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Review by bleagh 
Posted: 3.8 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 450 visits, last login: 17 days ago
 Salt Lake City,Salt Lake,UT
 $57 per month (month by month)
 about 5 days
 Qwest
 "fast easy setup"
 "limited speed and poor connection"
 "not recommended!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
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I had my own DSL modem, so it only took 5 days for everything to get setup.
I had ordered 3-7 megabit speed, the modem trained at just over 7 megabit. But I only got 1.5 megabit through the ISP (Xmission). If it stayed connected to the ISP for more than 10-12 hours, it would increase to as much as 7 megabit. But it would usually disconnect 1-3 times a day. And everytime it disconnected and reconnected, I would only get 1.5 megabit downloads (even though modem was ALWAYS trained at just over 7 megabit).
I called Xmission several times. They said the problem was most likely my modem (actiontec 1524). That it likely just couldn't keep up. But that it maybe also could be something with Qwest. When I called Qwest, they said everything looked good up to the ISP. The disconnects were just disconnects from the ISP, it was NOT causing the modem to retrain.
After about 2 weeks of these somewhat random disconnects, that seem to reset my connection to my ISP at 1.5 megabit, I finally let Xmission talk me into buying one of the Cisco 678 modem they were selling. They were convinced that it would solve my problems.
After I purchased the modem I never had any more random disconnects or 1.5 megabit connection limits. But it wasn't the modem, as it then didn't matter when modem I used. Very strange!
Once the random disconnects and the 1.5 megabit (about 1.27 megabit actual) ISP hard limit was gone, things were better (no more disconnects in the middle of a game). But the speeds were still not what I had expected. I could get up to around 6 megabit downloads sometime late at night. But during the day I was averaging under 3 megabit with actual speed being anywhere from around 1-5 megabit.
For comparison, my cable connection (Comcast) never dropped below 4 megabit, day or night, using the same speed tests, during any of this.
I was hoping to switch from Comcast cable (which keeps going down when it rains) to DSL. But after only 1 month with Xmission, I decided to cancel and keep Comcast (for now).
I should note that Xmission does have a couple of planned upgrades. They are changing their Qwest to Xmission lines (for their DSL customers) from 4x45 megabit (180 megabit total) to 3x155 megabit (465 megabit total). And they are supposedly also adding a new 270 megabit outside pipe (from Xmission to the internet).
But I think adding this well AFTER they need it is a bit too late.
And in the end, Comcast has a more constant speed, much lower latency, and they have promised me the rain disconnects are fixed (I've had Comcast for like 2 years, and the rain disconnects have only happened very recently).
So while I'm not totally happy with Comcast, I'm also not willing to trade one problem for another.
Xmission connects with both PPPoA and PPPoE. They assign and IP address which they say usually won't change, but is NOT guaranteed.
After seeing all the positive reviews for Xmission, I was quite dispointed. They have clearly oversold their bandwidth (both Qwest to Xmission, and Xmission to the internet). And are now in a position of trying to play catchup.
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