Hotkey Broadband

Good company gone bad – Started out as a very good service provider but their service has decreased dramatically. I have been having an intermittent problem with their service for the last 4 months which they have never been able to resolve. I am on ADSL2 and my download rates for the last week has been less than 300kbs. I was assured problem would be fixed but no satisfaction to date. After more 15 years with Hotkey it is now time to start looking for a new ISP.

Terrible – Twice in the space of a year I have had my email service disrupted. The first time it was for about a week during the Melbourne power blackouts - no email access for a week! I don't know why I didn't switch to gmail at that time. This time it is because of their supposed "upgrade" to the email servers. Today is the second day without email and… Read more

their phone support recorded message is telling me to call later. Looks like it won't be fixed for the long weekend. Truly unprofessional and disappointing company. Their home page looks really nice. I only pay them to keep the old email address which I used to have with an old dial up connection. The reliability is really bad.

Good – Have been a customer for 4 years. The connection has been highly reliable. Some e-mail issues a year ago and a SPAM increase then, but the e-mail service has been fine since and the SPAM has disappeared lately as well. Used support 2-3 times, and always got to speak to a person. Internet gaming is good with minimal lag and virtually no dropouts.… Read more

Reliable connection. Reasonable price. Good support service. Left me on the original download limit (750MB) after my contract expired when newbies were being offered 3GB for the same price.

Terrible – like mentioned in previous Review (dougenhauser - 2 Oct.) this week I had the second mail server outage for several days. Over the support hotline they are not reachable anymore (I was waiting for 50 minutes then gave up...). I am very disappointed and wondering how hotkey is able to run her business this way. Hotkey doesn't treat her customer… Read more

seriously. Absolutely none - reliability is really bad (second outage in 8 months!)

- very poor customer service

- not reachable support hotline (I was waiting for 50 minutes then gave up...)

- not testing Soft- Hardware if they release upgrades

Bad – We had hotkey for about 5 years. We were really happy the whole time because we were paying like $49 for like 10Gig a month and after that was used we didn't get charged more we just got slowed down. Any time we had a problem we could call and get someone to actually pick up the phone not have to go through a phone tree to get there. Then about… Read more

6 months ago we had a problem and had to call in. We got someone that sounded like they were from India. Every time after that we called we got someone that sounded like they were in India so us trying to explain our problem was futile. We said ok, that's cool we are happy otherwise. Then before we moved we asked about reconnection fees. They told us we would not be charged any fees for moving. Then we get to our new location and they refuse that we were given that information and insist on charging us 100+ dollars. I feel embarrassed because I used to recommend hotkey to people but not anymore. DO NOT go with Hotkey, their call centres seem to be in India and there is no concern for customer service.

Customer service

Excellent – When Hotkey tried to upgrade me to ADSL 2, there was a problem at my end. They sent out a technician to check the local Telstra exchange, then went over my home phone connections. The technician found a hole in one of the phone connections under the house (old age) and fixed it, all for free. Total time taken was over 2 hours and no cost. When I… Read more

upgraded to ADSL, I was using Windows 98. The tecnician spent an hour talking me through the upgrade even though their advertised postion was Windows XP only.

The only down times have been when upgrading to a faster connection and this has invariabley been because of a problem at my end which they carefully talked me through or sent a technician out to fix. And there is never any wait on the phone for support. Highly commended. Incredible service. Local support is instant and personal/Australian.(Mornington Peninsula, Carrum Victoria) Been with them for 6 years. They suggested an upgrade to ADSL 2 for a lower monthly price. Latest problem found to be with own phone cnnection which Hotkey fixed gratis after checking local exchange. My only regret is that they don't do cable.

Terrible – The experience with Nobbys/hotkey almost made me give up on using the internet. Go to Optusnet if you want a good, reliable service. I would have given them a quarter of a star, but cant do this so... 0 out of 5. Was available as a local point of access in rural areas before local call access became standard with dial up connections for almost… Read more

all companies. This service was Nobbys.net which merged with Hotkey. Reliability - the lack of, speed - the lack of, customer support - the problem is NEVER theirs...it is always YOUR computer that is the problem...even though numerous others in same town (pop of 400)were all experiencing the same problem (amazing how the problems are identical in all instances but their computers were running perfectly). Price was more than the equivalent service from other companies at the time.

Terrible – Would not recommend to any user that has any possibility of going over their download limit. nor a user that neeeds reliable customer service. Overall a totally dissastisfied ex customer. Reliable connection, friendly service, when you can get it. Had Hotkey for a couple of years and couldn't wait to get rid of it.They send nasty emails to… Read more

customers if their download limit had gone over.

Couldnt get a response from customer service, unless I left a message three or more times, and they blackban some servers from sending emails to you. Not a good company to go for.