I have a personal policy of trying to spend my money in Rhode Island whenever I can. I've twice tried with FullChannel but they just aren't up to the job.
The first time, many years ago, was an out and out disaster. You could tell when children were arriving home from school in the neighborhood by FullChannel's performance. The kids would all start streaming whatever it is they stream -- or maybe they'd all watch cable channels -- and the Internet would go out at the same time every day. We had one FullChannel technician after another come out for a service call. They would claim to know what the problem was, would make some fix, and then would take ample time to criticize the work of the technician who'd been out before them. The problem was never solved. I left and went with Verizon. (I'm only mentioning this now because, near the end of my time with them, I received a call from Linda M., the president. She asked me in an accusatory tone of voice, "Is there some problem?". I was busy at that particular moment with work, and I was already canceling my account, so I told her "No." I've always regretted that, because, as the owner of the company, she really did need to hear what her staff were doing.)
About a year ago, my provider, Cox, raised my rates quite a bit. When I called them on it, they re-packaged everything and got me back to my former rate but the experience annoyed me to the point of wanting to leave. At my new house, Verizon FIOS is not available, so I called FullChannel. I was happy to save about $25 per month over Cox for the same service.
Things were ~ok~ but there were some annoying aspects to FullChannel's service. First, they experience network outages far more frequently than you'd guess. I have an older security system in my home that has a feature that contacts the police in the event the phone lines are cut. This made sense 25 years ago but, in this day and age of cell phones, it's a pointless feature. All the same, FullChannel's phone service goes down every 2-3 weeks, normally about 3 in the morning and my alarm system would contact the Bristol Police because it appeared to the alarm that the phone line was cut. I don't know what I would have done if I had had to actually use the phone in the event of an emergency. As it was, it got awful answering the door for the police, so I disabled that feature from my alarm system.
In April, apparently at the end of my first year with FullChannel, my rates went up by 20% (approx $40). I called and asked why and was told that they would requote it to get it back down. I was also told not to pay the additional $40, but to pay a specific amount less than that. A few weeks later, just after the end of my billing cycle, my service was cut out with no notice because the $40 was never credited and thus was considered unpaid by FullChannel's accounting dept. I called and was infuriated to learn that a human processor actually cut my service (versus happening automatically by software). My service was restored and the amount credited.
Shortly after this, all of my service went out. I called them by cell phone and was told that there were no network issues reported but that my location was definitely offline. They then checked and said there was no work being performed in the area, but they would send one of their trucks as soon as possible to come restore the connection to my house. I hung up, walked to a different room .... and saw a FullChannel truck immediately across the street from our house. The technician working on someone else's house had taken us offline without realizing. So much for there being no trucks in the area.
Recently, beginning on the 29th of June, 2017, the Internet, Phone, and Cable connections have all started going out at least once per day. (Last night it went out at 10pm, this morning it was out at 6:30am, and I fully expect it to go out around 5pm today, which has been the pattern for the past 2 weeks.) I have called FullChannel's "tech support" and I'm normally shunted to some call center who cheerily tell me that there are no network issues reported. Sometimes they say "There is a network slowdown in your area" and I just as cheerily inform them that "zero" is not a slowdown, it's an outage.
During these calls, the phone service often drops because it's also dependent on the same signal. I have been castigated by the tech support people for calling in on my FullChannel phone line when I know there are network issues. I VERY MUCH RESENT being lectured for actually using a service for which I pay FullChannel good money.
I've had enough of these guys. Again, my inclination is to want to spend my money in Rhode Island but FullChannel just doesn't perform. I'm going back to Cox. Oh, by the way, Cox is now $30 per month cheaper, comes with more services and channels, and I had never had an issue with Cox's network.
Sorry guys, I pay you almost $2,500 per year.for my service and all I wanted was some reliability. read more
