Skybeam Texas formerly AirCanopy (although the previous owners are probably humiliated that Skybeam has trashed their fine company) If these guys are still in business in three months, I'll be surprised Arlington, Texas

I've been a customer of AirCanopy for several years and was always extremely pleased with both the product and the service. Unfortunately, as so many small companies do, AirCanopy sold out to an out-of-state firm called Skybeam, and since that time the service has deteriorated so that the company bears no resemblance to its former incarnation.

For the past month and a half, I've been trying to contact someone to have them address our pitiful download speeds (AirCanopy promised us 'up to 5 Mb' and we often got 7-8Mb in bursts) Our typical download speed with Skybeam is 200Kb - 1Mb, and service is completely out for long periods just about every day, often for 4-5 hours at a time.

Skybeam recently "made changes to [their] phone system to serve [our] customers better" This included discontinuing their voicemail and callback options, so the only option a customer has is to wait on the phone for 1/2 hour or more, only to talk to someone who speaks English so poorly that you can't understand but every third word. They do NOT answer email (I've written a dozen or more over the past few weeks, and have never received a response); they do not respond to their 'chat' window (I've waited for up to an hour with no results). And if you call their tech support, you first hear a long list of outages all over the state, followed by some music and then... the same report over and over.

Last night at 11:30PM I decided to just wait as long as it took, and after more than 1/2 hour I talked to a tech IN UTAH!!! He said that since he wasn't in my area, he really couldn't 'get into' my system, but when I told him that my response times were running 500ms for a ping hop, he said that he'd 'escallate' the problem, and that someone 'should' call me today. It's been 24 hours, and I'm still waiting for that call.

At times, usually 1:00AM or so, the speeds actually jump up to 3Mb, which leads me to believe that they're just over-subscribing their network. They continue to buy up smaller companies, but they very obviously cannot service the customers they have.

Several of my neighbors have switched to TOCN, and are very happy with their service, but we cannot see their tower from my one-story home, so we have no alternative but to contract for T1 at around $400/mo. That's a lot of money, but our businesses have already lost considerable revenue because we're so dependent on the internet, and we just have no choice but to spend the extra money for reliable service.

Skybeam's management is sufficiently insulated from its customers so that you cannot even make a complaint heard. They recently closed their office in Midlothian, and I suspect that they'll be filing for Chapter 7 very soon. That happened to us several years ago, and it was very expensive for us to find alternative service in a hurry, and we don't intend to allow this firm to put us in that position again.

Before you sign on with these clowns, just call their tech support line and listen to the list of cities and towns where service is either down or intermittent - you'll quickly see that Skybeam is not a viable solution for anyone who requires fast, reliable internet service. You can see a Speed Wave at http://www.speedtest.net/wave/565a10a8c6a19c99? - but don't let those "average speeds" fool you - the higher speeds are almost entirely taken at 1:00AM - 3:00AM, so unless you can get all your work done in the wee hours of the morning, you're out of luck with these guys.

(I can't get the photo of the SpeedWave to upload, but tonight at 11:30PM we're getting 0.45Mb download speed - pitiful)