Earthlink Review

Earthlink DSL/Voice bungle.

I had only one problem with my DSL line for about 9 years, and that due to a line-person disconnecting me down the street. Then I swallowed the bait. Earthlink offered to bundle my DSL service with a limited minutes voice plan that gave me voice for free. I demanded that they leave my dedicated DSL line and my separate dedicated voice line as they were. No Changes they promised several times. Guess what? With the new service, I had no phone service until the phone was switched over to share the DSL line.

I could write a book about the consequences.
Intermittent slow service, minutes to load pages, then back up to speed in an unpredictable manner. DSL connections dropped at a Stupefyingly frequent rate, I thought I would wear out the power socket with the frequent re-powering of the DSL modem. And the phone chased this record hard. Disconnected calls and then unable to get a dial-tone, usually for about 15 minutes. Conversations ending in a digital stutter (twice while calling Earthlink service because my DSL line was unusable) and again, unable to get a dial-tone after hanging up. Many times I have to use my cell to call Earthlink because the DSL and phone have failed.

The service is very sweet, even when you cannot really follow their language. That keeps you on the line long enough for the problem to go away. "Your service is fixed now! Please call us back if you have any further problems!" Several times I asked how many times I need to call: 20, 100 or 1000 times? That is the problem, that I surely will need to call again in a few days. Oh, and I have spent half a day with service technicians working at my home a couple times. I take it that the "LPVA" circuit Earthlink uses is considered nonfunctional by professionals.

But what do I know? I think I should keep the service just so I can have a great excuse for a good gripe. In that regard this bundled DSL/Voice service is far better than anything else I can think of.