- Report: #998404
Complaint Review: Broadstar - Williamstown New Jersey
Reported By:
GablesTenant -
Gainesville, Florida, United States of America
Submitted:
Updated:
-
Author Not Confirmed
Why?
Broadstar
1809 N Blackhorse Pike B3, Williamstown, 08094 New Jersey, United States of America
Phone:
856-513-2113
Web:
www.broadstar.com
Categories:
Business Rating:
(0)
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Broadstar, Broadstar Holding LLP - HORRIBLE service in The Gables, Gainesville, FL - Company in Williamstown, New Jersey
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This company was brought in last summer to save the HOA a few thousand dollars. It was not worth it.
First of all, the services this company provides aren't nearly as good as (((competitor's name redacted))). (((redacted))) has local offices and technicians who were professional and courteous. The cable services didn't have as many HD channel offerings, but the services were always up, regardless of weather. The receivers were the latest and greatest technology, very responsive and full of features. The OnDemand was great, with lists of free shows and movies available. The internet, while a little more expensive, was capable of up to 50 Mbps for those who wanted it. Overall, the service was great.
Broadstar is a Dish reseller and Internet provider. This means they came in and setup 2 dishes and use these dishes to provide satellite cable to every tenant in the complex. If I were Dish, I would be ashamed of the bad name this company is giving them and fire them. They laid their own fiber for internet, probably connecting to the same fiber at the head of the neighborhood that (((redacted))) uses. The maximum speed they sell is 12 Mbps. Surely, the fiber is capable of more. Overall, the service is poor.
Physical Installation/Equipment
First of all, the services this company provides aren't nearly as good as (((competitor's name redacted))). (((redacted))) has local offices and technicians who were professional and courteous. The cable services didn't have as many HD channel offerings, but the services were always up, regardless of weather. The receivers were the latest and greatest technology, very responsive and full of features. The OnDemand was great, with lists of free shows and movies available. The internet, while a little more expensive, was capable of up to 50 Mbps for those who wanted it. Overall, the service was great.
Broadstar is a Dish reseller and Internet provider. This means they came in and setup 2 dishes and use these dishes to provide satellite cable to every tenant in the complex. If I were Dish, I would be ashamed of the bad name this company is giving them and fire them. They laid their own fiber for internet, probably connecting to the same fiber at the head of the neighborhood that (((redacted))) uses. The maximum speed they sell is 12 Mbps. Surely, the fiber is capable of more. Overall, the service is poor.
Physical Installation/Equipment
- Physical installation crew (laying fiber) were some scary looking and acting people. The switch to a new company wasn't communicated with the existing company, which resulted in verbal confrontations between (((redacted))) and Broadstar technicians.
- Installation crew who installed boxes for $35 were unprofessional, in and out in 10 minutes, complained about even having to do the installations while here, didn't test anything, and didn't even bother to inform us that we should connect our box to the router (requires physical connection, not wireless) in order to get on demand or PPV services. They left without ensuring HD was working, which resulted in several days of waiting for HD service.
- Physical installation of fiber and cable lines was reportedly a "horrible job" by their own admission.
- The receivers are slow to respond and load channels, don't have a clock on the front, and stay hot even when they are off, which is a waste of electricity.
Customer Service
sorry, allowing you to give a competitors name would instigate others to just file against their competition, to only come back later to suggest their company, ..plus, if you post a competitors name more than likely they will show up on search engines as a Rip-off! - - your comments on this policy are welcome. CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report. In this case we removed an alleged competitors name - They rarely answer, even during normal business hours. When you leave a message, they call back about half of the time. If you want someone on the phone, call the sales department. You'll get someone.
- Local technician (Bruce) is very helpful and works very hard to fix problems, but is only capable of doing what he can do with the equipment here.
- They will apply credits for service outages and problems, but they act like they are doing you a favor when you ask for it.
- Billing is inconsistent. The bill is always different.
- Online billing software/account management: I personally identified a flaw in the software that allowed anyone to simply spoof the URL and change the Account Number and access other user accounts. This includes credit card number, billing address and expiration date. Now, they did fix this within a few days. However, I'm sure the security flaw was present for quite a time. You might want to check your accounts to make sure Nigeria or Russia aren't spending your money. I immediately requested via email that my credit card info be removed, but they never responded nor did they remove it. And I couldn't remove it via the web interface.
Cable Internet
- 12 Mbps is the maximum offering, which is sad for those of us who want to and are willing to pay for faster speeds.
- Speed is fairly consistent at 11.5 Mbps, but drops to about 7 Mbps during peak evening hours. While manageable, this is not optimal when living in a metropolitan area in 2013 USA. When you have a smart TV, Apple TV, multiple smart phones, gaming consoles, laptops and visitors with laptops and smartphones, the speed is pushed to the limit pretty quickly.
- The internet does not go down, as far as I know.
- The internet is rate-limited. They are not transparent in their service offering. When web-browsing, the speed is indeed 12 Mbps. However, if you are a techy and want to stream movies over Netflix, Youtube, AppleTV, or use P2P file-sharing, the speed is rate-limited and actually only about 1.5 Mbps. You have to contact customer service to have this limitation removed. Rate-limiting can be proven by running a Glasnost test from your browser.
Cable TV
- 2 dishes on property serve all 164 tenants with "boosters"
- Local HD channel quality is poor
- Channels appear and disappear from menu repeatedly
- Over 25 channels listed as being provided in HD are not
- Daily or ever few days "Partial Signal Loss" or "Complete Signal Loss" blue screen of death gets old
- Occasional pixelated picture happens every day
- Several channels still don't work, such as some of the SiriusXM radio channels
- No OnDemand/PPV since it is not connected to internet. No way to physically connect receivers upstairs to router downstairs, or vice-versa.
- Service is lost in rain/heavy cloud cover
- Takes 3-5 seconds to load a new channel
I took the time to write this review because it is pretty much my only chance of having the services improved and fixed, and the internet speed increased, at the corporate level. Perhaps the HOA will read this and do something about it. I am certain their service sucks just as much as mine. The (((competitor's name redacted))) fiber is still in the ground. But (((redacted))) won't install it without the Gables management allowing it first. I spoke to them personally and they would like to install and get some customers back.
Tenants will leave because of bad cable/internet services. People work from home, run internet businesses, and expect good service living in the middle of Gainesville. Broadstar, you need to fix this. If you do, I promise I'll take this post down. Dish, I will be happy to choose (((redacted))) when the day comes if you don't get this company in line with it's reseller contract.
Tenants will leave because of bad cable/internet services. People work from home, run internet businesses, and expect good service living in the middle of Gainesville. Broadstar, you need to fix this. If you do, I promise I'll take this post down. Dish, I will be happy to choose (((redacted))) when the day comes if you don't get this company in line with it's reseller contract.
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