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Review by Hillock101 
Posted: 8.7 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 31 visits, last login: 5.3 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: 1.1 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: 2.5 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: 8.7 years ago
member for 8.8 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 years, 334 visits, last login: 58 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: 8.8 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 29 visits, last login: 6.8 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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Review by jdm40
Posted: 8.8 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 73 visits, last login: 5 years ago
Sunset,Saint Landry,LA
$39 per month (24 month contract)
about 21 days
CenturyTel
CLEC party: CenturyTel
"Easy set up. Reliable connection. Good sales and technical support."
"Getting through to T.S. requires long wait. High latency pings."
"Only choice, price and service are acceptable. Solid product."
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2 Year contract $39.95/Mo. (Introductory special - $5.00/Mo. discount.)
$75.00 Installation fee was waived (Intro. special)
Westel Wirespeed external modem with filter kit (4-5 hang-on filters; 1 wall filter; 3-4 line splitters) ($49.95 Intro. special broken into 4 pmts
512/256 dynamic IP; PPPoE using Enternet 300 v1.34
Celeron 300A overclocked to 450mhz on Abit BH6 MB, with Intel 8255 PCI 10/100 NIC; running Win98 with 64Mb PC100 SDRAM.
This review is for the St. Landry Parish, Louisiana CenturyTel services.
I received an advertisement in the mail and responded with a phone call to inquire about the services. I was very surprised that the service was being offered in our area. The sales rep confirmed that I could get the service, so I ordered it about a week later.
From order confirmation to arrival of the equipment took about 2 1/2 weeks and about a week later (during Christmas Holidays) I received a call from a service tech who came by to see if I had any problems. He verified that I was connected and checked the signal at my box outside, but otherwise was not really computer savvy.
It wasn't until I tried downloading large files that I realized something wasn't quite right and I called tech support. The tech support with CenturyTel is pretty good, but I had to wait about 20-30 minutes to get through. I told him that I was not getting DSL speeds and that's when he asked if I had tweaked the MTU or RWIN values for my dialup account, which I had.
He directed me to www.dslreports.com and had me run the tweak applet which confirmed that my RWIN and MTU values were too low. I installed the recommended registry tweak and I have had great speed ever since (for the service that's provided). Obviously, I would like to have a faster service, but this is all that's offered.
I think $40 is a bit high for 512K/256K service. I think for $40 that downloads ought to be in the 1000K range. Oh, well, maybe more choices will become available later. I have to say though that CenturyTel has pretty solid service. I had their dialup service before and never had problems and so far the DSL service has been rock solid.
My only concern with the service is the high latency ping and some occasional packet loss that I have experienced. There is defininitely a peak time when this is worse, about 5PM - 10PM and then it gets better. I think that CenturyTel is probably packing too many users through too small of a set up and will probably need to upgrade. That is my only complaint other that the price for the speed.
Overall, it appears that whatever product CenturyTel is selling, they go with a tried and true performer and use existing standards. It's nothing fancy or innovative, it just works as advertised. At least, that has been my experience.
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Review by biged
Posted: 8.9 years ago
(review was emailed from domain digisys.net)
Kalispell,Flathead,MT
Contract price not specified.
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Hundreds of customers have been totally dissatisfied with the "service"
that CenturyTel has been claiming to be providing in the Flathead
Valley. "NOT" As one of the first clients of Digisys, Inc., a local
ISP taken over by CenturyTel, I KNOW what good service, and reliable
connections are all about. As a certified Computer Technician, I know
when I receive at least 6 calls a week concerning CenturyTel/Digisys
problems, one needs to look no further than the mismanagement and
technical bungling of CenturyTel.
My personal observations: When the DSL "special" was announced, I
signed up on-line. I too thought the 2 year contract was a bit
outrageous, but they have a captive audience here in Montana, and I
suppose they fully intend to take advantage of it. Anyway, when 3 weeks
went by without receiving a call, which was stated on the web-site to be
no more than 3 - 4 days, I called my request in. Everything fine with
the young man I spoke to,,, also said I would be contacted by someone
at the local CenturyTel office. Another 5 weeks go by,,, Guess
what,,, no phone call...!!! So, figuring these people in the local
office are TOTALLY Brain-Dead, I hand carried my contract for DSL
service to the local office in person, only to be told by the young lady
at the customer service desk, "Someone will call you in 3 - 4 days...."
TO THIS DATE, I HAVE RECEIVED NO PHONE CALL. So, approximately 2 months
have gone by, so I decide to call again,,, and INSISTED on speaking to
someone who could provide me an explanation. I received no explanation
why I was not contacted, but I was informed with that call that even
though I live within 1 mile of the Central Office, she could not tell me
why DSL is not available at my location, or when it might become
available. That is my CenturyTel DSL story.
Their Dial-Up Service is not much better. 3 to 4 attempts to dial in
and log on, after connection drops, no more soft modems (guaranteed
drops), numerous complaints about customer service/support, etc. etc.
etc...
As far as I am concerned, at least here in the Flathead Valley of
Montana, the local Management Staff of CenturyTel should be flippin'
burgers somewhere, and there should be some type of law or civil
penalties lowered on the Board of Directors of this "so-called"
telecommunications company, for allowing these buffoons to trash what
once was the premiere ISP here in the valley.
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Review by gkamer6
UPDATED: 8.9 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 33 visits, last login: 8.8 years ago
Ritzville,Adams,WA
$39 per month (24 month contract)
about 21 days
Ameritech
"Found Tech Support and Customer Service to be outstanding"
"Not all customer service people I spoke with seemed to be playing from the same sheet of music"
"I'm completly satisified with my service so far"
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Hi All,
I just ordered DSL service from CenturyTel yesterday. I don't have much to review yet, other than the Customer Service I received, which I thought was excellent. Though I had to call several different places before I found the right one. The DSL service is so new in my area that most of the people I spoke with didn't even know it was available here.
I did speak to a very helpful C.S. named Jason. He promised to call me back next week to keep me updated on the status of my order. That totally blew me away... Never had Customer Service offer to that.
I don't know yet how hard it will be to set it up, since installation, as far as I know is not part of the package. But I've worked alot with and on computers, doing upgrades and stuff, so I don't expect to run into any major problems.
I'm just excited about finally getting a high speed connection, and as soon as things really start happening, I'll report back and keep you guys informed.
I had to order the 2 year contract to get a price break on the modem, and they are the only game in town so I have to go with them or no one, but in the tiny town I live in, thats not a major issue for me.....
Well I'm back with a more up to date review of the DSL experience with CenturyTel....
I ordered around the 1st of Dec. There was some confusion among the Customer Service people I spoke with. Some where NOT aware that DSL service was available in little old Ritzville Wa, a tin town, about 60 miles west of Spokane. It took some doing, but I finally found a fellow who said "Well let me check the book".... Seems they have a book that is more up to date then their computer system...... Well anyway, he came back on the line and confirmed it was in fact available, and took my order.
A few days later my contract arrived in the mail. I filled it out and sent it right back that same day. It had to go to Gig Harbor, Wa. I made a slight mistake when I filled it out. I selected the plan I wanted, but I forgot to indicate what equipment I wanted. You have a choice between just a modem, or a modem/router combo. Well that mistake added a few days to my order. They were nice enough to call and confirm if I already had a modem. I told them no, so with my permission the woman marked off I only wanted the modem.
She also scheduled me for hook up 10 days from that day, which would have been the 27th of Dec... I was kind of bummed out, since I was hoping to get connected before Christmas.
On the 18th I got my modem via UPS. I was all excited so I hooked it right up.... It also came with the cd disk for setting up the hardware, so I figured what the heck, and started to set that up. Things were humming right along til the part where the program asked from my ID and password.... I thought Hmmm, I don't have any of those.
So I called Customer Service and explained the situation. The woman looked me up in the computer, asked a few questions for security to confirm I was who I claimed to be, and gave me the information. I plugged that in and finished the set up. But I could not connect.... Somehow I got the inpression that since the modem came, maybe I was hooked up.... When I could not ocnnect, I called CenturyTels DSL Tech Support. Heres comes something that really blew me away....
I was talking with a nice guy who was helping me. One of the questions he asked was how I had my filters set up. I explained it to him, and he told me I had one connection backwards, but to fix it, I would have to unplug the phone line. The very same line I was talking to him on. He asked if I had an extension and I told him no. He asked if I had another phone line and I said yes. He then got that number, and told me to just wait til he called me on that line, to make sure he did not loose me. About 15 seconds later, my other phone rang, and there he was... Hows that for service?
Well he finally realized (as did I) that the problem was there was no DSL signal on the line. Reason? I was not yet hooked up.... DUH!!
So he told me there was nothing he could do until I got hooked up, which according to his computer was not going to be until the 27th. He suggested I call Customer Service and see if I could get my connection date moved up.
I called and spoke with a woman who said "Hold on, let me check" A minute later she came back on and said "No, they were booked up and the 27th was the soonest I could get connected. BALH! Well just for theheck of it, I decided to call back the next day (Tuesday) and try someone else....
I spoke to a really nice woman who checked and said "How about Friday?" Well of course that worked great for me.... So I jumped at the deal... That was 6 days sooner then I expected.
I work nights, and so I sleep during the day. This afternon, when I got up, my wife told me a guy from CenturyTel called and stil thinks I'm scheduled for a 27th hook up, but wanted me to call him. I called and he asked if I had my modem, NIC Card and cd disk. I said I did indeed. He told me they were getting back logged and wanted to know if it would be possible for him to hook me up this very afternoon..... Hell yes, I almost yelled...
So first he went to the local CO and jumpered the lines for me. Then he stopped by the house and ran some checks on my lines at this end ot make sure things were locked in.... Everything checked out fine here, but we were still not able to make a connection. We messed around with it for almost an hour with out making any headway. I was even on the line with DSL Tech Support while he was here. He finally called his main office in Cheney Wa, and discovered that I had not been mapped at that location....
It took them a few minutes tapping on the computer over there, and BANG! I was up and running..... But alas, I had run out of time and had to leave for work right away... It was a LONG 8 hours, before I could get home and start playing around with my new Christmas present......
I have been having fun going to diffrent sites and comparing there load times to my old 56k dial up..... Man talk about night and day.... This is GREAT!
I did a speed test on this site with a 297kbs download speed and 209kbs upload speed... It said it was 5x faster then my 56k.... That makes me smile...
Anyone know of any other good test sites on the net?
Over all I have to say I'm pretty damned impressed with CenturyTel..... What really knocked me for a loop was the fact that they took the time to come into this little town (pop about 1,800) and give us DSL. I never thought I'd live long enough to see it come to Ritzville. But you can damn sure bet I'm glad they did.
I did not rate the NEWS/EMAIL cause I don't know yet how to do those things with DSL. I'm still using my old dial up account for those.
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