Has anyone here used Earthlink's Feather WiFi service?

August 31, 2007 8:39 PM

Has anyone here used Earthlink's Feather WiFi service? Especially in Philadelphia?

I'm considering signing up for Earthlink's Feather WiFi service in Philadelphia. Does anyone here have any experience using this service? Is it reliable? Do you get good connection speeds? Any other issues/comments/concerns?

posted by ootsocsid to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

I subscribed to their service in New Orleans for about 6 months and their access point was about 1/2 block from my house. The service was entirely unreliable and customer service was horrid. They provide dial-up as a back-up for a reason.
posted by ajr at 9:07 PM on August 31, 2007

Curious to hear responses; I tried to find out more info from Earthlink about six months ago but found nothing but dead ends and run around. Not promising.
posted by The Straightener at 9:28 PM on August 31, 2007

Here's a thread you might find interesting.

Here's a response from a Penn techie:

"4. Does Earthlink actually achieve a reasonable fraction of its advertized maximum speed (2 Mbps, if I remember right)?

When authenticated through WPA-Enterprise, you get a real IP address, otherwise you get a private IP, with real IP I have gotten 1.5 M down and around 998 Up, it varys on a daily basis though."
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:02 PM on August 31, 2007

My concern, which I don't have an answer for, is that I think, from the fine-print, that Earthlink will bill "outside" usage to your account as an "extra computer", up to $20 extra per month.

"Outside usage" means:

1. If you take your laptop with you in the morning and plan to use the city-wide Earthlink WiFi service, it looks like you'll want to turn off your home-based Earthlink modem before you leave the door.

2. When you're at home, you need to connect your computers to the wireless AP radio that Earthlink gives you, and not directly to any AP called "Earthlink" "WirelessPhiladelphia" or "Feathernet". Otherwise, you'll be connecting one or more external computers at whatever rate, up to $20 a month.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:07 PM on August 31, 2007

I didn't sign up, but my office must be in one of the free hotspots because when I turned on my laptop Friday morning, it told me I had been connected to "Free Wireless Internet". I used it off and on throughout the day and it was fine.

Full disclosure, Wireless Philly is one of my firm's clients.
posted by qldaddy at 6:30 PM on September 1, 2007