Help Us Find High Speed Internet Service in Puerto Rico
When I first moved down to Rincon, the office I rented used Choice Cable for Internet access and it was very disappointing. Service went down all the time and download/upload speeds were unbearably slow 50% of the time. After quite a bit of research, I decided to use Commercial grade DMAX DSL as our Internet provider at our house/offices.
The first year of DMAX was great. We had very high upload and download speeds and never had any connectivity issues. As of about October, our DMAX DSL has gone down hill, BIG TIME. It is constantly going offline and has been quite slow.
I am going to start researching other options again (1 year later) and see if there are any ISP’s in Puerto Rico that can offer consistent, high speed quality Internet. If you have any suggestions for me or would like to share an experience with us, please post below, it could help everyone (including Summer and I) out!
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January 27th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Did you check with a any cable tv company?
January 27th, 2009 at 11:59 am
According to At&t they have 3G Coverage in Rincon. Also you my try out Centennial Comunications, since they bought a wireless service provider called Isla.net (787-999-4455). They specialized in this sort of thing.
January 27th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
We have Sprint wireless. My connection in the hills of San German is good and I havent any real trouble with it. But, it can be slow. Most video is slow and choppy. Up loading videos to blooger is frustrating to say the least. I would say my speed is mostly 256 and can go as high as 712. It’s $65/month.
January 27th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
I have Choice Cable here in San German and it had been complete garbage in the past. It has improved, though. It’s 9:12 PM and I’m getting 1050K out of 1500K whereas I used to barely get 150 to 250K. It’s still not perfect, but it has gotten better.
January 28th, 2009 at 5:01 am
I brought my ATT wireless air card and still using it in Quebradillas and it is working out very welll, reason for why we haven’t changed to a local service.
January 28th, 2009 at 6:19 am
We’ve been renting a month each winter for the last 2 years. Last year we used Choice and had the same horrendous experience you had. This year we’re using Sprint’s 3G service. We’re in Stella near the Villa Cofresi and my speed has been between 300 kb – 800 kb. My only problem with the service is you have a 5GB limit per month.
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:25 am
Im In Patillas which is on the complete diagnal opposite side of the island. My choices where not so great when i got here about 6 months ago. it was Dial up, Sat or, Wireless card, since cable stops short and doesnt come up to the House. its mostly farms here and rain forest.
i tried contacting sat but no answers on email or phone, wierd. so i stoped by radio shack and picked up a sierra 595U sprint USB card its 3G and EVDO, Up i get 100 to 150 kbp down 600 980 not the same as my NY Optimum online but given that im practicaly in a jungle over here im happy its almost like DSL. also for those lookig into this option they sell special wireless router you hook these cards to and share the service with other PCs
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:33 am
ohh By the way I dont have problems with dropps but the signal strength might drop a bar or 2 i am on the side of a small monatian surounded by them and still get 3 to 4 bars. out on the round i can get max signal thats the other bonus it goes where i go and i have to say sprint service the times i have used them have been Good .
February 5th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Hi–I tried twice to submit a comment and it never showed up, so I’m glad you say you’ve fixed that problem…we’ll see! Anyway, we have been unhappy with Choice Cable for the past couple of years and were ready to switch over to DMAX. They sent us the wrong modem 3 times and their customer service is horrible, especially if you’re trying to deal with them from the States (we have a house in Rincon, but we’re not here all the time).
When I finally got a modem that worked, it kept dropping out and there was a loud whine on our phone line even with the DSL filter. I gave up on DMAX, but happily, Choice Cable seems to have improved some.
Best, Christine at Casa Bianca in Puntas
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:10 pm
I recently moved from San Juan to Cidra and had to get DMAX service set up here. They sell their “5 mega” package, which really is only around 600kb/s. They set us up a week ago and its still only like 300kb/s. Every call to customer service results in them telling us to wait like 2 days while its fixed, but it isn’t ever. While in San Juan I had OneLink, which is cable. It was fast and never went own the whole time I was there. I wish OneLink was available in Cidra. I moved from Iowa down here a couple years ago and the internet prices / speeds are still one of those things that pisses me off. in Iowa you can get a 7MB connection for $30/m. Here you cant get over 1MB generally and that’ll cost you at least $80 a month and take 2 to 3 weeks to set up. In iowa it took 3 days.
March 5th, 2009 at 6:58 am
Hi, greetings from Bethlehem, PA. I really enjoy your website and story. I hope to retire to Rincon in the near future and your stories have been a wealth of info. Wanted to send the info on HughesNet your way. They service North America including Puerto Rico.
http://go.gethughesnet.com/
With HughesNet® as your high speed Internet service, your super-fast, always-on, satellite Internet access is ready when you are — no dialing in, no waiting and no tied-up phone lines. You can download files in seconds, check email instantly and surf faster than you ever imagined. And HughesNet satellite Internet access is compatible with Windows® and Macintosh®, so getting online anywhere in the contiguous U.S. is easy!
September 7th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I just moved from NYC to Bayamon and I’m experiencing similar problems with DMAX. My internet speed is a crawl. When I’m connected wirelessly it’s even slower! I’m paying DSL prices and getting dial up speeds! Any recent luck?
September 7th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Yea my mom just got DMAX and after many speed test its just not fast enough for the price. im trying to get into the router but the default password and ID have been changed so I might call
September 8th, 2009 at 8:01 am
The default password is usually the phone number the internet service comes with. Calling isn’t as bad as you would think. You’re usually on hold for a while, but they do have English speaking help! I think there might be bandwidth restrictions or something because I wasdoing a lot of downloading yesterday and after a while it just stopped working. I couldn’t even go to google.com without it timing out!
September 8th, 2009 at 8:54 am
tom for my router TG782 the default was the serial number typed in all Caps it was used for the User name and Password here is the link to DMAX site with the down loadable manual,(it didn’t come with my unit, in case any one else comes across this.
November 25th, 2009 at 8:26 am
ive had choice both internet and tv for over 10 years, used their 3Mb internet most of the time here in cabo rojo. when i became an MSN and Skype user i immediately noticed i needed more speed.my 3Mb speed more like 1.5Mb in the evenings. so i decided to go for the 6Mb speed same problem half the speed in the evenings. choice has a seriuos problem keeping up on the demand, in the evenings. speed test on the later will vary from o to 5.22, which gives problems on MSN and SKYPE.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:20 am
I’m really NOT happy to hear others have the same internet speed problem that I have. I have friends from around the world that have much better bandwidth than Puerto Rico has, that it makes me feel we’re in a third world country here.
Even our neighboring islands have better service than we do here. I have basic DMAX service because its not worth paying more for ANY increase in speed … the phone company just wont give better speeds anyway … no matter how much your willing to pay.
I wish somebody would give these local cable and telephone companies some real competition so they would get on the ball and provide quality internet service.
December 28th, 2009 at 11:28 am
I agree. ISPs in Puerto Rico are pathetic. DMAX’s service was plagued with interruptions and slowdowns. I switched to Liberty simply because it was cheaper. Aside from blocking bittorrent downloads, the service is an abomination. PR needs an ISP that can scare off DMAX’s and Liberty’s constant stupidity.
February 9th, 2010 at 10:18 am
@TOM Could you share the link you mentioned is the password to the router. I have a TG782 and am having trouble accessing it. I would rather not call customer service, but may do it anyways.
WOuld appreciate your help.
February 10th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Well i am happy to hear that i am not the only one that has DMAX problems. The company DMAX has sent me 5 and may i repeat 5 modems and they still dont work. i am paying for 1 mega yeah right if you can believe that they could even give you that much. In any case the phone company has come and replaced the phone lines and guess what well i am still having the same problem noise on the phone even with the filters, slow speed i am so fed up and i wish there was another option. someone help please. i live in Rincon which is a beautiful town but the phone company needs to be replaced.
February 24th, 2010 at 9:55 am
Quick tip !!!
for anyone with demax speed issues, have them install a new junction box and/or cables, make sure all connections are perfect. my mother was finaly able to get Dmax and had lots of problems with speed and drops till fianly a tech looked at those things. maybe its due to the weather.
March 8th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
There’s one alternative to DMAX & cable. I was looking for fast, reliable internet service. Neither cable nor DMAX were any good. About a year ago I switched to wireless broadband (aeronetpr.xom). Service is great, reliability is sky-high, and the cost is ok. The installation costs are high, but well worth it. U need to check coverage in your area, though. Good luck.
May 9th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
I have the same problem. We used a 2wire router from DMAX for about a year before the modem stopped working, having service outages for hours or days at a time, constantly. It took four months to get them to give us a new router, but only because we were referred to by a technician who came to fix the telephone line, because our line one day just suddenly went completely dead. We now have a Thompson TG782 router that works fine, but I cant access the interface through all of the passwords I’ve tried. I need to forward ports. I took Tom’s advice and used the phone number, and used the basic admin/admin, etc combinations, to no avail. I know for a fact that the password and username were not changed after we got the router from the tech center, but I cant get the dang factory password! Not even Thompson has it! And im not the person paying the bill, I just maintain the router, so I cant call customer service to ask for help, its ridiculous the service down here (internet AND cellular, especially ATT!)
May 20th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
well im having problems with dmax and i use to work with them i paid 2 megabytes and only i get like 1.3 then i went down to 512 there are a bunch of liers and the service they provide even worse always with the same excuse that theres an “averia” thats bullshit u paid for 2 megas and u never see it i wish there would be better internet like in chicago 12 megabyter fo 60 dollars now that a deal i wish FOR BETTER INTERNET IN PR!!!
June 24th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I wonder if people are aware, the “mega” all ISPs advertise are not Megabytes, they’re megabits. Dmax’s 1 Mega plan is roughly equal to around 128 Kilobytes per-second, so their 2 mega plan is about 256KBps and their maximum 5 Mega (residential) should equal 640KBps. You’re not getting megaBYTES, you’re getting megaBITS.