Don't go near them, their service is terrible.
XO communications., network outages, lack of contact, and the ability not to understand what the customer wants, and giving false information about quality of service.
This is a bit of a rant, but it's also being placed here in the hope that anybody who is contemplating using XO communications as their ISP doesn't. I'm a small customer, but that doesn't mean they can treat me like shit.
Here are my issues:
The service I was sold is not what I requested. I asked for a service where I was provided with a transfer or 20GB/month, on a connection which could burst up to 10Mbps for people on fast connections, as I was providing streaming media. What I got was a 128Kbps rate-limited system, which allowed for about 3 seconds of bursting. This is not suitable for multiple streams, or [for instance] supporting responses to email shots, where server activity is high for a short response period. If I had wanted a 128k line I would not have co-located a server...
When I complained about this issue and told them that the rate limiting was affecting users they said they would see if they could find a suitable solution, but I would have to pay. They did not act on the complaint, they just tried to sell me more. They offered me a 256kbps connection with the same level of bursting, which makes next to no difference for users on fast connections. [The faster connection only allows the same amount of burst, and because of the bit bucket XO are using, once the bucket is emptied, I have to wait for a quiet period before the burst is available again... but of course, I don't need the burst then]
Their sales people refused to try and work out any further arrangement, or be adaptable at all, but also weren't able to accept that the solutions they had offered were not suitable to fulfill my requirements. The sales person also told me that a competing ISP's service was not up to theirs, even though I had installed a system at the competitions and tested it.
Further, during the time I have been with them they have failed to report several network outages, and when they have reported them details have been week or missed out. One outage was failed to be reported to me during a conversation when I was trying to find out why my server had shutdown at an unusual time : it appears they had cut the power to the server... it took 16 hours for them to report an outage, and a further 4 days until I got an explanation of what the outage was. All this meant I spent time looking for a security compromise on my server.
They're technical people have failed to contact me, and the staff I have spoken to have limited knowledge of networking or service other than that of simple M$ style coursework.
I've been told that they have tried to contact me via phone but that my phone number was no longer in service. It's a mobile, it's always on, and there is voicemail. My Telephone company confirmed no faults each time XO technicians have tried to contact me, and there we're no attempted calls.
They're routing has failed on several occasions : when I informed them of this, and sent them traceroute information, they told me that my firewall was blocking ICMP packets. I don't have a firewall, and if I was blocking ICMP packets I would know about it, and none of the traceroutes would have run. When I explained this to them they sent another message telling me it was because my firewall was bouncing ICMP packets. 40 minutes after my complaint the routes magically started working...
They have removed connectivity on several occasions due to Denial of Service attacks to other customers, as opposed to blocking the source at their routers, leading to outages of up to 45 minutes. They seem no to have 24 hour support for some network issues, a there is a lag time on monitoring and response which shouldn't be there for a quality ISP.
I rest my case. There are a lot of good ISP's out there, XO communications are, in my opinion, not one of them. Keep away. Very far away.
This is my opinion on the service that XO have provided by me, and is to serve as a recomendation to any other people who may consider using them.
