Surfnet Communications

Searched for hours for an internet provider for our retirement house on a hillside in SLO County overlooking the Avila Valley. Surfnet was the only provider who could provide service other than satellite providers. Been a customer for a little over a month and am very happy so far! Thanks Surfnet!

My internet sucks. My home phone is through basic talk (through the internet) and calls are staticy. My computer works ok, most of the time, but randomly loses wireless connection requiring me to reboot my wireless motem on a regular basis. We no longer can stream Netflix movies in the peak evening hours because the download speed is so slow. We are were told that we use more than 80GB of data and had to up our service contract (paying almost double). Our Iphones (which we use daily) share 7GB of data and never go over. Also, our AT&T microcell signal booster worked great until we told Surfnet we were using it. Ever since then, AT&T showed that the ports needed to operate the microcell had been closed by Surfnet. Surfnet denied these claims… but, we are still without cell phone reception in our home… after it worked for 6 months solid. We want to switch to something else… and were considering Excede, only to find horrible reviews of that service as well. Everyone keeps telling us the solution is to not live in the woods.

I’ve been with Surfnet since 2009 with very few issues during those years. The tech support is top notch — responsive, supportive, knowledgeable and fast. Every other provider I’ve had, which is most of them, has been either frustrating or an outright disaster by comparison. Lawrence, in particular, who handles the house calls, is fantastic. He knows his stuff and is fast and friendly. Not sure where the other negative reviews are coming from, but my experience remains a definite five-​stars.

I have been a customer since before the official start of service. I have not always been pleased with service… nor were my neighbors. But over time everything has improved greatly. Customer service is rally good now. Outages are rare. Pricing versus other comparable services is about par or better. I was reticent to give 5 stars mainly because they could still use improvement in BW and allotments… but better than most. They have plans for rural fiber coverage which while I applaud the prospect, doubt it will happen given the costs per customer. But I totally support it. If you look at the reviews, you will see that over time they have improved which IMHO reflects the growing improvements over all!

We consistently get a good signal and can always do Netflix instantview. We had some trouble at first, but it was our router. It is worth it to spend the money to get an Apple router. My cousin, visiting from Germany, was impressed that we got a better signal than they did «way out in the woods».

I could not be happier with the guys at Surfnet. I live in a remote location near Boulder Creek, outside the range of cable or DSL. I thought I might be stuck using satellite internet (which would have been awful due to the latency), but Surfnet was able to get me 6 Mbps download and upload speeds (with peaks up to 9 Mbps) by installing a small repeater antenna on the nearby mountain. This was no easy task. Lawrence had to hike up the mountain (very steep with difficult to penetrate vegetation and barely discernible trail) a number of times to haul up heavy equipment and to fine-​tune the antenna location. He is a perfectionist and would not give up until he had found antenna locations that provide a solid high-​bandwidth link.
The end result is a thing of beauty: The antenna on the mountain is powered by a solar panel with battery backup. I get reliable internet that is both much faster and much cheaper than a T1 line.

Just used their new on-​line payment method and it worked great. No more writing checks and looking for an envelope and a stamp. Good job!

Surfnet is an okay broadband provider. The reason they are just okay is not their packages or infrastructure or installation team. Those aspects of their service are fine. There is the occasional outage but I expect that living in the mountains. Plus, they just upgraded everyone’s speed for free. So, all good on that front.
What I don’t like is their customer service. Calling up to report an outage is an imposition for them, you see. Something that, apparently, as a subscriber, I shouldn’t be doing. I always dread calling them because I know I will have to deal with their unprofessional attitude.
However, there is no comparable service excepting Hughes Satellite in my area.

This outfit has been taking people’s money for inferior service for over 10 years now. Even as recently as February 2013, I myself made some performance tests of their fixed wireless infrastructure that shows how badly it performs, especially if you have an alternative like AT&T DSL or Comcast Cable Internet.
Don’t kid yourself. Giving your business to the «local guy» is actually giving your business to some CEO guy who lives in Portland OR. He couldn’t care less what’s happening in Scotts Valley or SLO or Soquel or anywhere else. Years ago I called them on their lousy infrastructure and they complained that they couldn’t afford to upgrade their old crummy equipment.
Realize that all of the networking is done by Sprint, or AT&T, or one of the other big name companies. Little companies like Surfnet just give you the «last mile» or sometimes, they don’t even do that — they just subcontract from the Phone Company to run the service to your house. They provide «customer service» and «tech support» (yes, in «sarcastic quote marks») but really are just one more layer of middleman between you and the actual technology provider.
Why pay for extra middlemen and a smaller, less responsive support staff, providing a technically inferior service? Why, indeed… I have no idea why. Just say no.

I’ve been a customer with Surfnet since spring 2008. At our home in the Soquel hills, Surfnet is the only option for «high speed» Internet.
While Surfnet’s Internet connection is better than dialup, their service leaves a lot to be desired. During the installation for example the Surfnet tech had me lock in on a sub-​optimal direction. A few days later we lost service because the antenna wasn’t pointing directly at Surfnet’s access point.
Initially our Internet connection was symmetrical, ~1Mb up and down. We even upgraded to Surfnet’s 2Mb plan, but have always had trouble attaining sustained 2Mb throughput.
About a year ago our upload speeds took a nosedive. From ~1Mb (half the download speed) to ~0.2Mb. Surfnet blames interference caused by our 802.11n network. Yet we’ve had this network in place well before our upload speeds plummeted. As we live rural, there are no direct neighbors to blame.
A few months later we suddenly lost connection to the access point of the past 2 years. Surfnet scheduled a technician to come out, who arrived 2.5hrs late. His suggestion was to put a larger anttenna in place. The replacement still couldn’t connect to our old access point. We had to connect to a different access point.
The new equipment performs as lousy as the old one. I’ve observed a distinct trend in Surfnet’s quality of service. With the rise in broadband demand due to video and audio streaming, etc. Surfnet’s service has gotten progressively worse. At this point for 90% of the time we can’t get half the download speed we’re paying for. Only in the middle of the night are we able to reach sustained download speeds over 1Mb.
Surfnet’s network is so oversubscribed that they can’t handle the demand during the day. Rather then admitting this, Surfnet’s ammo is to blame their customers. For using peer to peer technologies, which will get you disconnected without warning, even when not infringing copyright. For causing radio interference with Surfnet’s network.
In short, only use as your last resort. Their better than satellite due to the much lower latency, but stay away from them if you have other options. Unfortunately, they have us over a barrel.

Here we are almost a year later. The service is so crowded at times that the ping is 490 ms and the download is 300kbps and up is is in the 20kbps range. The tech support guy blames «bit torrent» but does nothing about it till you complain. His attitude is frequently that of someone over worked, over wrought, under paid, and out of the proper meds. I’m not sure of the reason for the poor service but ALL the neighbors agree.

Hate to say it but the service is lousy. The billing and installation people are great but the tech support guy barely knows what he is talking about. I’ve had the same error occuring for months and when I called for tech support he blamed my router. Then after I moved my computer and connected directly he still blamed the router; which wasn’t plugged in. After a series of turning on and off the computer and the pppoe box the service was finally better. I told him I had done this before and the error kept coming up but he didn’t believe me. Two hours later after I came home from school all I got was the same bloody error. Thanks Guys.