Earthlink DSL

STAY AWAY!!! Earthlink DSL is horrible. Unreliable connection. Poor customer service reps who always tell you its your phone line. I have switched wall jacks, dsl cords, reloaded the software and still continue to have dropped connections. I had verizon prior to switching to Earthlink but I have to say Earthlink is so bad, I am considering returning to Verizon. If I could give them 1/4 of a star I certainly wood.

I will just say ditto to all the troubles everyone else has experienced with Earthlink and their pathetic attempt at customer service. I don't know how many times a Rep told me that something was wrong with my phone, then something was wrong with my modem, then just to get me off the phone they would finally tell me the are experiencing a outage in my area. They also had the nerve to inform how many time I'd called them within the week. Yes, because they would never resolve my issue or provide me support. Of course I'm going to call you back! I'm paying you for a service, and I expect to receive support! Is that hard to understand? Lucky, I am no longer in a contract and can cancel at anytime. I'm currently looking for a new ISP, and will be happy when I can tell Earthlink to kiss it.

STAY AWAY FROM EARTHLINK! If you have an outage, as we've had for the past 6 weeks, their customer "service" is worse than useless. That's right: our home phone and DSL have not worked for 6 weeks, and we have wasted a dozen hours a week trying to get the problem fixed. Earthlink trains customer service reps to say lots of nice words from a script, but their job seems to be to make the customer give up and go away. We have spent probably more than 100 hours on the phone (much of it on hold) and live chat with people who say they will fix the problem, it's not their fault, be patient, did I say someone would be there tomorrow? -- oh, no, that won't be happening, be patient. Earthlink spent about 5 weeks trying to tell us the problem was inside our house when we knew it was not. We eventually hired an electrician who also spoke with an earthlink tech rep from our house saying that our lines were all clear and the problem was outside the house. Still earthlink argued with him and told... Read more

After 8 years, I've had it! Yes, that's right 8 years. I'm writing this review using my iPhone because my DSL is down yet again. I started with dialup and then migrated to DSL for the speed. It worked very well back in the day when EL actually cared about customers. Then about 4 years ago the problems started. Our DSL modem lights would not confirm the signal so we couldn't connect. Called EL and discovered customer service had been transferred to a 3rd world country with a definite language barrier. After going through trouble shooting and hold times for 8 hours, they said it wasn't EL rather Bellsouth's signal strength on our line so therefore not EL's problem. Ok so I call BS the next day and they said as long as my telephone dial tone was working any DSL signal issues were not BS's problem. Crap... So I call EL back and tell them what BS said and I made it clear that I was paying them for a service and it was their problem with their vendor not mine. After holding for 2 more hour... Read more

where to start?! I've had it! This is the absolute worst service of any service provider (in any type of service company) that I've ever had! I can't even begin to write about all the years of problems I've had with this company! All I can say is buyer beware! Customer service is horrible. completely unreliable connection. Expensive. Just stay away........

Am I glad to find his page, I simply typed in the header of my letter to them and here I am. I will add the letter but since then it got worse I moved to a new hose across the street it has been an even bigger disaster and i had to switch to AT&T.; But earthlink are still billing me about $110 oer month, What can we do about it it is absolutely impossible to talk to anyone who can help. Following is the diary I started. Isnt it amazing what we can do with modern technology. It still fascinates me that I can take a picture with my cel phone and send it to an e mail, address anywhere in the world in seconds. Why is it then that it can take forever to get a live person at your telephone service ( and almost everywhere else) to answer a telephone call? Of course in the mad rush for faster smaller neater gadgets nothing is really new anymore, at least, not for more than a few weeks. Full blown consumerism is driven by a need for faster and cooler results. Being somewhat old fashioned... Read more

I've been fighting them for 2 months as they keep a ticket open and just keep sending me to support every 24 hours. I'm starting to think it may be better to pay the 149 dollar early disconnect charge but then again it was never actually working right. I wish there was someway to complain but they are going to charge me a disconnect fee. Nobody to turn to in order to get off their quasi dsl wagon. I don't want to pay for DSL and use dialup if you know what i mean.

Absolute worst service I've ever had. I'd repeat what everyone said here, but I'm afraid I won't be online long enough to type it out. I'm sorry I switched from Verizon.

Either customer service lies, or they surpass their authority. I had been a mindspring and then earthlink customer for 10 years. When the price for loyal customers exceeded the price for new customers, I complained. They lowered my rate, only to have it simply return. In April, I called to simply cancel this difficult company. I spoke to "River" who agreed to the following if I did not cancel: Credit for prior month's service for $49.95 Free service for April and May Ongoing service for $34.95 Based on that I agreed to continue service. I did not get my $49.95 rebate. I did not get free service for April and May Not only did I not get the rebate, I did get a bill for $29.95. I cancelled with registered mail in May. Then a constant barrage of phone calls. Various offers, which they refused to ever put into writing. No thank you. Geez, avoid these crooks. Not only that, my service from ATT&T; costs a whole lot less with almost twice the speed.

I have had Earthlink dial-up for 4 years, with no problem (of course, I never needed customer service of any kind). I decided to upgrade to DSL, and the problems started. Customer service on-line? Definitely a script, the high pressure sales techniques, and they ignore questions they can't answer. Waste of time. I tried phone support on a Sunday afternoon and was told they were too busy to take my call; call back later. Here is the trick: when they tell you that, press "9" which puts you in line for a phone rep. in India. Lovely country, polite man, but the accent made communication time-consuming, and he also had a script. I figured it was 15 days into my upgrade and I was having customer support problems and didn't want to deal with it, so I cancelled my upgrade. I'll keep the dial-up until I can find another company.

Simply don't use Earthlink for anything. They were good for me for years, but for months now have been killing my business because email suddenly disappears -- either totally or selectively (so I never know someone tried). I have spent hours trying to get it fixed, and then a few days later it returns to disaster. Anyone have an ISP to recommend?

okay, for the first 6 months earthlink simply was the worst. I always lost my connection and when I had it it wasusually SLOW. After about 30 calls to Fred , Mike , Steve , ect in India I finally got the problem solved. I actually did speak with a supervisor or something like that, but not with out threats of corporate law suit from an attorney friend of mine. They first had Verizon actually come out and found the box outside my house was screwed up. It was old and had a few worn connections. Earthlinks DSL moden HAS TO have very good wiring to work properly. Now that that was fixed I had a solid connection but only 550 - 625kbs download. So once again I had to call. Earthlink is good about turning your speeds way down. So I spoke with the same surevisor and voila!! I have had consistant 2880-2995kbs download speeds for the past two weeks and no disconnects at all. I guess you just have to Really push the envelope with these people. When you get it right it is very good. I hope it does... Read more

i've had them since march of 06. i originally and still do want sbc or att but they have said a few times that they will not offer it to me because i'm 18000 ft which is too far from the lec or co. i think now in retrospect that earthlink should've taken the same hint and not offered it. what really gets me is that they think their service is really worth 39.95 a month for 1/2 speed dsl- [heh-heh]. and will try to slowly inch your bill up there thinking you won't notice it. then every few months i have to call in whenever i see it going above 21.95, which i still think is too much considering att offers it for 14.95, and dsl extreme for 12.95. i hate having to haggle with them like i'm at a car lot. they finally reduced my price to 14.95 a month. but then that's still for the less than 384k service. but i will have to say that even though it's a slow speed for dsl it's still much faster than dialup or nothing and as 1 guy said and i feel the same way, it's better than RR. i'm not payin... Read more

Dont do it. Don't do it. EarthLink is nothing but disaster, false promises, distorted hidden charges, horrible service/customer service and highly inefficient organization. I got DSL/Phone from them. DSL never worked and after hours of going back and forth and having them admit that this DSL is unfeasible, I am still being charged for the crap.

For the past 5 years, we have used Verizons DSL service at home, which worked pretty well. About a month ago, we switched to EarthLinks DSL, because they offered a much cheaper package, including long-distance phone rates on our home line. However, I have had big problems with the EarthLink DSL: particularly in the evenings, it gets so slow that it can take 15 minutes or so to move from one web page to another, and sometimes it never does change. I have called EarthLinks tech support three times. The first time, the tech had me delete a lot of cookies, etc., from my computer. This didnt make any difference. The second time, the tech put me on hold for 10 minutes, and then the line went dead. The third time, the tech said that I needed some special software that EarthLink sells to solve problems caused by spyware, etc. The software is free for one month, and then costs $5 per month. He put me on hold while he said he would set up sending me the software, and after about 10 minutes, t... Read more

I just want to echo what most others are saying about Earthlink. I had dial-up internet service from them for many years with no problems but there has been a huge decline in quality lately. When I switched to DSL, the service and the support went right into the toilet. Very slow with frequent disconnects. The tech support people are just reading from a script and have no idea what it means. Every time you call, it's starting over at square one since they won't give a call tracking number like every other help desk on earth does. They are also, as others have pointed out, rip off artists. They promise one thing but you get another. I was paying for a higher speed than I was actually getting without even knowing it. When I finally gave up and called to cancel the service, I was told that during one of my many calls to tech support I had asked for a service upgrade and that put me under a new contract! I was told that if I canceled I'd have to pay a $150 early termination... Read more

After being a loyal customer of Mindspring dial-up for 10 years I made the mistake of switching 10 months ago to DSL - and it was the worst experience ever! I had problems from the beginning signal dropping, restarting several times a day. I called many times since Sept and spent HOURS on the phone with customer service. Every time I had to go through the same checklist; I switched the modem, I switched the cords, I power cycled over and over but it was never right. Finally, in June, DSL went down for 10 days. That is when they told me - 10 MONTHS AFTER I HAD STARTED SERVICE - my connection problems were because I was more than 16,000 feet from the loop" and could not handle the 1.5 M speed so they would downgrade me to 786. Had they done this at the beginning of signing up I would have given the lower speed a chance to see if it would work. But at this point I was unwilling to waste any more time on this service so I gave up and switched to cable. I asked they waive my early terminati... Read more

Earthlinks DSL is very poor! I have been experiencing weekly or more frequent cut-outs where the modem must be reset, and their customer support is lousy. Their technicians are script-reading morons and if they ever place you on hold you will most likely get cut off! I have been chasing connection problems for six months with these clowns! For more on the story please see my page at: http://home.sprynet.com/~aerogreg/ Greg

I have had Earthlink for 6 years now and have seen the service decline to the point I plan to leave them. The customer service is absolutely horrible. My DSL stopped working and it has been 8 days and still Earthlink can not tell me what is wrong. They disconnected me twice while talking to technical support. The have told me it's a line problem, then a modem problem, then a line problem, and now they seem to be clueless. The customer service is located in India and they are polite, but seem to answer questions by reading from a book. Stay away from Earthlink.

Longest wait times ever, frequent service outages, poor ability in dsl phone service. (I have dsl hi speed internet and dsl phone service with them). The dsl phone service includes unlimited LD to canada, us and PRico, unike att. But the worst customer service ever. Did I mention ridiculous wait times for support. I have had 3 of there modems blow-up, I finally bought my own u.s. robotics modem and it has been stable. I can not complain more about earthlink, but stress it is a horrible horrible company, service, etc.... Don't get sucked into their contracts. I was told the contract was for phone service only, and if I moved they would not consider it a early penalty if they could not provide service at the new location.. This appears to have been an all out lie.

I subscribe in March and they have not been able to make the DSL work since then, only the phone part (today is June 27) despite of me calling them every week. They gave me different dates, find out different problems etc. Sometimes they are very nice on the phone but it is still getting nowhere after may be 20 hours on the phone... Worst they keep charging me full service on my credit cards, promising credits that I never got. They had told me the 30 days period was once the dsl service started. NOT TRUE. now if I cancelled I get charge the $150 cancelling fee. Bottom line it used to be a good company but forget about it! Stay away. And never give them you credit card number...

I think earthlink is ok but not so cheep. Also they really get on you about your bill. Finally sometimes the DSL willl just STOP working.

I had major problems the whole time I was with Earthlink. My service went down almost every day and they never got my problem solved.

I think it depends on where you live. i was in an apartment building and got very frequent outages. Since I moved to a house in a different part of town it has only gone down about 4 times is 3 years.

I've been with Earthlink since 1999. The service was fine at first but it has steadily gone downhill, waaaay down. Don't expect your issues to get resolved without 3 to 4 calls. Sometimes the rep will tell you they'll have a supervisor call you back but don't believe it. They just want to get off the phone with you because they're out of ideas. The customer service rep don't seem to understand dsl/email/voicemail concepts but is reading off a script. The delay in the phone line (because they're oversea) is really annoying. I'm shopping for a new online service currently.

I had a lot of problems getting their DSL service to work and it had a lot to do with conflicting, incorrect info from those overseas idiots who don't speak english so good.  I plan to leave them in a month - have been with them since 99 but am just too fed up.  There has to be better service with less hassles.

this is great when it actually works and the key word is WORKS. if it doesnt then hold on for a bumpy ride trying to get someone on the phone who knows the english language. sorry but maybe i ask for too much when i live in the US and would like someone to talk to me in the english language. overall their internet connection is far superior to that of time warner's but only time warner's customer service is worse. this is just not worth the cost for the service u get, if it were 15 a month then id give it a better review. still i would rather have this than road runner and i believe all but those who work for or r associated with time warner would agree with me.

Earthlink is terrible. Customer Service takes a long time, our business line got disconnected twice in two weeks within a month of getting the DSL installed!

I have been with Earthlink for over two years now had have had very few problems. Initially, there were a few problems with the modem. It needed reset quite often. A few firmware updates and all is well. I am very pleased. Speed is good and pages load quickly. Customer service is responsive and helpful.

Earthlink is pathetic. I spoke with an online agent concerning what was provided with service and was told that I would receive a Linksys router. After several weeeks of waiting I finally got my router, or so I thought. It turns out that it wasn't the Linksys router that I was told would come with my service but instead a adsl modem. Wonderful, so my adventure begins. I try to call the support line and am told I'm sorry but we are experiencing a high volume of calls due to a major outage please use online support. So, I try online support and they immediately try to upsell me service and tell me that I am mistaken with what I was told and if I want a wireless router that I need to pay $8 more per month (for what .. so you track my dynamic IP addresses). I ask to get a call from a person and am told that they are not permitted to call customers. Okay, I guess they can go on being rude to customers and not addressing any issues, if they ignore you and just stop chatting. So, the... Read more

I really would like Earthlink DSL, but so far they have not been able to get the line to work. Unfortunately, I changed from AT&T; DSL to Earthlink, which in retrospect is turning into a really bad decision. AT&T; worked without ANY issues for over 2 years. I decided to use Earthlink since I still was paying for an old dial up account. I've spent over 20 hours trying to work with them so far. In general, their technical support people are just mediocre at best and their customer interaction is really horrible. I don't know how many times they have told me to call back tomorrow and it will be fixed.

Had DSL running on Earthlink although it took 8 weeks to get it right. A year later I made the mistake of going to "high speed" DSL with Earthlink. Crash after crash. The local service provider cannot handle any throughput. Earthlink doesn't seem to be able to solve/resolve it. Makes me want to go to satellite or cable or ???

Uneven connections and highly variable speed. Did all of the regular, turn it off, turn it on, but it was all the time. Had it for 3 months and couldn't take it any more. The high early disconnect fee is ridiculous, but I just got sick of often phone line speeds, if that. Stay away if you are in the Fort Collins, CO area.

I liked their dial-up service so thought DSL would be good as well. Horrible! Mind-numbingly SLOOOOW (much slower than my dial-up was) and won't keep a connection. Signed up for a year of this torture, and am now free of my commitment - looking for something better!!!

I have had experience with many internet providers this was by far the worse!!!!! I have just spet 11 ELEVEN solid hours on the phone trying to get a connection/ billing issue resolved. It started 2 weeks ago when my connection suddenly began to fluctuate after 6 months of fairly steady if somewhat slow service. A Tech came out and said it was on thier end and he would have to go see what could be done at the local office. Okay sure no problem. So I spend the next 2 weeks with my connection coming and going as it pleases at random intervals. Then to day I get a call from a man who says he is a Tech and they will be making my service steady again as of today, but in order to do so I will be capped at 384 kbps. I told him that is not acceptable when I am paying for 1.5 Mbps. So I asked to talk to his supervisor since he made it clear he was not bright enough to comprehend the problem I was having with this issue. He told me she would have to call me back as she was busy with another ca... Read more

This is an update and clarification of the incident I had with Earthlink over a period of time with my DSL cutting off after 4 PM daily. I've been using this serve for a while. I had been using broadband since 1997 with @home network before they went under and I signed up with Earthlink. I had them since 2000 and the first 2 years was rock solid with no outages. But from 2002 on its been the dsl from hell. Calls to customer support wanting me to move my modem; replace cables etc. The problem is intermittent net service after 8 pm or sometimes all weekend until Sunday afternoon. I can connect but thier remote server isn't passing on any info. This is dsl service at $50 a month. Customer service give canned responses and don't listen to what the problem can be. It sounds like some of them are still in their teens. I even move the computer next to the phone and shorten the phone line connection to reduce signal loss; reinstall WinPoet and card drivers. No effect. The fact that it's up to ... Read more

Basic troubleshooting is to reboot the computer and the dsl modem if that don't work then reinstall the drivers and software your computer may be having troubles and not the dsl check the cables check the phone line if more than 2 or 3 reps are saying the same things then that must be what is to be done unless the DSLAM pod has issues, which you should wait a few days http://www.howitworks.net http://www.pcwebopedia.com

We had Earthlink dialup for 3yrs with no problems. Switched to DSL--had no problems for about 3 wks and then 2 weeks of HELL! Have spent HOURS on the phone (mostly on hold waiting for a real person to respond) no one can help us---we have rebooted, reset, gone thru diagnostics, ETC. numerous times, to no avail. The connection goes out randomly, usually in the eves. The customer service is completely useless. They all say the same things and NONE of their suggestions work. It seems they are all reading from the same script. We are shopping for a new DSL carrier.

I have been a customer for 8 years and since I moved to California 5 years ago it's been nothing but trouble. I had a 3kps down . Earthlink offered 39.95 for the duration of my stay with Earthlink at my current speed. Then I tested my line and realized that they cut my speed to 1.5 Kps. I got the run around to restore it. Over 10 calls later they resored it, but they may charge me $49.99 again. If they do I'm leaving and going to DSL Extreme.

The 1 star rating is my overall rating for Earthlink since 1998, service recently has been Zero Point Zip. Let me tell my story please, Earthlink doesn't seem to want to hear it. I have been an earthlink customer since 1998 they were Mindspring back then. When we first upgraded to DSL in 2000 we had decent service after a complex installation, we moved in 2002 and had DSL hooked up here as well. Right afterwards our connections were very erratic and off more than on. I went through 2 weeks of tech support + New Phone Lines + New Shielded Phone Lines + Direct Connection plus plus plus. Finally I was transfered to someone with a North American accent, he got my modem serial number, pinged me a couple of times, had me load a couple of pages, put me on hold to unclamp me some for my altitude, whatever that means, 5 seconds later I had a screaming connection, on August 14th Earthlink performed some network maintanence here in Albuquerque NM and the connection has died since, the snail net i... Read more

MY DSL disconnected regularly and the only advice I ever got was try turning it off and on again. I sent several emails over the course of weeks. None were ever answered.

When I moved to a new home I ordered Earthlink DSL and they said it would be set up in 5 days. Instead I waited for 3 weeks and nothing happened. I communicated with support via phone, chat, and e-mail every other day and they were worthless - polite, but nobody could tell me what was going on. After suffering terrible damage to my online business I canceled my order and ordered Verizon.

Everyone I know that uses it, has good connections at first, then all now have spotty service and no PPPoE light for hours and hours every day. CS tells everyone it is their phone line. I use it, and got around it with a bridge connection. At least I can get online now! HOurs on phone with CS were pointless. Btw, we ALL have the NETOPIA modem.

It used to be fine until a weeks ago. Now it's impossible to have a stable connection from 7-10 PM weekdays and most of the weekend. The support team, located in India, is very good at giving you the runaround courteously.

It used to be fine. Now, it's impossible to have a steady connection from 7-10 PM weekdays and most of the weekend. The support team (located in India) gives you the runaround very politely but fails to address the issue of bad handling the peak usage hours.

I don't know if it's dependent on the phone line or not, but I get nearly daily outages with EarthLink's DSL. Their dial-up is a lot more stable. Not only that, the speed often averages 100-300kps, far below the advertised speed of 1.5MBs. Their tech support isn't very helpful either: after running through a series of tests, the person I spoke with finally said it was probably an network outage and to try again in a few hours.

I had earthlink dsl for 1 year and my previous dial up seemed better. It was always going down. As soon as the contract was up I went straight to my local carrier SBC and have never had an outage in 3 years that wasnt my fault

Had been using broadband since 1997 with @home network before they went under and I signed up with Earthlink. I had them since 2000 and the first 2 years was rock solid with no outages. But from 2002 on its been the dsl from hell. Calls to customer support wanting me to move my modem; replace cables etc. The problem is intermittent net service after 8 pm or sometimes all weekend until Sunday afternoon. I can connect but thier remote server isn't passing on any info. This is dsl service at $50 a month. Customer service give canned responses and don't listen to what the problem can be. It sounds like some of them are still in their teens. I even move the computer next to the phone and shorten the phone line connection to reduce signal loss; reinstall WinPoet and card drivers. No effect. The fact that it's up to me to prove it's their system is frustrating especially since I'm a tech. The Customer Support indicated I had 3 strikes against me - shorten my cable (that worked for 2 years pri... Read more

Connection good. Customer service great.

Unstable routers kept knocking out service for half of the SF Bay area. About one entire day a month for the entire time I was a subscriber. When I called to complain, they only knew about an outage in Oakland. I'm in Sunnyvale (an hour away). Talk about not knowing your own network. When I got the service, it was with the claim that I could pay an extra $10 a month and get a static IP. Not so. For an extra $10 a month, you can get a fixed dynamic IP that's still served with PPPoE. (Did I mention that their PPPoE server kept flaking out, too?) To make a long story short, I gave them the boot. I'm now using Covad directly (the same company that provided the underlying network service for Earthlink). Same line, same DCLEC, the only difference is the router/PPPoE server setup, and the service has been nearly flawless, with only one noticeable outage (thirty minutes or so) in nearly a year. I should note that I'm only paying about $20 more (or thereabouts), and I have a block o... Read more