 Review by BankerMama 
member for 4.1 years, 992 visits, last login: 139 days ago
updated 1.2 years ago
 Brookston,White,IN
 $41 per month about 1 days CenturyTel "They go where others don't. Local techs are awesome." "Slow to upgrade their backbone. Even after the merger of EQ" "Starting to see slowdowns after work and on weekends, AGAIN!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Update 02/25/2012
Speeds have started to slow down again, after school and on weekends. 1.5Mb running at 200kb during these times. Not all the time, but this is how it started in the past. The last upgrade has lasted less than a year and they have not got the fiber up and running yet as they told me. I am in a Legacy CenturyTel area and not on the same network as the EQ network. I hear they are hurting also.
Billing is still accurate and seems to happen every month =)
Update 09/09/2011
Speeds have been spot on since the DS3 was installed. Fiber job is still being worked to get faster speeds to the town. I am happy as I now can see that they are at least working to address all the problems from before.
Billing failed this month again. Only took 3 months this time for something to go wrong on that. Hopefully it was another fluke and I won't have to call for the next 2 months trying to get it right.
Update 06/10/2011
Speeds are still good. Billing was wrong for 2 billing cycles after I upgraded my speed. It took 3 phone calls, but they now have it corrected.
I now have a 1.5M line and am able to watch Netflix on two devices without any pausing. It's amazing how good 1.5M is when you actually get 1.5M
Update 05/02/2011
Speeds have now been what they are supposed to be. They have been spot on since they finally did the bandwidth upgrade. Billing was wrong again, but they did credit me and state it will be fixed next bill.
Update 04/14/2011
I upgraded my speed due to them fixing the problem and now pay them $10 more. They did mess up my billing on the first bill since I upgrade but they said they have it fixed now. I will update after my next bill. Speeds seem to be stable now. I now get what I am paying for. Speed test have been right on for 3 weeks. Pings are 65-85. I can now stream video that before would not work. I can use my Hulu again!
Update 03/24/2011
They finally got the bandwidth upgraded. Went from a backbone of 8 T1's to a DS3(28 T1's). They also are putting in fiber and I actually see them installing it in the ground. I just hope they don't take a year to turn it up. They are making improvements, just a very slow process. Will see if they can oversell this DS3 
Update 03/08/2011
Still billing me accurate. Charge the full rate even!
Pings usually around 200ms.
Speed sucks. They lied about upgrades in August 2010, they lied about upgrades mid February 2011. I've never asked for a credit and probably won't. I will simply try to find another provider when one comes available.
Update 01/21/2011
Billing is finally accurate and seems they now have it fixed.
Pings stay in the 100-150, but speed is just crappy.
Speed issues have gotten worse. Lucky to get 25% of my speed during peak times and 60-70% of my speed during off peak. Upgrades that were promised in August never seem to happen. Now told mid February. We'll see. They know they have a problem, but can't/won't expedite any fixes. It's been getting slower and slower for over a year and a half.
Update 12/06/2010
Still the same. Slow most of the time and crawling during peak times.
Tech support is not bad, but they cannot fix bandwidth exhaust.
Billing for the last 2 months has been correct after I figured out why they weren't charging my card the same each time. They were trying to charge my card after all, but each time they tried, they changed their name as the biller which my card rejected. Basically, for the last 10+ years, they billed me and the charge was for CenturyTel. But when they changed to CenturyLink, one month they tried to charge as "CenturyLink recurring", the next month as "005 CenturyLINK" ,etc. with each month different. My card was setup to only be billed by "CenturyLINK" to help with fraud. Hopefully, they can go back to billing as the same entity, but as of now I have to monitor to make sure they get paid on time.
Update 08/25/2010
Painfully slow at all times now. They have not updated the bandwidth in over a year but it's obvious that they keep selling it to more and more customers. Promises of adding more bandwidth never materializes. Local techs have their hands tied. I'm downgrading my ratings due to the obvious.
Billing has been wrong for about 4 months since they changed to a new billing system. This has required me to call in 3-4 times to get my "past due" bill paid. I wasn't late, they just never charged my credit card like they normally do. Support said they new there were problems with some accounts however, they just wait for you to notice it and call in. This results in them double or triple billing you and then crediting my account to make it right. What a way to monitor their change to a new system.
Update 06/04/2010
Slow every time I go to use it, but I need it and they know it. They have not kept the backbone up at all, but keep selling it. Thus, it gets slower by the day. Sure, there are moments of available bandwidth, but I'm seldom up at that time. I cannot watch Hulu video even at 288bps without buffering all the time. When I first bought the service, I could watch at 480 with no buffering. It works for surfing and email, but I can't use it for much else until they fix it. I've lowered my ratings for service and value due to this. I did raise my rating for tech support as they have answered my questions and I know it's not their fault for the bandwidth problems. I never lose sync, so the connection reliability is great.
Update 02/09/2010
Pings over 175ms. Still slow during most of the day. Not keeping the bandwidth to the backbone updated. Schools out today due to a snow day and speed is sporadic at best. Weekends always slow now. Been slow for months.
They did lower their "regulatory cost recovery fee" from $1.25 to $0.99. Now calling it a "Broadband Recovery Fee."
Update 01/21/2010
Here's the latest. Reliability has been perfect as far as uptime. Billing has been perfect. I haven't lost service since last update. Latency has been in the 90's or higher. Again, they do not keep up their backbone as one would expect. Seems to take a lot of customers complaining to get more T-1's added to the DSLAMs. That's my only complaint. Slowdowns daily after school til I go to bed.
Update 10-14-2009
It's been about 6 months and here's what's new. No billing issues at all. Great Job!
Uptime for my DSL, 99.9% I can remember 1 time that it was out for about 3-4 hours. I believe it was a fiber cut out of state. So I say Great Job!
Latency is 70-85 on good days, 95-115 on bad days, some days better than others. I don't game, so I don't care much on this.
Keeping up the backbone (bandwidth) is their flaw. It's not terrible, but they definitely let it go a little too long before they add another T-1. Hopefully things will improve as I know they have been getting new procedures for identifying this. We'll see, and I'll update again.
Start:
First I tried a local Wireless ISP. After I learned my lesson, I went to CenturyTel to get internet service. When inquiring about Internet, depending on which day I called, I would get a different answer every time. I then called the local supervisors secretary who then set me up with all the proper quotes. The only thing that was hidden was a $1.25 "Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee" for internet. (She didn't hide it, it just wasn't on any literature or website small print) This is a fee by CenturyTel and being it is mandatory then it should be included in the price. They are not collecting it on behalf of any other agency. (that's my only rant) Once that was done, everything went smooth. I got the 512/256 package at $29.95 a month. They did have some promos/bundles, but I chose not to take one to stay out of a contract. I bought my own modem off eBay, set-up was a snap. I'm not far from the RO and sync rates are right on and always a stable connection. Speed is as advertised most of the time, except for peak times. (After school is the worst) Only last a couple of hours at the most. FYI, Pings are around 65-75ms. I waited a month to test the service and see if billing is correct and they have been spot on. I believe this again is due to using the local secretary to place my order. She was great. I haven't used tech support so I don't know about that part. I do use their landline and it has never gave me a problem.
Comments:
 | | CenturyLink DSL speed crash DSL speed has been far less than dial-up for 2 days. "Help" says they are overloaded, should improve in a week. | |
| | | 650kbps on a 6000kpbs account! we never got 6 megabit because of our distance to the CO but it was always around 3mb. this past week or two it has decreased to as little as .6megabit down, .11megabit up!
needless to say, for a business this is unacceptable. | |
| mryoderPremium
join:2008-02-23
Rossville, IN | Rossville, IN Been getting pings upwards of 1,000ms every evening between 6 and 11PM.
They have had to refund my internet 4 out of the last 7 months due to this issue.
Internet is almost unusable for anything but browsing during "peak" hours. | |
| | |  Century link - bait and switch
Other than that service never reaches anywhere near quoted 10Mbps (another lie) when it does work. Have to reset modem 2-3 times a day, keeps disconnecting. Unreliable, slow as smoke of doo-doo, bait and switch marketing. FAIL. | |
| | | Service and Billing This is the worst company, Century Link, we have ever encountered, from the poorest of service to the reneging on their special offer. The are absolute the most unethically company that smile while confirming that they will not honour their contracts and agreements, avoid this company at all cost. | |
| jwko
join:2007-04-02
Cecil, AR | CenturyLink Evening Slowdowns AGAIN... I wish they would put a few more mice in the wheel and speed up this freaking "so called" wonderful internet service they claim to have...I'm sick of this slow down crap! I shouldn't have to wait until 11pm cst EVERY NIGHT for the speeds to come back up to normal.
If you actually offered faster service in my area other than 1.5/256, I could live with your nightly slowdowns. But the slowdowns on 1.5 equal not much over dial up speeds in my area.
We went though this crap a few years ago and it was supposed to be fixed....GET IT FIXED CENTURYLINK! WE'RE SICK OF IT!! | |
| Reviews:
 ·CenturyLink
| fees and such the one fee people really ought to start asking about is the non-telecom services surcharge($1.55) if it even shows on a bill. CL's stance on that charge is that its a non PUC mandated charge which means only they charge it and the charge is for the purpose of providing services such as voicemail or inside wire maintenance. wtf.....why not build that expense into the overall pricing of those services. dirty dirty dirty. I bet they spend more time figuring ways to charge more than to fix the existing problems much less look to furture problems and design viable solutions. | |
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