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Review by jwko 
UPDATED: 134 days ago
member for 1.3 years, 44 visits, last login: 60 days ago
 Cecil,Franklin,AR
 $29 per month (12 month contract)
 about 3 days
 CenturyTel
 "I get the advertised speeds"
 "Nightly Slowdown from about 6p - 10p"
 "Overall I'm Happy except for the nightly slowdows."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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We live in a small community with aprox 60 - 75 people, Centurytel came through on May 1, 07 with DSL. Before that we could only get dial-up or Direcway/Hughes/Wild Blue. I had Direcway/Hughes for 3 years and at $69 a month which was good in the beginning but they changed the FAP so it was pretty much useless if you do anything other than general surfing!
Centurytel had promised for 2 to 3 years that they would have DSL here and just when all hope was gone I got a phone call informing me it was here.
I was so happy I listed my Hughes Satellite system on the Bay & had that thing sold within a day thanks to a buy it now, LOL.
I placed my order late on a Wednesday, had my modem and phone filters late Thursday and service was up and running at 5pm Fri as promised. I bought the 1.5 down and get on average 1.8 with 258 up.
I can now watch a video, webcam chat, voice chat, upload a video to youtube all without worry of violating the dreaded FAP that I had to worry about in the past, not to mention losing my internet every time it rain's or snows.
I would like to Thank Centurytel for all that they have done in my community over the past 9 years, they really are a good company!!
**edit** 12-5-2007
Things are still running good. Last Sunday morning around 1am my internet went out, after an hour or so I decided to call and report the issue but noticed my telephone was also out. Got on my cell phone and called and the man I was speaking with (which was very nice and helpful) told me that something was wrong with the line coming out of Ozark Arkansas and that myself and 63 other people in my area were affected. I was told that technicians were out working on the problem and it should be corrected my 4am. All was well by 3:30am and no problems since.
My speeds are very good and most of the time better than advertised. I have the 1.5/256 plan and I am aprox 6900' from the local telephone box. I heard somewhere that we might be getting 3.0 extreme service soon, I look forward to that.
:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Download Connection is:: 1925 Kbps about 1.9 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB)
Download Speed is:: 235 kB/s
Tested From:: »testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2007/12/05 - 9:23pm
Bottom Line:: 34X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 4.36 sec
Tested from a 2992 kB file and took 12.729 seconds to complete
Download Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 74.18 % of your hosts average (136.143)
D-Validation Link:: »testmy.net/stats/id-XLWAN98KU
User Agent:: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.04506) [!]
edit* 4/7/2008
Service has been crappy for a few months now between the hours of 6pm-10pm. It's a every night deal but I am living with it. Overall I'm still happy with CT even though the nightly slowdowns reminds me of the not so good old days with Hughes.
edit* 4/8/2008
It's 6:45p CST and this is what I am talking about. Now if I called centurytel they would swear it's on my end....
:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Download Connection is:: 471 Kbps about 0.5 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB)
Download Speed is:: 57 kB/s
Tested From:: »testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2008/04/08 - 5:42pm
Bottom Line:: 8X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 17.96 sec
Tested from a 2992 kB file and took 51.985 seconds to complete
Download Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 48.31 % of your hosts average (136.26)
D-Validation Link:: »testmy.net/stats/id-AFZEV13LI
User Agent:: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) [!]
9:35pm CST
:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Download Connection is:: 211 Kbps about 0.2 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB)
Download Speed is:: 26 kB/s
Tested From:: »testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2008/04/08 - 8:33pm
Bottom Line:: 4X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 39.38 sec
Tested from a 2992 kB file and took 115.891 seconds to complete
Download Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 23.03 % of your hosts average (136.26)
D-Validation Link:: »testmy.net/stats/id-84BXGTYQO
User Agent:: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) [!]
11:10 pm CST
:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Download Connection is:: 1455 Kbps about 1.5 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB)
Download Speed is:: 178 kB/s
Tested From:: »testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2008/04/08 - 10:11pm
Bottom Line:: 25X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 5.75 sec
Tested from a 2992 kB file and took 16.844 seconds to complete
Download Diagnosis:: Awesome! 20% + : 52.04 % faster than the average for host (136.26)
D-Validation Link:: »testmy.net/stats/id-CUTKG0V6M
User Agent:: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) [!]
Followup comments:  mosslake
join:2007-05-27
Rapid River, MI
| DSL in rural areas I also think it's great that Centurytel came through with DSL in rural areas. This is just my vacation hideaway and the only options were dial up or satellite. Even the dial up options are limited here. There is only 1 ISP that I know of that has local access numbers. I was signing on through my AOL account and paying long distance charges every time I was online, so this DSL service is a real treat. THANKS Centurytel! | |
| jwko
join:2007-04-02
Cecil, AR | Update Everything is still great. Speeds still the same and uptime has been 100% | |
| | jwko
join:2007-04-02
Cecil, AR
 ·CenturyTel Inc.
·AT&T Yahoo
| Re: Update After my last post I ran a speed test, it has gone down some but still over 1.5
:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Download Connection is:: 1566 Kbps about 1.6 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB)
Download Speed is:: 191 kB/s
Tested From:: »testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2007/08/11 - 2:52pm
Bottom Line:: 27X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 5.36 sec
Tested from a 2992 kB file and took 15.647 seconds to complete
Download Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 73.59 % of your hosts average (centurytel.net)
D-Validation Link:: »testmy.net/stats/id-4PIU61FX0
User Agent:: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.04506) [!] | |
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