I called Astound, with the thought process of canceling the service because of the auto increase. However, Dominick (Customer service Supervisor) was able to turn the negative experience into a very pleasant one. He handled everything professionally and figured out the relevant plans to be applied in order to win the customer experience. I was on the phone for almost 2 hours though. So, not very happy about that. read more

DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE. Truly one of the worst services I have ever used. I got a self installation kit, followed the instructions and could still not connect to the internet. I called, was told I had to call to set it up (this is not included anywhere in the instructions in the self install kit). They tried setting it up, could not, and tried to charge me $30 to have a tech come out. I called the next day, and was told that, because someone in my apartment previously had used Xfinity, Astound could not connect unless a tech came out. The next availability was over a week away. Lastly, while the phone call support staff is nice, the online chat staff is incredibly rude, repeatedly blaming the customer (me) even though they confirmed I followed the instructions. I am canceling my service immediately and telling everyone I know not to ever use this service. read more

Astound is using a very old Americast Infrastructure to push out their 1Gbps package, and 1.5 Gbps packages. Unfortunately, their download speeds come close to the advertised speed for the package, the upload is a whole nother story. Astound can ONLY DELIVER ASYMMETRICAL Internet Speeds to their customers which is unheard of in 2026........ This basically means, you might get the 1Gbps or 1.5Gbps Download Speed but your Upload Speed is STRICTLY CAPPED AT 20Mbps..........this is unacceptable. Especially when their ONLY COMPETITOR is Xfinity, and their Internet speeds ARE SYMMETRICAL (equal Download and Upload speeds), so if you buy the 1Gb package from Xfinity, you get 1Gbps Download and Upload Speeds. Their is ONE very major drawback to Xfinity though. They CAP your Internet Data ALLOWANCE to 1.2Tb for the month. I would easily blow past that Data CAP as I work from home as a Network Administrator. So when you surpass 1.2Tb of data, they start OVERCHARGING YOU A TON, and you might even be downgraded as far as Internet Speeds go. So you have to pick between these two shitty deals in Chicago and NW Suburbs. I was with WOW when Astound bought out the Americast Infrastructure from WOW Internet. At that time, the Upload Speeds were capped at 60mbps on the 600Mbps/ 1Gbps Speed package. I noticed the drop immediately when they capped the upload speed from 60mbps-20Mbps. This was due to too much traffic on the Line. Astound only has 3 nodes on their Line. Xfinity has 6-8 nodes per Line. Hope this helped, Astoud is losing thousands of customers a month with this sly bait and switch BS with the Upload speed. I'm moving on to Xfinity next month, 20mbps is waaaaaaayyyy to slow in 2026........ read more

Astound - Chicago - Internet Service Providers Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

Horrible experience with Astound Customer Service. My building has a bulk account with Astound and I called on 6/21/26 to get my self-installation kit sent. I accepted the terms & conditions and they said it would arrive 6/26/26. It did not arrive on that date, and I called back on 6/28/26. They could not find any tracking information and could not provide an update on when I could expect it - just "tomorrow". On 6/29/26, again, it did not arrive and they said it was lost. Instead of expediting another delivery, they scheduled a tech appointment on 7/3/26. I called again after not receiving a confirmation and they shared that the appointment was requested, not confirmed, and there is no technician until the following week. I have asked them to expedite the request - I will literally pick up the equipment if needed to no avail. They also cannot provide me any information about my account to check on the technician confirmation. I have no idea if they will show up, where the equipment will be, or when I will be connected to the Internet, despite it being over a week from initial request. Highly disappointed!!!!!! read more

I would literally use any other service at this point. Astoundingly bad at service, constant outages, technician availability is terrible. 3 multi-day outages in 5 months is insane for the amount of money I'm paying. I would recommend Comcast over Astoundingly Terrible. I would recommend dial up, actually, because at least it works! read more

My experience with Astound has been one of the worst customer service experiences I have ever had. From the very beginning, I was billed an additional $160 for telephone service that I never requested and that was never installed. It took seven phone calls and five emails before I was finally refunded for a service I never received. The internet service itself has been extremely unreliable. We have experienced repeated outages over the past several weeks, and each time I contacted customer service, I received inconsistent information and temporary fixes instead of a permanent solution. The final straw was this weekend. After another internet outage, I explained that I work from home and urgently needed a technician. A supervisor confirmed that a technician would arrive Saturday at 8:00 AM. I rearranged my schedule and waited at home, only to be told later that no technician was available and that the earliest appointment was six days later. No notification, no apology, and no regard for the inconvenience caused. When I requested compensation for the ongoing service failures, Astound offered a credit for only two days of downtime, despite the repeated outages and the countless hours I spent dealing with customer service. Reliable internet is not a luxury, it's a necessity. Unfortunately, Astound failed to provide reliable service, failed to honor a confirmed service appointment, and failed to deliver acceptable customer support. I cannot recommend Astound to anyone. If you rely on your internet for work, school, or everyday life, I strongly suggest looking at other providers. What makes this even more frustrating is that I live in a high-rise apartment building with over 500 apartments. You would expect a major internet provider serving a community of this size to have reliable infrastructure, responsive technical support, and prompt service when outages occur. Unfortunately, my experience was the exact opposite. read more

Astound - Chicago - Internet Service Providers Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

First of all, Astound had really good prices compared to Xfinity (the only two options I have in my area). I had a guaranteed set price for 2 years, but then they started adding "recovery fees". I live in Illinois and the recovery fees are more than $25 per month. Secondly, Astound has been horrible. I have the 1 gig service, and frequently my speeds drop to less than 1 Mb. That is about 1000 times less than the speed I pay for! Calling customer service is a joke. First they hide the contact numbers on the website, then you get connected to an AI bot whose only option is to reset your modem. Then when you get somebody (in India), they run through a script just to reset your modem again and tell you everything is fine. The tech couldn't even test the speed from their end. Watta joke! The gal on the phone said a tech would call me to schedule an appt. Nope. Nobody called. Instead they scheduled an appointment for a week in the future. Now I am supposed to live with 1Mb (not 1 MB) for a week until they can get a technician out. As much as I hate to give Comcast my money, I just submitted an order to switch. I can't wait to tell Astound where to go once I hook up Xfinity. read more

Astound - Chicago - I pay for 1 Gig. This is what I get. - Internet Service Providers Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

Buyer beware: They are not "Fiber to the House." Meaning that they claim that they are a Fibre provider, but in reality it's coax to the house. Which means service would be unpredictable at best. Their advertised speeds are to symmetrical. eg: their 1Gig plan is really ~1Gig down (not guaranteed) but only 250k (!!) up. Which is useless for a work at home setup. Also: Their "price for life" pricing has enough weasel words in the small print that it's probably not going to be for life at all. read more

Not sure how to provide less than a star, but I can't believe I found a customer service experience worse than that of comcast. I am a network engineer, and I explained to the technician what my problem was, they could have overnighted me the piece i needed, and it would hve been faster than the time it took to get a technician out here. Let me be without internet for 5 days. I WFH, my wife WFH, and it's 2026, internet isn't a luxury anymore, it services all the critical infrastructure in my home. read more

Our WIFI went down during a storm. We had no WIFI for three days until they could come out here with a tech guy. The guy came and claimed he fixed it. It works, with a catch. It is now slower than it ever has been, freezes up all the time. Can't even sit through a 22 minute TV show without lagging or stopping. This is pathetic and unacceptable in the year 2026. If you can, look elsewhere and use anyone else but Astound! We sent them another email and phone call to get ahold of someone to come back to our house to fix yet another problem they made happen. So far, no such luck. They're value is nothing and they are most incompetent. So again they may seem good, but they're awful. They don't have any places located near us and have to come from far away, so I imagine their tech guys are very limited to when they can come. Another example of why big companies shouldn't be able to buy up the little ones like WOW, which was actually a good cable company that we had no problems at all with. Like every other company, there customer service seems to be a thing of the past. We will be switching to a different company as soon as possible and never looking back. Fuck Astound. read more

If i could leave fewer than than one star, I would. Astound claimed my new address was eligible for their service. After three appointments with two technicians and one no show, setting aside something like sixteen hours in total over two weeks, and after my coaxial cable was split in half and part of it taken by a technician, i still have no service and they cant get anyone out to help me for almost another week. I have cancelled my service. read more

Adding more to this review after a few more calls this morning. I spoke to an agent and then their supervisor, both were no help. Somehow the people moving into the place after us (my lease ends May 31st and their's starts June 1st) were able to start their service on May 28th when I'm still living at this place and using internet here. The fact that you can basically stop someone else's service by setting up a start date before your lease even starts is a joke. This company is a useless joke and has far and away the worst customer service I've ever experienced. I only used them because I had to, not because I wanted to. Astound can kindly kiss my ass and they've lost a customer for life. Horrendous organization. Astound is a garbage internet service provider. Do NOT use them unless you have to. Their customer service 99% of the time has been bottom tier. These idiots, after telling them I was planning on stopping my service, shut off my service 2 days prior to the date I told them. read more

They promised a gift card and said it would be 120 so I just chatted with them abs they will be escalating and that timeframe for a response would be 4-8 weeks what a joke read more

While in my RCN webmail account, I was suddenly kicked back to the Astound homepage. I tried to re-log in, but every combination & permutation of e-mail addy, username and password (even the ones they assigned me) are being rejected. I can't even access my RCN account at all (not just mail--though at least I still have internet, apparently). Tech support via the phone took 2 hours and all they could do was (after trying to assign me passwords) tell me it's a widespread problem with migrating mail servers (webmail & e-mail) to Astound, and issue a case # . Tried live chat--same problem, all they could do was issue a case # and said it could take 24-48 hrs to resolve. (I doubt even 48 hrs would do it). So I want to go to Astound in person for tech support---but their only physical location handles nothing but billing, payments, and equipment pickup & dropoff. I've been their customer ever since 1999! read more

Garbage service goes in and out all the time. Canceling it was a nightmare, calling about a extra fees I randomly got was a nightmare, dealing with them is a nightmare, and pretty much everything is a nightmare. read more

I would never buy internet service from this company. They have been laying cable in my town and a couple weeks ago one of them backed a truck over my mailbox, got out, looked at it and then drove away. That's strike one. I got in touch with the public works dept who gave me an email address for astound I could report the issue to. I did that a week ago and got nothing but silence. I had to spend my weekend buying and installing a new post. Strike two. They also left a random pile of dirt, plastic tarp and a traffic cone in the parkway right where my front yard meets my neighbors front yard. That's strike three. If you're this lazy, sloppy and unprofessional how could I trust you enough to do business with you? Talk about your all time bad first impressions! read more

I almost never ever leave a review for a business unless I have an absolutely terrible experience. On Wednesday, I called astound to request services just to find out my building had a bulk account with them(WiFi was free, so perfect!). They told me I could get it delivered on Friday by a tech. I opted for self install so they told me that it would be left outside my door. I said perfect! They also claimed it'll get delivered between 8-4. Friday came around and the tech tried to get buzzed in around 6:30PM. I was in the shower at the time. Came out 5 mins later, no contact for this guy, he had left. I was so enraged because if my building was in contract, there's no way he couldn't get in! And he could've left it outside the door like they claimed they would! No problem I called customer service and explained to them. They claimed 'oh there was no note on my account saying they could leave it'. excuse me? What does that even mean? That's exactly what they told me would happen since I did self-install. Whatever I rescheduled a delivery. Obviously I could not get it delivered during the weekend and had to go an extra 2 days without WiFi, the lady claimed it would be delivered on Monday. This time I made sure she added a note, gave him the code to get in and how to get in. Now today is Monday. Been waiting on a delivery never got one, so I decided to call to see what was going on. Would you believe these people told me that my order was set to 'shipping' instead of delivery. I was at loss for words. Obviously the day is over, can't get it delivered until tomorrow, I've never come across a business so unprofessional. It's a shame, an embarrassment. I hope they can do better. If you're looking for new services and you choose ASTOUND, I wish you goodluck. read more

They increase rates every year not the speed. It max out at 95mbps wired or wireless. My cellphone roaming gets better. read more

Astound - Chicago - Speed test - Internet Service Providers Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

i own a business and this is one of the worse companies when it come's to cable or internet. we go down and here we are 5 days later after numerous calls and emails I still don't have service and astound doesn't know how to solve interruptions, they all forget how to handle these situations and forget how to assign technicians to solve your problems and if you do happen to get a technician to come out he will play with your equipment and leave halfway thru and say they yanked him off the call and he will be right back, and unfortunately he will not return for days and counting. I've been a loyal customer for over 10 years before astound took over it was called wow and I am ready to leave they are all unqualified to sell or install internet. so if you want to run business without any hiccup's don't use astound or you regret it. DON'T FALL FOR 2 HOUR RESPONSE TIME THERE FULL OF SHEET !!! IT'S BEEN 5 FREAKING DAYS AND NO ONE KNOW'S WHAT THE F*** THERE DOING AT THIS COMPANY !!!! read more

Is zero stars available? This place is a joke. Our internet upload speed was 3 Mbps or less for a week. Kept calling and each time received a different excuse: internet must be down in your area; must be your modem; must be your eeros... Those were the excuses received on the calls where we weren't disconnected. Had to work elsewhere for an entire week because we couldn't use internet. A technician is finally dispatched (not an Astound employee) and he validates it's the service and installs a temporary line running from our back yard. The cable is still there, posing a safety hazard for grass cutting. Now we call repeatedly and no one understands or validates the issue. Who has time to repeatedly call? Internet speed still isn't great (upload speed currently at 26 Mbps). The pricing is ridiculous for sub-par speed and service. read more

The service was actually pretty good, but the price kept going up and when I called to try to get a reduction, they said no way. Even though I pointed out that my neighbor was paying half what they were charging me (also Astound, same speed) and xfinity would charge me 1/3. "We may charge different customers different amounts." "We don't price match." I didn't want to switch, and it was utterly frustrating that they would do this to a long term customer. It was like I had a note in my file, 'stick it to this guy.' Or maybe they just stick it to everyone dumb enough to stay with them. Of course when I called to cancel they said, "Can we offer you a better price?" Makes my blood boil. read more

My experience is horrible. I had them for one month then cancelled because they lied and said my bill would be $20 if I used auto pay but they sent a bill for $100 then later they sent ANOTHER BILL for $400 and sent it to a debt collector after I had been had my service shut off. read more

I cancelled my service in Oct 2025. Out of the blue, 8 months later, I received an invoice that I will owe a payment for services that had been cancelled. People, please remove your autopay authorization. Astound is a terrible company. Do not sign with Astound formerly RCN, same shiiit. read more

Said there was gift card and never sent it. Have reached out 3 times and no help has been offered to make good on there deals. Would not recommend. read more

I called Astound to terminate my service on Dec. 12 2025, and I was told my service would be terminated at the end of the cycle on Dec 26 2026. Fast forward to Jan. 2026, I was still charged for the month of Jan. After calling back on Jan 26. 2026, I was told by a rep that apparently the service was never cancelled, even though they can see I had returned all the equipment already. I was told the rep who received my call in Dec. never actually cancelled the service, so a manager would call me within 48 hours.  It is now 10 days later, on Jan 5. and the rep I spoke to said the service is still not terminated. I still have not gotten a refund. He can't do anything, and needs to speak to a manager to resolve the issue, who never calls back. I have been on the phone for 47 minutes trying to speak to a manager.  My suggestion: AVOID ASTOUND AT ALL COSTS. They will make it impossible to terminate service. Their prices increase for no reason every few months, usually by a few dollars to the point that over the years, it adds up. Additionally, the charge "service fees" on the of the service itself, which was about $18-20 per month. Please go with another internet service provider in your area. read more

So I have been with Astound when they bought WOW internet in Chicago. Now I was assured that I will have the same service with competitive pricing. I even upgraded because I wanted to make sure I had service while working from home. Now two months ago they increased my price by almost 20.00, they went down I believe 8 dollars less but still a 12-14.00 increase per month that takes me over 100.00 a month. Plus no discounts for the fact the internet goes down more frequently. Interesting... Now I called customer care to see if there was something they can do to assist me and the response was "We can't keep giving you all discounts, there is nothing we can do". I figured for a regular customer that you could've acted like you care. Now I am searching for competitive pricing because when I said I will look at other options, the response again was "Well we were glad you was a customer, have a great day". Astound with your customer service talking to people that way, you will lose a lot of customers. I thought I posted this already but wanted to do it before I switch companies, since Astound doesn't care about me being a valued customer/ read more

One of the worst businesses I have ever encountered. I requested multiples times to cancel service and they refused to stop service and kept billing me. To make it even worse, they would prebill so they would bill ahead for months I would not be using. Once I finally had to escalate the situation to a manager they agreed to stop my service and refund me for the troubles- except the manager entered in the numbers wrong and tried to charge me again for double the amount. They then tried to refer me to collections for this amount which was an error on their end. A simple situation that could not even handle properly as a business. Would never recommend this business to anybody with a pulse read more

Their service is good however, they make offers to get you to sign up and then they don't honor their word....John Feehan is the CEO. Not honoring your word is a lack of integrity which reflects back to Mr. Feehan. read more

I went to Astound from Xfinity because Xfinity was 2 much money. I am saving a lot of money with Astound but, apparently I sacrificed a lot of technology in doing so. They have no voicemail app so I get my voicemail the old fashioned way, by using a notification on my phone or dialing my own number. This is a practice from at least 5 years ago. All the major carriers have an app. Their live stream app Astound TV + only works on a few devices. I will not work on my laptop because it is a VERY limited list. I could get live streaming and streaming the entire time I was with Xfinity which was at least 10 years. It was one of their perks I liked. Astound, stop marketing your product as competitive with other carriers when your technology is behind the times. To be fair, plans for cable, cell, internet and home phone are OK. Internet speed is OK. Price is OK but we'll see how they raise the price in the future. read more

This is day number two that I'm going without internet and I can't even reach us down. But they gonna give me some credit for me. Not having my ServiceNow for 2 days. read more

My wife and I sent all of our equipment back, and then received a $99 charge saying that we never returned our equipment. We opened a case and after looking into it, the customer service rep confirmed that we were mistakenly charged for "household equipment" and that they would remove the charge for us. They never removed the charge after the case was closed, and we've since tried opening another case but just received a generic response saying that the charge will be removed once our equipment is returned. read more

Astound - Chicago - Internet Service Providers Near Me - Chicago, Illinois

I have been a customer of RCN- Astound for 20 years. I find that it often lags around 8:00 PM. But, I was keeping it because it rarely went out all together. But now I just have to find a new ISP. Astound is now charging me $168.00 per month! Last year it was $70.00 and that was after an increase. There are only a few devices online here So I can't imagine paying that much. Plus, they are currently offering a $40.00 for life plan to new customers plus a gift certificate. I called to find out the reason I was increased so much but the agent I spoke with was rude. He lowered it going forward to $120.00 while I search for a different ISP. I guess I know who is financing the deals for new customers! read more

Avoid this company!!!! A sales rep went to my foreign grandparents house and convinced them to switch providers because their pricing was cheaper. My grandparents did not know what they were doing and are now trying to switch back and are being told that they cannot be helped, it was my grandparents problem, and are being sent in circles trying to leave. They keep getting told that they will lower the prices but not told HOW to leave. I do not recommend - the company, sales rep, and everyone that we have been in contact with have been extremely unhelpful and rude. read more

Astound still isn't cutting it. Someone finally came out, but none of the modems worked, so they left their "test router," which I appreciated. What I didn't appreciate was being told to "wait 24 to 48 hours for someone to come back out because a node needed fixing or whatever." Yeah, that node is still broken as hell. At this point I'm convinced Astound has some kind of humiliation kink, because every mistake is more embarrassing than the last and y'all genuinely do not care. And on top of all that, another outage. I swear CenturyLink might actually have one up on you, maybe even Hughes. It's fine though. You'll be scrambling when this bill doesn't get paid at the end of the month. read more

I miss RCN. When you called them, their automated line would recognize you from your phone number. Then they would offer (automated) to send a signal to your cable box. Technicians were free if it was an error in their equipment. On 12/22 (night), A guy I could barely understand said that I would need to pay for a tech to come out. The next day, a completely different interaction (different steps) with a rep who spoke clearly set up a FREE tech visit. My review will change if all goes well even though I lost 2.5 days of service. At 12:14 I got an auto-call stating that the dricver was nearby and to press 2 to confirm appt. At 12:16, I got the exact same call. At 12:39, the tech called me saying that he was half an hour away. Will update... read more

If I could given them negative stars I would! I paid for their service for years and it was fine, not great, not terrible. The price escalated like crazy though and I switched providers. Then when I got my final bill, they tried to bilk me out of payments I had already made and fail to credit my account when my bank has already posted the payments many days earlier. They then sent me to a sketchy liquor store location to return my equipment and the guys there just laughed and shook their heads. What kind of operation is Astound running? Clearly one that everyone should avoid at all costs. read more

Steer clear, if you can. ~5 year customer, and there's been a noticeable decline in overall quality for this provider. Used to be RCN, is now Astound, and I'm starting to suspect that that change is not innocuous and has a lot to do with the way this ISP handles itself now. In the past few months, there's been a notable uptick in outages. We used to be informed about possible outages and reasons, now they're radio silent until you ask, I guess just hoping we won't notice? One rep will say one thing, "Oh yes, there's reports of outages near you." "Well, any ETA on fixes, any other info about the outage?" "No, we have no info." You reach out again later, "No reported outages." "Really, that's contrary to what I was told earlier." "Well there's no reported outages." Meanwhile, downdetector has like 50+ reports around the same time. Like, these reps and techs either do not have information that they reasonably SHOULD have, are all miscommunicating, or worst of all are GASLIGHTING their customers. There's no accountability, there's no transparency, DO NOT expect straightforward, clear, or consistent communication from this company, ever. If the problem is a lack of/overworked staff, hey, Astound, HIRE PEOPLE, PLEASE, AND PAY THEM BETTER. You charge too much to be understaffed and likely replacing people with garbage chat bots or chatgpt or whatever it is these awful companies do to save a nickel these days. You charge too much and can't even consistently provide the speeds and services people pay for and our jobs and lives rely on. You can't even communicate to your customers properly. Also, your recent service patterns sure look a lot like throttling! Why is it that, more and more often, our upload speeds suddenly only improve right after we complain about it! Maybe fix that! Again, 0/10, avoid at all costs. read more

Been at astound for 3 years and I can confidently say that I am having a beer to celebrate after cancelling my service. They were first robbing me for $150 WiFi then after cutting it down after 2 years it is spotty wifi and straight up not working at this very moment (mind you I pay for fiber). read more

Have to receive leaving reliable high-speed service from astound for several months I discontinued service dude will move. As Stamp provided me with a shipping label, which I attached in brought to a FedEx office to return the modem they claim they did not receive the modem so they are going to continue to bill me until I proved that I returned the modem. This is impossible.. I am now being forced to contact the Illinois Attorney General's office to resolve the dispute. read more

I wish I could give this company 0 stars. My internet goes out at least once a week and takes hours to come back on. EXTREMELY UNRELIABLE. Our internet went out on Monday 3/2 and has not come back on since (it is currently Friday 3/6). The first time I called I told them someone from their company had been out in the morning to fix a wire, I was then told no one was there earlier DESPITE me talking with the employee and also receiving a voicemail confirming the employee was at my home. The second time I called I was told a tech would not be able to come out until Thursday, 3 tech teams came out. No one was able to fix the problem. I am still without internet. 1000% not worth the $250 ish paid per month. I can't recommend AGAINST this company enough. Save yourself the time and frustration and go literally anywhere else. read more