Sparklight — Local services in Bryant

Edit: Talked to the online chat like the reponse said, and they were useless and couldn't help me. Terrible company

DO NOT GIVE THIS COMPANY YOUR BUSINESS. Storms on April 5th ripped out power cable

The first time I called support, I wasn't aware the cable sitting in my backyard was for the internet. The guy on the line told me internet would be restored that night of the day after and I was content.

Call #2 was a couple days later. I noticed that on this companies Twitter page they said the outage had been resolved, which didn't make sense because I still didn't have internet. At this point I knew about the downed line so I figured they needed to be informed of it. I called the number on the Twitter page. What followed was me waiting in the que, getting to the front of it, then the help desk person telling me they couldn't help users who merged from fidelity yet. They then proceed to transfer me back to the same que that couldn't help me. This happened 3 times before a lady finally actually tried to do something and contacted the help line that could actually work with me. She said they would call me back ASAP, and then they never called me.

Call #3 was a couple days later, at this point I was nearing a week with no internet. Called up the right number this time (fidelity users have there own separate line we have to call, the Twitter page failed to mention this) and got the same guy from call number 1. He pretty much blew me off and told me that it would be fixed that night or the next day (heard that one before). He also said I had 300 dollars in overdue fees which didn't make sense because I was up to date on my bill. Turns out when I moved service a couple months ago they failed to close my old address account, so I had to talk to billing and get that resolved. The billing person was nice and redirected me to ANOTHER help line (why so many help lines for one company??) and this new guy actually tried to help me. He emailed the local office and said they would contact me (spoiler, they never did).

After another few days I called again to get an update (#4). The lady said that she could see the email the guy sent and a supervisor acknowledged it. Cool.

A couple more days go by and I still haven't heard anything so I go for call #5. This person decides to schedule a tech to come out there (why didn't we do that earlier). She schedules it for like 5 days later because there isn't much availability. I'm so beat down at this point that I just accept it and appreciate the fact I at least have a timeline. I made sure to let her know that I wouldnt be there when the tech arrived but it was all outdoor work anyway, and gave her instructions to get to the backyard.

Now to today. The last lady told me to expect a call when the tech was on his way. I never got one so I decided to call (#6) around 3ish. Apparently the tech arrived but left when he knocked and didn't get an answer. Again, I already made it known I would not be there. I have an hour plus commute and can't take a day off work for something that is entirely outdoor work. The lady I called said that they would make a new ticket for MONDAY but escalate and they should get back out there today. It's 7 PM and sure enough no one has shown up. At this point I'm expecting no one to even attempt to come out until Monday and when they do they'll probably just leave without doing anything again since I'm not there.

Sorry for the wall of text but I feel like I really have to write out the whole story to truly get across how ridiculous this has been. Note during this entire story I have not been able to get in contact with one person who is actually local to my area. Fidelity was a great company I was happy to use, but sparklight is an incompetent pitiful excuse for a company. I will say when your internet does work it works good, and good prices too. But all the misinfo and lies support has given me has spoiled any goodwill built over...

update I made this review 4 years ago and I’m VERY happy to report we are now watching movies without buffering or lost connections compliments of AT&T! Fidelity lost a good paying long time customer plus my parents (they were 15 year customers) who also switched from Fidelity after they saw the better service we were receiving from AT&T.

Fidelity Communications was our family’s internet provider for 8 years. Their service for us was 250Mbps for $120 a MONTH. I put up with rude customer service reps, hard to schedule technician appointments, and calling the technical support line to have a modem reset multiple times a week. The connection was dropping at least 3-5 times a day and all of our home depends on it. We use it for TV, phones, security system, laptops and even our coffee maker. And now with the pandemic and everyone being locked inside my children’s school depends on the live streaming functions. Literally everything needs it to function. So it’s frustrating when it would go down for 2 days at a time which happened multiple times a year. Their excuse was always a cable was cut by a utility worker. The last time I had them at our home they sent a technician to see what the issue was. He walked in for 5 seconds after I waited for him for 3 hours. He said there was nothing he could do in my home and that he had no clue why they didn’t send a bucket truck because everyone in the neighborhood was out. I had to wait another 8 hours before the bucket truck finally showed up. The technician prior to that last issue (it was around 3 months prior) after replacing my modem for the 3rd time that year, told me that the cables in our neighborhood were decades old and needed to be replaced and was the cause of my dropped connections. He had no issues telling me that it would never happen because Fidelity won’t spend that kind of money on a small not “upper class” neighborhood because he was leaving to work with a different company. Incredibly frustrating. On the last repair I called back and asked if I could have the deal they offered to new customers that we kept getting mailers for at $85 a month for all the trouble that we had to deal with. I was declined. That was the last straw! AT&T was at our home next day and installed for free at 3 times the speed since it was brand new service that Fidelity didn’t offer. It was fiber optic at 950Mbps for $60 a month with free $150 gift card for switching to them and free access to Max streaming services. When I called to cancel with Fidelity they kept me on hold for 27 minutes. The rep was abrupt and rude. She didn’t even attempt to retain me as a customer after 8 years with them, much less, ask me what the reason was as to why we were leaving. That’s horrid...

EDIT 2: Nevermind. 1 star again. This service provider is the worst. 4th technician in 3 weeks coming tomorrow to attempt to fix my internet. They’ve came and check my equipment, coax, box even the lines on the poles. Internet still dropping. Still at like 15% packet loss. Tech came out today. Went to the pole. “Fixed” something. And no I have no internet at all. Guy just came and made it worse and left. It was unbelievable. Anyone know of good internet providers around this area? I’m in the market for a new one.

EDIT: Bumped from 1 star to 3. It was only after I posted this negative public review did I get some help. 4-5 calls over 11 days yielded nothing. Post one negative review and I get put in touch with a guy who says he can get a tech out to me either today or tomorrow. They came this evening and got it fixed. The negative squeaky wheel gets the grease unfortunately. But why were the other call operators unable, or did they simply refuse, to call a tech to my area? The world may never know.

Worst internet provider I’ve ever had. Why did Fidelity sell to this garbage company!? I am about to complete week #2 of no internet. I’ve called 4 times. Been told to just keep waiting twice. Been told techs were coming twice. Nothing. Told I was put on a list for techs working in my area and they should be out to see me real soon. That was 5 days ago. Nothing. The reps answering calls have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. Just keep telling me to keep waiting. They have no idea how to diagnose anything. All they say is to keep waiting for a tech. LOL. Calling it an awful Internet service would be an...