for 6000/512"
 "great replacement for the unreliable DSL i had before"
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well, my first foray into the broadband world came up a little empty. the snet dsl i wanted and got disconnected me randomly everyday -- not allowing me to connect successfully for the remainder of the night. it was frustrating to switch from fast broadband (800 / 120 on the speed tests, which was not very impressive) to 56k (AOL) every night, and therefore it was cancelled.
my other alternative, myeastern.com, has been nothing but good news. i ordered my modem from another place, and connected it once i got it, waited for the lights, and completed the hassle-free self-subscription online page. it's a great feature that i don't see many cable or dsl isps having. i went from order to success the day i received my modem -- almost unheard of having to deal with broadband, as far as i'm concerned.
from then, i've gotten the full speeds (1450+/105+ on the speed tests) and low pings (sub-20) on each of the line quality tests and tweak tests. it's been great. the mail support is adequate for me.
UPDATE (2/26/05: price hike to $38, speeds gradually sped up to 3000/256, giganews replaced newsfeeds.com as the NNTP provider): newsgroups, while provided by giganews, do not really satisfy my needs. although it is technically an unlimited plan, the bandwidth is throttled so heavily as to not really make it worth the while, especially if one relies on headers and not nzbs or another paid provider. the web server is also very barebones, but i guess it meets my needs. i'd really love for the $58 tier to be 6000/768, but for now i'm forced to stick with what i have. oh well, some day verizon will bring their FIOS act to southeastern connecticut, or at least i can hope for something of the sort!
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Review by Chucks_net
Posted: 4.7 years ago
member for 4.7 years, 1 visits, last login: 4.7 years ago
Wauregan,Windham,CT
$46 per month (month by month)
about 14 days
"Blocking commonly used ports which limits what you can and can't do!"
"Bad technical customer service, over priced for the speed DSL is much faster"
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They block ports which killed my email. I called for support and spoke to Owen -their Sr. Network Engineer. He was very rude. I signed up for SNET DSL immediately after.
I am a Systems Engineer (9 years) and I didn't appreciate the bull Owen was trying to feed me.
It appears they are a very small firm with a low budget. On the first call I spoke with their Sr. IT guy Owen. I should have gotten a helpdesk first. So if I was talking to Owen, then who were the other people who needed help talking to?
Did I mention the other company that was handling the network for ECC sank and judging by the service, connection speeds, and customer service these guys are not far from sinking as well.
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Review by Hankthecat
UPDATED: 4.9 years ago
member for 5.1 years, 23 visits, last login: 320 days ago
Gilmanton,Belknap,NH
$40 per month
about 3 days
"Great Speed"
"no phone bundle"
"No complaints... better value then telco services or 3rd party DSL"
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I have 3.0 x 1.5 business package. I just ran a speed test to NYC and it came back 3.17 x 1.63 on a wireless SBG 1000... so I am certainly not capped. The comparible SDSL line 1.5 x 1.5 was $499 and not available until "probably 2005". GWI told me that they would call me when they were available in my area, but didn't know when that would be. I don't care if they are the only game in town, blame the telco for not investing in your area. I am happy.
I have heard the rumor of speed increases for 2005. I called and tried to pry but a rep told me that they were increasing speeds without increasing prices... Interesting concept, I look forward to greater service.
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Review by bcgore
Posted: 5.1 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 12 visits, last login: 3.4 years ago
Acton,York,ME
 Business customer
$99 per month
about 3 days
"Balance of Cost/Service - Reliability Ususally Good"
"Difficult to find someone in support to answer more than basic questions"
"Not bad for money out in rural areas"
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I have been a customer of Metrocast's internet service since they first offered two-way service in my area. It was a significant improvement over dial-up of course, and for the most part was pretty reliable...MUCH more reliable than high speed cable modem service provided by another cable company for 3 times the money at my office.
A few months ago I moved and the transfer of my service was completed on schedule and to my specifications. I own my own cable modem, and everything beyond it I service myself.
The recent changeover from GWI's backbone was bumpy, mostly because of DNS issues. My server was inaccessible for a few days during the middle of this process and that was a pain, but now things seem to be running smoothly finally. I have had a few outages lasting usually less then 30 minutes.
The business class service I have pretty much usually gives me around 1.2M down and 720k up as measured here at DSLReports. That speed of connectivity in this rural area for the price I feel is pretty good.
My major complaint is finding to right person who can assist in answering questions about my level of service. I spent the better part of a day a few weeks ago yryinh to find someone who could do a MAC address change for one of my reserved IP addresses. At the time I couldn't get to a human through the telephone numbers. I resolved that problem by changing around some things on my side of the network. I probably should try again now that the dust has settled from the network changes that have been made.
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Review by Tacnar
UPDATED: 5.2 years ago
member for 5.3 years, 16 visits, last login: 5 years ago
Gilford,Belknap,NH
$39 per month
about 7 days
"up to now the only high speed game in town"
"Poor Speeds, inconsistant Ping times, 24/7 tech support that is not"
"When ANY other High Speed Data is available, Jump to it"
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Speeds started out as 512k/128k, and initially were consistant.
I have used Metrocast for 3 years now, and can't believe how far they have fallen. My ping times (to the GWI Router) consistanly exceed 1 second, and I lose 10% of all pings to a "No Response" Download speeds vary from the advertised 1.5 M down to 128K. Upload speeds vary from 0 at times up to 248K.
This last week, there have been 3 "outages" 2 of which were less then 90 minutes, the other I can't tell, but was more then 90 minutes.
Other instances were when I moved from one cottage to the cottage next door, Metrocast would not move the cable. I informed them of the move 2 months in advance. They did not even acknowledge that the new cottage existed. I moved the cable myself, and earlier this year was threatned with legal action for doing so. (it was this way for 18 months, and 12 months before an employee of Metrocast noticed and promised to move it.) Metrocast's response this year was to disconnect me for 8 days.
As for their advertised 24/7 Tech Support, I do not believe recieving a return call 11 hours later is reasonable, I provide Tech Support for a Medical Electronics firm, and if we ever did that, the FDA would shut us down. In 11 hours we would have someone on site.
As soon as GWI does move into my CO, I will change, and completely drop their also overpriced cable service.
8/27/04
Ok, MetroCrap is at it again, in their wisdom, they are breaking away from GWI. Well, their DNS servers have been down more then they have been up in the last week. They have changed support phine numbers, the old number refers you to the new number, but no one answers it. So much for 24/7 Support. The I went to email TechSupport, low and behold, their email servers are down
they had the servers down for 16 hours yesterday, probably to change from GWI, and less then a day later, they are down again.
I thought they were bad before, but they are worse now, I do not think there is anything they can not screw up. They are certainly good at screwing over their customers
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Review by chrisnsally
Posted: 5.5 years ago
member for 5.5 years, 3 visits, last login: 5.4 years ago
Oakdale,New London,CT
$45 per month
"Good service - great customer service."
"Occasional outages"
"They really try to keep you happy."
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Update to the review below: Since posting this review, I was promptly contacted by myeastern. Within 1 day I was given two new replacement cable boxes (upgraded features and speed!). I have to say I am now very impressed with their customer service and quick response.
It's simple. I've had Comcast and RoadRunner. They're nice big companies, true - but because they're nice and big, they can get things up and running much faster. Since being exposed to Eastern Connecticut Cable, my wife and I have seen the ugly truth that is a "smaller company". We have experienced far more outages with Eastern Connecticut than the previous providers. Not to mention, slower speeds overall.
On top of all this, the price is more than we've ever paid before. The problem? What options do we have? My wife and I regularly pray EC gets bought out by one of the big companies....
(Incidentally, their digital cable is also PAINFULLY slow when changing channels. It's like we've got cable from 1985!)
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Review by COOLBREEZE01
Posted: 5.5 years ago
member for 6.2 years, 195 visits, last login: 158 days ago
Sterling,Windham,CT
$38 per month
about 7 days
"Fast customer service , strong reliable backbone , recently upgraded (256/2500)"
"Raised price recently"
"Good company , Swift customer service , I live on other end of system and still post top speeds ."
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I ordered this service when it was @Home . They went belly up . Myeastern took over rebuilt thier own system and here we are . I have had to call on a couple of issues and always get a prompt reply from Owen and his crew . Only wish no price increase . Other than that 2 thumbs up . Gj guys . 
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Review by onionsoup
Posted: 5.6 years ago
member for 6.7 years, 13 visits, last login: 2 years ago
Salem,New London,CT
Contract price not specified.
"75% reliable connection."
"Having an outage that lasts days not hours"
"Good internet provider"
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Eastern Ct Cable is by far one of the best Internet providers in terms of reliablity. They owe this to the Ultra Cool Super Nextel carrying Senior Network Engineer. Who keeps a tight system ensuring a reliable and trust worthy connection at all times. My hats off to you bub and thanks again for the ultra cool speed increase, long time coming but I am sure that unlike other broadband providers you have done it right, you have not rushed it, and we will continue to see the network reliability you have shown us in the past.
Thanks again MYeastern.com
Err They are still a good service provider howerver leaving customers with no internet for days is unacceptable.
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Review by surf243
UPDATED: 5.6 years ago
member for 6.3 years, 31 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
East Lyme,New London,CT
$38 per month
"Great Download Speed / Getting Better Upload Speed"
"Upgrade Upload, & increase cap"
"Perfect For The Average User!!"
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Myeastern.com has doubled there bandwidth recently. At around 7:30 or so i was trying to upload content to a website at the usaul 12-15k a second. I got disconnected and was a bit pissed off, but suddenly realized I was able to get on again rather quickly (about 5-10 seconds or so). I resumed my upload only to find a 25-30k upload speed. I was amazed to find that uploads were going much faster, but I thought that maybe there was a mistake or something. I did some tests only to find that the bandwidth had nearly doubled!! I thought that it was about time that myeastern.com were to upgrade. I was fine with the downloading speed because it was fast enough for me. The upload is what I loved. I can now brag to my boss because I am faster then a T1. (download wise of course) Luckily I'm just an intern I also heard about comcast doubling, but thought that maybe it was some gimick or something. So I have upgraded the value for money from a 3 to a 4.
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Review by twiztiid
Posted: 5.7 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 2 visits, last login: 5 years ago
Alton,Belknap,NH
$53 per month
"Great speed and reliability and customer service"
"price"
"Good speed for the money but wish higher upload"
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I usually test my line speed every couple of weeks and have been getting a consistant 3.5 mb down / 256+kb up (they advertise much less). I also know 5 other people that use Metrocast in the surrounding towns and their speeds are the same. Have had some reliability problems in the past but over the past year have maybe seen service down a couple times for very short periods. The above price includes modem rental and taxes. They have been very good about notifying me of any planned outages and changes.
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Metrocast Communications
