Anyone have Surfglobal or Globalnet ?

[Julie & 6pt Dave]

I was wondering if anyone uses the wireless offering from Surfglobal as their internet provider?   If so how is the service?  Outages ?  Do you get the speed you pay for?  Does weather cause a problem with the reception?

Dave

[trussell]

My neighbor has GlobalNet, and they let me pirate their signal.  I'd say it works well and I haven't had any problems.  The speed is average, but I attribute that to the fact that I'm about 200 ft away and across the street, from their wireless router and barely get a signal.

If I didn't need to purchase $200 worth of equipment, I would have done it by now.

[beth]

I've had Surfglobal for 2.5 years. It's far, far better than Wildblue, but the service seems to have slowed down in the past six months. I have the silver plus plan ($35/month) which claims speeds of 2.0 mbps; I'm lucky if I get half that. I haven't noticed any weather-related issues at all. Outages are pretty rare, but the past few weekends I've had trouble connecting (it's possible that my antenna needs to be adjusted). Customer service is great.

I am very grateful to have Surfglobal after the nightmare that was Wildblue, but I would still kill for a cable connection. Maybe by the time I retire in 35 years?!

[gpdvt]

WE've had Surfglobal for the last 2.5yrs. No problems. I don't know for sure about actual speed vs stated speed, but would guess it's slower..I've had cable before and it is comparable imo. Not many outages and the few we've had were for an hour or so. Tried Wildblue and have absolutely nothing good to say about them..especially they're customer service. After paying for 2 months with little if no internet, it took a very threatening letter to them and Better Business Bureau to get our money back.

[Julie & 6pt Dave]

All, Thanks for the replies.   

Hummm... May or may not be getting the advertised speed???

You can try testing your speed using this website.

Be interesting to see what you are getting..

http://www.speedtest.net/

We currently have DSL and lately we've been getting close to what they advertise which is 1.5Mb down and .370Mb up.   But if SurfGlobal is willing to give me 3MB down at the same price then I'll go there.   Didn't realize there was a $200.00 start up.   What is that for?  Do I then 'own' the receiver?  Can I sell it if I stop my service?

Dave

[Mike Raburn]

I like using http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/   less stuff to load.

Plus I can hit a Seattle server where my gaming servers are.... just to make sure I can blast them and out drive them!

[beth]

Having a s l o w night tonight. On speedtest.net, got .35 mbps down/.20 mbps up approx ten minutes ago. The decimal is not a typo! Ran it one minute ago, and I'm up to .44 down/.21 up. The speakeasy test was the same. Ouch. Guess I'll be calling Surfglobal tomorrow to see what's up.

[trussell]

For anyone with an iPhone, www.speedtest.net has an app- just go to the site in safari and it automatically brings up the app. It's pretty cool

[DrewCrash]

I had HughesNet and that was horrible. The sad thing, is what when it worked, it did destroy the previously held dial-up. Everywhere that I have lived, cable/dsl has always been available. This was a huge life changer for me. I now have GlobalNet and for the $30-something I pay monthly, it's awesome. I have no complaints. Great deal for your money!

[ohhman]

Whatever you do, do NOT go with earthlink!! This has to be the slowest thing available!  But for the price, because I was going to switch, they offered me the 9.95mo. deal for as long as I want it.  But, it's not really a deal, esp. when you have to have tech support.  I think you reach someone....somewhere.......in the desert........on a camel.......who doesn't speak English very well............I don't mean to offend anyone.......JUST DON"T GET earthlink!!!

[Mike Raburn]

Is there a cable tv provider in Fairfax??
If not, DSL and satellite is the only choice.

Cable connections are the bomb.

[Darryl]

I'm thinking about going with GlobalNet (we live off of Rood Mill Rd, cable and DSL are not available) and am looking for a little more info.

How are people's speeds as of late?  Is it fast/stable enough to stream Netflix?  Has anyone tried to cancel?  When I spoke with them about placing an order it seems that you are locked into a one year contract, there's no trial/cancellation period in which you can bail if you are not happy with the service.  To be honest, it makes me nervous about signing up.

[fletchtb]

I live in Fletcher and just got GlobalNet within the last month. Like you, it was my only option. So far we have been thrilled.

We did just open a Netflix account and we have been able to stream movies without issue. I also have been able to make VoIP calls from my gmail account without a problem (next step is to buy an Ooma Telo and get rid of the landline entirely).

I am on their cheapest (Silver) plan, which is the only one they would sell me. That plan is supposed to only get me 1.5 Mbps, but I have been getting close to 3Mbps consistently. From my house, the only signal I could get was to their new antenna on Mount Mansfield. My neighbor (100ft away) could only get a signal from their repeater on Spaulding Road and had to get the Silver + plan, which is supposed to get them 2.0 Mbps. Running speedtest.net, they are getting consistently 2.00 to 2.05 Mbps. So for some reason, I am getting faster speeds than they are and paying less. I am not sure how much the speed will degrade for me as they get more installs in Fletcher, but so far it has held up.

Their installation guy was great. I was happy to sign up for a year. Having high speed internet is better than not having it. I can't imagine wanting to get rid of them.

Hope that helps.

Thanks,
Todd

[CLach]

I had two polite gentlemen from Comcast come to my door the other day offering service to our area.  I live off of Chaffee Rd.  I  was surprised to hear they offered service down where I was...they said that people of Fairfax should call Comcast and check to see if their area was ready to be hooked up. They admitted they havent done a good job notifying our area of the services.  So it wouldnt hurt to check with Comcast and see if they are or will be around anytime soon

[Julie & 6pt Dave]

I just wanted to start this append by saying that I think GlobalNet is doing a great service for our area.  They are a relatively young company which I hope keeps growing offering even more services to more people in the years to come.  I wish them all the luck in the future.   This company and their services have opened an internet access door to a number of families who had no other option.  I'm sure you have read the appends posted on this forum about this service.  Most, if not all, have been rather positive. 

We tried the service back in April.  We have a clear line of sight to the SWEET transmitter.  I admit that I didn't do my homework and was not informed until after the installation that I had to sign a one year contract.  The guys that did the install were great.  They tested before they attempted to do any work and they did receive some strong readings.  I guess I was a 'kid in a candy store'.  After seeing reading close to 3Mb/s on the test and just short of 2Mb/s after the install I went ahead and singed the contract. 

Within a week I knew I made a mistake.  The service, for us, was very slow.  Our readings were down around .8Mb/s about half of the 1.5Mb/s I had hoped for.  I called right away and to their credit GlobalNet tried to make it work for us.  They come out a few days later and tried another antenna.  When the antenna swap didn't work they came back with a different kind of antenna to reach another access point.  They moved it from one end of my roof to another to try to get a good signal.  For us nothing seemed to work.  I kept calling their service and kept taking readings.  We would lose the service for one, two, four hours at a time.  Once we lost service on a Friday and didn't get service back until the following Monday.  In May only a couple of weeks after the installation I requested to have the service terminated.  I was told that the 'owner' takes each potential termination on a case by case basis and they would need to speak to the owner.    It was about this time that I became concerned.  I would make calls but would go days or a week before I received an answer on the status of our termination.  We were told of new access points, equipment upgrades and the work going on on Mt. Mansfield.  So I waited and continued to take readings.  I even offered to have them place my subscription in some sort of suspend mode until the improved equipment became available for our location.  After it became apparent that the service was not going to work for me I pushed for the contract termination.  After more than 500 readings and the average speed dropping to .63Mb/s I had enough.  I went on the roof took the equipment down and took everything down to their office in Essex.  I told them it was obvious that I was not using the service ( they now had my antenna ) and they had every right to charge me because I was still under contract but asked them based on my problem history if they would consider dissolving the contract.  About two weeks after I handed in the equipment I received a phone call informing me that because of the documented problems I had they would 'forgive' my early termination fee.

So, I guess my experience with GlobalNet was a mixed bag.  While a good service for some it just wasn't meant to work for us.   I think I'm still in good standings with the company.  They did call to inform me that they had a new transmitter on top of Mt. Mansfield and wondered if I was interested.  I said I was but not until they offered their 'Gold' plan.   

Dave