I Like My Baby Bell
Written: Feb 28 '01
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Pros: 5 mail boxes, cheap, convenient billing, local
Cons: tech support not par, connection sometimes hangs
The Bottom Line: Bellsouth is over all, not a bad dial up ISP. It could be better, but it's cheap, fairly reliable, and billing's way convenient.
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| geovolt's Full Review: BellSouth (SE USA) |
I've written several reviews on dial up ISP's, this will be the first I'll have written while actually using the service. BellSouth is of course, the Southeastern US branch of Bell Communications. I live in Tennessee, thus, BellSouth is my phone service provider, as well as my dial up ISP.
It seems that aside from AOL, phone companies are the biggest ISPs around these days. No wonder why, companies such as Earthlink, BellSouth, AT&T and the like, seem to offer the best service.
Ohhhhhh and Ahhhhhhhh
· Speed-- Everybody (myself included) seems to have a Need for Speed-- wanting bigger, faster, better everything. And in this area, Bellsouth does not fail us. Most dial up folks have a 56k V.90 modem, and although ISPs aren't regulated to use it to the fullest extent, they keep up the speed. I rarely connect slower than 49.3, which is pretty good considering that I live in a lower elevated area of the city and that tends to slow connection speeds.
· Reliability-- I've experienced few encounters with problems connecting (e.g. busy signals, stale connection, drop offs, etc.) A lot of ISPs drop you after 4-12 hours of connection, but I've yet to experience it, and lets hope I don't. However, after a while of no activity it tends to hang-- like it needs a boost or something.
· Price-- 19.95$/month-- unlimited access, 1 main mail box & 4 extras, 10MB webspace
***12.95$/month is the plan we have.... they offer all of these extras for your telephone, and if you get the "Solutions Plan" (which we already had), you get the 12.95$/month internet
9.95$/month-- 10 hours (plus 1$ for each after thereafter), 1 main mail box & 4 extras, 10MB webspace
***They also offer DSL, but, I've not yet used it and this review is on dial up.
· Email-- With any of your Bellsouth.net email accounts you can access them via client email (Outlook Express, Netscape Mail, etc.) or you can access your mail through their website (http://www.bellsouth.net). I like being able to access my bellsouth email regardless of where I'm at. The only problem I've found with this system is once you've checked your messages through your client email they're no longer on the bellsouth.net website server.
· Bellsouth Website-- The website is not terribly easy on the eyes, but it's rather utilitarian. You can check out all aspects of your account by navigating the site. All you have to do is long in with your bellsouth.net username and password and go find what you want to know. The site is fairly easy to navigate, but it can take some time looking for what you need if you're not familiar with the site. As with many mail retrieval websites, this too is customizable. You can get stock quotes, local weather, add favorite links, sports, your horoscope, use the calendar and a whole lot more. One of the things I really like about the website is the above mentioned account info section. You can check your plan, and change it if you like. Add new email accounts, see (but not in great detail) how much time you spent on the net each month, and a few other things.
· Billing-- This is my absolute favorite thing about using Bellsouth not only for my telephone company, but for my dial up internet service provider. My phone bills and internet bills are consolidated. Yep yep. All on the same bill. I've found it to be very convenient. On the other side of billing, I must say that when we first signed up for their dial up, they overcharged us. They charged the 19.95$/mo. where they should have only charged us 12.95$/mo. but, we got that taken care of and it wasn't a big problem at all. They credited our next bill with the difference.
Ummmmm, hello?
24/7 tech support. I've only used it once, and it was just to retrieve a password, but my experience was pretty much the same as it is when calling for telephone support, long wait, but things go a'ight once you actually talk to someone. I've heard many people say that their customer service/ tech support is less than par, but as I've said, I've not had much experience with that myself.
Boo..........hiss
There's not many complaints I have about Bellsouth. The tech support could be a little better. And I've experienced more drop offs since I began to write this review until now, when I'm finishing it. When the weather's bad (as it has been lately here) these seem to be more frequent. I'm probably not going to be using their dial up service much longer however. They now offer DSL for my area and I'm going to jump on that ban wagon!
What's more......
Basically, it's not the best dial up out there, but it's not the worst either. I've been pleased with the service I've received. It could have been better, but then again, it always can. And for 13 bucks a month, I'm not complaining. I've had a pretty good service with the company.
***Note, I say it's a "piece of cake to use", but I don't actually have any Bellsouth software, I just made my own dial up connection using the local telephone nubmer, my username and password, so I wouldn't have to download anything or install anything.
I'm not sure about the software, as I've never used it.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 12.95/mo.
Version Number or Year: There's more than one version?
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Epinions.com ID:
geovolt
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Member: Rachel
Location: Rutherford, TN
Reviews written: 29
Trusted by: 21 members
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