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Review by Leviathan 
member for 217 days, 170 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 3 days ago
 Bremen,Marshall,IN
 $120 per month- (24 month contract)
 CenturyTel "Modem provided is excellent." "Connection is not stable nor reliable" "Consider a different provider."
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Paying $120/month for a 4mbps down/0.5mbps up. Westell 7500 modem. Past 18 months, the connection I am actually getting has been 1.5mbps down/0.1mbps up with a ping ranging from 400ms to 1200ms. Calling tech support and finding someone knowledgeable is like your chances of winning a million dollars twice in one hour. I will never recommend CenturyLink to anyone.
Speeds are even slower during peak hours and pings are nearly double than before during peak hours with no fix in sight. Last ETR tech Support gave me was Feb. of 2014. Switching to MediaCom's 50mb service/phone/tv for $95/month for 2 years.
EDIT: Finally left CenturyLink and now have Phone/TV/Internet through MediaCom. So far they are amazing. So glad I finally left CenturyLink.
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Review by umaralfarooq
Fair warning: reviewer joined this week
lodged 4 days ago
- Bonita Springs,Lee,FL
 Business customer- $45 per month
- (36 month contract)
 about 30 days- CenturyTel
- "Business rates were lower than competition"
- "Bait and switch tactics, don't care the least about customer service"
- "Avoid this company like the plague"
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I signed up for a contract for 36 months at a fairly decent rate. The first bill, they overcharged me by $100, plus had poor service. I called and complained and they agreed to extend the trail period by 30 days and said they will call back with more information. Several days later, I called back because the service was still bad and they said now I owed them $400 and they have tacked on an early termination fee! I said "You guys told me there is an additional 30 days trial period!! The first rep said "No we didn't." Then another rep said "Yes but that was on the condition that we went out there to fix the problem. You didn't call us back." I said "YOU were supposed to call ME back!"
They are now refusing to keep their promise of extending their trial period.
I don't understand how a business can, in all good conscience, charge $400 for 2 months of crappy service.
Do not do business with these scammers. You will regret it. Move on to the next company on the list. They do not care about customer service at all.
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Review by fancypearl
member for 3.3 years, 2 visits, last login: 11 days ago
updated 11 days ago
- Phoenix,Maricopa,AZ
- $10 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 30 days
- "Internet Basics only 9.95"
- "Horrible customer service"
- "Lack of accountability, and disservice to its customers on auto billing."
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I signed up due to low income. 9.95 for high speed Internet great idea!
Well Talked to them they needed verification, great.. sent it in.. via fax.. cost 5$..
Stated they wanted account number (dsl line number) not my contact number on the form..
5 more dollars later got that done.. called back day later.. They found it said would wave connection fee and first 12 months of modem rental, and that it would be connected by the 6th.. I received my modem on 4th.. 6th came by it never synced up.. I called in to verify everything is ok. They claimed that my order was never started and I needed to send my information in 0.o ... I told them I have the modem they sent me in hand.. after putting me on hold repeatedly, they said they would get this straightened out and call me back.. few days later they called back said its all ready to go person would be out by the 24th or so to connect my line(I don't remember exact dates)... rush deal since they lost my order. Well 18th my new modem shows up (two modems now) .. then 24th person actually shows up this time gets it all hooked up .. Well I get a bill on the 5th or 6th of next month ... saying 30$ is due by the 15th. 0.0.. I called and apparently there unable to wave the connection fee (not having any idea how it could even be done) transferring me a few times same result. Next question well I get my money on the first and third. I would like to change billing dates. They stated they where unable to change my billing date, that all billing dates are done automatically by zip code. .. Well .. so I had to pay an unexpected amount of money in the middle of the month on a limited income. .. I can deal with it now that I know about it, but it is quite a disservice to the customers to not allow the flexibility and options to do so.. It again is also a very big disservice to completely lose a customers order.. also a interesting sign of disorganization, and a lack of accountability far as the extra modem (which I sent back). The modem that was sent is a Centurylink Zyxel C1000Z. Upon attempting to configure services and firewall, The internal web server on the router crashes repeatedly after clicking links. Very poor poor equipment IMO. I ordered and eventually received 1.5mbps Internet service at 9.95 a month, tho every download will only download at 165kbps
BTW $200 to break contract. cost less to stay with them, ..still not sure its worth it to put up with them.. hopefully I won't have to call them back again.
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Review by feliciabragg820
(review was emailed from domain gmail.com)
lodged 14 days ago
- Panama City,Bay,FL
- $125 per month
- (12 month contract)
- "installtion"
- "customer service"
- "cant get the service i requested"
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I am a new customer to century link. And I've been having nothing but
problems even before installation. I gave one agent my cc number to charge
it, and he never did. So we had to call back. And it seems like everytime
we do call back we get different information. So shortly after
installation, I noticed that I'm not getting the package that I wanted
which I signed up for the first time and every time after I called. So I
called again. and this time when I called in, they didn't even recognise my
name on the account, but my credit had been checked to get this account in
the first place. so I told him the package that I want AGAIN! I asked how
long it would take for it to start working and he said it should be a
couple hours. Well I had to leave and run some errands. So I figured that
by the time I got back it would be working. But it wasn't. I tried calling
again and they were closed. So I was gonna wait for the next day and they
are still closed. It seems like everytime I call there is either an excuse
or u can't get in touch with anybody. I seriously just want to tell them to
come pick up their equipment and refund all my money back. They really do
have some of the worst customer service I've ever dealt with..
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Review by rpandu784
member for 18 days, 0 visits, last login: 18 days ago
updated 17 days ago
- Bellevue,King,WA
- $71 per month
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I am using this service(Centurylink) from past 3 months and they are adding additional
charges all the time and when we are trying to talk with customer care
services , they are not responding properly and not giving proper responce
keeping us in line for hours and hours, if we want to talk with them or
chat with them we need to get prepare at least couple of hours to waste
time, finally nothing will helpfull, they dont know what they are talking,
they dont know how to check the account details, if we ask any questions
like billing related, they cant answer any they will say only their
version, they dont listen customer version. and they just hang the call if
we ask some details they dont have any sense to speak with customer. they
just behave like illitrate people.
I dont recommend this servicen, not even 0
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Review by bmccoy
member for 20 days, 2 visits, last login: 18 days ago
updated 20 days ago
- Port Orchard,Kitsap,WA
- $119 per month
- (24 month contract)
- CenturyTel
- "Fairly reliable speeds, good technical support"
- "Only 1.5Mbps available in our area, due to permits required for installing fiber-optics."
- "VERY slow speeds, but maybe not their fault."
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I have Centurylink DSL (formerly Qwest) and unlimited nationwide calling, and it costs (after taxes) about $120.00 a month. The main problem I have with this ISP is that only 1.5Mbps is available where I live, because their current cables are run underneath the freeway on-ramp in my neighborhood, and thus requires many permits for routing fiber-optics. The only other option I have for internet in my neighborhood is Wave Broadband (which I have had in the past, costs $120 a month just for internet, and sucks.)
The only thing I can do is wait to see if they upgrade our internet here, but that might take awhile.
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Review by BCCANFIELD
member for 10.8 years, 51 visits, last login: 21 days ago
lodged 21 days ago
- Colorado Springs,El Paso,CO
- Contract price not specified.
- "VDSL Technology and bonded pairs is a neat new development"
- "Cant get a straight story"
- "CenturyLink corporate culture needs a massive dose of Integrity"
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I was considering moving my comm services (Internet, Voice, TV) from COMCAST to CenturyLink. After reading the reviews here, consumeraffiars.com, and customerservicescoreboard.com, I have decided to stay with ComCast.
My limited exposure to CenturyLink sales staff has been that it is hard to get a straight, consistent story. I went to their web site and configured it for a quote with all three services. I got a price of $149/mth. I contacted their call center in Utah and got another quote that was about $15 higher. I was still interested, so I went to their retail store here in Colorado Springs and tried a test on speedtest.net. Their internet speed was about 15 to 20 MBPS down, 5MBPS up. Data latency (100ms or more) seemed to also be an issue. My Comcast service at home (about 5 miles away) was consistently getting 30MBPS down, 6MBPS up (data latency is typically 50ms or less). I mentioned this to the sales rep and he said it was because he was running 4 TVs and his 3 computers in the store.
So... I gave him my address and he said that I am close to the Fiber optic node and I should be able to get a dedicated 40MBPS connection (VDSL) to their network. We talked a little more about the VDSL technology and how they use "bonded cable pairs" to provision the last mile from the node to the house. He explained that the 40MBPS service is split into two 20 MBPS channels-- one for the TV service, the other for the Internet. I asked if we shut off the TVs, would my internet service get full access to all 40MPS of bandwidth-- he said no. HMMM! That was inconsistent with his earlier statement that the store internet was running slow because he was running 4 TVs and three PCs. I also wanted to know how the Prism TV service was networked in the house -- I was interested to find out where new cat 5 wire or coax would have to be run. I could not get any good answers. Well -- its obvious the CenturyLink sales staff is not well versed in the technology they sell -- its too bad that CenturyLink does not adequately train their staff. My other big concern is the thousands of complaints registered about poor customer service, non-responsive techs, and massive billing errors. This is NOT a bucket of worms I want to dive into.
I am a EE and have been in the IT business since 1978. It has been a while since I read up in the latest developments in DSL technology. VDSL (Very High bit rate DSL) uses bonded pairs (multiple twisted pair copper wire) to get the signal from the fiber node to the residence. They split up the data packets into multiple smaller packets and then send them over the multiple bonded pairs to the house. Essentially the technology does a serial to parallel then back to serial conversion. That is how they get around the speed limitations of twisted pair copper wire. I think this technology has great potential, however it has only been in wide commercial use for just a few years. It needs more time to mature. One other point. Since there is a fair amount of media conversion (fiber to copper to ethernet to coax etc) to get data from the ISP to your PC or TV, there are more boxes in that string of equipment that can go wrong (OCn fiber nodes, DSLAM, DSL modem/Router, etc etc) . High reliability of each box is important.
Well-- maybe I will look at CenturyLink again next year...
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 | |  just enough tech to help decide about Centurylink
 Just enough tech here to help me understand what's really going on with Century link and VDSL. Thanks, your explanation is really helpful. I'm going to wait a bit on Century link. I wish there was more competition nationwide so we could have really fast internet like Europe. | |
| | | | Re: just enough tech to help decide about Centurylink Been debating on switching too, and got hit by one of the teams roving el paso county (despite a no soliciting sign placed clearly on my door). I entertained the spiel, and it was appealing....until I dug deeper.
I am sys admin, and worked for a startup in the late 90's that tried to break cable's hold on the fledgling east coast broadband market by selling...tada...DSL (to soon!).
Things have changed over the years, and I never kept up with it having moved on, and while there have been advances with the tech something did not jive with the sales rep, and they struck me as either under informed or intentionally dodging questions (well hey, they're sales, not IT...still...know your product and you will sell it)
Did some digging, and the one thing they never mentioned, even when asked directly "is this DSL?", was that hey...it is in fact bonded DSL. Was told "it's like DSL, but it's not, it just uses your phone line to get a full 40mb access from the fiber" Um...riiiight.
Ignoring my no soliciting sign, strike one. Misinformation, strike two. Trying to BS me....yer outta here. | |
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Review by Marfoo
member for 28 days, 1 visits, last login: 26 days ago
lodged 28 days ago
- Socorro,Socorro,NM
- Contract price not specified.
- about 3 days
- "Fair price, if it worked."
- "Unreliable, dishonest, can't meet advertised speeds"
- "CenturyLink really dropped the ball in this town."
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I had DSL service from CenturyLink for 2 years and I have recently switched to a competitor. (See my Wi-Power review).
For the first six months the service was great, I was getting my advertised 6Mbps downspeed and the reliability was rock solid. Pings weren't the best but they were doable.
After six months my household began to suffer from constant disconnects. The connection would drop out and I would have to restart the modem which would sometimes bring the connection back. I called tech support and they sent a technician over a couple of times. He checked the lines from my house to their end and said the lines checked out just fine. He replaced our modem 3 times in an attempt to fix the problem, but it was never fixed. After calling tech support another time they informed me that their backend was at capacity and the system start cutting people's bandwidth in order to service everyone. They were nice enough to give me a credit on my bill and the problem went away for about 3 months.
The problem came back, constant disconnects. Calling tech-support was useless. The same thing kept happening, the tech would come, he would do diagnostics on the line and find nothing wrong. Then tech-support spun me this line "The system is reporting that 6Mbps is unstable so we have to move you down to 3Mbps" I thought this was just ridiculous, they had provided me the full speed that they advertised for my first six months of service and now they tell me the lines can't handle it? Worst of all I asked for a discounted price on bill and they told me they charge a flat rate from 1.5 - 7Mb... Great.
Having being bumped down to 3Mbps, the disconnects still did not go away. The modem they had provided on had died and I replaced it with my own Netgear modem which also suffered from the same disconnect problems. The disconnect problems got worse and I called them again and they put the blame on the Netgear modem I was using (after 3 of the modems they had provided me had already died) and wanted me to sort it out with the manufacturer before asking them for additional help.
At this point I was ready to switch providers. Having talked to some of my friends and neighbors who also get DSL service through Century Link they reported that they were also suffering from constant disconnects as well. I had enough. Their reasons for the system failing were dishonest, they were doing nothing to remedy the inconvenience they were causing by failing to provide me the service that they advertise and it was clear that the problem was beyond just my household.
There are tons of college students here that would gladly pay premium for a fast internet connection in this town, Century Link could make a killing. Instead they just give you the runaround, bad service, are dishonest and make you pay anyway.
Do yourself a favor and don't use these guys in Socorro.
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Review by NameSoS
member for 1.1 years, 4 visits, last login: 24 days ago
updated 33 days ago
- Rocky Mount,Edgecombe,NC
- Contract price not specified.
- "When it runs, it runs"
- "Terrible communication with the customer."
- "Not a terrible ISP, but definitely not the best..I hope."
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I contacted Century link this afternoon regarding my ailing internet speed issues, and the dialogue that transpired in chat left me feeling ignored and not valued as a customer. I had first chatted with Vincent G, who, was pleasant, and unbelievably fast with the cut and pasted pre-arranged messages.
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Vincent G: It appears our engineers have discovered an issue in the network that distributes High-Speed Internet to your area. This problem can cause slow Internet speeds during peak usage hours. Unfortunately, relief efforts of this nature can take considerable amounts of time to complete. We're continually working on a permanent resolution but in the meantime, we certainly don't want you to be paying for service that you're not receiving.
Vincent G: We can do a few things with you, first verifying the modem holds the full signal we're sending it, then test the actual connection speed coming through your line right now and apply a fair credit to your account, if one has not already been issued for this incident. If Internet speeds are still slow at your next billing cycle, we'll be happy to issue another credit until our problem is resolved.
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I asked for an ETA on the resolution and Vincent stated there was no ETA.
Now when I send my car to the shop for a repair I can get an ETA on the work...when I want to get a room added onto my house, I can get an ETA its completion, but when an engineer sees a known problem and are working on it, They can't give an ETA!?
To cap things off, after Vincent offered a credit to my account, he transferred me to billing where I spoke with Rayna and received the following:
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Rayna F: I am unable to credit your account at this point until this issue is fixed, once this is resolved we can credit your account. I will make sure your account has very good notes on this issue so when you chat back in when it is resolved we will give the necessary credits to your account.
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I can't even to begin to express how disappointed I am that Centurylink can't even provide an ETA on a known issue. Even if they pillow the time frame. I've managed service providing businesses for 20+ years now, and if you have caused your customer heart burn over the service you provide, I've always given comfort to the customer by demonstrating that you are aware of it, you are addressing it, and you will have it fixed in "X" time frame.
I've NEVER told my customers to check back and see if we've fixed the problem.
Centurylink...if you read this, Please learn from it, and get better, or you will be losing alot more customers in the future.
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Review by os3q6
member for 7.3 years, 23 visits, last login: 33 days ago
lodged 33 days ago
- Bernalillo,Sandoval,NM
- $108 per month
- about 1 days
- Qwest
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has worked fine installed by me cost is both phone and DSL
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