Note:
Telocity is now called "DirectTV DSL"

My friend has a small business with 3 employees and they use the Internet all the time. Connectivity is as necessary as electricity in their offices. When they moved into their current location, they got Telocity ADSL. I have been there numerous times, e.g. to install hardware and firewall software.

Things worked sort of ok when I was there in February except for weekly outages, lasting a few hours each.

In the past Telocity used Northpoint, my friend explained me today. As far as I recollect, Northpoint went bankrupt and Telocity had to look for a new provider (they chose PacBell).

Here are my friend's complaints:

- During the period of no-service-availability, she was promised not to be billed for these weeks. It turned out that she was billed the full amount.

- Upon calling customer service, she was promised a quick refund. The refund took Telocity 3 weeks, and they kept a $10 fee.

- Right now they wait for Telocity DSL service to be available again. Roadrunner cable modem is not available in that part of San Diego. Telocity's promise: "Our service will be available real soon". That was 6 weeks ago.

- During these 6 weeks, my friend had two appointments with a technician, each of them over the typical 4-hour interval. ("The technician will come between 8am and 12pm".)
No technician showed up on either of the two appointments.
Yes, they stood her up both times.

- When she called customer service, she was informed that the second order (appointment) had not been filed completely.

My friend's employees work out of their homes now, using residential cable modem service (RoadRunner, @home). Telocity seems to be unable to do anything.
She considers getting that wireless ISP service which is offered for greater San Diego at $45 / month. She'd have to equip each employee with it separately since the bandwidth is only 1/10 of ADSL. There's also the risk that the wireless receiver won't work in the offices - my cell phone doesn't work there either. But without connectivity the office is used for meetings only (8 weeks now, she tells me right now).

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 49.95/ month
Version Number or Year: -