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Review by dspace 
Posted: 8.6 years ago
member for 8.6 years, 78 visits, last login: 3.6 years ago
 Gassville,Baxter,AR
 $39 per month (24 month contract)
 CenturyTel
CLEC party: CenturyTel
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------=_NextPart_001_0001_01C0B981.A78365E0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
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Recieved service approx one month ago. Service worked ok, now I get timed=
out of servers for online games . I get timed out while trying to log on=
to msn.com. Service is not good at all. As soon as I can I will go to wi=
reless internet. Just need to get out of my 2 year contract. I think they=
are starting to get tired of hearing from me, I call about every day. Pi=
ngs are ok sometimes. Most of the time lines are very inconsistent. Very =
unhappy with service. The setup disk was for Win98, I had to go to a friends house and download the enternet 300 setups. Never have recieved the correct disk fron centurytel. Tech support tries to kelp, but line problems are beyond what they can fix. While they say you will get 512 down and 256 up, I average 325 down, and 50 up. Does not sound like the service I am paying for.Get your FREE download of MSN Ex=
plorer at »explorer.msn.com=
------=_NextPart_001_0001_01C0B981.A78365E0
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Recieved servi=
ce approx one month ago. Service worked ok, now I get timed out of server=
s for online games . I get timed out while trying to log on to msn.c=
om. Service is not good at all. As soon as I can I will go to wireless in=
ternet. Just need to get out of my 2 year contract. I think they are star=
ting to get tired of hearing from me, I call about every day. Pings are o=
k sometimes. Most of the time lines are very inconsistent. Very unhappy w=
ith service.Get =
your FREE download of MSN Explorer at »explorer.msn.com
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Review by mastamsm
Posted: 8.7 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 13 visits, last login: 7.8 years ago
La Crosse,La Crosse,WI
$40 per month (24 month contract)
 about 28 days
CenturyTel
 "Get good ping times at 3am!"
 "High latency.. 1000ms during day"
 "If anything, don't go with Century Tel. If I could switch I would."
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CenturyTel's Crappy service
Its been two months now with crazy ping times.
I ordered DSL and it came a month later.. I get pings above 2000ms during evening hours, which is not cool for playing online games. I get good ping times at 3am, if that counts any. They have never called or notified me in any way that they were getting too busy to give us satisfactory service, or offering a discount in any way. The software they gave us is crap, it freezes your computer when shutting down and at other times. I highly suggest getting a router.. I have a Linksys Cable/DSL router and it works fine.. you don't even need to install the buggy software they gave you. The router keeps my connection up for a day or so. Another thing to suggest is get the only other high bandwidth ISP in La Crosse, Charter Communications. If I wasn't it a contract, I would surely go over to them.
The grade I would give them: D-
READ BELOW!!
UPDATE!!: Today.. centurytel just turned on a new DS3 line for us.. woo hoo! Still not the best pings but a whole lot better... thank you centurytel! They finally got those lines it..whew, took em awhile... but we are up and rollin again!
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 Review by TjR
UPDATED: 8.7 years ago
member for 9.3 years, 251 visits, last login: 8.2 years ago
Avon,Lorain,OH
$40 per month (24 month contract)
about 6 days
"Good question.....?"
"EXTREMELY HIGH LATENCY!!! Poor networking and tech support communication"
"If CenturyTel is your only broadband option....wait!!!!"
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I live in Ohio and am speaking on behalf of Lorain County's service. I have CenturyTels 512/256 ADSL service, with Westell Wirespeed modem, and am living less than a mile from telco office.
For the past month now i've had extremely high latency, usually about 400 in the afternoon during weekdays, to about 1000+ in the evening during peak times. This renders my service highly unusable and i actually just use dial-up in the evening. I don't know what kind of show CenturyTel is trying to run but I'm extremely fed up. I've called, e-mail, had a chatroom convo with them, and each time i didn't get a straight answer. They have oversold their bandwidth, leaving some of the states to suffer and not surprisingly, it will happen again after it's fixed. Not only is the latency been really bad but they have the worst routing, sending my signal at a minimum of 9 hops. I admit that the service wasn't all that bad before this problem arose, but this is just a blatent disregard towards the customers. They're too busy worrying about their potential customers, not caring about the customers who havealready signed the ridiculous 2 year contract.
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Review by Hillock101
Posted: 8.7 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 31 visits, last login: 5.4 years ago
Raymond,Pacific,WA
$50 per month
about 14 days
CenturyTel
CLEC party: @link
"Reliable connection and good speeds so far...."
"Whoever enters your info and sets up things to be installed/turned on are cluless...."
"I am happy w/ centuy tel, but wish it was cheaper."
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I ordered DSL on 2/13 on the phone. I sat on the contract for a little while trying to figure out how to justify the $260 (or whatever it was) for the modem to my wife. I was also waiting to be sure my line qualified. They called on the 23rd I think to tell me I would have service on the 3/2. I cheated a little... I checked on ebay and got the westell wirespeed modem kit for $100 (I had it at 50, but someone bid me up in the last hour). I had it all installed and ready to go on the 2nd.. but no dice. I had to wait until Monday to talk to customer service and see why it was not set up because when I talked to tech support they said it was still marked as "on hold." It turned out that whoever set the account up to be installed still had it marked as on hold so, it never got installed. I then had to wait until the 8th. I got up and had a nice note saying it was installed. I tried it and couldn't find the server. I had to go to work... so didn't get back to it until 5 am.
I called tech support and we danced back and forth for a while... removed 2nd lan card, changed this and that ... finally I asked the question that fixed it... and we found out that it was because the EnterNet 300 software I had was from another ISP because I got it on ebay and they have different vpi/vci settings. The tech emailed me a little tool to change it and BINGO I had DSL. I should have made sure the first tech I talked to the week before understood that it was another ISP's copy of EnterNet 300 v 1.4... , and double checked after he said it was the right software.
One final note.. if it is late night... don't bother w/ the dial up tech support.. they never answered the damn phone... my portable phone battery went dead waiting. I got in to a tech in the online chat in less than a minute. So if you have dialup backup.... use that if you need to to get into the online chat support.
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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 8.7 years ago
(review was emailed from domain centurytel.net)
Lorain,Lorain,OH
$40 per month (24 month contract)
"these people need to stick to phone only-they are pathetic!"
"it works 4 out of 7 days-they should have to give our money back for their incompetence"
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my dsl is the most unreliable isp i have ever used . they are not
consistent at all. every weekend you can exspect slow download speeds
and no help getting it fixed.I have called and emailed. the cowards
there wont even make up some answer or try to blame it on me and my
computer-in my opinion , i would not tell anyone at all to use century.
I would recomend walking to your neighbors house and use their 56k-it would be quicker!!!!! kjc
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Review by dcelliott
Posted: 8.7 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 12 visits, last login: 1.2 years ago
North Bend,King,WA
$39 per month (24 month contract)
about 14 days
CenturyTel
CLEC party: CenturyTel
"It's available"
"Feeble tech support"
"It's better than 56k!"
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I've had my CenturyTel DSL for 3 months, and it works fine most of the time.
Ordering was a hassle. The order form was written by someone who either doesn't understand the products or doesn't understand how to write order forms. I ordered both a DSL modem and a modem/router because it wasn't clear that the latter was also a modem (I thought it was just like a LinkSys DSL router). The customer support person required me to redo my order, when he could have easily crossed off two lines.
Installation was OK, though the instructions were lousy. It didn't say I needed to install their software anywhere, and the CD-ROM was hidden in my modem box.
Most of the time, I get a fast, reliable connection, but my connection gets dropped 2-3 times per week, and may be down for 30 minutes to several hours. The EnterNet 300 software doesn't provide an auto-reconnect for anything over 10 seconds. I contacted them, and their response was that they had bought the company who made the software, and didn't know anything about it. The drivers are very buggy. I switched to a LinkSys router and everything is much better.
When there are problems, they excel at being annoying. The phone lines are usually busy (don't even try to call at night), and when you get in, you're on hold for 15-45 minutes. They could at least change the music and get rid of the annoying voiceover every minute.
When you do get in, they insist on trying to blame the problem on you. Last week, my service was down for 3 days because some cowboy cut a line and didn't get it reconnected correctly. Every day, I went through the same rigamarole - power down everything, restart, attempt a reconnect, read the same error message, check the same settings. Even worse, the line techs kept claiming that they had already fixed the problem that morning, despite the fact that my service was down.
Get this: It actually took an earthquake, which caused them to lose power at the switching station, for them to fix my line.
Seriously, if they would just fix the busy phone lines and long hold times, it would make a world of difference. I can accept problems, but they need to be prepared to fix them.
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Review by richard43
Posted: 8.7 years ago
member for 9.1 years, 146 visits, last login: 2.6 years ago
Cheney,Spokane,WA
$39 per month (24 month contract)
about 26 days
CenturyTel
CLEC party: CenturyTel
"Stable, reliable connection."
"Not as fast as cable..."
"Happy with the reliability."
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After placing the order late November, it took a few phone calls to see when I was going to get connected. As I was one of, if not the first, to get ADSL in Cheney, it took a little longer than I had expected. Initial install date was delayed a week because they forgot to order my modem. I did the install myself which went well after downloading a updated version of the software(for Win ME). I am using a Westel modem, PPPoE, downloading at 420k(up to 512 was possible)and I am about 6500ft from the Centurytel office. I had cable for about a year...it was great when it worked, which wasn't often enough. So for now, I am much happier with the slower, but more reliable ASDL.
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Review by bradrose
UPDATED: 8.8 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 6 visits, last login: 8.7 years ago
La Junta,Otero,CO
$40 per month (36 month contract)
CenturyTel
"I have some contacts with my local telco"
"The local telco has no pull with the supply office"
"Ordered 30 Nov 2000 - Got it 16 Jan 2001"
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Well this has been a fun one for me.
I was supposed to be a test home as my house is wired with a security system. CenturyTel ordered everything on 30 Nov and on 7 Dec they came out and wired the house. Yay ! Almost
As of Jan 5 - today, and numerous calls to my sales rep and local telco office. No one knew where the mysterious modems went. Yes - they supposedly ordered two of them for me after the first one never came in...
Yesterday I found out that they ran out of modems and are supposedly on backorder for another two weeks...
Waiting, waiting... Has not been a good experience up to now... Will post when I get a modem and attempt an install
When I got the modem - they failed to send me a copy of the username and password and that took me a couple of days to get. Once I got the username and password the install was very smooth and I got right online
The download speeds are 400+ and upload speeds are pretty good
As far as I can tell the system has never been down and appears to run fairly smooth.
11 Feb 2001 JBR
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Review by Secretagtman
Posted: 8.8 years ago
member for 9.1 years, 335 visits, last login: 7 days ago
La Crosse,La Crosse,WI
$49 per month
about 42 days
CenturyTel
"Speed is as advertised."
"Not as fast as I would love to have!"
"After a few hurtles the speed is nice to have."
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I got ADSL when it first was introduced and have had wonderfull download and upload speeds since then. I usually get around 430kbps down and 150-200kbps up. The service and CenturyTel is nothing fantastic, but they can usually get the job done. When I ordered the service it took about 1 month for the modem to arrive, and about 6 weeks for them to turn on the switch, they were not exactly in a rush to give me service I guess. The self-install kit was very straight foward. The day they said the switch was going to be on, I set it all up, got to the point where I needed my username and password and realized that I did not have one. I called the support number and the rep. said that their computers showed that I didnt have one registerd with them either. After about 35 minutes on the phone getting that fixed, I got a username, put it in my router, and was set to go. I have experienced downtime on their end only a couple times, but that issue was quickly resolved, and have also gone through a period of very poor speeds, but that is way in the past since they put in some faster lines. I believe it was due to over-subscribing users to the service. Using a newer firmware release and my Linksys router has been great. No need to bother with computer end installed software, and if the connection is dropped the router will automatically log back on to keep the connection live.
Bryant
I would love to have minimum 3 times the speed, but I still can recall the days of dial-up service.
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Review by JohnEjr
Posted: 8.9 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 29 visits, last login: 6.9 years ago
Jena,La Salle,LA
$39 per month (24 month contract)
about 21 days
CenturyTel
"Extremely courteous, helpful, knowledgable sales & tech people"
"Took 5 or 6 days of continually pestering them to get DSL approval finalized"
"Its the only DSL game in town so far and they're doing OK for new players here"
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Like I have seen most other CenturyTel customers say, I got the flyer in the mail and was in shock that DSL was even being offered here. So, I RAN home and hit the website, placed an order, and started waiting. Next day I got an email saying DSL was not available AND a phone call saying I qualified!
So, just to be ornery I guess, I sent another web application in, this time with my physical location described in it instead of my billing address. Got another denial via email the next day. So I started pestering people at CenturyTel, and they were all really nice and seemed to be coping well with having something so new to them dumped in their laps. One very helpful lady there sort of began championing my cause, and she finally got my approval shoved thru the works.
The modem arrived (Westell Wirespeed, filters, splitters, and RJ-45 cable) three or four days ahead of their projected 'on' date for me so naturally I hooked it up. No sync, of course but I liked looking at it.  Tried installing the software (Enternet) that came with it, it was incompatible with Windows ME but I had bought the ME upgrade after ordering DSL so thats my fault. Called Tech Support and got the login/pass to download an update and it installed without a hitch.
The service tech came around 10 am of the due-date for my service to be on. Poor guy, I have two dogs here and one of them is very territorial; my wife was trying to put the dogs outside and one of them got away from her and charged him. He got a light scratch on the leg and ripped pants but luckily nothing serious, except maybe a good scare. He found trouble back at the switch at the local office, went and fixed it, came back after lunch and we had sync but as I've seen others say, I was not 'mapped' yet. (Would love some detailed explanations of what all is involved after that wire leaves my house or before it gets to my house however you want to look at it.) Next day tho, I left their software (EnterNet 300) sitting ready to detect a server and left my wife with instructions. Sure enough soon as i got home she told me she'd found a server and left it right there for me to do the rest.
Everything's been great on the CenturyTel side since then, rocksolid connection, not the fastest in the world but smokes our 56k. I get avg 420/210 down/up except during peak times when it drops to 300/150 or so. Only hitch was the day AlterNet backbone was fried and that got fixed in a couple hours. Also I ditched EnterNet 300 and installed RASPPPoE, which does a waaaaaaay better job of emulating a dialup connection for the sake of programs that want you to have one, plus I think it sets the registry settings better. CenturyTel told me, after I told them I did that, that they too go to RASPPPoE when EnterNet won't work for someone. I have emailed techsupport to try and talk them into licensing it.
OK my fingers are tired now, bye all.
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