I've got telocity/directv, and have had plenty of problems with them.

1) Our DSL modem got fried after having it for a month. I called them up to ask for a new one, and of course they insisted because it still worked but it caused our phone to not ring that it was a pac bell problem. No problem, they'll send someone out. They person arrived - yup, you've got a DSL modem problem. Call telocity back - "i've got a bad dsl modem"(me) - "no you don't, we'll send pac bell out again"(them). Well, after the third pac bell visit, a new jack run, and 3 weeks of not having a phone that rings, they sent us a new modem which amazinly enough solved the problem. Luckily enough I have understanding roomates who had no problem with leaving the dsl modem plugged in and not getting phone calls. If you can, get to "Tier 2" support. They're better. Not great, but better. A third teir of some sort exists, but they call you back. (I've got the phone number in my cell phone, should I need it again).

2) Their San Jose router has serious issues. It develops serious packet loss every few weeks. SSH sessions can be infuriatingly slow. These have gotten better recently, but it still happens occasionaly.

3) Reliability - They go down fairly freqently. Durring december it was once ever week, for 4 to 8 hours. Has only happened once since christmas, so I've got my fingers crossed

Our modem, once being replaced has been fairly reliable. It averages 1 month uptimes.

I've been spoiled. At home(I'm a college student) we have a local ISP (ultimanet.com) who I worked for for one summer, and they rock. I can count on one hand the number of times its gone down in three years, and I've never had the alcatel modem crash.