Pros: Actual free DSL service, good tech support.
Cons: Some wording of the contract has caused a phobia.

Unfortunately for this company, members here on epinions have been taking the termination clause out of context and do not realize what that $500 is to cover. Free DSL? Yes, this company does offer free DSL if you will run thier whole ad scheme for the full five years as explained in the member agreement. All this hype over the termination clause is an illogical phobic reaction by numerous writers. I am setting out to explain exactly what the termination clause means, a brief ditty on the cable/telecommunications clause, and then I will critique the actual service.

22.0 - TERMINATION

MEMBER may terminate this Agreement at any time within seven (7) days after entering into this Agreement with no liability to SMART.

During the first week, you may decide that you do not like the service and may end it without penalty of any kind.

MEMBER may terminate this Agreement at any time after the first seven days following the date MEMBER entered into this Agreement by closing MEMBER'S account for freeXDSLTM SERVICE.

After that seven days, you can close down your account at any time but you are sill going to be penalized.

SMART may suspend or terminate MEMBER'S account for freeXDSLTM SERVICE at any time for any reason including but not limited to failure to comply with the terms of this Agreement or any SMART policy.

This is the standard clause thrown in by every major commercial company in the world. Why many people are freaking over this one, I do not know. The same clause is in Geocities, Amazon, and virtually every other big name site in the internet. Basically they are saying "Look, we are allowed to terminate your service contract at any time. this does not mean that we absolutely will, just that if need be, we are allowed to."

If terminated by SMART for a violation by MEMBER of SMART'S AUP or MEMBER'S failure to comply with this Agreement, or if terminated by MEMBER for any reason after the seventh day following MEMBER'S execution of this Agreement, such execution by MEMBER completing registration for freeXDSL(TM) SERVICE, but before the fifth anniversary of the implementation of MEMBER'S freeXDSLTM SERVICE, MEMBER agrees to pay to SMART as liquidated damages Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00) to offset SMART'S expense of allocating service, bandwidth, hardware, or human resources to process the order, arrange for service, or to provide freeXDSLTM service to MEMBER,

Ok, this is the big clause that many epinions members have already had fits about. It is not as bad as it is being made out to be. Let me explain why this is not so bad: This service is based on the premise that the company will have to make an initial investment in each user of at least a couple hundred dollars. Now, that could be spent on manpower to process your application, part of it could be extra wide-band phone line that the company has to pay for to get service to your house, and part of it could be the simple administration costs that extra users make on a large company. Now FreeXDSL is looking to make a gain on this investment, in this case, long term use of advertising that will pay for all the initial investments and make them a profit. But if for some reason, there is a break of service by the member (either choosing not to use the service or doing something wrong), freeDSL wants to be able to still at least cover thier initial investment. They have put money in to you and if the contract is broken they at least want to break even. There is no scam or conspiracy, just good buisness sense.

excluding any termination by MEMBER if SMART were to cease providing freeXDSLTM SERVICE with no monthly fees, in which case MEMBER would have the right to cancel service with no liability to SMART for termination. Upon termination of this Agreement, the provisions of Paragraphs 4.0, 12.0, 14.0, 15.0, 16.0, 17.0, 18.0, 20.0, 21.0 and 23.0 shall survive.

This last part says basically this: "Ok, if we break the agreement, you wont be penalized and when the agreement is over some of the provisions that we said before will still exist."

The cable/telecommunications clause is much like the one that telephone companies use. It basically says that since they are giving you free DSL, when freeDSL can offer you a telecommunication service for less than you are paying now with the same or better benefits, you agree to use it. They are saying you only take it if it is better or cheaper than what you have. It is the same type of thing that a telephone or cable company uses.

As for the actual service, they do provide as advertised. The DSL service does get installed and is provided to you and even though it is not the fastest availible DSL, there is a huge difference between the DSL and a 56K modem connection. The one time that I have had to call for service, I have found the tech support to be quick, courteous and able to help with my needs. The advertising software is a nuisance but you get used to it always being there so you dont worry about it after about a week.

The software could use a little bit of optimization as it does slow down your connection somewhat but since you are getting free DSL service out of it, it would seem that the slight software delay is worth it.

All in all, once you get past the contract phobias, this service is actually pretty decent.