Access Montana

The good: their actual fiber internet service is excellent. Once we had my circuit's capacity dialed in, it consistently met or exceeded the provisioned line-rate. Their technical support is sublime: I needed to open a ticket about an inconsistency I was seeing in the connection. This was resolved in 3 days and I received a personal call from their NOC manager afterwards to verify everything was fixed.

It was representative of everything I love about working with small, local ISPs. Why the overall negative review? The sales/billing department. tl;dr - we agreed on one price, and they unapologetically charged me another. Relevant background: Professionally, I have dealt with every shady network provider on both coasts, and been through the ringer with each of them (Level 3, Comcast, MegaPath, HughesNet - etc).

Due to this, I keep detailed notes of every call I have with a network provider, from the initial "Hey I'd like to provision this line", onwards. This includes number called, person spoke with, what was talked about, what conclusions were reached and why, etc. This pattern continued with Access Montana. Their website states "straight forward pricing with no gimmicks.", but there is not a single price listed anywhere.

All of their services involve a call or webform to receive an individual quote per customer. As I intended to run several servers for my business on this connection, I was referred to the 'business department' several times throughout the provisioning process, being told variations of "we can negotiate you a special business rate for your connection".

So far, so good. We initially started with a 500mbit connection for $299/mo, with a block of 5 static IPs for $5/mo/ea - $324/mo total. After several week of monitoring, it was clear the line was struggling to meet that throughput. I reached out to Access Montana, and we discovered that particular circuit could not support that level of service. We could do a private connection for $1500/mo, or we could price out a slower but more stable connection.

As this 'business connection' was initially a negotiation, I tried negotiating: what happens to pricing when we make the line symmetric, a better price for the IPs, or a better Service Level Agreement, etc etc. This didn't seem to sit well with my contact in the 'business billing department', but we came to an agreement that seemed fair. As I was paying $299/mo for 500mbit, but the line can be provisioned at 250mbit for half that cost - $150.

The IPs would remain at $5/mo/ea, so $175/mo total. "$175 All inclusive" is the phrase in my notes. Fast forward, and I receive a bill for $199. I email my contact, and we begin a back-and-forth discussion. I have my notes, the agent claims she has hers, and they differ. Requests for documentation are ignored, and my last request to please go back to the customer service recording was also ignored.

I tried escalating to a general manager over a week ago, and that was also ignored. Their conduct, in my opinion, has been petty and unprofessional. They have been unable (or unwilling) to produce standard customer service records around this matter, and I am absolutely not going to do business with a company that promises one price for something and charges another.

What does this mean for the average consumer who wants a fast internet connection? I wouldn't do business with this company if there was any other alternative. Fortunately, Starlink has prioritized Lake County, Montana for connectivity due to the Reservation and its rural status. It is easy to sign up with them, they have a public price list, and their download is comparable to Access Montana's 250mbit line speed. Starlink's upload could be better, but that improves every quarter as more satellites are added to the constellation.

If you don't have any other choice for internet connectivity, proceed with extreme caution. Demand emailed documentation - don't "wait for the invoice" as I did, which proved to be the crucial mistake on my part.

Been doing business with them for years. Used to be a utility, only service in town. But now they have competition and sometimes fail to respond to customer's needs with their old utility attitude. But, 90% of time responsive. I'll stick with them for internet, they provide good service at a competitive price. Their Cable service is expensive, Dish a better value.

Absolutely terrible and unreliable internet. We even purchased the faster package, but if anything our internet just got worse. We just switched Spectrum and already our internet is over 100 times better and also 4 dollars less on our bill. Don't support trash.

Staff is great it's not their fault the internet NEVER WORKS for the past 3 months I've paid for service I have 20 minutes out of the day and that's NOT 20 minutes that's consecutive either. I have no choice at moment because of where I live but leaning towards Elon Musk and his star link

Access Montana has worked with me from day one to try and get me the best experience possible. Even when I was outside their service area, they went the extra mile to take care of me. if you need internet service, ask for Kasey. She is amazing, and will ensure you have the best experience possible!

Access Montana has the NICEST customer service i've ever experienced. ~$55 for 25mbs is well worth the cost. It runs all of my devices perfectly and I hardly ever have any problems. I play online video games and never get lag. I also do not get buffering issues when watching videos. They have been all over town upgrading their wiring to fiber optic which is good.

Some people complain about them because they live in the country and 'that's all they can get' - boohoo we didn't ask you to live in the boonies, you could have NO internet instead, you babies.

WE LOVE IT! KC and Blaine were so incredibly kind and efficient. They're honest and don't pressure is. We had some custom requirements and they helped us meet them. We did a test after and the speed is beyond 25! It's reliable and streams so we'll :

Awesome customer service in Ronan, Montana. Had internet speed issues, called and was immediately given a new modem and bumped up my internet speed at a lower cost. Then recently had some access issues, discovered it was a hardware problem. An employee came to my home on his way home from and spent an hour of his time getting everything fixed!

This company provides the absolute worst internet service I have ever used before! My apt building in Cut Bank used them and usually the internet doesn't work at all! I have online college classes that I pay good money to take and I can't do them with this garbage! Because the building uses them, Charter isn't allowed to access the lines and provide my family with their exceptional service.

I called the company to ask if they could offer my apt a better service and that's not a possibility. I see your webpage says that you offer high speeds at an affordable cost? Last time I checked, lying to customers is terrible marketing! If you want to be scammed, this is the provider for you! Given just about every review they have, I'd say I'm not the only one that feels this way