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Review by earthalien See Profile

  • Location: Wausau, Marathon, WI, USA
  • Business customer Business customer
  • Cost: $130 per month (24 month contract)
  • Install: about 16 days
  • No Cap
  • Telco party TDS Metrocom
They have fiber
The company is disorganized and has inferior connectivity
If you have an alternative to TDS, take it
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I signed a contract with TDS to provide a /28 block to my business connection with the hopes of running some servers through my own network instead of using outside providers. After receiving the connection, the speed was not anywhere near my requested 1 Gb/s, and the order that the salesperson submitted was incorrect. That is just the beginning; now I have a more serious problem.

My facility is in Wisconsin, and they are routing my next hop to be in Nashville! My packet loss at any time ranges from 6% to 50% during peak hours. It has been two weeks that I have requested them to rectify the situation, but as of yet, they have not even acknowledged that there is an issue with their router and my suboptimal routing.

My frustration has led me here to get feedback from other victims of this company. I am going to try to get out of my contract with them because I do not want to pay for a poor connection from a lousy internet provider.

member for 145 days, driveby review (so far)
lodged 145 days ago


Review by akawaldojr See Profile

  • Location: Dickeyville, Grant, WI, USA
  • Cost: $130 per month
  • No Cap
Solid internet with little downtime
must get TV package with internet
Reliable, moderatey priced, tech support is lackking if needed
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

-1GB Internet, Basic TV, and Security phone line = $128/month! I do not use a phone or TV service, but it made everything cheaper by $10 compared to if I just got internet.

-The install process was OK; the tech had a hard time getting my modem registered, then 6months later, when the downstairs neighbor signed up, they somehow piggybacked his account off of mine, and it messed my account up. So now every power outage or service interruption, I have to call TDS support so they can reregister my modem with my account.

-T2200H gateway is a good gateway, but I needed more than four ethernet ports, so I disconnected it and used a personal Asus RT-AX88U; yes, the TV does work with this router.

-The random price increases; must check the bill monthly for discrepancies. For example, some months, I would get double charged for the taxes and licensing fees. It happened so often that TDS gave me $15 credit for 12 months to compensate for what I paid because they could not reverse it.

member for 19.4 years, 156 visits, last login: 1.2 years ago
lodged 1.2 years ago


Review by moes See Profile

  • Location: Cedar City, Iron, UT, USA
  • Cost: $122 per month
  • Install: about 5 days
  • No Cap
Great Service
Random town dropouts during peak time.
Great for being a small town.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Great people, Great service, 3k subs is all they have, speeds always ontop.

member for 14.3 years, 2123 visits, last login: 1 day ago
updated 2.6 years ago

dplantz
join:2000-08-02
Bradenton, FL

dplantz

Member

What speed and services do you have?

What speed and services do you have with TDS? Is it fiber or DSL?
moes
Premium Member
join:2009-11-15
Cedar City, UT

moes

Premium Member

Re: What speed and services do you have?

Mine was cable.

Anon4d483
@69.21.50.x

Anon4d483

Anon

TDS Unlimited Fiber ISNT without limits...

I just received a high bandwidth notification threatening disconnection if I dont reduce my usage to below the bandwidth-usage maximum. The website shows no data caps, and the contract says unlimited. After spending three hours and about 8 different folks at TDS, the best they could tell me either 250G, 1T or 5T depending on who you talk to. I suspect 1T since last month was 2.1T over the month on 1G/400M service. Their only suggestion was switched to business service significant cost increase (85% less speed at double the cost)

Other than that, I will say that the service has been fairly reliable except during some days were the speeds drop considerably. Still 1000x better than Spectrum Cablemodem
moes
Premium Member
join:2009-11-15
Cedar City, UT

moes

Premium Member

Re: TDS Unlimited Fiber ISNT without limits...

tds in cedar city did not enforce nor would enforce any datacaps, they did not even monitor torrent usage and sent out no dcma notices. otherwise I was 10tb a month, lots of that was twitch streaming.






Review by CoreMud See Profile

  • Location: Peterborough, Hillsborough, NH, USA
  • Cost: $43 per month
  • Install: about 14 days
  • No Cap
  • Telco party TDS Metrocom
No complaints
Great service

Ordered 300Mbps at $43/month.
Easy to order & underground install.
Modem Actiontec T3200M
After 5Mbps... 300Mbps is heaven!

member for 4.2 years, 34 visits, last login: 1.8 years ago
lodged 4.2 years ago







Review by REHAKES See Profile

  • Location: Kingsland, Camden, GA, USA
  • Cost: $103 per month (24 month contract)
  • Install: about 9 days
  • No Cap
  • Telco party TDS Metrocom
Great package; easy ordering; knowledgable rep
a bit long until install wait
Good value service

Ordered HiSpd Internet/TV/Phone Bundle. They met their advertised price for the bundle I ordered.

The delay between order date and actual install was a bit longer than I would have liked, but their tech arrived at the date and time scheduled. He was on-site for a bit over 2 hours.

My apartment (and I'm the first-ever tenant in it) is in a brand-new complex; pre-wired for fiber to the modem at my unit, which they placed at the terminal panel in my storage closet. The 300 mbps ethernet then comes to the TDS-Branded ActionTEC T3200 router/WiFi access point in my apartment via pre-wired Cat-6 cable.
TDS Provided a Technicolor ISB7150 Ethernet wired set-top box with DVR and remote, and a Cisco IP WiFi connected Set-Top Box with remote, as part of my bundle.

My tested speeds, both up and down, hover just under 100 mbps in my Firefox v65.0.2 64-bit browser under Windows 10 on a HP laptop with Intel N3700 1.6 GHz 4-core processor. Laptop connected to router via an ASIX AX88772B USB 2.0 to Fast Ethernet adapter to the Cat-6 cable. The DSL Reports Speed Test warns that system is too slow to fully test 300mbps fiber.

The phone portion of my bundle includes unlimited local calling with voicemail and 30-minutes of Intra and Inter-LATA long distance, monthly. I could have subscribed to more, but don't need it with my unlimited talk and text cell-plan.

All-in-all, I'm very happy with my TDS service, and I feel that it's a great value.

member for 21.9 years, 514 visits, last login: 3.2 years ago
lodged 5 years ago


Review by davidc502 See Profile

  • Location: Mount Juliet, Wilson, TN, USA
  • Cost: $99 per month
  • Install: about 7 days
  • Telco party TDS Metrocom
Awesome service! With TDS, I'm getting the bandwidth I pay for, and when I've called, a human answered right away.
I'm happy with my decision to switch to TDS.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:

**** UPDATE ****

Well, it has been almost 4 years with TDS, and things couldn't be any better. I now have the 300/300 service for 45 dollars a month, and it works great.

I'm still very satisfied with TDS.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------

2 year deal is about over, and upgraded to 100mbps for 45 dollars a month. However TDS requires a TV package as a bundle, to be included with 100mbps service. Bottom line is 83 dollars a month plus tax. I am still very satisfied about TDS internet service.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

** No data caps** TOS for dsl is 250GB, but from what I understand Fiber does not. Update

No Contracts to speak of.

Advertised monthly price for 50/20mbps is $35, but when you include modem rental, taxes, fees it ends up being around 47.

First, I'll give kudos to the people who did the install. They did a good job, and did it fairly quickly, in a time of 1 and a half hours.

1. TDS got rid of the copper telephone line coming in and replaced it with fiber.
2. TDS installed a media converter box which takes the optical signals and converts them to Ethernet. I didn't order phone service, but the box also takes any old phone lines, inside the home, and converts them to fiber as well.
3. A battery backup was installed in the garage so phone calls can still be made if the power goes out.
5. The Ethernet cable runs from the media converter box, under the house to the room where the Router is. The router has one Gigabit WAN port and 4 Gigabit switch ports.
6. The router is a TDS stamped V1000h. Logging in and configuring it the way I wanted was easy to do. There are enough advanced features to do pretty much what I wanted to do, which was nice.

What about speed? I ordered the 50mbps/20mbps package. Speed tests consistently show me getting 49mbps/20mbps or there abouts.... I'm very happy.

Last Result:
Download Speed: 48738 kbps
Upload Speed: 19643 kbps
Latency: 3 ms
Jitter: 1 ms
2/25/2014 12:59:03 PM

The modem supplied is a V1000h, which is a dual core processor with 64 MB SDRAM, so it's certainly enough power to File share, stream, etc. The modem is easy to get into and configure. I really like that I can backup the configuration in case it has to be re-set.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------


member for 22 years, 3794 visits, last login: 253 days ago
updated 5.8 years ago


Review by IanLee See Profile

  • Location: Woodland, Cowlitz, WA, USA
  • Cost: $80 per month (12 month contract)
  • Telco party TDS Metrocom
Stays online
I have nothing good to say about this service anymore
Do yourself a favor and move out of the country (rural area) if you want good internet
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

While I can very much write a full fledged, detailed review on this company and it's DSL service, I believe that is unnecessary since most people who are stuck with only one choice and only DSL already know how it feels to be left behind in a world where broadband is becoming easier and more readily accessible for the general public.

Anybody with common sense in today's United States who lives in a rural location or within a small town knows they are getting left behind. Cable companies often do not service the country nor a small town/city as it's cheaper to provide high speed internet in higher population density areas, such as a city or a metropolis. The result is we're left with internet that barely gets maintained, let alone be reliable enough to maintain consistent speeds throughout most hours on a given day.

In this case, I have TDS Telecom, a company that supplies internet service to 28 different states throughout the country. They do not have the subscribers that Frontier and Windstream contain, but their DSL service is just as horrible. Since I live within their monopoly, they are free to throttle my internet and limit my bandwidth as they please. Apparently the new Net Neutrality rules have not yet taken effect, as many country and small town internet users are still getting throttled on an everyday basis. Sadly, many of these DSL providers are using old, outdated technology to deliver us the internet we're paying for, and copper wire does not bode well for people who live far away from the central office. That means that I will never receive the speeds my line can support, but it doesn't really matter much since there is literally no regulation.

Dial-up speeds have become an almost everyday occurrence. There have been times where the dial-up service I used 15-20 years was faster than the service TDS gives me with their bad lines. A modem reset does almost nothing. I can barely watch 360p def anymore these days except during the late night hours. Yet a few years back I -USED- to be able to watch on various video websites in standard def with little trouble. Same goes for downloading any file. Five years ago it was possible to download 10 gigabytes worth of data in one night, one possible reason being the lines weren't as oversubscribed. Today that is no longer possible. Everyday it is expected that the lines remain oversubscribed until around 11 pm - 3 am each night. Given that many rural and small town central offices are probably dependent on 10-20 year old equipment, they were not meant to handle a lot of internet traffic.

Now I am considering moving out of my home and into a city that supplies better internet service. I do not watch streams or download any movies from the internet, but this poor excuse of a service that TDS continues to throttle is becoming unacceptable. Calling in to support seems to do little. Thankfully the local technicians seem to be nice and have their little knowledge of how the internet works. But those of us stuck with TDS on aging, deteriorating DSL lines know that this situation of poor internet service is almost hopeless.

You cannot ask for a static IP unless you are a business customer. Those who live outside city limits often cannot get faster speeds. For internet that is now considered basic, I expect more. But until the corporate mentality changes and the government stops running a broken track, don't think anything will change anytime soon.

I will be looking to move out in the upcoming year to search for good alternatives. DSL on bad copper wire is not broadband. Companies that say it is is pushing forth false advertising. TDS, with the exception of their fiber internet service in exclusive locations, is a bad joke.

With that, I'll make a quick summary of the given categories:

Pre-sales information: Bad. Would be good if I get what I initially ordered. You don't know for sure until you've tried the product.

Install coordination: Good, as far as I can remember. Local techs have their little share of knowledge when you ask for them, and the man who brought me the modem years ago was fairly nice.

Connection Reliability: Terrible. Time outs, dial-up speeds, oversubscribed lines, anything I can think of that cripples my ability to do anything meaningful on the internet. Speeds are usually only acceptable during late night hours.

Tech Support: Awful. If you can't fix the problem other people are complaining about, then you need to find another job.

Services: Awful. Copper lines are not what they used to be. Shelling out money for a service that is more suited for third world countries.

Value for Money: Again, awful. Other countries receive 100 times the speeds I get for a cheaper price. People who live in more populated towns and cities in the USA can receive faster service for the same price as I pay.

TDS DSL service where it is everything but reliable.

October 11, 2015: It has been four months, and little has changed. Someone finally went and fixed the box my house is connected to after eight-nine months ignoring complaints. This means that speeds are more reliable during the morning and early afternoon hours, as opposed to months ago when I was lucky to even reach 500 kbps.

During peak hours it is the same mess as it's always been. I am reduced to dial-up speeds and there is nothing I can do. Since TDS controls a small area of Washington State that has little wireless service, let alone a good cell signal for decent coverage, this only adds gasoline to the bad economic picture. The company lends itself to multiple states, with significant rural footprints. With their obsolete systems so slow and spotty by today's standards, I feel there is little incentive for any sort of business to expand in these areas.

November 11, 2015: Internet has slowed to a crawl. There is literally no explanation to dial-up speeds at 1-6 am. Keep in mind this is not during peak hours, nor is anyone else using the line since most people are asleep. I will file a complaint if this persists for the next few days. The only viable reason aside from throttling is there is rain in the line, which in this day and age only proves how outdated DSL technology is.

Monthly rate is $35, and most of that is just for local calling. For $50 a month on my current mobile cellular plan I can travel to most anywhere that has even one-two bars and make a call. Simple and easy. The only reason TDS charges a high price for glorified dial-up and local calls is there is no other choice. They can throttle people because there is no other choice. They call the shots because there is no one else to switch to. They are well into developing select areas of Tennessee and Wisconsin to receive 1 GB fiber, which is essentially 1000 MB down/1000 MB up. Out in Washington State and Colorado we are lucky to get even a marginal upgrade, as TDS holds monopolies in several rural locations throughout the United States. Change is unlikely to happen unless it is most critical.

Seeing as I am a light user who is lucky to use up 20-30 gigabytes of data in a given month, there is no excuse. TDS has mostly done away with service on the local level, as you must deal with customer service representatives from Jamaica who are every bit as misinformed as those who operate in India. Their new email service, as far as I'm concerned, is still the same mess it was when it was released. In turn, those who live in small towns and rural farms and homes are at a major disadvantage compared to those in cities and large towns. TDS doesn't care.

Unless you are fortunate enough to receive fiber, I would do my best to look for another provider.

December 29, 2015: Nothing has changed from TDS. After several long years with AT&T I finally went and switched to Verizon. Their data plans are expensive, but for the first time in my life I get unlimited calls and texts, right at home. Internet has become so bad lately I've had to resort to 4G service from Verizon. Unfortunately there is no such option as unlimited, you pay an arm and a leg for mobile data but it's something I may need when my DSL connection craps out.

Even after years of paying monthly bills from TDS, I still get advertisements in the mail telling me to upgrade to 15 MB service, only I cannot get 15 MB service due to the oversold network and the location I live in. I'm tired of waiting, and I think I'll do myself a great service by moving into an area where cable is an option, despite being expensive.

February 2, 2016: Since last night I have not been able to keep a steady signal. Due to the horrid copper lines it takes a while for my computer to see a signal coming from the router. I have tested the Verizon mobile service and it does not have this problem, at least not as much. I have also seen a speed decrease since last month or so. Before, during the early morning hours, I would get *HALF* of the speeds I'm paying for, now I'm only getting a *THIRD* of those speeds if I'm lucky.

Truth be told, I hate this company. When I heard they moved their customer support to Jamaica and made an absolutely atrocious e-mail service that people have to pay for (in 2016), I am doing what I can in the next several months to get the heck away from TDS. Based on other user reviews I have found on the Internet, they under deliver in their fiber packages as well, meaning the only thing they truly care about at this point is money. I get a moderate to slow internet connection from Verizon but it is enough to get basic tasks done.

February 3, 2016: So it turns out that the only time I can get 1.5 MBPS or better is between the hours of 11:30 pm and 6:00 am. On a Saturday/Sunday I have to wait until 2-3 am before I can get within *HALF* of the speed I'm paying for.

My Verizon connection has faster speeds but is completely unreliable as a Wifi hotspot. In fact I have almost as many problems with Verizon as I do with TDS. Signal drops, failure to connect, horrible reliability are just a few of the problems I have to deal with on a daily basis. My Ellipsis pack (which is used as the Verizon wireless hotspot) died today, even after doing a hard reset. I now have to go back to the Verizon store in order to get a replacement, but who's to say how long it will last? Meanwhile TDS is still adding customers to the overfed lines, a problem that has only become worse as time goes on. Paying bills via online banking is a nightmare on Sunday afternoons.

During last year's Superbowl event, my connection with TDS hit an all time low. 25-30 KB speeds all night, even through the early morning hours. I suspect the same to happen this year.

I still get advertisements from TDS in the mail, asking me to upgrade when clearly I cannot. It is wrong to pay high prices for a service that is far below par. It is also wrong to send me advertisements when I have paid your bills on time for many years now. This also leads to the question of who exactly is responsible for this mess.

I have started to look for apartments to move into, and there is no chance I will even consider moving into an area that is within a monopoly held by TDS. This company cannot deliver, and I suspect another lawsuit will be heading towards them as they try to squeeze what's left of copper while failing to provide any upgrades.

June 8th, 2016: It has been an entire year since I wrote this review, and as expected, nothing has changed. I figured for a while I would put in the pricing TDS wants to charge me for just internet, but since I'm required to have POTS I have to pay over $45 for local telephone service. So in total I am shelling out $80 a month for crappy, atrocious 3 MB DSL that may as well be glorified dial-up during most of the day.

Wired connection or wireless connection I still get 600 ms+ ping during the late afternoons, which can only mean an overloaded DSLAM that is taking in far too much traffic. TDS does nothing about it, in fact I haven't seen a TDS truck out here in over a year, and I'm up and down my road every day. Watching anything above 360p quality is virtually impossible, and add on to the fact that DVDs these days are going by way of the VHS. Uploading a 350-400 MB file can take anywhere from four to five hours, which is inexcusable considering just how important upload speeds are with things like cloud storage, which is important for back up data and business. Streaming is impossible, in fact watching a stream these days is not without countless hiccups and buffering issues.

I've given up. The only way to truly let these telecoms listen to you is to vote with your wallet, which is basically a trap because in monopoly controlled regions you are left with no internet at all. My back up mobile wireless service no longer works as my smart phone is receiving a signal of one bar 3G, which is basically no internet service. With Hilary Clinton looking likely to be president this coming year, and no sign of improvement among neglected towns and rural areas, America will be left in the dust while other first world countries offer superior internet at low prices.

With Comcast offering a 1 TB monthly cap (which is reasonable for me), there is no reason not to jump ship at this point.

September 17th, 2016: Since the last update my speeds have become more slow, unreliable and erratic. Starting in July my speeds have stagnated towards just 1 MBPS during non-peak hours, otherwise it is a mere fraction of that. I cannot depend on TDS to do anything anymore. Seems they are still intent on selling to more customers even though they know full well the general area has been long oversold. Due to the hilly terrain in this area, we are inevitably screwed.

Other ISPs do not want to deploy in TDS land, due to rules in place that prevent competition from rolling by. Any further problems and I will have to wait until Monday to talk to a representative, since they are too cheap to bother with anything on the weekends. No customer service, and I'm paying an estimate of $80 a month for 1990s internet.

I have lost my job which means I cannot make any plans to move to a new location. It couldn't of come at a better time once I discovered that my speeds have been slower since the early summer, whereas before they were a tad bit faster. We are nearing the end of 2016 and as far as telecommunications is concerned, nothing has changed. Seems in the near future many once middle class citizens are going to be working slave labor for minimum wage, while the corporations are allowed full freedom of everything they decide is good and bad.

April 30th, 2017: Over the past couple months or so my internet speeds got reduced, despite paying the same amount per month. A new casino just opened on the 25th of April, and I can only imagine that TDS Telecom has probably sold their bandwidth to them, since TDS operates in the La Center, WA area.

I am very upset that TDS continues to lie and deceive their customers. I have called Customer Service several times the past couple weeks and I have been given no help at all. I am desperate enough to move out of my area entirely and at the least get Comcast internet, since I know they deliver high speed internet. For $80 a month I am giving these crooks money to have them do whatever they want.

Internet speeds and consistency are worse now then they were two years ago when I wrote this review initially. When you only send your service offshore and lay off your good local employees, things are only going to get worse. I can definitely imagine the technicians that came to my home years ago are no longer with the company. I can barely do anything on my browser anymore besides casual use. Videos constantly revert to 144p quality. Watching a Twitch stream is almost impossible. I am getting what is essentially dial-up, except it's inconsistent and worse than real dial-up.

October 24th, 2017: I never thought speeds would be worse, but they are.

Since the time I initially wrote this review, TDS has raised the prices for internet and reduced my top internet speeds by half. I can no longer receive the 3 MB+ package anymore. Speeds are now the worst possible (768 kbps) which means a lot more time loading webpages.

Going to move out this coming year. Hopefully I will never have to experience TDS internet.

member for 9.3 years, 337 visits, last login: 6.2 years ago
updated 6.4 years ago

IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

IanLee

Member

Dial-up speeds

As of today I cannot do anything but the most basic web browsing. It is a struggle to open Yahoo e-mail or access Gmail. TDS has throttled me to dial-up speeds and trying to access NFL.com or MLB.com is difficult. Anything that requires watching a video or loading several pictures is out of the question.

With my busy work schedule I hardly have time to watch videos or watch a live stream, so what gives? Apparently TDS finds it amusing to have me stuck on dial-up until the next billing cycle, which is during the beginning of each month. I don't do any gaming or download anything that takes up a large amount of bandwidth. But even then I still get throttled.

Mad2
@charter.com

1 recommendation

Mad2

Anon

tds does not care about you. Wonder if they care about their family.

TDS cut my phone line when I cancelled my internet with them but kept the phone service (just to be nice). Every month they hold my payment and after 2 weeks or a monty threaten to cut me off and then I have to stop payment on first check or pay it twice, which I cannot afford. I want to slap them all in the face!
IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

1 edit

1 recommendation

IanLee

Member

Re: tds does not care about you. Wonder if they care about their family.

You're kidding right?

I definitely would of thought they would of cut your internet long before they would cut your actual land line. But they're forcing you to get back on so you end up paying more.

They're just another telecom company that decided to jump on the bandwagon of "Race to the Bottom", because it has certainly reached that point.

As of today I'm -STILL- on dial-up speeds. I even had to refresh the DSLREPORTS page a couple times for it to fully load correctly.

I work 50 hour work weeks and basically I'm being punished.

Unless something on my modem is eating up a god load of bandwidth while I'm gone, there is absolutely no way I am using up 250 GBs of bandwidth, upload or download. Even though I live with two others, I don't think we reach anywhere near that cap. I remain convinced that TDS is intentionally throttling people when they reach 70-75 percent of the cap, similar to what the satellite internet companies do.

So they're EXACTLY like Century Link, Windstream and Frontier. Same service, same expectations. AT&T is nowhere in my state expect via mobile, but I'd dump TDS in a heartbeat if AT&T DSL was an option. And yet I live in a state that was recently listed in the top 10 in internet speeds and peak internet speeds. So what gives? Probably the recent gigabyte deployments in Seattle. Most of us in America are still stuck on 1-3 MB connections, and from the looks of things it's going to stay that way.

Please post your speedtest results. I'll be sure to post mine once I finish up some job applications.

I have to refresh just to navigate on some companies websites. Submitting applications via online has become almost an requirement as job recruiters often don't bother otherwise. In years past I've gone in and turned in an app just to be told I had to do it online. The resume, cover letter and app are all done online now, there are literally few places anymore that still accept you coming in person. Now TDS is preventing me from doing such activities because they keep throwing me dial-up speeds. I have to wait until at least 11 pm every night before the internet becomes "usable".

Paying bills during the weekend afternoons can be frustrating sometimes too, because I do it all online now. TDS, again, puts me in at 5-10 percent of the speeds I should be getting.

I quit online gaming entirely. I watch the occasional 360p Youtube video. Again, there is no way I am using up 250 GBs of data unless keeping the modem on 24/7 is doing it. I don't watch streams nor do I stream any audio. Doing anything during peak hours pretty much becomes an agility course. Just try watching a 10 second video clip on Youtube during 8-10 pm. I guarantee you'll be waiting quite a while.

Not to mention your ping rate will rise to 600-1000 ms. Making things even worse to the point where just browsing the internet becomes painful. No changes, no upgrades.

What a joke. It also took TDS quite a while to fix a problem in my area that occurred in December last year where a falling tree hit one of their boxes. Took a few days to finally patch it up (had no phone or Internet), and from what I've heard that was due to "not being prepared". While I understood it was a wide outage, it could of been handled better.

Next year I'll be moving out to be inside a town/city with better internet. The only thing we can do is walk the other way.

DownTime
@tds.net

DownTime

Anon

Same problems LanLee

I am in Woodland also. It sounds like we are having similar problems. In May of 2014 I started having intermittent loss of signal on my DSL line. Over the past 15 months, I have had at least 3 dozen problem tickets open. The problem has only gotten worse. The line is totally unreliable now. Service Reps close tickets with no explanation why it was close. I suspect the explanation is that THEY CAN'T FIX ANYTHING. They can make it worse and will whether you want it or not. 15 MONTHS! Signal now drops at least a couple dozen times a day. Modem/router recovers many of these on its own but, 3 or 4 times a day I must manually power cycle it. And every time it recovers on its own, I lose anything I am doing on-line. Not taking a chance by logging into any financial web sites. No end in sight.
IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

IanLee

Member

Re: Same problems LanLee

Do you live in the country or do you live within city limits?

If you live in the country your situation is completely hopeless. TDS is based in La Center, WA and it's pretty likely you can get faster packages if you live within that small town. The fastest they will give you is 3000/768 KBPS outside of town.

TDS has barely, if ever, given me the advertised speeds. Because I live far from the CO I have to deal with slower speeds, and even on these basic speeds they still throttle me, even during the early morning hours.

For all I know you may live just a few minutes away from me. If you live on the south side of Woodland, south of the Lewis River, you have TDS.

If you live in Cowlitz County you can get Cascade Communications, which as far as I'm aware of, is local and is based in Longview, WA. They even offer actual fiber service to select streets and neighborhoods there.

My uncle has Cascade Communications via antenna (lives in Clark County) and just this 4th of July during 9 pm, he got 2.5 MBs, 850 KPBS upload, and 15 ms ping. Since he's getting his service in a different manner than the normal telephone jack, I don't know if he has a small bandwidth cap. Many wireless services only offer 20-30 GBs a month, and it's $5-10 bucks for every 1 GB you go over.

The only real choice is to move out, and right now I don't have the money for it.
Clawpaw
join:2016-01-05
Mossyrock, WA

1 recommendation

Clawpaw

Member

Same Problems here

Hi Ian
I am in Mossyrock and have had the same problems. I have a little secret though. I am a computer repair technician and securities analyst. That means I have the tools to see what they are doing. Yes ... the lines are very antiquated, but I also found that head office does not want to put money into repairing and replacing lines. They also don't want to expand the bandwidth, as it costs too much money. The number of customers on line is far out exceeding the bandwidth presently in place. There is a 10Gig band-width and with the number of customers on, they need to pop it up in all areas to a 100Gig band-width. That means introducing fiber-optic over long distances. They know that I am now monitoring their behavior and seeing if they are keeping tabs on their capacity issue. Apparently, they are not and it has also fallen off the communications chain from the local guys up to the main office. Therefore, I have now made contact with the head office and am giving them proof that someone down here is screwing up and it needs to be fixed before class action litigation ensues AGAIN. Yes .... there was a law suit on TDS before, for not keeping their prices equal to the bandwidth that they were selling. Now, they are doing it again and I feel the poo-poo is going to hit the rotating oscillator once again. Nice seeing that someone else is keeping track of their dealings. I'll be keeping a breast of what you find.
Respectfully
Claw
IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

1 edit

1 recommendation

IanLee

Member

Re: Same Problems here

Here are a couple links I found regarding their service:

»wsrl.org/tds1.htm

»www.topix.com/forum/city ··· V7H1SM7S

Thanks for the response man. I do know for a fact that TDS worked better in 2010, not only because I was still relatively new to the service but also because the DSLAM wasn't as oversold as it is now.

I fully understand TDS offers fiber in select areas of Tennessee and Wisconsin, but what they might not know is there are literally thousands of us in small towns/rural areas who are experiencing subpar service, and have been for years.

It is now reached the point where paying bills online, submitting job applications and finishing college homework is a struggle. I have to hit the refresh button several times to get through, and in some cases I have to fill in the boxes for the job apps all over again.

One of the links mentioned a lawsuit, but as expected, didn't do much. I recently heard from someone in nearby La Center, Washington that their internet has been subpar as well. It is the town where TDS is based in and where I get my internet from.

Don't give up. Hope to hear more from you, and thanks for the input.

Tami T
@tds.net

Tami T to Clawpaw

Anon

to Clawpaw
Clawpaw,
I am in the mountainous region of northern Georgia and we are experiencing the same problem. I was forced into a contract (after three months trying to get my cell phone service and internet inaccessibility fixed) for a business line. That entails the 15 MB but I did a speed test today. Ping is .40 mbps, download is 6.01 mbps and upload is .48 mbps. What are my options?
IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

1 recommendation

IanLee

Member

Re: Same Problems here

Be lucky you even have 6 MBPS. Most people can't even get 3 MBPS on a 15 MBPS line. Upload is of course, abysmal as always, which eliminates any kind of cloud storage.

Tami T
@tds.net

1 recommendation

Tami T

Anon

Re: Same Problems here

Wow. I called yesterday and got a repair ticket started. After talking to no less than seven people the repair tech told me there's a known "capacity issue" in my area which they are working on but they have a year to complete the equipment upgrades. I responded telling him that they forced me into a business contract (long story) for 15 mb so essentially they entered into a contract in which they knowingly promised a service they could not deliver. They said my only option was to downgrade (without penalty as if I would pay one for their fraud anyway) to a 5 mb package which is an astounding $10/month less! With the lower package since it promises just slightly lower than what I'm getting anyway it would be more consistent than the higher package with so much "play" in the signal. Does that make any sense to you? Anyway, I assured them that I don't appreciate the way they take advantage of people who live in remote areas and have no other recourse and that they're lucky I don't indulge in frivolous litigation since they fraudulently hoisted this contract onto me. We will see what a lower quality service actually does since they assured me (as if their word means anything at this point) it would level the service out.
IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

1 recommendation

IanLee

Member

Re: Same Problems here

Your place is oversold.

Your lower quality service is worse, downgrading does not help anything because at 1 MBPS they will just throttle you to dial-up speeds. For people with 15 MBPS connections they get 2-3 MBPS. TDS is a fraud and once DOSCIS 3.1 comes out, legacy ADSL will just be a rotting corpse.

If I want to download anything larger than 5 GBs, do college homework or upload onto a cloud service, I have to do so at a coffee shop, hotel or college. Like most people stuck with the same option as me I am paying a premium for shit 3 MBPS service, which has never in the seven years I've had it reach 3 MBPS. Dave is just a useless CEO at this point and if I were in most of these CEOs shoes I would be ashamed.
Clawpaw
join:2016-01-05
Mossyrock, WA

Clawpaw to Tami T

Member

to Tami T
Tami
I found a site called DSL reports. Go there and get member sign-in status. It is "FREE". I have been using (DSLReports) to monitor the bandwidth of TDS and they are keeping a record of all my testing, dates, time, actual upload/download bandwidth, ping tests and a gad bucket more. I am using this as evidence to send to the state public utilities regulators. I would also look at splattering these derelict business companies onto the local news. No company likes bad press as it costs them a heck of a lot of money in the long run. More so than it would have cost them to just upgrade the dumb components. It all ultimately falls back to company greed.
IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

1 recommendation

IanLee

Member

Re: Same Problems here

I can definitely see this happening to companies like Frontier, CenturyLink and Windstream.

I did a little research and it turns out that while TDS is spread out like the other giant telecom companies, they don't have near as many customers. A lot of their customers are in Tennessee, some of whom get 1 GBPS broadband. While the majority of us out here in the western States along with a good number in Georgia are stuck with 1.5 - 3 MBPS DSL, which hardly ever reaches close to the advertised speeds.

I'm sick of waiting until 1 - 2 am to get close to advertised speeds. I can imagine how bad it would be if I had to work from 8 am to 4 - 5 pm, and use the internet right during peak hours. It's all a way to suck whatever is left of copper so TDS and other like minded companies can fund their politicians and lawyers.

But yes. DSLReports is a great website and I couldn't recommend it enough if anybody wants to join. There are a few veterans here who have taught me a lot about internet bandwidth and how to set up a proper network for basic needs. Since I'm quite busy in real life I'm not here every day but it's always good to hear from somebody who feels the exact same way as me in regards to getting poor bandwidth.
Clawpaw
join:2016-01-05
Mossyrock, WA

Clawpaw

Member

Latest on TDS

Ian
I found out that the messages finally got through and they are pricing out for new equipment to update the DSLAM. Problem now is the "HURRY UP and WAIT" clause has been activated. Here is the deal. Push as many complaints as possible and tell anyone that complains to tare that phone up. I guess after they get enough calls, they might start scratching their heads and doing something. Good Luck down in Woodland. Having fun raising the bar up here.
Mark
IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

IanLee

Member

Re: Latest on TDS

Glad to hear from you again.

At this point having a connection that remains at least more readily steady is enough for me to celebrate. As I have mentioned several times over the past few months, unless TDS does something to make even minor improvements I will be moving out. While I plan to keep a few pieces of physical media around, I will be moving over to cloud storage and keeping backups of digital media, in case companies decide to pull said media away for copyright and/or licensing disputes.

I knew TDS was a joke the instant I saw their webpage showing how fast you can load up pictures depending on what DSL connection you have and what speeds you order. A reliable 1.5 - 3 MB DSL line is more than enough to fully load large pictures in .JPG and .PNG format. But the way they were advertising their plans, I figured they will drop their customers to near dial-up speeds if the DSLAM is overloaded. In almost all cases this is true.

The one near here has never been fixed or changed. In December 2014 a wind storm knocked out one of the TDS COs which rendered my end of the line useless for a few days. After the internet came back up I experienced several bouts of horribly slow internet, and it remained that way until Spring of last year. It took TDS that long to finally realize the issue.

Another reason to hate living out in the sticks is I was helping clear out weeds and an old fence in order to make way to clear some room so me and my family could make our area near the driveway a little bit nicer. The box sticking out by the road was sort of hard to see because of the bushes and grass, and my neighbor knocked it over by a Caterpillar. That box was exposed to tinkering for *drumroll* eight-nine months. This happened in the fall of 2014, and it took someone eight-nine months to get a new box cover so the wires wouldn't be exposed. A couple months after the box got knocked over somebody thought it was cool to do the popular plastic bag method so it wouldn't get exposed to the elements. Seems that anyone who lives in the sticks or in ADSL copper territory gets the plastic bag treatment until the telecoms finally decide to actually work on sending someone over to do the real patch up.

I've kept progress of how TDS works from my home. I get a full, or should I say 2 - 2.4 MBPS from 1 am to 5:30 am - 6:00 am. For a long time I thought I only gotten 1.5 MBPS but lately I've gotten 2 MBPS, and on very rare nights, 2.2 - 2.4 MBPS. Never 3 MBPS. I've had DSL for a long time now and I have never achieved the advertised speed once. Ironically I may be lucky because the countyside I live on is sparse in comparison to other areas in the States. Not sure how your DSLAM is Clawpaw, but I can guarantee that these systems TDS use for copper lines are extremely limited in regards to the amount of traffic it can support. You and I both know TDS oversubscribes in basically every rural area they own that offers DSL. From the links I've posted I don't think I've seen a single person with TDS that has gotten the advertised speeds.

Now my speed is a fraction of what it was just a hour ago. Whenever I see thumbnails to videos on Youtube load slow, that's when I know my connection has been reduced/throttled. There's no way in hell I'm doing a cloud storage with this connection. People on here with blazing fast internet have insane amounts of data on cloud storage, and I'll be lucky to upload 1/100th of what they have onto it. Upload is still a pathetic 200 - 350 KBPS, just enough to do a very basic, standard stream if nothing else is going on. If someone else is using your connection, then you're screwed.

In regards to the paragraph above, my line seems to do this around 5:30 am - 6:00 am every weekday. I assume this is when people are going to go to work, and thus like to use the internet before they leave for their jobs. Which makes me all the more irritated because by being on an overloaded DSLAM, I'm sharing the line with other people. People who are not in my immediate family and people who are not my neighbors. My line varies on the weekends, but the fact remains that my internet connection is completely unreliable.

Such a shame TDS doesn't have a line to help us during the weekends. Just goes to show they really don't care.

Be sure the spread the word.
Clawpaw
join:2016-01-05
Mossyrock, WA

Clawpaw

Member

WOW! Ian

Hi Ian
Been a while since I have been battling the college thing on line. I read your latest and thought of one word, three syllables. OMG! Something has truly got to be done to get these telephone companies to give the customer what they are paying for instead of making foolish promises of super cyber highways and delivering bumpy dirt logger road performance. I really appreciate that article you posted about the guy dealing with "Frontier" communications. Maybe that is just what we need to do here. Contact the utilities control board in Washington State and than report our findings to the local TV stations in Seattle, WA. Do the ole "GET JESSE" thing going on and have them go after these telecommunications fraud freaks.
I got a little fumed last night and decided to call them up today. Our connection was SOOOO bad that our systems kept dropping off the grid. I went and investigated the connection rate and found we were in the dirt at 450kbps to 100 kbps download, but upload was over 1 Mbps. I think someone is trying to use my system as a server. When is a line suppose to send out a higher signal than a router receives. That was just weird. SO, here I go again, calling TDS to find out if they are doing anything to fix the digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSALM) in our area. "What?....you are having a problem sir?" "By my assessment, you are pulling 13Mbps". Then I stated, "Why....yes...yes I am. In the day time, but after 3PM the connection goes straight South to 1Mbps or less." Support techs' response "Well, I am sorry, but there is nothing we can do as your connection seems to be just fine." At this point, I am realizing that I, indeed, have another defection MORON on the phone and I am going to have to jump through hoops, YET AGAIN! I will let you know how it goes Ian. I still think that report you placed on here is a great idea and I think I am going to entertain that approach.
Anyways...keep me informed of your craziness. It sounds like there are many of use trying to patch holes in the same boat.
Claw
IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

IanLee

Member

Re: WOW! Ian

13 MBPS is enough to have me jumping for joy. But I understand you have had the same issues.

The money that is supposed to be used for our education system, repairing our highways and roads, and investing in better network infrastructure is instead used for military (such things as new fighter jets and aircraft carriers, we already have more than enough), lobbying for corrupt politicians, and ensuring guys like Dave get the golden parachute. My download speed is again, in the trash heap and it's happened about one out of three times this past month during early morning hours.

Did you say someone is trying to use your system as a server? I've noticed my modem and NETGEAR router going crazy with the blinking lights. Usually that is an indication that you're downloading a file, but I checked everything around the house and there was nothing connected to the internet. Is this what you're getting?

Only way for me to fix this is to reset the modem.

I called TDS not too long ago and gotten the same run around. With 50+ hour weeks I can't afford to be sitting around for hours waiting for a honest response from customer support. We all know that customer support in America is horrible in this day and age.

As someone said here perfectly, the line is completely unreliable now. And yes, we are patching holes in the same boat. Some have been for years.
IanLee

IanLee

Member

Re: WOW! Ian

A 500 MB file failed to download. I can safely say TDS is complete garbage on the weekends, and any calls to customer service will be met with just dials ones. Fucking sad.
RJARRRPCGP
join:2010-12-17
North Springfield, VT

RJARRRPCGP

Member

abnormally slow and timeouts

I would try again after replacing telephone wiring on your property... I suspect damaged telephone wiring...
IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

IanLee

Member

Re: abnormally slow and timeouts

The phone lines are decades old, and that has an effect on how fast your speeds can be and what latency you are getting.

I can imagine there are areas where the wiring is exposed and vulnerable to heavy rain. Of course TDS Telecom never bothers to fix these things because they have the monopoly. They can do whatever the hell they want without giving two shits about their customer support being nonexistent during the weekends and having to deal with terrible reps who are reading off of a script.
odhnera
join:2015-08-08
Riegelsville, PA
Zoom 5341J
Linksys E4200

odhnera

Member

I feel bad for you

A few months ago, our cable went out and I had to resort to AT&T dial-up. That was a difficult experience, and I can't imagine being stuck with that for days on end. I ended up putting on a jacket and taking my electronics in front of my town's library, which was closed at the time, where I sat on a concrete step browsing the web for about an hour.

I have a friend who has Verizon DSL and has similar problems to you. The packet loss is so bad that his BitTorrent client often has to download pieces of a file multiple times just to get an non-corrupted copy.
IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

IanLee

Member

Re: I feel bad for you

That's because it's old equipment, and for the most part hasn't been touched in over a decade. Combine that with an overcapacity issue and you got yourself DSL that is almost like dial-up.

With pocket loss that bad you can't play any online games or expect to stream anything. I have to resort to DVDs and Blu Ray still because my late 1990s internet can no longer keep up with modern consumption.

Haven't been able to move due to loss of job, so hopefully by the end of this year I will be able to move into an area with cable.
odhnera
join:2015-08-08
Riegelsville, PA

odhnera

Member

Re: I feel bad for you

Good luck. Going from Verizon DSL to even the slowest tier of RCN cable was like night and day.
IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

IanLee

Member

Re: I feel bad for you

There's a local job nearby that pays $17-18 a hour if I can get it. Going to have to save up for an entire year or so before I can move out, because out here in Washington State apartments and homes have skyrocketed in price.
mlgordon
join:2018-06-25
Salkum, WA

mlgordon

Member

Stuck with TDS What a nightmare!!

If I had known about TDS and their crappy service I would never have purchased my home. I am located in Salkum, WA less than a mile from the old McDaniel's telco office. TDS still uses this office as I see their trucks parked at the building everyday during the week.

I moved here on June 14, 2018. The best connection for internet I get is about 1.05MB down and .9 up with a 200MS Latency. My typical speeds are more in the area of .85 down and .75 up and a 500ms latency. TDS has a Monopoly of this area and will not spend the money to improve service, I can only hope that at some point Toledo tel buys out some of the TDS service area as Toledo Tel offer's 1GB fiber to ALL their customers. TDS should be ashamed that a small company like Toledo Tel is doing things like this for their custoemrs in rural areas.

»www.marketwired.com/pres ··· 8481.htm

The amount of money I pay for DSL service is more than what I was paying when I had Comcast in Tacoma.

When will a Class action lawsuit be filed against TDS for impeding growth by providing slow unreliable service.

Review by Archaicus See Profile

  • Location: Milladore, Wood, WI, USA
  • Cost: $90 per month
  • Caps of 250 gigabytes/month
Local service man is great at working with what he has.
Everything else. TDS cannot deliver on what they promise. I had to downgrade my speed because they have too many customers!
TDS ignores small downs that they happly sell "high speed" plans to with no way to make good on the promise.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I have had TDS for 8 years now. It has progressively gone down hill from day one. As they added more customers, the slower it was for everyone. The Ping times are up to 3000ms some days. I used to be able to play games, watch Youtube, use Skype. etc. Now the connection is so bad that it is out of the question. I upgraded to a 15Mbps plan to try to get some of the speed back, that lasted 6 months. I downgraded to a 5Mbps play to get some stability back, no such luck. Its been about a year on the 5Mpbs plan, I cannot maintain more than 2.5 Mbps most days recently. Oddly, Netflix works fine on a Roku box (My guess is that they are running aggressive QoS to minimize support calls for Netflix buffering all the time.) I have had multiple modems, routers and even rewired directly from the box to the DSL modem with CAT6 to attempt to eliminate every possible problem on my end. To the credit of TDS, they have replaced the wire for most of my town two years ago, but never upgraded the connection to the town it seems. The old wire was installed in the 1940s and was run though a swampy area. Even with that, my speeds have been plummeting. I am considering going to a more expensive wireless ISP if only to get the speeds I am paying for. I would LOVE and PAY MORE for a 15Mbps plan as long as it was consistently near 15Mbps with a ping not in the thousands.

member for 7.4 years, driveby review (so far)
lodged 7.4 years ago

IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

IanLee

Member

Typical of their practices...

TDS Telecom will never give you the advertised speeds. It's the end of 2016 and there is no excuse left at this point. They're just gouging their customers for more money, and for all the crap people have to put up with they deserve a discount.

Dishonesty and disloyalty to those who have no other choice. Wouldn't surprise me if these clowns have all heavily invested in right wing propaganda.

Review by jpop102 See Profile

  • Location: Antioch, Davidson, TN, USA
  • Cost: $150 per month (24 month contract)
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

TDS has been good to me I have their 300 down and 120 up fiber service. Thinking about upgrading to the Gigabit unless if Goggle is cheaper when they setup in Nashville. I have had the service for about an year now.

»[Fiber Speed test: 293.03/118.39 14 ms]

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member for 9.9 years, 50 visits, last login: 5.7 years ago
updated 7.6 years ago







Review by Clawpaw See Profile

  • Location: Mossyrock, Lewis, WA, USA
  • Cost: $143 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 5 days
  • No Cap
  • Telco party TDS Metrocom
Solid Connectivity and great tech support.
Bad peak hours bandwidths 20% of capacity payed for. Billings tend to float.
Gonna take time to get it up to par.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

TDS is pretty good about their phone and DSL service. They want to package "DISH", but DISH ends up doubling the bill and is a waste considering on line media choices now.. Right now, in the local area there is a capacity issue beginning to develop, due to the populous numbers gaining in strength. Peak hours of 3 PM to 1AM result in most users losing 80% of their DSL bandwidth. I purchased a 15 Mbps High Speed package and go all the way down to 2 Mbps during peak hours. TDS has a capable technician force to aid customers in their problems. They also supply Actiontec GT784W routers, with four RJ-45 jacks and Wi-Fi capability. They are now handing out the Actiontec T2200H, which is a dual band router. Don't get confused. The dual band router is for dual phone lines to push quicker speeds using both lines , or for a greater use of more computers. The down fall is you have to have two distinct and separate phone lines to run it. As for price, they stated it was $109, but that started to creep after a one year locked in period. Was $179, before we did major cutting. Bill is now $143. We had to totally cut back the DISH part, kill the long distance, and run all but the DSL to bare minimum. Bottom line - Reliable connections, but unpredictable on pricing. Have to watch it after your contract runs out. This is in Washington, Lewis County Area. Hope this gives some folks insight. There are trade-offs here, but they are better than Tiger Mountain and Centry-Link , for the current services.

2016/05/16

It appears that more has happened in the southern progression of nada service. Sundays are now stumped to a low of 110 Kbps download from 11AM till midnight on Sundays. Sundays have become a lost cause in even getting on the internet with TDS. Someone got so miffed that they contacted Senator Cantwell concerning the atrocities of pathetic service being established by TDS. They keep promising to upgrade the system, but that was back in November of 2015. I would highly suggest that everyone start raising concerns about the terrible service and notify the Senators or Consumer reports. More to come.

member for 8.2 years, 66 visits, last login: 307 days ago
updated 7.8 years ago

IanLee
join:2014-11-24
Woodland, WA

1 edit

IanLee

Member

15 MB, despite the same greedy practices, is 5x FASTER than what I get...

To add on what you've said, and this is commonplace with those with 1.5 - 3 MB connections.

Top speeds are 1 AM TO 6 AM ONLY, at least in my area. On Sunday (today), my speeds drop from 2.0 MBPS to a utter pathetic 100 - 200 KBPS, with high pings. The result? A 400 MB file takes over 2 - 3 hours to download, and that file ends up being dropped because of congestion/high ping/interference. So from what I've accumulated since about last year, sometime around 5 -6 AM a bunch of people who use the same DSLAM as me, or a number of people in the greater area get up at this period and use bandwidth heavy tasks like HD Youtube, streaming Netflix, etc.

TDS knows when you download too much, and they counter act by reducing your speeds. Last summer, for a brief period, I had close to 1.5 - 2 MB speeds until about 9 AM - 12 PM, now it is only until 5 AM - 6 AM. I think TDS added more people onto the line, keep in mind this is the oldest form of DSL still in use (legacy ADSL) because people like me in the sticks get bottom of the barrel service. If you get 15 MB service, chances are you either live directly inside a small town or you're just close enough to be within distance of TDS offices.

There is nothing I can do to get 15 MB speeds, there is literally nothing I can do to even get a reliable 500 KBPS connection. If a person with 15 MB speeds gets reduced/throttled to 2 MBPS, then a person with only 1.5 MBPS gets throttled to 200 KBPS. I have seen speeds as low as 25 - 30 KBPS before, and one of those times, that was only me on the computer, during the afternoon the day of the 2015 Super Bowl. It's happened many times, and whatever those TDS technicians are doing only works for a few weeks at best. After you've called in and your connection "magically" starts getting a little better, it's back to crap service in a few weeks. Been there, done that.

TWO BARS OF VERIZON LTE is much faster than my TDS DSL connection. I pay $50 for LOCAL SERVICE WITH NO LONG DISTANCE CALLING ON A LAND LINE. I get cellular service from Verizon, the calls and texts themselves are free (except long distance and cellular data which costs a fortune) and I've found that my six year old laptop that uses the cellular WI-FI can get up to 9 - 10 MBPS, on a phone I can get 20 MBPS tops. It's unfortunate the caps are so low and expensive, but it works. I cannot get rid of the phone land line service because TDS won't let me, yet I could save a lot of money in the long run if I could.

TDS has no weekend service and rapes us in the sticks because there is no choice. When Verizon and other like minded companies sell off their copper, people in the country are going to be left with only LTE service, and I pay over $200 every month for it to keep three people covered. I know of people in La Center Washington who get 15 MBPS service from TDS just like you do, but despite living well within city limits they are reduced to 2 MBPS speeds all the same.

If young people are moving into the suburbs and the city these days, the most likely reason for that is they're tired of paying high prices from companies like TDS. Trust me dude, I've seen all kinds of bullcrap coming from their end of the line and whenever I call they somehow point it to me that it's somehow my fault, despite having a good setup. You get more in the suburbs and for cheaper. TDS targets the rural areas they have a blueprint on, then rapes them for money, because where are these customers going to go for choice? There is nothing else.

One of the links I provided in one of my responses to my review is an overview of how TDS has treated their customers in rural Colorado. I would like to thank the person for making the website but unfortunately I have not heard back from him. When you've waited 18 years for much needed changes, and that change hasn't happened, then you know TDS is purely in it for the money. It's no accident, it's part of a scheme to send the company downhill and ensure the CEO has his golden parachute ready for him when it truly does hit rock bottom.

Right now I cannot download 50 - 100 MBs. Sad, truly sad.