Verizon DSL & Vondage Phone service.

Orange_Ribbon · Post by **Orange_Ribbon** » Mon May 16, 2005 7:23 pm

Does anyone use it? My mom lost her job so I have to pay more of the bills so I need to cut some cost. I was thinking of going to Verizon DSL and Vondage Phone service.

Does anyone have some first person insight on these two services?

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Mon May 16, 2005 7:31 pm

Avoid Verizon like the plague for DSL. Fine at first, then downloads dropped from 200 KBPS to 20 KBPS. They told me my internet was fine; I told them otherwise. An hour after I got off the phone w/ them, my internet speed went up to 80 kbps downloads. Other tech support was no help whatsover; I called them at least five times over the course of a year because my internet simply stopped working. No local blackout or anything like that--just straight up refused to work. They sold me a broken Linksys router as well.

When we cancelled the service, the person sounded not surprised at all, as if it was a very common occurance. Probably is, given the combo of ghetto service, horrible tech support and shoddy equipment.

I live in Philadelphia as well, by the way. It sucks that there are only about three options for broadband here. Maybe two, seeing as how Earthlink is telling me DSL is not available here--when I clearly pay them $45 a month for it. And last I checked, my house didn't move in the middle of the night to Topeka.

Orange_Ribbon · Post by **Orange_Ribbon** » Mon May 16, 2005 8:07 pm

Wow, that bad?

Post by **Roofus** » Mon May 16, 2005 9:17 pm

I have Vonage and it's pretty good. Only thing is it's a real bandwidth hog.

Skater_dusto · Post by **Skater_dusto** » Tue May 17, 2005 12:11 am

Orange_Ribbon wrote:Wow, that bad?

I speak with verizon technicians on a daily basis and know their services better than 90% of the people I talk to. They flat out suck. Not to mention their support professionals are kids taken off the street and given a fricken binder of instruction manuals.

I've spoken with people who've had a simple page cannot be displayed error and their techs didn't even know where to start..

Their actual internet service is just as bad in most areas. There's some regions in which you can definitely get good service, but those places are few and far between and it's just a matter of luck. If your internet starts to drop proformance then good luck ever getting it resolved.

Orange_Ribbon · Post by **Orange_Ribbon** » Tue May 17, 2005 5:36 am

Hmm, I think I am going to keep comcast, and go with Vondage. If I got Verizon I would have to worry about my mom talking on the phone, and god forbid I want to use my broadband phone while she is talking.

Wagh · Post by **Wagh** » Tue May 17, 2005 11:18 am

Orange_Ribbon wrote:Hmm, I think I am going to keep comcast, and go with Vondage. If I got Verizon I would have to worry about my mom talking on the phone, and god forbid I want to use my broadband phone while she is talking.

See if they offer voip in your area.

Skater_dusto · Post by **Skater_dusto** » Tue May 17, 2005 1:53 pm

Comcast is a very stable and dedicated isp. Their representatives will do their jobs when needed, and they will in fact go the distance to help you if needed.

I'm hoping to get Vondage as a phone service pretty soon. My supervisor tells me that he hasn't found any real discrepencies with them. Only paranoid people who worry about voip and people listening in, yada yada. Unless you're doing something highly illegal then no one should give a care.

revengeofLaEternal · Post by **revengeofLaEternal** » Tue May 17, 2005 6:39 pm

Have people been able to listen in? I'm not considering getting a VoIP service anytime soon, but that'd be freaky just because it's freaky