These are reviews of Instaconnect from 2009. For more current reviews, visit the entry.
2009-02-04 22:52:48 I'm sorry, I have got to agree with the majority here, Instaconnect seriously SUCKS ASS. I live in campus manor apartments across the street from campus, and pretty much everyday, I after I log into my account, I ALWAYS have to see some "internal error" page when I try to view any other webpage. And most of the time, if I click on a different url, it finally works. But every week or so, it just DOES NOT WORK, and I need to go online to do my work. This is especially frustrating around finals week, when I need to access crucial information (study guides, lecture slides, practice exams, etc) in order to do well. Fortunately, there is always moobilenet that I can turn to when this happens, but the campus internet is extremely slow from my apartment, so alot of the time, I am unable to download the larger pdf files that I so desperately need.
On the plus side, when the internet actually works, its pretty fast.
Update: So, In the past two weeks, instaconnect has failed me...TWICE. It was down the entire weekend two weekends ago, and now it is down again. I called the company and asked them if they were aware of the problem and they said they were and that some technician would be out shortly to fix it. Well, it has been nearly 24 hours since it has been down, and the problem has not been fixed. What is the definition of shortly?? For sure within 24 hours right? I need to get online to get notes and other research to do my studying, but I cant do that very simple thing in my very own apartment. —jfong252
2009-04-21 22:23:16 I have to agree with the majority here. We have Instaconnect El Macero Village and it is terribly SLOW... when it actually works. It has a tendency to (commonly) go down on Friday nights and the office isn't open on weekends. I've always been put on hold for over ten minutes whenever I call for the customer service rep to just say "We'll put your name on the call list and get back to you when it's working." It's extremely unreliable! —CParker
2009-04-22 17:37:20 Instaconnect is one VERY small step above dial-up. And I emphasize the word very and small. —patrick82
2009-05-03 15:59:26 Horrible. Awful. Terrible. Words like these are not strong enough to convey the universe of frustration that is Instaconnect.
The internet stops working at random times, maybe for 5 minutes, maybe over the weekend, maybe when you have to submit an essay online. Or it might be horribly slow, and frequently stop halfway while loading a page. Want to check the weather forecast for later tonight? By the time you can get to Davis on weather.com, you may as well just look out your window, because it will already be 'later tonight'.
Oh, and it's always exciting when you open the internet and their log-in page pops up randomly. Enter your password and see if it will let you go to your normal homepage, or stick you in the endless cycle of logging in, clicking "view requested page" and going back to the login page.
If you're sick of doing things online in a timely fashion, sign up for Instaconnect. If you only need functional internet a few days out of the week, sign up for Instaconnect, as long as you don't care which days. BUT if you actually have stuff to do, and expect to get the reliable, functioning service that you are PAYING for, take your money elsewhere.
2009-10-05 10:20:23 John Reedy is the slimiest owner imaginable. Do not let InstaConnect have your credit card number! They continued to charge my account after I had cancelled the service and deployed to Iraq without access or knowledge of the charges. Lie after lie to my face and months and months of calling and leaving messages I have given up on the promised refund. This is no business! This is a racket for defrauding Davis students —reidgardner
I have Instaconnect at Greenbriar Apartments. Their service is really spotty, and not exactly impressive as far as speed goes. The thing that annoys me the most is that when you call them (oh, and I have called them on average once a week about the internet being down) you only ever get an answering machine. I would like to at least ask them how long the internet is going to be down, how long before they can fix it. But you can't ask questions of an answering machine. I would like to know if I need to go all the way back to campus to be able to do my homework (that I need the internet to do) that is due the next day, or if it is magically going to turn itself back on, like it usually does after a few hours of frustration. My goodness, are they so cheap that they can't hire a receptionist -a la Pam from "The Office"- for minimum wage to answer the phones and relay their non-existent repair plans to the poor saps that are shelling out money for their shoddy so-called internet service? — borax
2009-12-31 18:35:27 We have this "internet service provider" at the Viking and it does not work consistently. We will often not have internet for entire days. Even if you get instaconnect for free I highly recommend that you pay for your own service; that is what we are planning to do.
Instaconnect often has plenty of signal yet you will either not be able to connect or if you do connect you will not have internet access. Often times you will be able to sign into a service like MSN messenger before the internet dies and remain able to chat a long as you don't sign out. The internet is fine, instaconnect just doesn't let you use it for any new activity which hasn't already been initiated. During this time you will not be able to load any webpages. It's as if instaconnect arbitrarily blocks it's users for giant chunks of time as a cruel joke (even during times when bandwidth should not be an issue, ie at 3:30 in the morning).
Instaconnect is not a legitamite ISP, but rather a con to take your money. Like a Ponzi scheme, they will supply a small amount of service intermittently to keep the scam going. Don't be fooled—don't give your hard-earned money to instaconnect. —ColinDoyle
