Review by DarkBlade337 
UPDATED: 1.3 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 51 visits, last login: 1.2 years ago
 Isanti,Isanti,MN
 $51 per month
 about 4 days
 Qwest
 "It does seem to be improved over the past few years."
 "Tech support is non-existant, Crapware install with service."
 "Go with Comcast if you can in Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Is a viable option if you can't get Comcast."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I live in a suburb of Minneapolis where Qwest DSL is the only Broadband Service provider in my area. For some unknown reason, there is no cable access yet. Anyway, I signed up for their special $19.95 package plus ISP service. They told me I would get Service in 10 business days. After 5 I got the package with the internal modem (Which absolutely sucks, I would prefer an external ethernet one, this one uses the MS Dial-up software). I called them and asked them if I could install the modem. They told me I had to wait for 9 more days and packet with name and password would arrive. Nine days came, I got no packet in the mail, I called them to get my Password and Username and to setup a second e-mail account which was supposed to be done already. Two days later I got my packet. So now I am using my modem when, low and behold, I get a window that pops up and tells me that I have been on for an hour and 50 minutes and I will be kicked off in 10 minutes. I called up qwest and asked them about that, they said the salesman neglected to mention that was part of the package. So I asked to be upgraded to the $29.95 service after having it for 2 days (it was a Friday night and I had to wait until Monday Morning to call) I had to wait another 14 days for the service to change, then they charged me and Additional $30 dollars to change Service!
Now I have got my DSL up and running, in December, 2000 It got very cold, We had air temps around -10 at night. I was having problems connecting at night and in the mornings. I called up Qwest and asked them what was going on. The first guy told me it was my filters, but he ran a test on my line and it was working fine. It worked for 2 days, then I was getting disconnected again. The second guy said it was my card at the Central Office. He also sent a tech to my Apt. building to test the line. He told me there was nothing wrong with my line. That worked for a while, I got disconnected again after a few days, called Qwest again, that guy said it was my cordless phones, I disconnected them, using only hardline phones and I was still having problems. The tech ran yet another line test. he said it was fine. So if everything is fine why am I always getting dropped. I started watching my line quality in the statistics box for the Intel ProDSL 2100 modem, The colder it got outside the worse the quality. I called Qwest DSL again they told me flat out that I could not prove that was what was causing it, but that could be it so there is not much I could do unless I got a tech out at the exact moment I was having the problem. There are so many more variables that affect DSL it is hard to tell what is causing the drop of service. So I stopped calling them. As soon as I get cable service here I will drop my DSL service. Qwest has been one nightmare after another.
Updated August 14, 2008:
My original post was about 7 years ago. I believe that things have improved much over the last few years. I have since moved to "Greater" Minnesota where I had cable service provided by US Cable. They are alright, but I have seen very little improvement over the last 3 years I was with them, or more likely, they have improved their infrastructure but they are overcrowding the neighborhoods on to one node so you don't see any improvement.
Anyway, I switched back to qwest today. It took 4 days to go from order to live. Which is much improved. However, I had to do the install myself (not that I needed someone else to do it) and documentation for setting up user email accounts doesn't exist. Everything is routed through a windows live account. Sales did misinform me of information when when I asked specific questions like how many email accounts do I get. Sales said 14, the real answer is 11. Not a big deal, but I asked if I could set up the email accounts do download to Outlook. He put me on hold and said Outlook express is no problem. Not what I asked. I did get the email accounts to work with outlook but it did take a bit of internet digging to get them to work.
My biggest complaint is that you must use an install CD to activate the DSL. Which means that they try to install all kinds of software you don't need or want. I am not fond of the Quickcare client it installed.
I have noticed a significant speed increase over the local cable company so that is a plus. We will see what happens when something actually breaks.
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