You and I have the same story.

When we first got TDS DSL in the late 2000s, it was A LOT MORE RELIABLE. It was slow but dependable when you really needed it. I could download 5-7 GBs worth of content in the early afternoon and even into the evenings, which was a lot for a 3 MB line (few hours give or take). I guess in 2008-2009 our area didn't quite have an overloaded DSLAM.

Now it's 2016 and our internet has become a complete joke. I had my dad ask the local ISP that services the school I used to attend if they were going to offer any sort of internet to the residential areas. Their answer was no. Years ago when I called in to report a problem with TDS DSL service I would get someone from the States answering. TDS has since gotten rid of their local customer service and replaced them with foreigners who strictly read and abide a script. Did you reset your modem? Is your computer running okay? Did you turn off your anti virus? They do everything they can not to give you a simple answer. Instead it's me having to wait 30-40 minutes for someone while there is elevator music playing in the background.

Every year our bill gets higher while our internet service declines. At this point I'm thinking of just moving to an area with Comcast. Their bandwidth caps have increased and there's no reason for me to rely on shitty DSL from TDS. Both TDS and Centurylink have gotten nothing but 1-2 star reviews in the past couple years. It's easy to see why.

The latest. CenturyLink finally admits my recent outage is their equipment. All this time, I've been getting runarounds. Tech shows up and says its my modem or wiring and insists on coming inside (you guessed it... "inside problem" is billable).

Had first tech come out. He took a quick measurement of basically the same thing my modem sees, concluded the problem is my modem.

I got a different modem just so they hear what they want to hear.
Second tech comes out and says its my wiring and needs to come inside. So, I rerouted the wiring to go downstream of "currently supported modem" just to silence another excuse.

Third tech visit was scheduled. I called support and absolutely insisted that they setup a line monitoring and setup line monitoring right at the telco/customer responsibility boundary. My prediction is that their equipment will read what the modem has been logging and nobody will be coming inside my home (no opportunity to sell "inside wire repair" or create the excuse "customer premise issue")
SO CENTURY LINK PULLED OFF A NO CALL, NO SHOW on me.

When I contacted support to ask why the tech isn't here, some outsourced call center rep commented that she checked my line and it appears fine now. she just disconnected when I asked why she was giving me this when I haven't asked and how about she came to this conclusion. It's not fine when it's retraining every hour or so.

Having been bullied by CenturyLink for an invalid unreturned rental equipment claim before, I'm very skeptical of CenturyLink. A long ago, I rented a DSL modem for a short period. When I sent it back using their return label, I continued to get charged rental fee. They accused me of not returning it.

I'm not alone in this. Other have been cornered into the same situation by CL:

»www.ripoffreport.com/r/C ··· -1107361

»[Qwest] Warning -- Centurylink is about 2 months behind processing returns

After my own experience with bill harassment and having read stories of getting billed for service calls after being sweet talked and convinced that there's no charge and letting the tech in, that's a very good reason to not let them in.

Contacted repair support and after overwhelming evidence I've given them, they admitted all of this problem was attributed to their stuff. I had to buy a modem and tear apart my wiring just to get them to admit this. Apparently they have several technicians out there working on equipment/wires somewhere between the telco CO and me.

The only choice you have at this point is moving into an area with cable internet. I don't like to say it like this but with these monopolies in place it's your only option for better, faster internet.

You can try contacting the Better Business Bureau and escalating your problem with them, but they are a crap shoot. The sad fact is most people can't move out because of financial issues. Unfortunately for me I have to wait until this coming year before I"ll be able to move to a new location.

Century Link bills me for 7mbg...Im only getting 4......so can I just pay 4/7 of my bill?
They are terrible. They always blame their slow speed on something else - router (mine is new), wiring (mine is best you can get), software (give me a break).....
AND -- the speed test is on the Century Link website -- maybe a conflict of interest there.