Review by netlive 
UPDATED: 1.3 years ago
member for 1.4 years, 9 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
 Plattsburg,Clinton,MO
 $60 per month
 about 75 days
 CenturyTel
 "None - Not a single one."
 "Too many to list - read full review for details."
 "There is something very wrong with this company. Avoid at all costs."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
|
I was promised numerous times by their customer service before I purchased my house (a mere few hundred feet from the aggregation point) that they could provide me 3.0Mb DSL service with static IPs. Turns out they do not offer static IPs, but "sticky" IPs through "dial-up DSL" technology - using the old dial-up modem PPP technology. I made numerous phone calls to CenturyTel complaining about this, only to be told every time I call that they have no record of my previous calls indicating promises made or any dissatisfaction with my service. This is either the pinnacle of incompetence or I am being flat-out lied to.
Then when I find workarounds for their lack of true static IPs I find out that they have so severely oversold their backhaul that the most throughput I can get is 20-25% on average, with a low of 7% in mid-afternoon when all of the kids get out of school and start logging on. How is someone who works through the internet supposed to conduct business when the network chokes in the middle of the workday?
CenturyTel's response? "Perhaps you should consider our T-1 service for $450 per month".
My response is not fit for print.
I moved to my current location based on the false promises that CenturyTel repeatedly made to me only to find out they are a den of incompetent liars. They have a complete monopoly on broadband service in this town of ~2500 people and they are using it to cheat and abuse their customers. If there were any viable alternative at all I and others here would be gone in a heartbeat, but instead we're forced to suffer under the boot of CenturyTel.
If anyone from CenturyTel sees this, I would love to post a follow-up about how you promptly fixed this huge mess in Plattsburg, MO and how everything works wonderfully now, but until then I will continue to spread the word loud and clear about how you are treating your customers here.
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UPDATE on 6/9/08:
I have successfully switched to Socket DSL services (socket.net). After more than a week of tests and activity I can confidently say that they are providing exactly the DSL service that I expect from a 3Mb DSL connection with static IPs. And yes, they are REAL static IPs over a fully-bridged connection, not the mis-labeled crap CenturyTel tries to pass off as static IPs - using a PPP connection and DHCP server to re-issue the same IP. Sorry, but that's not a static IP, and no amount of ignorant double-talk from CenturyTel will ever change that.
I still have not received any reply from CenturyTel regarding any of these problems. In fact, every business in town that relies on their DSL connection has had the same problems I have, and the issues have become so severe that City Hall has gotten involved and asked me to assist in finding alternatives to CenturyTel. Well, I found one in Socket and I'm going to make sure everyone in Plattsburg knows that a viable alternative exists. From what I've been told the business community here is ready to lynch CenturyTel, and I can't blame them. I'm ready to lynch them myself.
I don't understand what CenturyTel's problem is. If you have so much contempt for your customers why do you even bother? Why not sell your assets to another business that's actually interested in the products and services they are offering? I've never in my life encountered first-hand the kind of contempt, apathy, rudeness, and just plain ignorance that I have encountered with CenturyTel. If the Public Service Commission regulated DSL like they regulate the phone lines CenturyTel would be black-balled from ever providing service to anyone.
If you're an investor in CenturyTel I would get out immediately. There is something definitely very wrong with this company.
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UPDATE on 7/15/08:
After being ignored in every other avenue of communication, I sent CenturyTel a registered letter demanding that my DSL service with them be discontinued immediately. Well guess what, THEY COMPLETELY IGNORED THAT TOO.
I have no words to describe how awful CenturyTel is. I have now sent all of my information to the Missouri Attorneys General office, the Missouri Public Service Commission, the FCC, and the FTC. If they won't respond to me, and won't even respond to our city government, then perhaps they'll find it necessary to respond to one of these organizations.
I simply cannot stress hard enough how utterly terrible CenturyTel is. There is absolutely no excuse for this, and this company should not just be avoided but should be dissolved altogether.
Followup comments:  chelpt
join:2008-05-24
La Crosse, WI
 ·CenturyLink
| Update? So I don't get it. My connection is exactly what I expect. Mind, I have high tech support standards, so I don't talk to them.
But your story sounds like a torrential rain of BAD... and at the end you said it was promptly fixed. Does this mean your connection works?, they gave you a discount?, you actually found a good tech support person?, the Area Plant Supervisor called you?
I feel the story is leaving us hanging. | |
|  | netlive
join:2008-05-14
·CenturyLink
| Re: Update? No, it was never fixed. I said that I would be happy to report back here if it *was* promptly fixed, which it has not been. In fact, I have submitted requests for a technician to come and review my connection and its myriad of problems, and CenturyTel DID NOT EVEN RESPOND to my request. At this point I feel that I have been sold a fraudulent service by a company who has now disappeared.
Fortunately, after months of searching, I have found a competitor in this area and am in the process of setting up the same DSL service with them. Once that service is online I will post back here with another update, but I can tell you that so far the technical knowledge, responsiveness, and customer service with this new company has been absolutely the polar opposite of CenturyTel. At this point I just could not possibly think any lower of CenturyTel, and they apparently aren't even bothered enough to care. | |
| | netlive
join:2008-05-14 | I have updated my original review. | |
| | | chelpt
join:2008-05-24
La Crosse, WI
·CenturyLink
| Re: Update? Ok, I'm sorry to hear that it was so bad in Plattsburg. I'm not sure if Centurytel just act differently in La Crosse (maybe it is because they have the Midwest headquarters over here) or what. But I do have one thing to ask of you...
Your Static IP. Were you paying the extra $20 to get this? I do, and I get the static IP just fine. Sure the modem needs to log in and such... but getting that static status makes certain that it is that ip address all the time. Did some one in their customer service tell you that it came with static ip? That would have been wrong. Also, did your system just not understand how to use the 255.255.255.255 on a single static ip? | |
| | | | netlive
join:2008-05-14
·CenturyLink
| Re: Update? Yes it's bad in Plattsburg, and it's not just me. As I mentioned our city government has been receiving fierce complaints and they have also been unable to get any kind of response out of CenturyTel.
Yes I was paying the extra $20 for an 8 block (5 usable) static IPs. However, static IPs must be served over a fully bridged connection as described in RFC 1483. CenturyTel uses a DHCP server to re-issue the same IPs over PPP, which means to the outside world your IP address is still a dynamically assigned IP. If you only need a static IP for game playing or other casual use then that's fine, but when you're trying to run a business this just doesn't cut it. The static IP *must* be visible to the outside world as an actual static IP, not a dynamically assigned IP controlled by the upstream provider. The generally accepted term for this arrangement is "sticky IP", and it is fundamentally different than a static IP.
Furthermore, by issuing these sticky IPs with a DHCP server, it makes the other 4 usable IPs worthless. How am I supposed to set up 5 routers - one on each IP - when the IPs are assigned in the order of request? Every time my power goes out or I lose DSL synchronization it becomes a race condition for each router to log in and obtain an IP, which means there is no guarantee that the same router will end up with the same IP from the sticky set. As I said before, this just doesn't work for actual business use.
The amazing thing to me is that CenturyTel doesn't even realize this. It's not that CenturyTel understands and just accepts it as a shortcoming of their service - they actually believe they offer static IPs. Their website even states that they offer static IPs. I'm still considering whether or not I should report them for false advertising. If there were an agency for reporting technical incompetence I would have reported them for that long ago. | |
| | | | | 
GeekJedi
RF is Good For You
Premium
join:2001-06-21
Mukwonago, WI
clubs:
·CenturyLink
 ·VOIPo
·Vonage
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Update? First, if you're running a business, then you should pay for a biz-class service, or be prepared to deal with the issues.
You are paying residential prices for a residential service, with no speed or uptime guarantees. It seems that the T1 offer is entirely appropriate for someone who needs biz-class service, or at least calls an complains about issues when you haphazardly decide to run your business on a residential connection.
It's unfortunate that you're having those sorts of issues. It seems to be the exception, rather than the rule.
I'm not sure what you'll achieve with your "reporting" about their advertising. A static IP is a static IP - and I use CTL as a backup connection at my office (a backup to a T1, since I wouldn't trust my business to a DSL connection) and I can access my stuff through a static IP. It may not fit YOUR definition, but it fits THE definition.
Anyway, it sounds like you found a provider that better suits your needs. I think you're probably better off looking at them in the rearview mirror. As for me, I have 10000/768 through them and have had nearly zero problems in two years.
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The goal of the broadcast engineer is to get all the meters on the transmitter to go as far to the right as possible!! | |
| | | | | | netlive
join:2008-05-14
·CenturyLink
| Re: Update? I was paying for biz-class service. I've been doing this long enough to know exactly what service levels I need in order to run my business. I never expected SLA guarantees or dedicated circuits like you would get with a T-1, and that's not at all what I'm complaining about anyway.
There is a certain level of expectation for a business class DSL connection, and getting just over 20% of the bandwidth, being sold one product and receiving something entirely different, and being treated with such contempt and eventually being ignored is absolutely unacceptable.
As I said before, the entire city is ready to lynch CenturyTel and not even our city government has been able to get them to respond. Does this sound like an exception to the rule? Does this sound like someone who is just ignorant of what they really need? Does this sound like just one unhappy customer with an axe to grind?
And CenturyTel's rate of $450/month for a T-1 circuit was with a 3 year contract. So you're basically saying I should fork over a no-bid contract worth $16,200 to a company that can't even get the simple details right? A company that is so rude and technically incompetent that they have an entire city upset with them? A company that won't even respond when the problems are so bad the city government has to get involved? And I'm supposed to put trust in any SLA they provide for the more complex services?
And I have to fervently disagree - a static IP is a very specific technical setup that is very important to the business class users who really need them. A sticky IP is technologically very different from a static IP, and if you really needed a true static IP you would understand that the two are simply not interchangeable at all. | |
| | | | | | netlive
join:2008-05-14
·CenturyLink
| I just have to follow up again on the static IP issue because it's really becoming a pet peeve of mine.
A static IP is *not* defined as an IP that doesn't change. It's defined by the way the IP is assigned - ie, statically. If a DHCP server is assigning the IP then by definition the IP is *not* static. It makes no difference at all if you receive the same IP from the DHCP server or not, it's still being dynamically assigned.
Static IPs can be delegated to independent name servers for reverse DNS resolution, which is critically important for real business class use. Sticky IPs cannot be delegated which makes them no better than using third party dynamic DNS resolvers with a non-sticky IP.
Static IPs are also assigned - statically - at the node consuming the IP. That guarantees that the node will maintain that same IP if the connection is ever lost or reset. Nodes that request their IPs from a DHCP server are *not* guaranteed of receiving the same IP address if there is more than one IP in the sticky set.
This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but anyone that thinks that "static IP" simply means an IP that doesn't change then please stop talking about it. That's *not* what static means, and by propagating this misinformation it only serves to make it harder for the people who need real static IPs to get what they really need. | |
| | | | | | | myriad
join:2008-07-27
West Monroe, LA
| Re: Update? I just found this entry and wanted to clarify some things. Using your description, CenturyTel is using static IP addresses. When a static user connects, their IP address information is associated with their account; it only tries to perform allocation from a dynamic pool if the account is set up as a 'dynamic' account. Because the connection is a Point-to-Point connection, the first IP address in the range is given to the router and the other IP addresses are then routed to the first ip address since this is the gateway. By statically assigning IP information on the servers a user sets up, something which is good practice in server administration, you never have the issue of servers 'battling' for the ip resources.
Also, you should be able to contact the support team for your ISP if the reverse DNS records are incorrect and ask them to fix them for you. | |
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