San Diego Broadband

I have been an extremely happy customer of San Diego Broadband for several years after more than ten years of pure misery trying to survive with awful satellite and even worse unreliable AT&T DSL. San Diego Broadband is the only real option for rural customers because it provides “last mile” or “cellular broadband”- by transmitting radio signals from towers about 4 miles away that produce reliable and reasonably fast speeds-typically between 3 - 30M/sec with minimal latency. Typical download speeds are 17 mps, whereas ATT was 1 or 2… maybe. SDBB’s support is excellent. Local technicians, whom you may come to know by name, are available 24/7. No calls to India or the Philippines. Ever. Even the sales director Mike and company owner Sam are available and stand behind the service whenever needed. I have only had to make a few service calls and all were easy quick fixes that were resolved within a few hours. One was caused by mice and another by a tree. Once fixed, the signals came flying in. The service costs $59 per month rather than $129+ for satellite. It’s a bit more than ATT, but it works beautifully while ATT is worthless. If you’re in an area not serviced by cable or fiberoptic and are thinking about DSL or satellite, think again and be sure to consider SD Broadband.

Called and spoke to a sales rep. The rep took my location info, and said we'd get a response shortly. The response was pretty quick, which was helpful, but was an email, rather than a return phone call. So, there was no opportunity to ask any question. The response was that they were not able to service us, which I don't question at all. We live at the bottom of a canyon, so I'm not surprised that we evidently don't have a line of sight to any antenna in the area. I just wish I had gotten a return phone call from a real person, rather than an impersonal, almost dismissive, email. This is not fatal, and I'd definitely give them a full try as a service provider if/when their service ever expands to include my area. But, the less personal email response was not my preference when my service request was initiated by direct phone contact.

The two techs that came for the install were professional and very thorough. They told me it would take 2 hrs and it did, to locate the best signal, install the dish, cable & router, and test everything before leaving. They asked me to run speedtest.net before & after the install. Before the install, I got 2.61-2.82 Mbps download speed, using a DSL line (over ATT phone lines, which are kludgy in my area). My old ISP - DSL Extreme - was charging $52/mo for 3.0 Mbps, but I never achieved 3.0. After San Diego Broadband's install, speedtest.net showed download speeds from 10 Mbps to 20 Mbps, fluctuating, but I did several tests and the majority showed near 20. I have never had this internet speed and an VERY happy with San Diego Broadband. Anyone who lives in an area without access to cable and is reliant on DSL & ATT phone lines should give them a try.