Merge ISP does anyone have them?

[whatchel1]

A new company in my area is advertising that they are offering ISP services. They are Merge Windstream Merge. Looking at them as I really don't like AT&T and the cable co here is awful too. Anyway they are offering a a free Roku box and free hulu+ for 6 months. After the 6 m one can cancel w/ no ETF. If you know anything about them would be nice to hear your input.

 

[Tyralak]

I found this little tidbit buried deep in their Terms of Use. Sounds kind of shifty to me.

14. Access to Third Party Services

You agree that the telephone line on which your Services are activated may not be used to access any third-party services equivalent to Services we provide or can make available, even if you declined to purchase such Services from us. Your telephone line contains programming designed to enable access to our Services only. You may not use any manual or electronic means to circumvent any restrictions placed on your telephone line to modify without authorization any programming supplied by us.

 

[DustoMan]

Looks like they just use whoever is your DSL provider to get service. And they just bundle a Roku box with it.
I found a FAQ about Windstream on Broadband Reports:
https://secure.dslreports.com/faq/windstream

Sounds like they might make money by hijacking your search results.

 

[whatchel1]

I'm gonna do a chat w/ them this week to find out more. I don't like AT&T which is what I have. They are pissy about dnlds. Got an email that if next month I use more then 150Gb that they are going to charge me $10 additional per 50 so doing either BBMP or Netflix would kill me.

 

[eurosport]

We have Windstream for home phone & DSL, but it's just Windstream, not "Merge" ...this is the first I've heard of it.

 

[concord]

Yes, just another Telco, bundling a Roku in the package. They just recently started advertising their "Merge" service and dropped their "...one price for life..." ads. I believe Windstream was originally from Arkanas and have been buying up regional telcos over the last several years. My local telco was bought out by them several years ago, however I dropped the telco line way before that and got RR with vonage (now Ooma) instead.

 

[dan188]

Why not just by a roku at walmart or bestbuy??

 

[twizt3dsist3r]

Im a comcast installer, and someone told me that a dorm or some housing for their daughter (Penn State, State College PA) was switching everything to windstream. didnt know anything about them until then.

 

[Jim S.]

If you look at the Windstream forum at BroadbandReports, you'll see virtually everyone complaining about Windstream having ridiculous slowdowns during peak hours, and high latency almost always. As a subscriber, I can vouch for that, even though at my location the problem only started recently, long after everyone else was complaining. How the hell they think they can offer video over such a service is anyone's guess.

And I am truly shocked by the item that Tyralak posted. One of the things that I like about Windstream, vs. for example a cable company, is that since they're a phone company instead of an entertainment company, they don't seem to care what you do with their service. I'm surprised to see the possibility of this changing after all these years.