Are there any decent business/enterprise-class internet providers in Los Angeles?

January 2, 2013 6:36 AM

Are there any decent business/enterprise-class internet providers in Los Angeles?

We're a UK-based company operating in the digital sector, with an office of around 10 people in Los Angeles.

We currently have a synchronous 10Mbps service with MegaPath that also includes VoIP. We've outgrown this service and really need to push up the speed. This was to be with MegaPath, but after two large outages in the past few weeks and the most shocking customer service we've ever experienced we're keen to ditch them for someone far better.

I'm hoping some Mefites have any personal recommendations for companies that can provide:

- ~100Mbps synchronous internet (ideally not wireless / wimax)
- hosted VoIP
- proactive customer service

I've done a chunk of research and chatting with providers so far, but a lot of it seems to end up in a dead end - a lot of providers don't seem to offer the synchronous speed options we're looking for and it's hard to gauge how good they are at support. Comcast has been one name cropping up a lot, but unsure if they're actually any decent. Our provider in London is Exponential E who we love love love.

posted by sektah to computers & internet (6 answers total)

The next speed up is 100Mbps.

Check into AT&T Metro Ethernet or a similar service with Verizon.

Comcast is a cable company and cable internet is pretty variable. You may love it, or if you're in a congested area with lots of usage, it may be terrible.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:41 AM on January 2

Try Windstream. They're a bit pricey, but they can deliver whatever speed you want and can provide voice, and have pretty good customer service.
posted by empath at 6:52 AM on January 2

You should check to see if your building is wired for Cogent. If it is, you should be able to get 100Mbps ethernet pretty easily and cost-effectively. If not, they do offer 100MBit ethernet in the LA metro area.

They're a major backbone operator that wires up end-user premises kind of as a side job, and not primarily an end-user ISP. I don't think they directly offer voip hosting so that may be a no-go for you... but might be worth checking out because they are well known in the industry for having cheap bandwidth.
posted by reptile at 8:12 AM on January 2

My experience has been that Cogent has truly horrific customer service.
posted by foodgeek at 8:40 AM on January 2

For metro fiber in Los Angeles also check http://www.zayo.com and http://www.fiberinternetcenter.com/ Zayo in particular has acquired a lot of metro areas lately (through acquiring abovenet and others).

For 10-50mbit speeds cable will be a lot cheaper than fiber if it works well enough for you; I'd certainly try the previous posters' suggestion of comcast first; like they said if you're in a good area it can be a great bargain.

If a fiber provider doesn't have your building lit already you will be looking at a multi-year contract or large install fee to cover the install cost of fiber. That cost can vary from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands, depending on how close the given provider's existing infrastructure is to your building.
posted by frontmn23 at 9:28 AM on January 2

Thanks for the recommendations everyone - it's muchly appreciated.
posted by sektah at 6:19 PM on January 2