Socket

Wow, they cost just as much as Century Link but without long distance and caller ID. Those «premium» features cost extra. And after working decently for a while, our DSL suddenly slowed down to a crawl. Tech «support» told me it was because I was using Apple products and I should buy a new router from them. Unbelievable. Turns out it was a problem with Socket’s equipment after all. I DO NOT recommend. I went with them because I wanted to stay local. It was a mistake. Luckily I am moving soon to a different community and look forward to canceling my service.

Unacceptable customer service! Our internet was on and off for a month now. Last week it stopped working all together, and we called the customer service. They promised us to fix it within couple of days. It has been 10 days already and the internet is not working. We are calling the company every day, and every day they promise us to come tomorrow.

I signed up for the year of service in August of 2013. It was unstable and cut out intermittently, and as other people here have attested, their customer service is friendly on the phone, but it’s like pulling teeth to get them to actually do anything. After two or three months, I just decided to deal with it.
Anyway, fast forward to two weeks ago when I called to change my service address prior to moving. I was told the service would be up and running by the end of the week (four business days). When that day came and went and the service didn’t work, I called customer service and was told it was «probably» the phone company. They told me they would put in an order and it should be resolved within 24 hours. When it did not work after the allotted 24 hours, I again had to call customer service and was told I needed to take my modem outside and plug it into the phone jack to test the connection. I flat out told them «no, this is why I’m paying you» and forced them to schedule a technician to come out. Of course it was another 4 days before anyone came and when they did, nobody came to the door to explain the situation. To get an explanation, I had to call customer service, who told me again that it’s the phone company. Needless to say, I’m extremely tired of the runaround and rank amateurishness of the company. I wanted to stay local, but this is unacceptable and I’ll be taking my business elsewhere when my contract is up.

Ive lived in Columbia for eight years and have used every internet provider available in town in that time period. Socket is by far the best option for me. Their customer service is excellent. Fast, friendly, knowledgable. I appreciate that they are able to unbundle services. My internet speed is excellent… and they are local.

My girlfriend and I paid $ 450 for the pre-​pay 1-​year contract for Socket’s ‘Naked’ DSL and now, about 7 months in, we have had about 4 months of somewhat decent connectivity. For the last 3 months, the connection has been dropping every few minutes, making the service effectively unusable.
We attempted to ameliorate this several times, and the people I’ve spoken with on the phone have been friendly enough, but it seems like Socket tries its best to avoid dispatching any tech support. (Incidentally, the initial tech that came to our home was surly, rude, and unhelpful.) We were offered several possible solutions, none of which worked (and one of which involved us spending $ 10 bucks on a new phone cord, to find out if a faulty cord was the issue).
Last week I received a call from one of Socket’s people; she informed me that they could see that my connection was still… unstable (i.e. almost unusable). I was told that a tech would appear at my home at some point, and that I wouldn’t need to be there. This begs the question… Why didn’t they send someone out several months ago to take care of this?
Well, this morning I had to do a double-​take at the tech’s work. A pile of ethernet cable, strewn haphazardly across the grass, exposed wire where he spliced the cable, and his empty bag of Doritos, tossed carelessly on my lawn.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I’ve included two of them.
If THESE are the professionals, who do we contact to get something done well?
I really wanted to stick with a local company like Socket, and their prices were roughly $ 15 less per month compared to the big cable company in town. But when you aren’t getting the service you paid for, you aren’t really saving any money at all…

Unless you live downtown Columbia, do NOT sign up for Socket. They won’t tell you that the service is not working if you don’t live within one mile. I live 5 miles from downtown. My speed never ever reached even 1MB, was always about 6−8kb. I tried for a while to see if I could make it anyhow, I really wanted to give my $ to a local service, but no, impossible. I work from home and I need fast connection. My mistake was not calling them the day after service was installed. I waited a few weeks (I was busy, and we all know what it means to make phone calls to services) and asked for a refund. They’re waiving the $ 60 cancellation fee (if you cancel before one month service) but are not giving me a refund, I have to pay for my month of service. They should know that at my address service was not even close to the advertised speed, therefore, for honesty and transparency, they should not offer installation. I went all the trouble to go get the modem, call for a technician to come fix the outside connection because the modem was not getting any signal. I would have saved all this trouble and time — and well, saved $ 40 bucks, because this month I really did not use their services (I was using a friend’s WifI most of the time). I should have been granted a refund for having been mislead. They should not have offered it, not making me responsible for cancelling within 24 hours.