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Review by alexdee  UPDATED: 252 days ago member for 252 days, 0 visits, last login: 252 days ago
Jeffersonville,Clark,IN
$130 per month
"Fast"
"Horrible customer support, shaddy business practices."
"Only stay because on no other competitive alternative. ATT charges too much for slow service."
| Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection Reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money: (ratings below consensus)
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Where to begin? We've been customers for 10 years. It has been a bumpy 10 years. Everything that could happen, has happened.
At one point we lived in a apartment complex, and when our neighbors had their cable installed, the tech from Insight cut off our cable because he thought we were siphoning cable illegally. Never mind the fact that he could have called in our address and check to see if there was an account for the address.
Every time we move we are charged bogus charges for equipment that's not returned, even though when you call their support phone number they TELL you to take the equipment with you to the new residence. Why do I have to waste my time and call their support number when we get a bill for 600 dollars of not returned equipment? A business that provides for hundreds of thousands of customers can't see the address change in their computer and match the DVR box serial number, and cable modem MAC address to the ones used on the old residence?
Recently I've been having to call on a MONTHLY basis, for again, not returned equipment since we upgraded from a digital box to another DVR box. I called them when we got the first bogus statement for 300 dollars, the CSR told me "I fixed it" and gave me a "new" balance to pay. We payed the new balance the CSR pulled out of his bottom and the following month we get a threatening letter saying Insight is going to cut off our service if we don't pay for the not returned equipment. They threaten customers of 10 years, and don't have the decency to give us a call? It all changed when I phoned them again and told their incompetent CSR that I have a RECEIPT. Oh boy, it all changed really quick... maybe they were counting on the fact we didn't get a receipt for returned equipment when their contractor took the old box, and wanted some extra cash because we always pay on time.
Bottom line is. If there was competition, I would be dropping Insight in the blink of an eye. ATT charges too much for their slow DSL line, otherwise I would hop on their bandwagon. Luckily we're planning to move from this "town."
All in all, they're a shady business that preys on elderly and customers that pay on time to sneak in hundreds of dollars of not returned equipment and other phantom charges. Not because they have incompetent people that work inventory and the phones(they do), but they do it on purpose to make money off honest customers.
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Review by jamesnmandy  Posted: 338 days ago member for 2.8 years, 102 visits, last login: 169 days ago
New Albany,Floyd,IN
$52 per month
about 7 days
"consistent speeds, especially the upload"
"having to pay $10 extra for 20meg service"
"i would recommend, best option in our area right now"
| Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection Reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money: (ratings match consensus)
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In our area, Southern Indiana (aka Kentuckiana), there are few options. Here in New Albany, IN you either get AT&T DSL or Insight Cable Broadband. Satellite is a non-option as far as TV service goes, as is a AT&T phone line. Remove those two and what do you do to save money and get better service at the same time without a contract? Insight Cable TV/BB + Vonage for phone. Insight supplied an Arris CM550A cable modem, I pay $10 extra above the $42/mo normal 10Mb service to get 20Mb.....so my BB portion of the bill is $52/mo alone. No contracts, I love that. The only thing that bugs me is when they do have network issues it takes longer than it should to get a tech here. I see an Insight truck or contractor around here (apartments) at least once a week doing connects, disconnects, but once you are a customer and simply have an issue it has taken as long as a full week just to get a tech out. I will watch tech's come and go to other apartments, even in the same building as me, but somehow it doesn't make any sense for them to have him simply stop by and troubleshoot my issue, he should wait a few days and then come back...yes...this makes no sense guys. Please try to infuse some common sense into dispatching and stop prioritizing new connects and non-payment disconnects over existing paying customers who have marginal service you are getting paid to provide. As a side note I would like to say the tech on these forum boards does a good job at getting back in touch with you, cheers to him! Thanks
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Review by juandemenchu  Posted: 1 year ago member for 3.7 years, 5 visits, last login: 1 year ago
Lexington,Fayette,KY
$51 per month (12 month contract)
about 30 days
"Wonderful Customer Care..."
"One "10mbs-20mbs" connection per neighborhood. Lot of users near you? ...I'd recommend D.S.L."
"Great if you live in a rural area, if high-density describes ur neighborhood, I'd go with something else..."
| Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection Reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money: (ratings match consensus)
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I've never seen above a 5 mbs DL speed in my area, this is also the case for many of my friends... If simple browsing and updates are your thing, then have at Insight!!
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Review by indianafanatic  UPDATED: 1 year ago member for 8.1 years, 814 visits, last login: 171 days ago
Noblesville,Hamilton,IN
$125 per month (12 month contract)
about 45 days
"No longer with them"
"Cable still not buried/cable outage affects all services"
"Switched back to AT&T"
| Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection Reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money: (ratings match consensus)
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**Edit** 10/27/08
When Insight changed over to Comcast, customer service continued the nose dive. After complaining without results for over 2 months to have my cable buried, I made the switch back to AT&T in May. 2 days after I cancelled service, a tech came out and buried my cable. Comcast really did a number on many former Insight customers and have lost subscribers to show for it.
**End Edit**
I signed up for Insight's bundled phone/internet/cable service, for $90/month for 12 months, and it was installed on 12/22/07. There wasn't much in the way of product documentation or explanation, but thankfully not much was needed. When the installers came, they didn't bury the cable and it still sits today. "When the weather gets better, we'll come back and bury it." Well, I just hope that new home construction around us doesn't take it out! On 02/02/08, I had digital cable with DVR hooked up and there was absolutely no documentation on how to use it. Having had TiVo, I was somewhat familiar with how it should work, but I still have many questions. Hopefully a call to Insight will garner me some type of manual for the box/dvr.
Overall, I'm quite pleased with the service and product.!
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Review by Mic  UPDATED: 1.9 years ago member for 6.8 years, 2700 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
Urbana,Champaign,IL
$30 per month
about 1 days
"It's fast... sometimes."
"My latency is horrible pretty much randomly now, sometimes it's from noon till midnight."
"Worst experience, probably even worse than AOL DSL that I tried out so long ago, at least that was stable 200 ping everywhere."
| Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection Reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money: (ratings well below consensus)
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UPDATE: Don't bother with these guys, I'm already considering calling my lawyer to try and figure something out to make them buyback the modem I bought from Insight. They won't do anything to fix my latency issues, horrible company, maybe they just don't like Urbana/Champaign and other cities are great, but trust me, I don't like bashing companies but this is probably one of the worst companies I have ever dealt with.
There really isn't another option in this area except maybe for AT&T.
The speed package says 10mb/1mb which I get during offpeak hours, and then pretty much dialup speeds or a little faster when it's night time or midnight, around then, my internet just turns to crap, and it's taking them forever to fix it.
I went to the Insight office because we just moved in as students here in Urbana, and that's what everyone told me to do. We picked up everything and ordered everything at the office. You install everything yourself, so if you don't know what you're doing, you're pretty much screwed, or have to talk to people on the phone I suppose.
I got a Motorola SB5120 modem, and a Motorola cable box.
Just the fact that I had to wait about a day for everything to get hooked up, and a few hours of waiting for the internet to actually work. Everything else has been pretty quick. The price is ok, no HD channels though of course.
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Review by lane5660  Posted: 1.9 years ago member for 2.9 years, 11 visits, last login: 1.8 years ago
Lafayette,Tippecanoe,IN
$35 per month
about 5 days
"Reliable, Fast"
"Discount ($10) tied to digital cable service option"
"Good service, average value"
| Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection Reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money: (ratings match consensus)
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It's my only choice for broadband in my neighborhood. I use Vonage even though Insight offers phone service now. Have been very pleased with the reliability. Outages have been few and brief (except for that "upgrade" last year!).
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Review by iamcool2  UPDATED: 2 years ago member for 3.5 years, 627 visits, last login: 236 days ago
Noblesville,Hamilton,IN
$150 per month
"10Mbps for $40??"
"Lack of Speed Options, Tech Support is Clueless, Slow Speeds @ Night"
"Insight Tech Support Admits Area is Oversold, yet insight is unwilling to fix"
| Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection Reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money: (ratings below consensus)
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-What speed did you order, at what monthly price?, I currently on the basic package (10mbps/1mbps)
-How was the order/install process?, I ordered Insight Broadband years ago and cant 100% remember the installation process but I do remember the Tech they sent to my house to install the service did a very professional job and even called me the next day to follow-up and make sure my service was working correctly.
-Static IP, dynamic IP, or PPPoE?, Dynamic IP, however it only changes if you change your mac address on your router...
-Other bad/good experiences? This past June insight switched backbone's. The switch was poorly planned and left me without internet service for a week or so. Since the Backbone switch we have been routed Through Atlanta(Used to be routed through Chicago) which makes absolutely no sense... Especially when all the other isp's around here route through Indianapolis or Chicago... It has as well cause the ping times to skyrocket and make gaming horrible.
Update: They fixed the routing for my area about a week ago and now they are routing through Chicago... Ping times are now amazing and the speeds continue to be constantly at the cap.
Update: The area where I live has grown so fast that my node has become overloaded. Speeds now suck and I can't speedtest above 1 meg unless its 2 in the morning. I've reported it to insight many times and they dont seem to care. It's looking like they are letting our area go downhill now that Comcast is taking over soon.
Update: Can now Speedtest at 9Mbps. Not quite the 10mbps I used to be able to get but a major improvement over 1Mbps. Pings still fluctuate greatly and are considerably high during the day.
Update: Things seem to have degraded farther in the past day or so. Speeds have been dropping in to the 4-5Mbps Range the past couple of days.
Update: After 4pm Speeds drop from 10Megs to around 6-4Megs and Latency Sky rockets. Several Insight Tech's have told me the area is indeed oversold yet Insight does not seem willing to fix the issue. Seems like recently if you call Tech support at night the only people you'll be able to talk to are kids who have no idea what their doing and talk with so much "Ghetto Slang" you cant even understand what they are trying to say.
Followup comments:  GLIMMER
join:2004-01-17 Urbana, IL | you realize all Tech support for northern indiana and all of IL are routed TO CANADA till after the merger as insight has really given up on the comcast change over areas | |
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Review by oldmike  UPDATED: 2.1 years ago member for 4.6 years, 156 visits, last login: 69 days ago
Latonia,Kenton,KY
$45 per month
about 2 days
"Used to be really good"
"Latency, overloaded node, occasional DNS issues"
"Average"
| Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection Reliability: Services: Value for money: (ratings match consensus)
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Updated 10/9/2007. Disclaimer - my wife no longer works for Insight, so we're now "normal customers". I am still waiting on the 10/1 upgrade to show up - it may already be here, but my speeds are less than the original 3/640 we started out with. Speed tests consistently show me as getting 10.2 / 640, but just try downloading anything. My logs are showing on the order of 2.7/500 when I do my ordinary surfing and the connection is working well - BBR, MSN.com, al.com, etc... I've tweaked and tuned and pinged and everything else, and it just doesn't go any faster. The original computers on our home network are gone, replaced by a much newer and faster desktop and laptop. We are still using the original cable modem and router, flashed with the latest firmware. I have even gone to the trouble of packing up the whole shebang and setting it up at a friends' house on a different node - wow, what a difference. Eyeblink-fast downloads and uploads so quick I barely get my finger off the mouse before it's over. I really don't want to get into the 10/1 upgrade hassle except to say this - I was essentially without Internet access for about 3 weeks, and it cost me a very lucrative working-from-home contract. I have yet to get an explanation from Insight why, occasionally, I am unable to resolve Google or even Insight's home page. Grrrrr..... In summary, this is average service and it isn't going to improve. I'm negotiating with the local phone company (Cincinnati Bell) over their product (Zoomtown), as many of my neighbors have it and they are very pleased.
My wife works for the cable company, so we get the bazillion channels free and standard residential internet service costs us $6 / month. The service is consistently fast and dependable - I regularly clock 3.2 / 450 through the BBR speed test. We've only had one outage in 2 1/2 months and it lasted about 10 minutes - hardly worth mentioning. We've got a little home network with my desktop and her laptop, and both of us downloading some substantial data files (2+ gig) at the same time is oh so smooth and oh so fast. The ONLY drawback I have found so far - and this is really picking on the small nits - is occasionally firing up IE and waiting about ten seconds for the "detecting proxy settings" message to go away. That happens oh, about every other week or so.
I haven't used their tech support yet, so I can't rate them. We did have one misunderstanding with the install technician, which resulted in some unplugging and replugging of cables. Took about 5 minutes to fix.
Hardware: Dell dimension P3 600, 256M, 40G HD, XP Pro with SP2
Gateway Solo P3 600, 96M, 5G HD, W98 with all patches
Linksys cable modem (BEFCMU10) and router (BEFSR41)
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Review by KevanC  Posted: 2.1 years ago member for 6.8 years, 9 visits, last login: 25 days ago
Greenwood,Johnson,IN
$112 per month
"The only service available to me"
"Service is terrible, speed is not representative of advertisement"
"Get fiber optic as soon as it's available"
| Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection Reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money: (ratings below consensus)
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Since using Insight, we have experienced horrible service. Our internet connection is 5 Mbps at best, even though all your commercials tout 10. We've had several outages. The service people who come out for service contradict each other on what needs done to fix the problem. In the end, they apparently don't want to do any work because they have never done anything except tell us that it works. I use independent and your own speed measuring tools on the web to prove we get less than half of your advertised bandwidth.
Today, I decided to upgrade our television service from digital to HD. The techs who came out were rude, smelled of smoke, and tracked leaves into my house. They gave me a box without any explanation except that they didn't think it worked and would have to call me later. I surfed around on the box. I have fewer HD channels than I had off of the antenna. And, I now have to use 3 remote controls to watch fewer channels with more complication of a crappy cable guide at less quality. I tried the external HD antenna and the cable box. The antenna gives a much better picture. So, what am I paying extra for? Ive been trying to contact someone to come take this HD box away. But, I cant get through the web of phone trees to someone who will help me.
Insight is truly the worst service that I've had. We used Comcast in the past with less trouble. I use Insight only because I have to for where I live. We will soon have AT&T fiber optic and I will gladly change.
Followup comments:  GLIMMER
join:2004-01-17 Urbana, IL | wow insights service has always sucked. as for your fiber comment its uverse and its fttn not ftth so you will only get 6/1 at max and you can only have one hd stream and it it is still limited to line length just like dsl. | |
|   Hi
@insightns.com | Your getting your wish..... Don't fret you'll be on Comcast soon..... The end of the year Comcast takes over the area you live in.
Best wishes.... | |
|  |  GLIMMER
join:2004-01-17 Urbana, IL | Re: Your getting your wish..... insight employees crack me up
and you could be TW by the end of 08 | |
|  KevanC
join:2003-01-06 Greenwood, IN
| Poor service strikes again
I'm now about to have the third HD cable box installed in less than 3 months. My cable box died again today. Insight apparently doesn't care... I'll have to wait until next week to get a service representative for a replacement. Meanwhile, Insight will continue to take my money for no service. Consumer beware: I've had constant problems with my service, both television and broadband. The service is typically rude and unconcerned. Comcast takes over soon and the rates will go up. AT&T can't run their fiber to Greenwood quick enough. At least at that point, there will be options. | |
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Review by asdjf  UPDATED: 2.2 years ago member for 4.8 years, 599 visits, last login: 3 days ago
Springfield,Sangamon,IL
$75 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
"Some free but limited usenet access through Giganews"
"BitTorrent protocol is throttled"
"Kind of a ripoff"
| Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection Reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money: (ratings match consensus)
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If you care about using p2p, don't get this service. They have begun to throttle BT connections, which is a huge slap in the face to top-tier customers like me. But if you want to spend almost a hundred dollars and still end up with a connection that tries to limit how you use it, be my guest. Me, I'm cancelling my service.
Followup comments:  GLIMMER
join:2004-01-17 Urbana, IL | can you? can you actually prove they are shaping traffic? I know I can download and upload on my box at will with utorrent and it was maxing out last night at 9.1mbits down and .5 up which is what I have it set to | |
|  |  |  |  |  GLIMMER
join:2004-01-17 Urbana, IL | Re: can you? and if you notice that I have also posted screenshots of my utorrent client downloading at 5.5mbits a second and uploading at .5. | |
|  |  |  |  syrkel2
join:2003-12-02 Galesburg, IL
·Comcast
| Re: can you? Well just to let everybody know... insight quit requiring mac address registration... at least in my area... all you have to do now is unplug the cable modem and when you plug it back in it automatically registers the new mac address for you of whatever you have plugged into the modem. | |
|   bugs bunny
@insightbb.com
| packet shapers Um, yeah, they are using packet shapers. About a month after I started using a bittorrent client things started acting slow.
Now, when I first connect, I get really fast speeds, then, about 10-20 seconds later, it grinds to a halt. I ran tracert to find the closest hop to their network, then ran ping -t to that IP address and then started up my browser. Sure enough, everything was A-OK until the browser was and loading a video on Youtube. (and you can shut the hell up about Youtube. It's just used as an example. This happens whenever there is a load put on the line) After the standard 10-20 seconds everything got fucked and I saw the pings go from 1-15 ms to anywhere from 1700 ms to 3300 ms with the rare and temporary dip to 300 ms.
So you can sit there and say they aren't using packet shapers, but you're full of shit. | |
|  |  Myen
join:2007-10-01 Bloomington, IL
1 edit | Re: packet shapers What you just explained happenes whenever you put a huge load on a connection (AKA downloading youtube videos, torrents, and whatnot), your ping will rocket during the transfer, this is not network shapeing, but network congestion.
And to cover this before someone trys to correct me, even through you can watch stuff on youtube almost right away, you are not streaming it, but essentially Watching it while it downloads, which will take alot of your bandwidth untill it is done downloading | |
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