Last week I had one of their techs relocate the antenna and transfer the connection points to a new structure. The tech, Laurence, listened to my request, explained the difficulties, and found the right solution for my application. Very satisfied with the final product. read more

I spent a couple hours calling different internet services for the cheapest price i could fine. Surf net came second cheapest but the one that was the cheapest gave me horrible customer service. So i decided to go with surf net. They were ready to set up my service the next day and all the people i spoke with from surfnet knew exactly what they were doing. Their website made it exteremly easy to pay my bill online. I would use this service again! read more

Just started the service today. The installation was very easy to set up. Dave was my initial contact and did a great job setting up both the preliminary signal strength appointment as well as the installation itself. Both appointments were done by Lawrence who was quick, knowledgeable, and very kind. The page loading speed is fantastic considering the location up in the mountains above Boulder Creek. Thank you, gentlemen, for a job well done! Francis P. read more

I could not be happier with the guys at Surfnet. I live in a remote location near Boulder Creek, outside the range of cable or DSL. I thought I might be stuck using satellite internet (which would have been awful due to the latency), but Surfnet was able to get me 6 Mbps download and upload speeds (with peaks up to 9 Mbps) by installing a small repeater antenna on the nearby mountain. This was no easy task. Lawrence had to hike up the mountain (very steep with difficult to penetrate vegetation and barely discernible trail) a number of times to haul up heavy equipment and to fine-tune the antenna location. He is a perfectionist and would not give up until he had found antenna locations that provide a solid high-bandwidth link. The end result is a thing of beauty: The antenna on the mountain is powered by a solar panel with battery backup. I get reliable internet that is both much faster and much cheaper than a T1 line. read more

I've had surfnet Internet for over 2 years they are the best for our area! We do get interrupted quite often and when it rains we don't usually get service! But for the area they are the best and the best priced read more

Surfnet is an okay broadband provider. The reason they are just okay is not their packages or infrastructure or installation team. Those aspects of their service are fine. There is the occasional outage but I expect that living in the mountains. Plus, they just upgraded everyone's speed for free. So, all good on that front. What I don't like is their customer service. Calling up to report an outage is an imposition for them, you see. Something that, apparently, as a subscriber, I shouldn't be doing. I always dread calling them because I know I will have to deal with their unprofessional attitude. However, there is no comparable service excepting Hughes Satellite in my area. read more

Worst internet service we have ever had. They've came out to "fix" the problem twice to no avail. They actually installed it incorrectly the first time, so we were told. Every time we call to tell them we have no service (DAILY) they just tell us to reset the router, which does nothing. The last time we called we received the best excuse yet "It might be a tree obstructing the signal. We knew that was a potential problem when we installed it." However they never mentioned anything about that until after taking our money monthly for a year. Our internet is so slow we can hardly run a CONNECTION TEST. I understand in remote areas, every account is different. But we have received nothing but awful customer service from the people that work there and have yet to receive any help. I would seriously consider taking your business elsewhere if you live in Paso Robles/Creston/Shandon area. I have to drive to a Starbucks 20 minutes from my house in order to do schoolwork and can't seem to get a resolution to our problem from anyone that we have spoken with at Surfnet. read more

We consistently get a good signal and can always do Netflix instantview. We had some trouble at first, but it was our router. It is worth it to spend the money to get an Apple router. My cousin, visiting from Germany, was impressed that we got a better signal than they did "way out in the woods". read more

HORRIBLE We only moved to the area recently, but besides outages, we deal with constant traffic & speed issues. Service is almost never working up to usable speeds (below 128K @ 85% of the times I check). Forget about trying to use it on weekends or evenings - and forget skype or any other video services - reception is TERRIBLE If we weren't hostages, we wouldn't be customers! read more

Unreachable and never respond to requests that they put forward. Unreasonably low bandwidth caps. Quality of service drops off quickly after first few months. Installer did not bring full parts kit on initial appointment. I had to provide my own network runs to the equipment at my own expense. This included weatherproof cabling and a crimping kit to do the install. I understood that the radio costs less than half of their install fee from working with this equipment in the past, and I had expected the install fee to include a professional install with proper mounting, and routing of the cables I had signed up for a 10/10 symmetric connection. Only after I had the equipment installed did they claim that it could "burst" up to 10/10 and that the connection is really a 6/6. In practice the connection is not even performing at those rates. I am lucky to have it maintain a 6/2 at the high end when not bursting. The primary issue I had with this ISP is that while the connection "could" go up to their stated speeds it was not reliable, the connection frequently drops of connection very frequently causing downloads to pause and reset at best, and often forcing them to restart entirely. The time between these drops was anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes, all while the signal quality and line of site on the antenna was completely unobstructed. This caused any use of the connection to be limited, or frustrating. Voice and Video calls were next to impossible to maintain. I had frequently worked with large data sets, upwards of 20gb, these frequent drops would often cause the entirety of my bandwidth to be consumed in a single weekend, by the repeat restarts of the download After calls in and multiple email messages about these issues I was asked to provide logging information to have them assist me with the troubles observed. These were provided daily, with no responses back. After hours phonecalls that they promise to return within 15 minutes of a trouble report, were only returned once in over 15 attempts to contact the company. I was forced to switch providers to someone that would reply back. read more

Have been through the transition from Airspeed and both companies have been exceptional. Now that Surfnet has taken over still very satisfied with the performance . Customer service during the upgrade was terrific and the down time for our location is very minimal. read more

For the past year I have been trying to figure out how to get consistent service. First they said it was my WiFi that was causing a problem, then they sent out a service tech who said that I needed a larger antenna and that it would be better to point to the Bonny Doon antenna instead of the Mt. Roberta antenna (oh, did I mention it was the same tech that set me up to begin with). Well that didn't make a difference, and again the story was interference. Mind you I have a clear line of sight view of both antennas and the Bonny Doon antenna is twice as far as the Mt. Roberta... Anyway after continuing to complain, they said, oh wait a minute, if you are having interference problems you should be using our 900 Mhz transmission, that will solve the problem. Guess what? You got it, no change. So far the experience can be compared to Wack a Mole. I am guessing that the vast majority of their customers are using their 1MB Basic service, because the performance is rarely above that even though I am paying for the 3MB plan which costs almost twice as much for nothing. Only hours after the tech installed my 900 Mhz system that is supposed to be immune from the interference problems I have a ping time of 386 ms, download speed of 0.30 Mb/sec, and upload speed of 0.14 Mb/sec. For this I am paying $89.95/month My ATT 3G phone delivers 2.40Mb/sec downloads and 0.26 Mb/sec uploads and it seems that I should be using that instead for my "high-speed, high-reliability wireless broadband internet access". I am also considering Etheric Networks who says they guarantee their performance levels. read more

5 Stars - Initial site visit and setting up equipment is prompt. Billing is also competent. 5 Stars - Connection as I write this. I just ran speedtest three times and averaged the results. I am currently seeing 1.06 / 1.10 megabit per second down / up with a ping of 23 ms. I am very happy with this. I am paying for 1 megabit per second service down and up. 5 Stars - First level tech support (which others have rated or berated as 1 star). While this individual has some rough edges which have grated on other customers, I don't have a problem here. When I leave a voice mail about a problem, he calls back within 5 minutes or so anytime of the day or night. I find him knowlegable and responsive. When he is questioning you about your LAN setup and other environment issues, he can be a little abrasive at times. Put yourself in his shoes - he is not at your site and needs to explore all possible factors contributing to the problem. My rating is strictly on getting the job done and not on personal polish. 1 Star - After the trouble ticket is written by the first level tech support, it goes into a black hole from my perspective. They rarely ever get back to you as to what the techs found or even if they bothered to investigate. A week or two later when the same problem recurs, my wife and I wonder if anything was ever done with the prior trouble ticket. My feeling is they do look at tickets but just rarely close the loop with the customer. This is a big problem for this firm and great source of frustration for us. An email written back to us after looking at the trouble ticket would really be appreciated. 1 Star - Actually fixing a problem is also a problem. We have had almost unusable service for a year or more at a time. Their field diagnostic abilities could be improved. 3 Star - Consistency and reliability of service. Our service levels have varied from 5 stars to 1 star. When we move into a 1 star period, it could last for many months. Good service can also last for many months. When a problem develops, they need to be able to diagnose it a resolve it faster than months or years. Our service levels are FAR better than dial up or satellite and I recommend it if those are your alternatives. I feel sorry for one of the other reviewers that was forced to go to satellite for better service. I just heard from another subscriber a few miles from me who reports great Surfnet service over the last 2 years and would likely give them a higher rating than I have. So, your service could vary. Good luck read more

I've been with Surfnet for more years than I remember. I'm in the Santa Cruz mountains and have a clear shot to their site. When we get a major power outage I have backup power but they always get up first. About 10 years ago they told me that my equipment was old and needed upgrading. Scheduled a service, they came out on time and got the job done. Other than the initial installation that was the only time I saw them. I do remember one time in one of the big storms, when everybody and their brother was down that I actually had to wait for an hour or so to get service back but give it a break, even Noah ran into some bad weather. read more

Terrible internet lazy return time had to go to the library for two weeks cause internet was giving me .5 mbps download speed worst internet company ever read more

I concur with the rest of the reviews that Surfnet does not provide value for money. The first thing that irked me was the couple of hundred dollars I paid for installation, when I did the vast majority of the work. Still, to some extent that was my choice. Performance is unpredictable: I've seen speeds as low as 3.5K, but never higher than 700K. Most afternoons, the system seems to crawl to a standstill. When I got the service I was hoping to use it for VoIP, but could never get a single call to go through - the QoS (consistency of packets getting to/from the internet) was so bad, I had to cancel my Vonage subscription and return their equipment. (BTW: Vonage is a GREAT company to deal with.) They certainly need to update their links so that they can handle the capacity. Tech support leaves a lot to be desired: They seem to have one (and only one) chap out in Phoenix. Whenever you call their support number, you can never get through to this person - you have to leave a message and if you're lucky, he will call you back. When he does, his demeanor is less than friendly. Outages occur frequently and you have no idea why. Perhaps updates on their web site would address this issue. Bottom line: If DSL or cable comes down my road, I'll change in a heartbeat. But as it is, they are the only game in town if you exclude satellite. read more

I've used a wireless connection from Surfnet for several years. I started with the lowest cost 1MBps Residential plan. I had a lot of trouble with this setup across the 15 miles line of sight from my house to the wireless access point. This winter, at my request and after showing them evidence of the poor speed and reliability, they came out and upgraded my system. I've been getting a steady and reliable 1MBps download and nearly that fast upload. I've just upgraded to the next level Residential plan and am getting 2 MBps/1.6 MBps. The system reliability (separate from my previous connection issues) has been very good. The wireless works as well in major Santa Cruz Mtns storms as in good weather. My neighbor's Verizon DSL is much less reliable. Customer service response time has always been very quick. Their customer service personnel could use some attitude adjustment. Speednet is a good and easy to use speed measurement tool: http://www.speedtest.net/ read more

Just used their new on-line payment method and it worked great. No more writing checks and looking for an envelope and a stamp. Good job!

There is apparently no limit to the number of customers they'll add to their network. Slower and slower until it just stops. Middle of the day, it is o.k. Evening, so slow my browser times out. After midnight, blazing speed. Sunday evening, can't even connect. Pay more, they'll upgrade you to the same junk. They'll blame your router, your neighbor, the phase of the moon, all things that don't fail when people come home from work and recover when people go to slepp. They blame anything except that they continue to add customers and everyone has rotten service. I bought a Verizon 3G modem and it is reasonably good...still a little slow on Sunday evening. Verizon should work most places in the area (add a Craddlepoint router for WiFi). Or, you could use a tin can and string...of course, that won't work so it will be the same as Surfnet for less money. read more

Performance continues to be an issue on the SurfNet equipment. traceroute to svr01-365.unwiredltd.com (204.11.106.53), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets 1 10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1) 0.412 ms 0.202 ms 0.148 ms 2 buffalo.setup (192.168.11.1) 32.544 ms 4.375 ms 6.414 ms 3 192.168.250.1 (192.168.250.1) 31.474 ms 4.112 ms 6.092 ms 4 192.168.6.1 (192.168.6.1) 1085.614 ms 611.939 ms 837.477 ms 5 * wifi173.surfnetc.com (64.74.213.173) 1463.849 ms 2806.787 ms 6 snc_backhaul.surfnetc.com (64.74.213.145) 3129.246 ms 508.258 ms 413.276 ms 7 snc_backhaul.surfnetc.com (64.74.213.141) 347.746 ms 566.404 ms 884.111 ms 8 border1.internap.surfnetc.com (66.151.140.1) 387.597 ms 249.760 ms 950.500 ms 9 edge1.g6-3.surfcomm-2.sje003.pnap.net (64.95.143.165) 546.074 ms 556.024 ms 402.872 ms 10 border4.pc5.sje-sje003-316-317.sje.pnap.net (66.151.128.49) 489.970 ms 284.777 ms 633.912 ms 11 core2.t6-1-bbnet1.sje.pnap.net (66.151.144.2) 1022.137 ms core2.t6-2-bbnet2.sje.pnap.net (66.151.144.66) 937.232 ms 1290.122 ms 12 ge-3-2-5-0.sjc10.ip4.tinet.net (77.67.70.5) 501.722 ms 1990.644 ms 2214.103 ms 13 level3-10ge-peering (77.67.69.98) 1143.751 ms 615.209 ms 563.424 ms 14 vlan79.csw2.sanjose1.level3.net (4.68.18.126) 774.271 ms vlan69.csw1.sanjose1.level3.net (4.68.18.62) 931.932 ms 589.591 ms 15 ae-92-92.ebr2.sanjose1.level3.net (4.69.134.221) 770.233 ms ae-62-62.ebr2.sanjose1.level3.net (4.69.134.209) 917.626 ms ae-92-92.ebr2.sanjose1.level3.net (4.69.134.221) 353.086 ms 16 ae-5-5.car1.oakland1.level3.net (4.69.134.37) 678.130 ms 1243.219 ms 1067.844 ms 17 unwired-ltd.car1.oakland1.level3.net (4.71.200.38) 362.925 ms 511.327 ms 2190.095 ms 18 pc5-cr02-jls-oak.unwiredltd.net (204.11.106.14) 1519.337 ms 1026.830 ms 951.567 ms 19 ge4-3-cr02-365m-sfo.unwiredltd.net (204.11.106.90) 1112.723 ms 837.284 ms 477.347 ms 20 svr01-365.unwiredltd.com (204.11.106.53) 1075.293 ms 1711.671 ms 1051.112 ms Ping test: PING svr01-365.unwiredltd.com (204.11.106.53): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 204.11.106.53: icmp_seq=0 ttl=44 time=635.279 ms 64 bytes from 204.11.106.53: icmp_seq=1 ttl=44 time=739.518 ms 64 bytes from 204.11.106.53: icmp_seq=2 ttl=44 time=184.508 ms 64 bytes from 204.11.106.53: icmp_seq=3 ttl=44 time=646.865 ms 64 bytes from 204.11.106.53: icmp_seq=4 ttl=44 time=215.827 ms 64 bytes from 204.11.106.53: icmp_seq=5 ttl=44 time=140.649 ms 64 bytes from 204.11.106.53: icmp_seq=6 ttl=44 time=80.971 ms 64 bytes from 204.11.106.53: icmp_seq=7 ttl=44 time=417.673 ms 64 bytes from 204.11.106.53: icmp_seq=8 ttl=44 time=224.273 ms 64 bytes from 204.11.106.53: icmp_seq=9 ttl=44 time=252.345 ms --- svr01-365.unwiredltd.com ping statistics --- 10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 80.971/353.791/739.518/226.409 ms Ping Surfnet: PING surfnetc.com (66.151.140.35): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 66.151.140.35: icmp_seq=0 ttl=120 time=496.572 ms 64 bytes from 66.151.140.35: icmp_seq=1 ttl=120 time=135.588 ms 64 bytes from 66.151.140.35: icmp_seq=2 ttl=120 time=94.447 ms 64 bytes from 66.151.140.35: icmp_seq=3 ttl=120 time=533.790 ms 64 bytes from 66.151.140.35: icmp_seq=4 ttl=120 time=386.465 ms 64 bytes from 66.151.140.35: icmp_seq=5 ttl=120 time=437.776 ms Request timeout for icmp_seq 6 64 bytes from 66.151.140.35: icmp_seq=6 ttl=120 time=1025.018 ms 64 bytes from 66.151.140.35: icmp_seq=7 ttl=120 time=492.822 ms 64 bytes from 66.151.140.35: icmp_seq=8 ttl=120 time=319.818 ms 64 bytes from 66.151.140.35: icmp_seq=9 ttl=120 time=418.467 ms --- surfnetc.com ping statistics --- 10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 94.447/434.076/1025.018/242.185 ms Stay away until they fix their issues. Do not let the guy in Arizona blame your side of the fence. read more

OK, so I have not been their biggest fan in the past. We have had service since 2008, because there are just not that many choices if you live in the Santa Cruz mountains. I am now happy to report they have continuously improved, both in customer service and in internet speed and reliability, without an increase in price! Recently, we were having trouble with slow internet speeds and spotty outages. Gave them a call, and they were friendly, helpful and efficient. Identified that we did, indeed have a problem and sent a tech right out. He replaced our outdated antenna and other equipment with a new one, at a very reasonable price. We are back to getting good service and are very happy. Is there any downside? They still cannot provide the speeds of other providers at a comparable price, but we can't get service from those providers so Surfnet is the best for our situation, hands down. read more

Searched for hours for an internet provider for our retirement house on a hillside in SLO County overlooking the Avila Valley. Surfnet was the only provider who could provide service other than satellite providers. Been a customer for a little over a month and am very happy so far! Thanks Surfnet! read more

I have been a customer since before the official start of service. I have not always been pleased with service....nor were my neighbors. But over time everything has improved greatly. Customer service is rally good now. Outages are rare. Pricing versus other comparable services is about par or better. I was reticent to give 5 stars mainly because they could still use improvement in BW and allotments...but better than most. They have plans for rural fiber coverage which while I applaud the prospect, doubt it will happen given the costs per customer. But I totally support it. If you look at the reviews, you will see that over time they have improved which IMHO reflects the growing improvements over all! read more

I've been with Surfnet since 2009 with very few issues during those years. The tech support is top notch---responsive, supportive, knowledgeable and fast. Every other provider I've had, which is most of them, has been either frustrating or an outright disaster by comparison. Lawrence, in particular, who handles the house calls, is fantastic. He knows his stuff and is fast and friendly. Not sure where the other negative reviews are coming from, but my experience remains a definite five-stars. read more

Surfnet is not the only solution for people who live in the mountains. Look at Verizon HomeFusion Broadband using the 'cantana'. Surfnet service is the worst. read more

I have the service in the Atascadero. The service works so much better than my previous wildblue internet. I sent large emails out and the fast upload really helps!! read more

My internet sucks. My home phone is through basic talk (through the internet) and calls are staticy. My computer works ok, most of the time, but randomly loses wireless connection requiring me to reboot my wireless motem on a regular basis. We no longer can stream Netflix movies in the peak evening hours because the download speed is so slow. We are were told that we use more than 80GB of data and had to up our service contract (paying almost double). Our Iphones (which we use daily) share 7GB of data and never go over. Also, our AT&T microcell signal booster worked great until we told Surfnet we were using it. Ever since then, AT&T showed that the ports needed to operate the microcell had been closed by Surfnet. Surfnet denied these claims... but, we are still without cell phone reception in our home... after it worked for 6 months solid. We want to switch to something else... and were considering Excede, only to find horrible reviews of that service as well. Everyone keeps telling us the solution is to not live in the woods. read more

completely, utterly, frustratingly GODAWFUL. i almost hate to give them just the one star, since I was a previous customer of direcway (now hughesnet) over 4 excruciating years, and still have not fully emotially/mentally recovered from that torturous experience. unfortunately, after 5 years of use, i have decided that i must flame Surfnet mercilessly for what can only be described as a thoroughly neglectful job of providing "broadband" to rural customers. listen, I understand this is a fairly complex system, and there are bugs to work out. but over the years, not only has service not improved, but rather it has rapidly declined, especially over the last 2 or so years, and they refuse to take any responsibility for it. i can't necessarily say what causes the poor service, but it is possible that it is related to more use of bandwidth intensive web content over the years and their own expanding customer base. but these are issues that ALL ISP's have to deal with, and in general the vast majority of them have increased capacity over the years while simultaneously adding users and addressing throughput. Surfnet's advertised speeds are slow enough (their top tier service is 90 dollars a month and advertised as 3 meg service, a speed i would relate to late 90's DSL) but frankly i would be THRILLED to receive speeds such as this without having to get up at 4 am to achieve them. unfortunately, as every other reviewer has stated, the speed i generally receive is somewhere between 150-600k, with highly erratic results in that range from test sites i/e speedtest.net or speakeasy. the system is prone to being brought entirely to its knees if one of it's customers dares to fileshare, a practice that is apparently impossible to police, and is only adressed if you complain constantly. the tech support person is so thoroughly unfriendly that i prefer not to even leave my callback number, rather i like to tell him that "clearly someone is filesharing, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, but he has taken to getting my number off caller ID so he can return my complaint by accusing ME of filesharing and blaming my wireless router for interference, and offloading all performance troubleshooting onto my back. I have spent countless hours messing with my router confiruation and placement to no avail, despite my overwhelming suspicion that the speed problems are completely unrelated to anything on my end. I have completely replaced my wireless system and PC cards 4 TIMES hoping to alleviate this non-existent interference problem. the fact that the speed related issues correspond so well with high traffic hours (evenings) should be an obvious indication. during recent power outages in the mountains where i live, the speed suddenly jumped over 3 megs for the entire period of the outage (we have a whole-house generator, while many neighbors do not) which seems to further prove that the speed problems are OBVIOUSLY related to overcapacity in the system as a whole. IN an effort to eliminate any question, i even allowed them to replace my antenna (300 dollars) which seemed to briefly help, but within a week speeds returned to their miserable levels at all but the most absurd hours. to rub even more salt in the wounds, surfnet continues to advertise in the MNN with a flyer claiming increased capacity. that's right, they are trying to add even MORE customers to their already overburdened network. while they may have us over a barrel for now, it is likely that the rollout of high speed 4G networks over the next few years might finally force them to increase capacity or die. conversations with them on this eventuality led me to believe they were either blissfully unaware of this impending competition, or were very good at hiding it. my plea to surfnet: at the VERY LEAST be honest about the situation. many of us would gladly pay more for our internet if it meant a reliable broadband connection. why not make a case for increased infrastructure investment along with rate hikes instead of dishonestly laying the blame for your networks shortcomings on its users? if P2P is overtaxing your equipment, then i would suggest your equipment is inadequate, or at the very least find a better way to police it. if you have any hopes of keeping the company afloat once alternatives become available (and they will) then you need to address your customers satisfaction prior to (not after) the options become available. as it is, i would take great joy at switching to an even moderately better alternative, without thinking twice about loyalty to a company that apparently thinks very little of me. read more

I am a big fan of Surfnet. Since we live in a rural area, there are not many options to choose from (such as cable or DSL). I have had a wireless internet connection in the past and Surfnet service is by far superior. I have also experienced the delay and frustrations resulting from "high speed" satellite connections and once again this service is many times superior. I've often checked out both my downlink and uplink speed and in all cases network speed was more than or equal to what I paid for. This was simply not the case with previous wireless or satellite providers. I would love higher speed for less money, but the reality is that I can usually watch an internet video without disconnecting or turning off every other wireless device including phones. That was my previous state -- turn everything off and still video had to be cached. As of May, 2014 I am very happy with this service and recommend it to anyone. read more

they kind of suck they charge for installation fees but they do a poor job they do not know how to install my youtube kept blacking out so my son came over and fixed it now it is hooked up to my smart tv no problem they took all my apps off my tv so i could only use there box but my son fixed it the guy that came over did not know how to install not worth the over 300 dollars that i paid read more