ok, so I haven't had it even 24 hours yet but getting Monkeybrains service at our address represents what I hope to be the end of a 15 year battle for decent internet service in my apartment. I've tried Comcast, AT&T, and Sonic, who are basically the only options where I live. For a while there was a satellite based box thing you just plugged in and put near your window called Clear which worked sort of until Sprint bought it and killed it. Sonic was the best by far in terms of affordability and customer service (AT&T and Comcast will NEVER get my money again, don't even get me started), but, at my address, in an Edwardian building with old wiring and few electrical outlets, their ability to serve has been limited. Fiber is not available at this address. There's nothing else. It has been years of spotty internet service, buffering movies, closing down every app I can think of on my computer and phone, my husband and I bickering over who is stealing all the bandwidth. It is certainly a first world problem but, during the pandemic, a much more pressing first world problem than it used to be when I could escape to the library or a coffee shop to get work done. I first learned about Monkeybrains in 2006 when I moved into the apartment where we still live. It seemed like such a good choice: local ISP, fast speeds, cheap monthly rate. But it required special equipment be installed and that required management permission and my building management company, Lapham, is the literal WORST, and as a veritable kid in my early 20s, I was too intimidated to make the request. Looking back, I cannot believe I waited so long. Now a fully fledged adult and full-time graduate student with a kid trying to do school on Zoom during the pandemic, our Sonic internet was not cutting it. We couldn't both be online at the same time, let alone do simultaneous zoom calls. Internet would just drop in and out throughout the day without any obvious reason. Sonic was kind, they cared, but there was nothing they could do to help. I had the best service I could hope for with the service they could provide --they assured me our 17 Mbps download and 5.5 upstream was totally reasonable for our needs. But I was still being forced to listen to lectures and do my homework after 9pm when my kid was in bed. And was paying $80 a month for a better-than-nothing situation. In September, when my kid started school again, I realized we had to make a change. I reached out to Monkeybrains and found them to be SUPER responsive and helpful about what it would take to bring service to our building. I reached out my neighbors to gauge interest and predictably, I got crickets. Monkeybrains reassured me that they didn't really care how many people signed up for service --all they needed was my interest. I reached out to Lapham who, also predictably, responded to my first email and then ghosted me for the next three months despite repeated pleas. Meanwhile, Monkeybrains continued to try to make contact with Lapham, and responded to all my emails about technical requirements and specifications. But without landlord approval, I couldn't get anywhere. I considered forging signatures on authorization agreements while taking zoom calls on my phone with video off. I finally called the county assessor's office to find out who actually owned my building and got a name and address and, out of pure desperation, wrote a letter. I was able to write a really thorough proposal to them thanks to all the information Monkeybrains had provided to me. Unbelievably, my actual landlord responded and agreed to look into it further. 6 weeks later, I had service installed. Yeah, its a little quirky --you buy your own router, you pay every 3 months. The way I see it, you are usually renting a shitty router from your ISP. This way is better --it pays for itself in no time. Also my new router is TINY and dare I say it, cute? I have always hidden those enormous black towers behind things. This new one can be out in the open without any issue. And the monthly flat rate with Monkeybrains is UNBELIEVABLE. I'm paying less than half what I was paying Sonic now. Who cares if I don't pay it monthly? My install tech Anthony showed up on time, was super kind, installed our service in about 15 minutes, was nice to my cat, and was out the door. And my speeds? For the purpose of writing this review I tested them again on Fast.com and Speedtest.net. On Fast.com, I have 350 Mbps download --which is the max our new router can handle and I am assured is PLENTY for average humans doing work from home life. Speedtest says our download is 359.11 and upload is 43.13. Many many times faster than our old service. And turns out my neighbors are signing up left and right too. Obviously I'm in the honeymoon phase, but based on my experiences so far I can't believe I waited this long to break up with our old crappy ISPs. Do the work, get Monkeybrains at your location! read more

Scheduling during COVID took a little while due to a shortage of hardware required to do the install, but once it was actually set up, it has been fantastic. Neil Sigua is truly a broadband jedi. He's super patient, friendly and goes above and beyond expectations for an ISP install. Would definitely recommend the service to anyone looking for a new internet provider. read more

Victor and Neil installed my Monkey brains internet today and I was very satisfied with their high level of service. Thank you.

Monkeybrains is easily the best ISP I've encountered in the Bay Area. It is less than half as expensive as my prior ISP (Webpass by Google Fiber), but is way, way faster (100 mbps with Webpass vs. 700+ mbps with Monkeybrains). The customer service is also very good. Broadband Jedi Neil Sigua showed up to my apartment on time, and had me up and running in minutes. He did a great job and it was super quick. Thank you Neil and Monkeybrains! read more

When I moved in with my girlfriend, (now wife), she had Comcast internet. That sucked, and after having it go out again and again, I tried AT&T. Oh man... I didn't know anything could be worse than Comcast, but they managed it. TERRIBLE speed, continuous outages, sometimes every 15 minutes, etc. Their customer service consisted of having me listen to 10 minutes of voicemail telling me to unplug my modem and call back... then 10 more minutes of voicemail to have the person tell me they didn't know what the problem was. One last time AT&T and COMCAST SUCKED! So, enter Monkeybrains. I didn't call them before because I thought they weren't in our area. I was wrong. I sent an email and got a return email right away saying that they were upgrading their infrastructure and wouldn't be doing installs for two weeks. One week later, while enduring those AT&T outages every 15 minutes, and waiting for them to come back online, (DID I MENTION THAT AT&T INTERNET SUCKS?) I thought I'd call Monkeybrains and see how they were progressing on their upgrades. To my surprise, they said they would have a guy out the next day! The installer came out, was very nice, extremely efficient and we were up and running in no time. We had a crappy antique G modem in the basement and the speeds were three times what AT&T were. I just bought a N modem and the speeds are great. 15 Mbps down and 13 Mbps up . (and we're running a babycam on the modem as well) That's compared to 3 Mbps down and under 1 Mbps up for AT&T. The prices are great, they charge for install and make up for it by giving you free internet. Monkeybrains Rocks! read more

Monkeybrains - This just rocks - Internet Service Providers Near Me - San Francisco, California

In January of 2012 we bid adieu to the beast that is Comcast and signed up for MonkeyBrains. We've never looked back. Can't believe I haven't written a review since I've been reviewing away on their high speed connection ever since. Sign up was super low key, just a simple email to relay the slope of our roof and whether we'd obtained landlord permission to put up antenna. The installation fee more than pays for itself when you start paying $35 a month for internet and you just chuckle when your friends relay what they shell out for the craptastic service that is Comcast. Plus I kinda love the small biz feel of using paypal for recurring billing. Worried about a small mom and pop and what kind of service you get? Don't be. These folks are ON TOP of any issues (i.e. immediate twitter replies when something is amiss, and real time tweets with any service outages or planned work). Case in point, today our internet wasn't working and my husband sent them a tweet. Soon after, he got a phone call where someone diagnosed the problem and (Comcast customers, don't faint from shock when I tell you this) a technician was at our door in 20 minutes. Fast forward to Devin on the roof, in the fricken rain, fixing the problem (apparently our install included a defective wire that had actually been recalled). He replaced the faulty wire and even went back out there a second time to make sure everything was perfect. Above and Beyond. Give Comcast the boot and go with the little guy. You won't regret it. read more

This is a delayed review, but better late than never. I've been using monkeybrains for over a year now and really happy with their service. There have been occasional downtime for a few minutes, which was quickly and automatically corrected. Friendly and responsive customer service (had to call them when I moved residences). Also a shoutout to Neil Sigua for seamlessly transferring the service when I moved. He was quick and professional. read more

Huge shoutout to Andy who helped do our installation! The whole process was very quick & easy and the internet speeds are rock-solid for a price that's far more reasonable than Comcast. read more

MonkeyBrains does not actually offer any customer support. They say they do, but that's not right. Good luck!

WORSE THAN COMCAST! When it works it works well. But I've had to deal with them more times than I can count for slow speeds, downloads as low as 1MPS, long service outages that require multiple phone calls, emails, open tickets and technician visits on site. And service interruptions in the middle of business conference calls on zoom. Each time I called, It's like a new day with a whole new set of expectations and explanations. They identify one problem pat themselves on the back, tell me it's fixed and another problem arises days or hours later. No one seems to want to take the initiative to look at all the possible problems, troubleshoot them, and come up with a comprehensive plan to ensure that I (and my neighbors) get the reliable service that we were promised. read more

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Monkeybrains is the best! I recently moved and was thrilled to find that they also serviced my new place. Aaron showed up right on time, and was flexible with my schedule that shifted because of rainy weather. He got me up and running quickly, and even installed a new plug to ensure that my service would keep running smoothly. Love them! read more

Neil was awesome. It took him about 20min to set things up. He was professional and pleasant. Explained everything to me. I'm so pleased to be a monkeybrains customer. Thank you Neil. read more

Matthew and Isaiah were my installers today. They texted to ask if I was available for an earlier appointment. Why, yes, I am! They arrived quickly, were polite, helpful, and efficient. In such a short amount of time, I was able to get my new network up and running. Thanks guys! read more

THANK YOU RONNIE KIM You installed our wifi but more importantly, you taught us all about the way the Monkey Brain system works throughout our building. You have demystified the internet for us! read more

The service is affordable, but Monkeybrains is ridiculously unreliable. I've had issues with my internet pretty much every single day, sometimes lasting for over an hour in the middle of the work day. Cheaper prices don't mean much if you can't actually use the internet when you need to. At first I thought it was my router, but after replacing it with a much nicer one and testing the service it's pretty clear that wasn't the issue and that my internet is just trash read more

Neil Sigua should get a pay raise. Awesome service and patiently figured out my 19th century house to the 21st century. Thank you MonkeyBrains read more

Update: Although we had our issues with installation and service response time in the beginning, I have to say that we have been VERY happy with the speed of Monkeybrains internet. MUCH better than other services we had prior. read more

Monkeybrains is amazing! I've been a residential customer for 2.5yrs now and have been very happy with the service provided. We had a small disruption in service this week and I was very pleased with how this was handled. I called to report and we spoke with a REAL LIVE HUMAN! Carlos was super helpful, explained the issue to us, how it would be resolved and some extra steps they were taking to prevent it from happening again. We were back up and running in no time. It was really nice to speak to the same person throughout the process. I felt like someone actually cared to help us! They sent a technician out to confirm everything (Thanks, Ari!!) and we're good to go. I don't know why you would go anywhere else. Internet performance has been great, they are a fraction of the cost of the big companies, they're local and they take care of their customers. read more

We made the switch from Webpass(1000 Mbps) to Monkeybrains. Monkeybrains has a lower monthly cost and I didn't notice any change with speed and latency. I called Monkeybrains support number and got a tech scheduled my place to enable the service the next day. Neil Sigua was our tech and he was friendly and helpful. Happy so far with the switch. read more

Just had Bill and Patrick run Monkeybrains into my apartment..I was super pleased on how courteous, knowledgeable, respectful these gentlemen were. This is no Comcast folks! The new standard in ISP's! Would highly recommend Monkeybrains..Super fast! Affordable! Thanks again guys! Mission St..Excelsior GG read more

As soon as I heard that Monkeybrains was moving into my building I reached out and gave them a call. They immediately set up and appointment, and at $35 bucks for 100up with no contract I was sold. I immediately called Comcast and cancelled their BS service that I was paying $60/month for ~45-50up. Unfortunately the day of the install my driver's car broke down twice so they were late to the appointment by two hours, and then they couldn't get the switch set up properly so we had to reschedule - which is next to impossible with my work schedule. I honestly wouldn't say their customer service over the phone from the office is the best. They were unresponsive at first and it created a lot of stress for me as I was worried my Comcast cancellation would cause me to be without internet for a week, which would negatively effect my business and personal life. I'm a pretty understanding person, and realize that this is a local ISP with a smaller staff, and eventually we got a reschedule and everything was installed a week later within 45 minutes on the scheduled day. Neil Sigua was the technician that helped me successfully install - he was fast and courteous and my internet speed ended up being 327.99 up and 189.46 down - a thousand times better than Comcast for half the price with zero contract. I'd really suggest you get Monkeybrains if you're willing to be patient for install times. The connection is worth it. Thanks again to Neil! read more

This company had really helped us with our internet speed at our medical office in San Francisco. Highly recommend

Just talked to a representative over the phone and she was absolutely rude and impatient. I'll have to keep the service with them because my Biulding is already set up with them and I need Wi-Fi to work. Hope them can train better their employees. Be nice on the phone shouldn't be so difficult. read more

Less than half the price of Xfinity and over 4 times faster. What's not to like!! The installation was a breeze. Neil and Efrain were knowledgeable and professional - I pretty much just opened the door and let them do their work. The installation took about an hour and afterwards, I just plugged in the router and voila, internet is back. Called evil Xfinity right after and canceled lol. It's been about a week and haven't experienced any drop in connection. Thank you Monkeybrains! read more

The installer called beforeahand once to confirm the time slot and again when en route. Everything went smoothly, and he was very courteous to my family and professional. The actual internet service is great! I was previously paying more for Comcast (and higher "speeds"), and Monkeybrains is more than fast enough for all of our use (we're big streamers after dumping Comcast TV). Yes, the Comcast service had a higher rating (300mbps) than the minimum that Monkeybrains guaranteed (100mbps) but the MB speed in my apartment was actually 250 mbps. They don't charge more above whatever you pay for which is nice. After swapping to MB, we noticed that Playstation Vue and Amazon Videos were not stuttering like they were on Comcast. Everything was nice and smooth on MB. This leads me to believe that Comcast had congestion issues or was throttling the traffic (probably both) since Comcast views OTT streaming as threats to its cable TV service. Monkeybrains also traffic peers with other local businesses at SFMIX in San Franciscon (keeping traffic local and fast). Neither Sonic nor Comcast do that. Great service that I highly recommend! (My installation was in December 2018 and I waited a few months to review). read more

I'm an old guy who's father practically invented the modem. Yeah, that's right, Al Gore couldn't even invent the internet until my dad was finished with his project. For real. They put his equipment in an Air Craft Carrier because that was the only ship big enough to carry the computer and pop's gear that let the planes' and ships' electrical equipment talk to each other...... in the 50's.... So when I say I've had the "internet" for a long time, it means there was a dial-up 14.4k modem connected to that HP-86 that showed up at my house in 1980 (the first "useful" home computer my father says). So, when I say that I've had just about every type of internet connection at a consumer priced level, I'm pretty sure I'm not making it up. I'm also pretty sure I could fill the trunk of Galaxie 500 with all the obsolete equipment I've used over the years- a museum of modems, per se. Anyway, my office on Mission Street was looking for a better solution to the ultra slow ADSL ATT offers and Comcrap doesn't even offer cable service on my block (I mean, WTF Comcrap? Right in the middle of the biggest Tech Boom SF has seen, and no cables on Mission Street?) So when we went looking for alternative internet service and got hooked up with Monkey Brains, you wouldn't believe what happened... Our internet has been the most stable and fastest connection I've ever personally been a part of. Sure you kids who spend your time in a high-rise working for a multi-billion dollar company that sells zeros and ones might get some sort of equivalent of a constant lightning strike feeding information into your building, but let's face it, that's for people who need that kind of connection. Us, we use it mostly to back up our small servers every night and general office use. The symmetric speeds are nice for getting the upload job done before the sun comes up and great for downloading those 300 MB files from the internets. Click- boom- it's like that 300 megabytes were on my hard drive. Now, I don't pay the bill, but I use the crap out of the service, so I won't comment on price, but let me tell you, from someone who's had many, many internet service providers, Monkey Brains BY FAR, has been the most reliable and most fastest service I've had the pleasure of using. Get Monkey Brains. read more

I have been a customer of Monkey Brain since 2019, I love the service and the people who work there. I just start a new account and again I had a great support from the company, and Adam did a great job installing the new service and helping me testing my new account. Highly recommended!!! read more

So happy to be back on a local ISP after years in a building with only Comcast Neil Sigua made quick work of my install and was friendly, polite, and professional throughout! read more

Monkeybrains - Speed showing on my Eero router - Internet Service Providers Near Me - San Francisco, California

Easy fast set up! Neil Sigua was very helpful. We are pleased!

Like so many others, I came to MonkeyBrains when Comcast was raising prices quietly and not being very Comcastic. For $35/mo we received internet that was over 5 times faster than Comcast at $60+/month. Although there was one brief outage in the 2 years we were customers, overall it was awesome. I wish we could have MonkeyBrains at our new place. read more

So these guys bought our local provider, common networks, which had been great and we had never had an issue. Within a week of this happening our internet went down. For a WHOLE day. And not just once, but so far at least three times. In fact I am writing this from a coffee shop because our service went down around 2:00 yesterday... and here we are, 24 hours later and its STILL down. In all my years of internet service this is the single worst experience I've had, and that even includes the early days when everything was still weird and based in dialup. Service has been non-existent. Despite leaving repeated message for each outage, no response has been given. My guess is that they bought Common and had no clue how to work with its technology. Needless to say we are absolutely dumping them for someone else. I am more than willing to give a company a chance but this is about the worst case of a customer experience I can think of. read more

Our antennae was really out of date and began to fail earlier this week. Service was really busy so took a couple days to schedule a technician, but Matthew came and quickly replaced with newer technology and we're now getting much better speeds than ever before. There is no better deal in Internet than MB, great that it's local, and totally workable for zoom and streaming heavy use! read more

Monkey Brains is wonderful and Mathew who came out to do some wind related repairs was really great. Called to see if he could come earlier (fabulous!)) and could not have been nicer and more careful. Great employee. read more

anthony and ronnie came to set up my service. they were very efficient and friendly; answering any questions i had and installing the wiring config in a way that would be most convenient for me. would definitely recommend! read more

IK would 100% recommend Monkeybrains if you need internet instillation. Isiah came over to help install the internet at my new place and he was very friendly and helpful! If you're moving to SF, be sure to get Monkeybrains. read more

If you all refer to the time of the reviews, the 5 star ratings are all new customers. That's because they haven't had their first outrage yet!!! I am with monkey brains and all our neighbors have been without internet for several hours to a day every week to every other week!!!!!!! I work from home so I either can't meet my deadline, or it always look like I disappeared on my zoom mtg then nowhere to be found. What kind of century is this to be having outrage every week and every time lasts almost a day? Good luck if it's after office hours cuz they won't bother answering any inquiries until the next day before they call up anyone to look at the problem. read more

This is the second time with them. Both times my Wi-Fi went out. There is no tech support because they only work 9-5. First time shame on them. Second time shame on me. read more

We will be dropping Monkeybrains residential ISP service today and shifting to one of the big providers. When Monkeybrains took over for Common as ISP for Alameda/San Leandro customers in fall 2020, we were hopeful they would continue Common's good service, but since their take-over, internet speed has been slow, unreliable and inconsistent, and Monkeybrains' customer service is non-existent and equally terrible. After several months, they have not progressed at all and it appears they are now in a death spiral. After many months of inaction, their service may still don't even display Alameda or San Leandro but simply says "Coming soon!" Frequent outages from several hours to the entire day are not uncommon, including three examples in the last month. Monkeybrains never advises that there is a problem, and any explanations after service is restored are cryptic and unhelpful. Not once have they offered a partial refund for service outages either. Their Twitter feed is a joke. Instead of providing useful info and updates regarding outages or technical issues, Monkeybrains would rather share recipes for preparing sardines, the vaccination status of their workers, and re-hashed social justice posts. I have no problem with a company sharing their political positions if they only did well at job #1 - providing reliable internet service and excellent customer support - which they fail to do. read more

So far so good (2 days). Special shoutout to Neil for the easy setup

We had some outages last week and everyone at monkey brains was immediately responsive and incredibly helpful. Will (who was at the customer service tech line) did an immediate fix and then followed up by monitoring the service over 24 hours and sending out a field tech. The field tech Matthew was prompt and friendly and made everything work perfectly (on a Saturday no less). Some of the best customer service I have ever experienced. read more