Product: Metronet ISP
Type of product: Internet service provider
Our rating: 10/10
Metronet is the newest player in town offering Internet service to residential and business customers. The difference between their offerings and their competition is that Metronet provides 100% fiber connection from their point of origin to your house. Unlike their competition from Windstream or Spectrum, who both offer this service but for a very high price, it comes standard from Metronet. I will be examining exactly what sets Metronet apart from their competition, and why I ultimately decided to move from Spectrum to Metronet. I will also cover how painful or how painless the installation of Metronet was to my door, and what I went through to get a gigabit internet hook up at my apartment. I will also cover the monthly billing tiers and what you can expect on your first bill from Metronet.
First, I want to address is why I choose to make the switch from Spectrum’s internet cable to Metronet’s 100% fiber 1 GB internet. With Spectrum, I felt that I was having to call and complain all the time about slow service or how I was told I had used to much data and would be capped after I used a certain amount. I stream a lot of movie/TV shows/music at my apartment and well at my house in general, and I work hard to make sure that my connection is stable enough to download and play video games, along with other things I do. With Spectrum, I had to tiptoe around what I felt were archaic practices of increasing their price and making the customer call in and complain to get a better deal. I always had to call each year to try and get a better rate for a far worse service than I was willing to tolerate. I did tolerate it because I really had no choice. When I moved to a new address? Well that was a $10 fee to have a technician come out and just run a cable from their line to my apartment, or just to make sure that I was turned on at where you lived. It makes no sense to me to charge for this as an older customer. I could see it if I was a new customer setting up for the first time. But moving should be a very simple, here you go your all set. Compare this with Metronet. As I rent my apartment, I had to wait for permission from the landlord for approval to install the Metonet connection. That went relatively seamlessly, because I live near a hub where their fiber line comes into my neighborhood. Thus, it was a relatively straightforward install for the technician. The Technician from Metronet showed up about 12:30 PM on a Saturday, and I had new and faster internet by 2:30 PM that day. It was that simple.
Here is what the Technician had to go through to set up my new internet at my apartment. I didn’t have to do much other then instruct the technician where I wanted the internet to go in my apartment. When Spectrum ran their lines, they didn’t provide me any choice. It had to go to the upstairs of my apartment because it was already wired that way. Never mind I wasn’t happy that their cable connection was behind my couch. Because I have a second bedroom in my apartment that I use as an office, that was my preferred place to have my fiber optic connection to Metronet installed. Of course, I asked lots of questions and bugged the Metronet technician about what the process was like, and that likely delayed their install. However, I ask questions so that I can write an in-depth review of what I think of their service. The technician asked where the fiber optic cable should come in, and I showed him the room I where I wanted it. Because it is against the outside wall of my apartment, it made it easier for the technician to install it. One thing worth mentioning, Spectrum expects you to pay their technicians when they finish their work connecting you to the internet, regardless of how simple that connection may be. Metronet pays their technicians and doesn’t ask you to pay the technician for your hook-up. I asked for them to run the cable from my hub to the house and through the wall. All the technician had to do was drill about 6 holes between the outside and the inside of my apartment. Holes were drilled to run the cable from the outside of my apartment, to the 1 hole inside my apartment. They mounted a box on both sides, one for the cable going into the house and the other for the cable going to the box. It was great to be able to watch the technician work and have him answer all my questions as he worked. The install process from Metronet was entirely painless for me. When the technician was done with the job, all I had to do was sign the paperwork saying that I approved the work he did.
How good is the gigabit speed that I got from Metronet, and how does it stack up price wise to its competition? Well for the first 6 months I am paying $59.99 plus taxes for the gigabit speeds. After 6 months the cost for the next 18 months is $69.99/month plus taxes. After two years of service I will pay $89.99/month plus taxes. That said, I have 1 Gigabit download and 1 Gigabit upload. When I had Spectrum, I was paying $49.99/month for 100 Meg download and 25 Meg up-load, and I wasn’t happy with Spectrum’s service. I did call Spectrum to ask about increasing my speeds at the apartment to the 1 Gig speeds that Metronet was offering and was told that to get that much speed would triple what I was paying, for a far inferior internet then I have now. Price wise, it is a gamble depending where you live, but where I live, the Metronet deal is the best deal around. Not because I absolutely need the 1 Gigabit speed, but because of the amount of data I consume for the review blog requires huge amounts of throughput. Yes, the Gigabit speed is overkill for the average home user, but because I’m not an average home user, it is very good for me.
Now that I have a new ISP at the apartment, and now that I have it all set up what do I like about it? Metronet comes in at the very top of my list for ISP’s in Lexington KY. I can stream to my Xbox, laptop, Surface pro, and download multiple music albums from itunes without any lag time at all. I purchased the Wicked album from my iphone on itunes and had the whole album downloaded in less then a minute. It would have taken 3 to 4 minutes to download on Spectrum. This occurred all while streaming to my Xbox.
The first bill I received from Metronet included their install fee and a technology fee. There is no getting out of the $9.99 technology fee Metronet charges you on a monthly basis. The technology fee from Metronet covers its modem and wireless router they provide to you. The installation fee was removed because of the credit I received when I signed up with Metronet. With my discount, my first bill from Metronet was $30. I really appreciate all the hard work this company is doing in Lexington to become the newest leading provider of internet in the area. They have my vote for those looking to switch from your current provider to the new guys.
The only problem I have encountered since I got Metronet installed a month ago is coming home one day and finding the fiber optic line on the outside of the apartment was cut. I can’t prove who did it, but Spectrum was the only one working around my apartment that day. The severed line was not the result of a lawn mower or careless gardener, as neither worked around my apartment that day. I called up Metronet after this occurred, and they were very happy to come out and rerun the fiber line to the outside of the house free of charge. Metronet does the best they can to take care of their customers. My fiber optic line is now buried so deep, it’s going to take some real effort by anyone to sever it again. That is the only problem I have encountered thus far
In closing, I would like to point out that I highly recommend Metronet over the competition. I very much appreciate the work that they have put into building their network in our town, and the work that they continue to do in building out their network in other neighborhoods in Lexington. While pricing is slightly higher than their competition, their price is comparable to the competition and you have extremely fast download speeds their competition can only dream of offering. I wanted the much faster speeds provided by a good fiber optic cable internet provider. I can understand, many people may not feel they need that level of speed or don’t mind waiting while their TV attempts to download a movie while watching it. For me, Metronet versus the competition is a no brainer, Metronet wins. This is my review of Metronet, I hope you found this to be informative, and if you are looking for a reason to change Internet providers you now have the information you need to do so.
Thank you for reading
Jason
