Review of Bay Area Internet SolutionsAll reviews of |
|
»next review in page
I will not use the names of the people that acted unprofessionally as this is not personal. It is merely a review of a company that one should think seriously about entrusting with their servers. The relationship started off as most do with the signing of a yearlong contract with BAIS that was fairly standard though slightly more expensive than other options. We went with BAIS because they were in close proximity to our offices and we wanted to be able to get to the computers if we had to. Two months into the relationship our servers went down completely. We started calling Bay Area Internet Solutions (BAIS) trying desperately to get someone on the phone as it was after hours. We finally did get to a human in a reasonable timeframe and he informed us that it appears someone ‘kicked the power cord for our rack out of the outlet’. He plugged it in and we were back up and running. It turned out we were down for about 19 hours which is at least in part our fault as we did not have the proper alert mechanisms in place to tell us when the server goes down. Having said that, someone kicked the plug out of the outlet? What kind of operation is setup for that to happen? Several months later we received our usual bill with a $2,000 bandwidth overage charge. This caused a frantic search for an explanation for the problem as our logs didn’t match their numbers. Guy (not his real name) was pretty clear that he didn’t know why the bandwidth increased but the problem is ours (though he would be happy to look into it at $125/hour) and ominously warned we better up our monthly bandwidth if we don’t want more charges in the future. Desperate to avoid additional charges we upped our monthly bandwidth and quickly took all video off our site and started having YouTube serve our video. We also began monitoring the traffic (something we never had to do in the past because we never got near our maximum in the past). The problem didn’t go away and eventually we discovered after more and more searching on our side that each and every one of our servers had been setup with FTP ports open and anonymous login allowed. As a result we got port scanned and a bunch of gamers started using our bandwidth for their purposes. Since we never opened the FTP ports, never thought they would be installed wide open like that and never had a problem in the past we never thought to look there. We closed the FTP ports but were then sitting on a plan allowing 6Mbps of data with an average usage level that is a small fraction of that. As one would guess we contacted BAIS and said that we would like to have our monthly bandwidth lowered to the original level since the hole that they left wide open on the initial setup was now closed. Guy’s response was, “Too bad. You can go up in bandwidth but you can’t go down”. I tried to explain that the only reason we went up in bandwidth was the open FTP port that BAIS left open on initial setup. Guy had no sympathy whatsoever and was even a bit rude about it all. I asked to be elevated to his supervisor and got fairly high up in the organization. I explained that we are willing to accept the overage charge as our responsibility and weren’t interested in seeing BAIS lose any money on this deal, though I would hope to be charged at least standard rates not overage rates as they were doing. I also asked that our monthly bandwidth be lowered to its original level. Much to my satisfaction the manager wrote back and said: “In consideration of your companies good standing with BAIS we are willing to drop your bandwidth commitment back down next month. Please respond to this email with a note stating what bandwidth level you would like to commit too and Guy will send you over a new service order replacing the six megabits you are currently committed too. Hope this helps.” I then received an email from Guy saying: “Attached is the downgrade to 1Mbps starting 6/1/08, along with the renewal and contract for your account to start 8/1/08 per Manager. We would need all documents returned to apply the downgrade back to June 1st.” Clearly the downgrade was being used to extract another year contract from us. At this point I gave up realizing I was dealing with disingenuous people that are willing to bait and switch on their written word. We simply rode out the rest of the contract and moved to Rackspace which provided better computers, fanatical support and better bandwidth for 37% less than we were paying BAIS. In the end we got charged a lot of money for an overage that was at least in part the result of lax server setup procedures. We were then pushed to sign up to a much higher level of service that we didn’t actually need. When the error was discovered they refused to let us return to our original contract terms unless we signed on for another year. As I mentioned in the beginning of this review this was the worst and most dishonest vendor relationship I have ever had. BAIS earned literally thousands of dollars off of us for services we never used. If you want an honest and competent internet service provider do not go to Bay Area Internet Solutions (BAIS) under any circumstances. There are too many other choices available. Followup comments:
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
»next review in page (previous review)
I have been very pleased with their level of professionalism and quality of technical support. Although I now live on the East Coast, I still keep my domain hosting with them. My only disappointment was that at one point I was looking for a managed VPN solution between multiple locations and they were not able to provide a solution. Other than that, I highly recommend BAIS. Followup comments:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
»next review in page (previous review)
I soon began the process of dropping earthlink (which wasnt easy and took many wasted hours on the phone...) and looked up bayarea.net to sign up. Their contract was a little intimidating at first, but I worked it out eventually, and am now finally back online. The only downside was it took 2 weeks of downtime for them to get everything worked out. That's not such a big problem though, concidering how helpfull they were and how perfect my connection turned out to be. I'm a satisfied customer, and an extremely happy ex earthink user. Followup comments:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
»next review in page (previous review)
I recently moved, and they transferred my service seamlessly. No extra charges for terminating my contract at one location and transferring. Very professional. Most communication handled through e-mail; BAIS has always been very quick to respond. PACBELL took longer than I would have liked to transfer service (10 days). However it was turned on 2 days prior to the promised date. BAIS made sure the order was placed on time and took care of all the details. Their preformance has been awesome. They are a little more pricey than most, but frankly you get what you pay for. I highly recomment them. Followup comments:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
»next review in page (previous review)
PacBell was on site twice due to their difficulty converting ISDN to ADSL. Alcatel 1000 ADSL bridge, static IP. After noticing a drop in price for new users sometime later ($30 vs. $60), I called Bayarea.net. They apologized for the 'overcharge' and credited my account, resulting in three months of free/credited service. At the same time I asked about upgrading service (keep the same bill rate, double the speed). Bayarea advised me to NOT upgrade to 768 kbps, that it would result in minimal performance improvement (at double the cost). Download tests from dslreports.com, toast.net and others show performance consistantly exceeding 1,000 kbps. Typical ftp downloads are 170-180 KB/sec, which is equivalent to T1. I can live with that. For $30/month (ISP automatic billing), having a static IP address, a shell account, dialup access, web mail, web site, ftp site, and download speeds that well exceed 300% of purchased bandwidth, noone can touch bayarea.net Support issues have always been addressed by a live person within 24 hours, and usually within 4 hours. Bayarea.net is like the perfect beach. You want to tell your friends about it, but you don't want everyone to visit your special place. I encourage the masses to get cable modem service. In theory, they get 30MB/s download. Yeah, right. A shell account with NetBSD is not for everybody, and I don't want everybody on my beach, I mean ISP. Customer Satisfaction = 120% Followup comments:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
»next review in page (previous review)
The only snag was the communication between Pacbell and BayArea. This was almost entirely Pacbell's fault. I have several static IPs, DSL modem. Followup comments:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
»next review in page (previous review)
Static IP. Ordered speed: 768/384. Getting constant speed of 650. They say that this is because of Covad. Monthly price: $99 The order/installation process was fine. Home equipment: External Modem: SpeedStream 5250. Receiving this service since September 1999. In the 15 months that I get the service there were no fails in service (Except twice that I only had to restart the modem). I will change ISP soon, as I find Bay Area Solutions too expensive. I think that today, new subscribers get more speed for the same price. Maor Followup comments:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| »next review in page (previous review) Followup comments:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bay Area Internet Solutions
Petaluma,Sonoma,CA
Business customer
$2000 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
"None"
"Careless and Disingenuous"
"I was baited and switched"
SBC