Grande Communications

If there was an option for negative stars, I would give them.
Grande Communications was, without a doubt, the worst ISP I have ever received service from. We were in an apartment complex only serviced by Grande (Village at Gracy Farms), which meant we had no option when we found that the service was unavailable frequently. I would guess that service was unavailable for multiple hours during the day 10 times or more in the year and a half we used Grande.
My fiancé and I both work from home (in tech) and require an internet connection to do our jobs. Randomly losing connection with no reliable ETA was unacceptable.
What’s worse is that when I would call in these outages, I would often receive an automated notification that service was being restored — but was told later that calling and receiving this recording would not ensure that I was credited for the time my internet was unavailable. Instead, I was told that in order to receive credit, I need to both call in when my service is interrupted and then AGAIN when my service is restored.
It is not my job as a customer to let Grande know when my service is and is not available. If they have consistent issues in an area, they should credit customers according to the service received. Perhaps then Grande would have been more proactive about remediating whatever issue seemed to persistently occur at our complex.
I will never do business with Grande again, and will actively campaign against friends and family relying on them for service.

I am SO happy to be with Grande. Finally, a company with good speeds, great customer service and VERY affordable! Love it! So fortunate.

I love Grande! Being treated like a human by a cable company shouldn’t be such a shock… and yet it totally is. They have always treated me fairly, the internet has always been quick, and I love them. Also, they stand up for their right not to disclose subscribers’ information! I will not be changing my provider… probably ever.

Grande’s customer care is good to excellent but you can only care for a very poor set of products so much. The cable produces constant hesitations and pixilation in the viewing experience. As far as internet access was concerned… the worst. Having been a product manager for AT&T Internet 20 years ago, I know that redundancies should be the norm and maintenance should not interrupt services. Grande uses network maintenance outages on upgrading and maintaining the network… FOR 6 HOURS!!! Every network whould have backup/​redundancy that they can switch the service over to when doing so. Guess Grande is more than 20 years behind in what is an industry standard. Oh… but wait… customer care stated that «the engineers are doing the best that they can do». If this is their best they should be fired!

Extremely over priced and not enough options for packages… Either pay a lot to get regular channels you want or pay not much less for nothing… If there was another option id take it. Considering just getting rid of it altogether…

We used them for a business account. The speed was good, but we had a good number of periodic outages. This would have been OK until we tried to disconnect. We moved to a new location and they did not serve the new area. When we resigned with them, I had negotiated in the contract (knowing we would move in a year or two) that if they did not serve that area, they would disconnect us for free.
When disconnect time came, it was clearly up to me to prove this and it took multiple conversations and emails and faxes to get them to honor their own agreement – written into the contract. Still that wasn’t the worst.
It is now late August and we stopped service in early April. I have received countless bills for countless different amounts. Each time I call, I work with a customer service person who eventually goes through all the notes and says we do not owe them anything. Then the next month, week, or even day we get a new bill, often charging late fees. Finally they have sent it to collections – days after I spoke with someone who once again said we did not owe anything.
I am paying the $ 30.29 they say we owe, just to stop having to deal with them for an hour or three each month. It is outrageous. Don’t ever use them. It is worth paying not to deal with them – perhaps a good short term money making plan for them.

Hopefully I can write a review before my internet turns off again…
Okay so the customer service is really nice they are great BUT, the service is terrible! I haven’t had the chance to use my laptop because the Internet will continuously disconnect. I can’t be on for longer then 2 minutes before it disconnects… I hate it! I have to call them at least twice a week because my internet won’t work, customer service is nice but not helpful. I don’t recommend anyone to grande it is not worth the head ache! I have never been so frustrated before. GRANDE IS A BIG CIRCLE OF FRUSTRATION AND NO HELP!!!

I have been a Grande customer for almost 10 years! We’ve had a few internet issues here and there but customer service and the techs that have come to the house have always been great and solved the problem.

This internet service is the only one that is available to me where I live, and I have some major problems with it, but first let’s go over the Pros and why I give it two stars and not one. During Off-​Peak hours, 11PM-​3PM, the service is acceptable. Ok, now the cons.
First, Peak hours, 3PM-​11PM, are horrible. Now, if all you do is check your e-​mail and read Yahoo, then it should be fine. But even my grandmother uses Netflix, and if you want to watch a streaming video… I don’t think so Tim, at least not with any quality.
I understand I am a heavy user, and I pay for 80 download with 20 upload speeds, and I understand using Wifi can greatly reduce that speed, so I connect directly into the router and do not use wifi for my computer. That being said, I am unable to keep up with my work and unable to keep up with my play at this «incredible speed» I am paying for. I use Google+ and Skype for conferences, Google Drive and Office 360 for productivity apps, and I use Twitch, Youtube, Netflix, and FoxSports to stream entertainment, but not at Peak times, because I can’t. I work from 7AM to 5PM and sleep from 10PM until 6AM, which is similar to most people. This means I do not have access to what I am paying for during the week. I get boggled down by everyone else wanting to use the internet. This means that Grande should get more bandwidth for it’s growing users.
I have heard the excuse that they are a small company, and that may be true. The problem is, if they are going to advertise these speeds and quality then they should grow with their user base and not stay that same small company trying to output to a large consumer base. Right?
I know that advertised speeds are unrealistic, and that Grande can’t match that speed. I am not talking about a reduction of speed due to wifi, computer ability, or modem/​router. I am talking about the huge speed loss because they cannot support themselves; they have bitten off more than they can chew. And they need to update their system and get more power to be useful during Peak hours of viewing/​surfing times.
As to their customer service I can only say they will give you the run around, take you step by step through everything you have told them you already have done, and not have an explanation to the problem. They do not talk about Peak hours on their website help page and act like it does not apply to them; it applies to all service providers. The people on the phone are nice enough. I do not expect them to know much about the issues; they are there to follow troubleshooting protocol and take payments, which helps some people.
I just want them to acknowledge that they do not have the bandwidth to support all the people they are trying to support and to fix the problem.

Worst customer service ever. I have sent 3 messages over a 2 week period to cancel my cable and have yet to hear back from anyone. The cable box doesn’t record the shows I want and when it does it gets 5 minutes and cuts off. The screen is shaking so bad I can’t even watch it. It may be the cheapest but there is a reason for that. DO NOT USE…

I guess my husband wanted to avoid Time Warner at all cost, so he went with Grande. But their customer service is ridiculous. Our internet goes out periodically, but this weekend it just stopped working. When I called and told them I needed to have the internet before Monday morning because I work from home, the customer service guy actually laughed at me and said he can’t make up appointments and the earliest we could get someone was Monday night. Okay, so Monday night between 5 and 7 was our appointment.
Cue to Monday night, I get a message on my phone saying my appointment was cancelled because I didn’t answer my phone when they called. What kind of policy is that? I was at home, waiting for my appointment. No one even bothered coming to the door.
Honestly, I can’t wait for google fiber to finally be available.

Again, I find myself without internet service. In fact, the only thing I can count on with Grande Communications is that at least once per month, my service will go out and I will have to take time off work for a tech to come out.
A fine example of the tech coming out: (1) using my appointment time to deal with something else in the neighborhood, or (2) not showing up at all.
The final straw was after being told I needed to go three days without service and trying to explain that my boss is telling me that I need to switch service due the amount of time I have taken off, my (already rude and smart mouthed CSR) said the best they could do was next weekend — or eight days without service.
They recently raised the monthly internet service cost to «make improvements,» but I am still dealing with poor internet and customer service.

It’s a waste people. I have to say that Grande is the best of the worst. Can’t wait for Google Fiber to come to my area. I’ve heard nothing but great things about it. The service and everything with this place used to be great. I used to call in and the reps were so happy and helpful. Now, they act as if you don’t matter. It sucks to see a company turn sour. They reply to your message on Unilocal to make it seem as if they are doing something, but they’re not. It’s the same shady service. They want me to take time off work for them to fix a problem with a crappie modem. It’s just terrible. But like I said, they’re the best of the worst.

A long time Grande customer with bundled service for which I pay a couple of thousand dollars per year. I recently found that I could not access or sign in to my e-​mail account. My password was disabled. Twice i contacted their customer service to access my e-​mail and was quickly blocked on each occasion. Had the customer service representatives done due diligence, they would have seen that Grande had locked my e-​mail account. It appears that somebody has stolen my grandecom address and is using it to generate SPAM Again, failing due diligence, Grandecom labled me the perpetrator and locked my account without informing that they had done so or giving any reason. My virus program detects no virus or malware but I am having to take my computer to a professional for scanning.
This action and lack of professionalism by Grande Communication is costing me money and threatening my livelihood.

Don’t use if you care about your credit.
Absolutely terrible. Called to terminate my service — they didn’t turn it off and charged me for 3 more months, reported me delinquent to my credit report. I call them and they can’t verify it as a debt, refer me to their collection agency, who yells and hangs up on me, and then when I call Grande they hang up on me as well.
It is one thing to run a business and be profitable. Its another to make mistakes and refuse to correct.

It is the worst internet I’ve ever had in 20 years of internet service. I had faster download speeds in 1997 than I have in 2015 through Grande. It is the only internet service that will make Time Warner seem like a good deal. It is fucking garbage.

Ok so I guess the price is ok, but there service sucks the tech wasn’t even part of grande he said they got put on coming in from Dallas and he works with broadband not grande. He came at 12 still here after 5 and still no internet I truly believe twc is the best but pricey. Uuugghhh I’m ready for this to b over and pray there is no more problems.

Note: Long review, so in summary: They saved me from Time Warner Cable with unfettered internet speeds at twice the speed for half the cost.
First and foremost, we don’t use TV — we have a bundled package that gets us 1 HD Box and HBO for half-​price (which we in turn just use for HBO-​GO). That being said, their HD DVR TV box is terrible and outdated, same box as Time Warner Cable but much worse software integration. That’s not the beginning of their software problems, their web application that looks up addresses it serves is/​was broken (in early 2014 when we moved here and I was searching around). We live in a house, no extra apartment number or anything so the address search should be an easy fix from a web/​software developers point of view (that of which I am). When I found out I couldn’t get the over 100mbps speed of grande (no service on our street according to their website lookup tool), we had to go with the next fastest (at the time) Time Warner Cable for a pricey 50mbps down and 5mbps upload (any cheaper plans were 1mbps upload and I need the best speed I can get since I do a lot of freelance web development). After 2 months of hell with Time Warner (took 3 weeks to even get them to install a cable for internet — ended up telling them to just wire cable on side of house and drill through to my office to get internet access– apparently the cables in each room were all cut by a dish company from previous tenant and they couldn’t ‘drop any lines’ or something). Anyway, I’m rambling. Back on point.
One day we get a promo flyer in the mail addressed directly to our address (as I typed in on their website) from Grande for a deal that was twice the speed, and half the cost, of TWC. I immediately called and explained my situation. The first rep said that they ‘definitely covered my home’ — put me on hold and came back 2 minutes later — ‘actually we cannot find your address’… Ummm ok why did I get this in the mail? Are y’all trying to tease me? I went from ecstatic to sad because we were already having throttling issues with TWC and this seemed like the best answer. They finally got back on the phone after holding for a while, conclusion was that they were going to have to call me back? Odd… anytime any other ISP/​Cable company has said that I have never heard back (from TWC to Comcast). I thought I’d never hear back and was stuck with the terrible TWC.
2 hours later I was ACTUALLY called back! Did not expect that. And they bore good news, they could be out there in 2 days to install services. 2 days?!? That was like lightspeed compared to TWC. Luckily I was NOT on contract with TWC (I made sure of this since I was hoping Google Fiber would show up asap and save the day, turns out it was Grande).
Service as of now after almost 1 year with them: top notch, never down and speeds are usually higher than the advertised speed (I got their fastest plan of 110mbps down 10 up — would usually get about 115 down and 11 – 12 up). HBO-​GO and Netflix stopped constantly buffering and playing in the worst SD quality when it did work on TWC, now it’s smooth sailing full 1080p HD (and Ultra HD on some netflix content). No signs of throttling even with P2P connections (for legal stuff, like downloading & seeding Linux distros).
What brought me to write this review: they automatically just upgraded our internet to 220mbps down and 20mbps up, there has never been a billing issue, and they had fast and reliable service when installing (they actually did call and arrive between the times of **pm & **pm unlike TWC which missed days without so much as a call until the next).
Reason for ⁵⁄₅? I think the rating on Unilocal poorly reflects their actual service… most reviews seem like angry-​ish consumers not looking at the big picture and comparable options. They honestly deserve ⁴⁄₅ for their bad software and making me deal with TWC for almost 2 months, but they are a small company and I would rather them spend their money on better infrastructure (clearly they have since I just got doubled in speed for no cost) than other wasteful things that large ISP’s do (like keep all the money, for example).
Also, no BS fees or upcharging after a couple months or anything like that. They even provided the modem for FREE (yep, I got to sell my 1 month old new modem that I got on Amazon to use with TWC for $ 80-​ish dollars, TWC was trying to charge near $ 10 a month just for a modem).
All-​in-​all, from Dallas, Lubbock, Denver and TWC in Austin, they are the BEST ISP I’ve ever used.
*Note: No google fiber access, only options are Time Warner, AT&T and Grande — Grande is as good as it gets for my neighborhood and I am solely giving this rating for their INTERNET speed and reliability. I use not only
but independent tests to my remote hosted server (that I use to host client websites/​email/​etc on). I am also a web/​software developer with networking experience so I have experience in this type of stuff

Never trust a company that’s not upfront with its pricing, and that lies about its reviews.
Their website shows only introductory pricing, not the price you’ll pay when the introductary period is over. Repeat: They don’t disclose the actual price of the service, when the introductory period ends, anywhere. I called them and asked them where they hide the standard retail rates on the website, and the agent kept telling me they were there, before finally admitting that they’re not.
Also, if you’re a current customer and you’re trying to check on rates (like maybe you want to change your plan), you can’t see rate information AT ALL. When you put in your address to check the rates, their stupid form sees that you’re a current customer, and takes you away from the pricing area.
Finally, on their site their services all have 4– or 4.5-star reviews, which isn’t believable since they’ve got only 2 stars on Unilocal

In 2004, Grande was the best ISP in Austin. Back then, their coverage area was limited, but they had the best prices, routing, and customer service of any ISP in town.
Now, they might be the WORST ISP in Austin.
First, rude supervisors — absolutely shameless in their delivery when they say, «we’re a business,» after you’ve just described that you’re paying for a service you aren’t receiving. Receiving a prorated refund for down time is worse than pulling teeth, especially, if you’ve already received a refund for something in the past (pro tip: fix your services and you wouldn’t need to give refunds).
Second, we were paying for 50 down for 6 months and never exceeded 30 at any given time of day. After wasting countless time talking to nitwits, they «resolved» the speed problem and lowered our monthly bill to compensate. Great! Oh wait…
We are now going on the 7^th day of our connection completely dying every night at the exact same time. I’ve spoken to Grande every night, and I’m either told it’s an issue in our neighborhood that they are «resolving» or it’s an «outage.» Our connection during the day has been intermittent, which seems to be pretty normal for Grande. They also use quite possibly the worst third party routing service. If you need a steady ping, expect to use a VPN. We ping ~56 to servers in Dallas, ~70 to Chicago.
They don’t cap speeds or sandvine, but both are irrelevant if you can’t even stay connected. Expect tons of lag, a lot of time spent on the phone with them, and little sympathy (no empathy whatsoever) from Grande supervisors.
Oh, and yes, like most ISPs who just want to get you off the phone so they can meet their metric requirements, blaming your router is a standard practice.