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member for 21 years, 3510 visits, last login: 1.5 years ago updated 1.8 years ago
04-18-2019 After yesterday's phone call with tech support and the broken phone pole still hanging by a thread I'm cutting my losses after 25 years of being a customer. Comcast is due by noon, the company I left to join Embarq/Centurylink. It's truly going back and forth from the frying pan to the fire! * addendum: Now running 70/5 with Comcast. 04-17-2019 Issues again. Upstream noise is terrible. The noise margin is 2 to 4 and weather drops the connection. Broken phone poles are not repaired and users are leaving on my street while new CL service is installed nearby in new half-million dollar homes. My neighbor has convinced me to switch to Comcast after she did a few months ago. She occasionally works from home and said she couldn't take the day off whenever it rained and the connection went down. CL is circling the drain with most of their resources focused on new installs, I suppose an acknowledgement of how bad the lines are in the older parts of town -- which they have no intention of replacing. 03-2019 Issue resolved by local tech who worked most of the day to run a new pair. Tech was prompt, courteous and knew his sh*t inside and out. Service is now better than when it was installed. 05-2017 Line noise, attenuation, losing sync when it rains .. all this and more. My SNR is like a yo-yo on crack. A once excellent service, for what it was (not cable), has dutifully shit the bed. Hard. With the force of a fat man who, after receiving a max load of Nexium from his GP, doubled-down on saturated fat until his toilet shamed abu ghraib into submission and dropped flies like a nuclear Shell No-Pest Strip from the 70s. On Turbo. With bells on. Tech support is so abjectly stupid there is no sense in calling, and why no one does. Management FTW! --------- 10/2016 My up-time is great; the service is fine. I'm never down and speed is consistent. However, since going to DSL-only, my head explodes once a year from calling in to 'renew' (ostensibly) my discounted rate with what amounts to anywhere from 2 to 4 months of paying a non discounted rate of $72 for 10M internet, so I'm changing the rate to $72 above. Every time the discount expires I suffer through scripted support, no chance of being compensated for the months after I re-negotiated for the sane rate and the sane rate is not applied, and being charged the non-discounted rate when I shouldn't be having to call in the first place. This f****** scam is so old I'm actually considering Comcast. And that's bad. Very, very, very bad. I'd like to note I've been a customer under this same Centurylink/Sprint/Embarq service area for 25 years. 4/2015 Tech support and reliability have dumpster-dived. Support is useless. TalkToUs has even given up the effort. The connection is no longer reliable and the support is extremely poor. TalkToUs says go to Chat or call support over an issue ongoing for 6 days that no one is able to acknowledge beyond "Add a new rental modem to your account." Good luck. 6/2014 Just concluded a complete revamp of my service with the help of Centurylink TS (rep that hangs here on BBR), and couldn't be happier. Now I'm jinxed. Seriously good tech support and as reliable service (no downtime) as you could ask for. Very happy with CL DSL. 7/7/13 Video problems have resolved, and performance is back to where it was - decent. Still, the price is high for 10M connection. But I'll pay that rather than pull my hair out with Xfinity. 5/29/2013 ** Evening performance suffering. Videos buffering down to slower streams. Network congestion for nearly a month. Paying too much for this level of what was solid service at $90 a month (with phone). --------------- 6/17/2012 Solid service @ 10 MB ___________ 10/1/2011 Still very good, but late night downtime is on the increase, usually between midnight and 2 AM. Speed is what I pay for and latency is OK (see latest test grab). 9/2/10 Service is as reliable as can be. No downtime to speak of and speeds on the money - no complaints. Billing is a little rough lately, but I think I've worked it out. BR corporate fan boys remind why i stopped visiting this site. 1/7/09 New pricing as of 1/6/09 puts the 10M package at $54.95 for landline customers. I'm adjusting my total cost based on an increase of roughly $15 (from $39.95 for 3.0 to $54.95 for 10.0). Easy as a phone call (or chat) to get the new rate. 1/3/09 I upgraded to the 10Mbps package on the 24th. of December by way of embarq_joey here on the DSLR Embarq forum. The install date was one day off due to line conditioning and being moved to a new DSLAM (I'm 4000 ft. from the CO). So far everything is working great. You can see my speedtests here: »/testh ··· 67/8cbb5 I'm estimating total cost; I haven't received the first bill with the new charges. I have a land line, and with 3.0 service the total bill was $67. The 10Mbps service is $65 a month (roughly $25 more than the 3.0 service). Connectivity so far, as always, is rock solid. Hat tip to embarq_joey ! 8/20/08 Teh system logon message for me today (aren't they cute!) told a heart warming tale of how my last update was framed and, to this day, leaves the staff in tears. After finding their hankies, I was implored to update my review. PS: The HSI price here is $39.95 + the no-frills landline brings the total to $60 and change. No downtime since February. At least none that I was aware of, anyway. I may have been asleep, so I can't say for certain. I'm so very sorry the previous review brought such emotional responses from the BBR staff that I'll keep this one short (-: 2/15/08 Embarq is currently rolling out 10MB plans, as well as re-structuring tier prices. I was offered 5.0 for $5 more than I'm paying now for 3.0 ($44.95 w/POTS). I called in and renegotiated my current price for 3.0 to the new price of $39.x, with the understanding that I've renewed my contract for another year rather than go month to month come April. The service has been very good; speeds are spot-on with my caps (with only one brief period of high latency -fixed fairly quickly), and with no downtime. I'm happy with the service, and the price drop was most welcomed. 12/21/07 It's been one year since I signed up with Embarq. The service, up until a week or so ago, has been excellent, with no downtime and consistent speeds. There is a promise of "new equipment" in my area by 11/23/07 to address these issues. However ... Embarq appears to have joined in an industry trend of appallingly bad support. Everything is geared towards sales, and problems are addressed (or not) only by repeated calls because you can't get through or you get erroneous information when you do. Service interruptions always cause clogged queues and their online chat system buckles like a dollar store beach chair. I'm downgrading my rating to reflect the poor support and lack of accurate information from Embarq. I'm also not happy with what I'm paying at this point given the quality of support. There was also confusion as to what occurs when your lease expires at one year: I've received different answers from different reps. This is not acceptable. Bottom line after one year: very good connection reliability (much better than cable) but with near terrible support (on par with cable). -- 7/10/07 There has not been a moment of downtime since my last review, and speeds are consistently spot on. The price ($50 for 3000/640) is still a bit too high, IMO, but the service -- compared with cable in this area -- is solid as a rock. Cable goes down here with half the passing storms. Latest test to speedtest dot net's DC server was: D: 2988 U: 637 L: 19ms (DC server) 4/3/07 I'm updating my review due to a recent experience with tech support. There's a world of difference between phone messages (management) and the people that man the lines -- both phone, email and chat. These guys are on the ball and deserve a lot of credit for the time they take in helping us out, even with matters of little concern. There is a tech here on BBR who posts in the Embarq forum that is also a valuable asset to the BBR community and Embarq. Perhaps I shouldn't mention the name, but it begins with dsl. Kudos to all of you that work hard to make the little things possible for us! 3/19/07 My first trouble with the service and I'm totally unhappy with tech support. There has apparently been a fiber cut somewhere that occurred midday on the 17th. Phone tech support has been horrid, with messages stating everything from their business hours to 'all lines busy' to some nonsense about weekends being their busiest time and to try my call at another time. 36 hours to fix cut fiber is one thing, but their communication on the matter is worse than Adelphia - and that's saying something. If not for Comcast being my only alternative, I'd pay the $99 and go with another provider. If customers don't talk with their wallet the companies never hear you. If this problem doesn't go away by next Saturday my next review will be for Comcast. I dropped my TS rating to 3 and the Value for money rating to 2. ---- Update: 12/8/06 I upgraded to the 3000/512 tier for ten more dollars a month, as all speed tests were right under my 1500 cap, line quality was good and latency is bearable. I notice I'm paying a bit more than some areas for my middle-tier speed. I've no idea what metric Embarq is using to determine price points per area, but income in my neighborhood certainly isn't above the national average. I've included some links to tests run via BBR: Speed tests from both coasts: »/im/19 ··· 6256.png »/im/19 ··· 6700.png Line test: »/lineq ··· /2142177 I'm quite happy with (A) no longer being a customer of Adelphia/Comcast and (B) the performance of Embarq so far. The connection can lag a little more than cable at times, but pages pop open and downloads generally run better than 250KBs. I've actually hit above my cap a few times, as illustrated by the image below. The upgrade was done completely from the CO, on time and with no problems. I did have to reboot the modem in order to gain connectivity after the upgrade. ---- 11/21/06 I called Embarq last Friday and I'm up Tuesday (today, the 21st) on their 1500 tier. Installation was a breeze (5 minutes), and speed tests clock me nearly up to the 1500 I'm paying for (I'm within a mile of the CO). So far so good -- I'll update after some time passes. Attachments: member for 19.7 years, 3063 visits, last login: 4.6 years ago updated 4.8 years ago
Update 8/2/17: 3mbps is still their fastest available speed here so I still haven't gone back to them. Update 3/28/15: I paid Comcast the money to run a line to my house about 5 years back. I do not miss having Centurylink. They keep sending ads to my house touting blazing fast speeds "up to 10mbps" but the fastest my house qualifies for is 3mbps... which is twice as fast as what it originally was here, but ultimately still a pathetic speed. That is 33x slower than the speed I get with Comcast. Since this is a semi rural area, it is safe to assume that Centurylink will never upgrade this area to real speeds. With the definition of broadband having been raised, almost of all of East TN and SWVA has only one option for broadband service IF you are lucky enough to have one... Comcast or Charter, depending on your city. Original review: I recently moved into a new home and I signed up for Embarq since Comcast wants $3,000-$4,000 to run cable down 3 utility poles to my house and I just am not that rich. Embarq maxes out at 1.5mbps here with no plans on ever upgrading, so I am going to have to deal with these ridiculously lame speeds until I can pay for Comcast. The low ratings for services and value for money reflect my belief that I should be getting 5mbps minimum for this price. Pre sales information, first agent I talked to said I could get 3mbps but all others after I signed up said 1.5mbps. I had reliability issues at first, and the problem was finally resolved when they replaced the problematic card that I and 7 other users shared. This was about a month into my service. member for 20 years, 5122 visits, last login: 25 days ago updated 6.6 years ago
The local technician is good, but rarely will my service show it's ugly self when he comes out. He says they are installing a new DSLAM nearby and hopefully it will take care of the problems with reliability and less than advertised speeds. Centuryline customer service is the worst. They are just reading a script and really don't give a damn if you are happy or not. member for 7 years, 5 visits, last login: 7 years ago lodged 7 years ago
NOTE: the overall support and service has been the worst of any company I've ever dealt with, but there are people working for CenturyLink that can and will help with issues. You do have to determine who they are, though, and you have to keep the pressure on to get things done. I'd love to give CenturyLink a great rating in all categories of this review, but so far they simply have not earned any top scores. I'll continue to adjust comments in this review and change the ratings as things improve or degrade, whichever the case may be. Comments below are listed in date order - NEWEST to OLDEST... 04/29/2015 UPDATE: It's time to update this review because I had a connection issue a couple of days back, and the results of that attempt to get the issue corrected call for an updated set of category scores, as follows: PRE-SALES INFORMATION: not applicable this time, so no score change from previous update; leaving this at a 1 out of 5 score INSTALL COORDINATION: no change in score here either, because coordination with the techs in my local area does not exist. I was told by the repair team at CenturyLink that the tech would show up at my house the following day, before 5 pm. He asked for a phone number where I could be reached so the tech could call me right before coming, and said that I would need to be at home so the tech would have access to the inside components. That next day, I stayed home from work, but just like with my previous review update, the tech never showed up, he/she did not call to say he wasn't coming, and nobody from CenturyLink called to let me know that the appointment had been canceled and rescheduled. The following day, I went on to work not knowing what was going to become of my repair request, but it just so happened that I went home for lunch and while there, the tech called saying he was on his way. I let him know that I'd already determined that the problem was with the new modem that I'd received from CenturyLink just a few months back. He said he's swap out modems with me and all would be good again. He came and was on site for about 10 minutes swapping out the modems, then booting the replacement to make sure it worked. It did work, and he was gone. Because they did once again as they repeatedly did on the previous service call by failing to show up for the appointment as scheduled and then failed to let me know what was going on, I'll be leaving this category scored at 1 out of 5. CONNECTION RELIABILITY: this category is receiving a drop in score because every time it rains in my area, the internet connection slows to a crawl, or it goes completely down. Otherwise, I am getting the speeds promised by the plan they sold me. I'll report back and adjust the rating score should that change. Dropping the score here to a 3 out of 5. TECH SUPPORT: telephone support from CenturyLink has always been absolutely horrible so I've given up on them. I'd almost rather take a bullet to the head than have to deal with them. The email support from the help-team at TalkToUs@CenturyLink.com has been good, though, except that it seems to take a long while and often takes repeated email requests to get issues corrected, or settled. Due to their willingness to help, I'm leaving the score unchanged. Still a 3 out of 5 score for this category. SERVICES: no score change here; still 2 out of 5 VALUE FOR THE MONEY: no score change here; still 2 out of 5 01/21/2015 UPDATE: I've decided to break my rating down according to the categories and the layout used in the graph by DSLreports.com for ISP ratings. PRE-SALES INFORMATION: the sales team at CenturyLink don't seem to know the products they are selling consumers very well. When I told them I wanted to buy my modem rather than rent it, they couldn't even tell me the brand or model of the modem being sold. They also failed to tell me about some large installation fees that would be charged for the upgrade, but they did make sure to get those charges and a few other unexpected charges on the first billing. Surprise! INSTALL COORDINATION: install coordination was non-existent in my case - it took 18 days for the speed upgrade I ordered to be performed. Each day, CenturyLink said the tech would be coming, but nobody showed up, nor did they call to say they were not coming, or that the appointment was rescheduled for the next day. I had to call them each day to ask what happened to the tech, and what was going to happen next with the service appointment. This happened over and over again causing me to lose 4 days of work. CONNECTION RELIABILITY: a good score is deserved here because so far, the connection has been reliable and I am getting the speeds promised by the plan they sold me. I'll report back and lower the rating score should that change. TECH SUPPORT: telephone support from CenturyLink has always been absolutely horrible so I've given up on them, but email support from the help-team at TalkToUs@CenturyLink.com has been good, except that it seems to take a long while and often takes repeated email requests to get issues corrected, or settled. They have been working with me to get the billing issues corrected, so I do appreciate that. SERVICES: the internet speeds offered in my local area are still far behind those available in many parts of the USA, and even for pure Internet service, they expect you to pay a monthly fee for a blocked phone line, along with an unlisted phone number. VALUE FOR THE MONEY: even when the speeds are consistent, I believe CenturyLink charges too much for their services, and with the surprise charges they list on billings, they leave me feeling like they are trying their very best to squeeze every penny from me that they can. Considering all the time spent and trouble encountered getting issues corrected, and then the cost of the service itself, it isn't a very good value for the money, so I'd highly recommend going with a different ISP if you have other options available. There are very few options locally for me, so I'm left hoping for improvements in this and the other low scoring categories of this review. 01/11/2015 UPDATE: I've upgraded the ratings on CenturyLink "Connection Reliability" and "Services" because I'm still receiving the speeds (or very close to those speeds) that I'm paying for each month. In addition, there have been no connection dropouts, thus far. If this trend should continue, those ratings will be raised to the highest score. There's still plenty of room for improvement in the other categories, and each of those will be adjusted accordingly, based on performance by CenturyLink. 01/10/2015 UPDATE: After sending a few more emails to TalkToUs@CenturyLink.com, someone finally showed up to upgrade my service to the 25Mbps bonded connection that was originally ordered back on Dec 22, 2014. CenturyLink kept telling me on the phone that I was already configured for that speed, and I kept telling them that I wasn't, and that in fact, I had no connection at all since someone had altered the connection but had not completed the upgrade and had not provided the new modem required for this type of service. Once the tech did arrive, he provided the new modem, then he did some work on the NID outside my home before climbing up the telephone pole a few times to make additional changes. After all that, he had to make a trip back to the local office to make further wiring changes because only one DSL line of the two required was working. He called me from their local office to make sure both DSL lines were working on my end after making the changes, and I confirmed they were. In the end, this upgrade cost me four days of lost work and a huge amount of frustration and anxiety because I kept being told the tech was coming out, but then nobody showed up, nor did they call to say they were not coming. I ended up with at least 20 hours of my time invested from sending emails and phoning CenturyLink Support trying to get the service order completed. Even when the tech did come, I almost missed him because he did not call me before coming the way Customer Support said he would. Needing to leave the house for about 5 minutes to run an errand, I took a chance, and when I got back home he was pulling up to my residence. Install coordination was totally non-existent for this service upgrade, and the time and grief it cost so many different people was truly unnecessary. 01/08/2015 UPDATE: Two different people in the CenturyLink Customer Care section told me today that their tech would be arriving at my home this afternoon with the modem that I purchased from them to complete the upgrade to a 25Mbps-bonded internet connection. I took off work again to meet with the technician, but as been the case for the 6 previous appointments, no tech showed up, and nobody bothered to call me to say the tech was not coming, or that the appointment had been rescheduled. I had to go through the tedious process again of calling CenturyLink and drilling my way down through their phone menu system to find the right person only to be told that the appointment has now been rescheduled for Jan13. In the interim, I have no internet connection because the old modem I had will not work on bonded connections. 01/07/2015 UPDATE: Up to this point, customer support and service seems to be only getting worse. I've been trying to get my residential internet service upgraded for going on 3 weeks now and they can't seem to get it done. Several different CenturyLink sales people told me that 25Mb/s bonded service is available at my residence, their website says it's available, others in my residential area have it, and I have it at my work location only a few blocks away. They made an appointment to come out and do the upgrade, but no technicians showed up, nor did they call to say they were not coming, or that the service upgrade was rescheduled for the next day. This process has repeated itself for five appointments now, and still nobody comes by to fulfill the service order, nor do they call to say they are not coming. I've called their phone support lines and emailed their support teams repeatedly, and they only say that they are running behind in my local area and that the appointment has been rescheduled again, but no reason is ever given for them not showing up or calling regarding the missed appointments. I've taken off work a number of times to remain at home because they tell me the technician needs access to the line from inside my home. Nobody at CenturyLink appears to care that I'm missing work based on their need for inside home access. 12-26-2014 UPDATE: I've lowered the rating scores again but I am upgrading to a faster connection (25Mb/s bonded ADSL2) effective later this week to see if it works any better. Once we see how that all goes, I'll report back and hopefully be able to up the review ratings. The one thing that is bothering me already with this transaction is that during my teleconference with the CenturyLink sales team I was advised that there would be a monthly rental fee for the modem, so I told them that I wanted to buy the modem rather than rent and was told then there would be a one-time fee of $99. No problem so far, but when I asked about my options for a CenturyLink modem, they did not know what modem they were trying to rent or sell me, so after placing me on hold for a while and checking with someone else at CenturyLink, they returned to our conversation saying that I had a choice between the Actiontec C2000A, or the Cisco DDR2200. Not knowing anything about either modem, I chose the Cisco device only because of my familiarity with that brand. After the order was placed, I did some research and found that Cisco stopped manufacturing that modem more than 3 years earlier. So, while it will work with the new connection, it is quite out dated at this point in time. CenturyLink should have made me aware of this fact, but they never mentioned anything about that, or any of the other shortcomings with this older modem. I'm very much of the opinion that a consumer has a right to know basic information about what they are buying or renting, and the CenturyLink sales team should have had some knowledge about the product they are trying to rent or sell to consumers. Obviously, I no longer want the Cisco modem and have asked for an alternative, but in the interim I'm crossing my fingers, hoping for some good luck with the new package speeds and service. 02-28-2013 UPDATE: Here we are over 2 years now since my last review and things have not improved one bit, but have only gotten worse. Each and every night from about 6pm to around 11pm, the 10 Mb/s down-speed connection that I've been paying for drops all the way down to dial-up speeds and remains there, most likely due to CenturyLink overselling the service compared to what it can actually handle. The rest of the time, speeds are erratic at best and are rarely what I'm paying for. With any luck, perhaps this provider will fold so that other options will make themselves available in this area. 11-15-2010 UPDATE: I've lowered the review ratings on CenturyLink once again. Connection speeds are all over the place and latencies, too. I don't know what's wrong with the service CenturyLink provides to its customers causing it to be so inconsistent, but if my automobile acted up as much as this connection does, I'd be getting rid of it in a hurry. Sure, I'd leave CenturyLink in a heartbeat, but there aren't any real alternatives in this local area. I keep hoping that they will take the steps to improve their service, or that a better company will come along and buy them out, and then make things better, but it's looking more and more like neither will ever happen. If I could pay what the service is actually worth, I'd be out about $20 to $25 bucks each month instead of $80. 09-22-2010 UPDATE: The DSL connection has been working slightly better over the last couple of weeks, but I don't feel confident at all that it will stay that way for long. I'd still be quick to try an alternative provider if there were other DSL providers in this area. As indicated earlier, we have a local cable company that also provides internet services but the speeds they currently provide are far to slow, and the cable service was too expensive the last time I checked it. The Tech Support score I provided is based on the support provided by the company, not by our own CTL_Joey here on the forums. We'd need a separate section to rate him where he'd definitely receive a 5 score from me... Thanks, Joey! 08-15-2010 UPDATE: Ratings have been downgraded once again due to the horrible Connection Reliability and Value For Money that we've experienced recently. Also downgraded rating for Tech Support, but that is not intended to reflect on the help provided right here by CTL_Joey, as his help is the only good support provided by Century Link. I'm currently paying about $100 per month for phone and DSL service whereas it's certainly worth no more than about $40 per month due to the lousy connection reliability and terrible tech support. Consider your options closely before signing up with Century Link because even if other available options are slower, they might be better if they work properly and consistently. Any improvements with the service from Century Link will have to remain steady and consistent for some time to come before I'd be willing to upgrade this review to a more positive one. Check the forums for more details about what users are experiencing under Century Link, and consider yourself warned. 07-08-2010 UPDATE: The CenturyLink DSL connection that I have at home and work have both been absolutely horrible for the last week or two with very slow speeds, constant page timeouts, and page hangs. Both, my 10Mb/s and 5Mb/s connection are getting speeds similar to a dial-up account and are unusable for all practical purposes. In addition to that, every time it rains, my home connection goes on and off repeatedly as long as it's raining, making the connection useless. The CenturyLink techs have been out several times and they've told me to call in a repair request when it rains next so they can come check for the problem during the rain, but by the time they get to my house, it's no longer raining. Living in a small town of less than 3,600 people, you'd think they would know when it's raining and think to themselves that they need to go troubleshoot this problem immediately, but that doesn't seem to be happening. For all those reasons outlined above, I've downgraded the "connection reliability" section of this review to the lowest option possible and the connection itself will have to become and remain far more reliable for some time before I'm willing to upgrade it again. At the current time, I'd advise any viable option over CenturyLink for those that need a reliable internet service. 03-3-2010 UPDATE: Scores have been upgraded for Connection Reliability, Tech Support, Services, and Value For Money, all based on help received from our very own CTL_Joey. DSL service here was truly lousy for several years but Joey pulled the right strings and got things working properly. Thank you again, Joey! 05-17-2009 UPDATE: Just wanted to update my review to say that the speed finally did move much closer to the 10 Mb/s that I pay for, but I'm back to having to reboot the modem every few hours, or sooner, in order to maintain decent speeds. I'd definitely give Embarq a lower score for connection reliability if there was a lower score available. Otherwise, their DSL services are mediocre. Hopefully, the CenturyTel/Embarq merger will bring some improvements, but I've learned through experience not to count on it. Time will tell, and I'll be back here to report on whatever happens, either way. 04-28-2009 UPDATE: The speed of my 10 Mb/s connection has dropped to about 2 or 3 Mb/s and stayed there over the last 4 days. Rebooting the modem doesn't seem to help speed it up any longer. 04-13-2008 ORIGINAL COMMENTS: The only other options available to me in this area are dial-up, cable, and satellite. The cable service in this area is down quite often for no apparent reason, so I didn't consider that as a viable alternative. I'm currently on the "Up to 10.0Mb/s download / 896k/s upload" package and the price I've listed for this review includes the regular phone line charges, plus the DSL service. The initial order process (about 5 or 6 years ago) went fine and while it was a self-installation, the actual DSL signal was reaching my line in about 3 days and I was up and running. I started out with the 645 Series modem supplied by Sprint/Embarq and the 1.5 Mb/s download package, then I upgraded when 3 Mb/s package was available, then again when 5 Mb/s download package became available. In all cases, the upgrade was totally painless and without any effort on my part. However, when I recently upgraded to the 10 Mb/s downloads package, Embarq sent me a new modem (Embarq EQ-660R) that was supposed to be easy to install, but it turned out to be very problematic and took several different Embarq support techs a number of hours to get things so that I was up and running again. The newly supplied modem drops the DSL sync signal quite often, but intermittently. In fact, it will sometimes drop out about every 5 or 10 minutes during the evening, then the signal re-syncs and you can connect again. Another thing that I've noticed that happens frequently is that the speed will suddenly drop drastically and I get download speeds around 5M/7M. Rebooting the modem will usually get things going faster again. I recently replaced the ISP supplied modem with a D-link DSL-2540B modem/router and have not lost sync again since doing so. I've also not noticed the degraded speeds suddenly appearing, but I'm not certain just yet that all is fixed, as it's only been a few days since the ISP modem was replaced. ...comments above are listed in date order - NEWEST to OLDEST member for 15.9 years, 1491 visits, last login: 3 years ago updated 8.8 years ago
I "inherited" Embarq from Sprint local phone provider and have received substandard service ever since. My DSL service has been "stuck" at 1.5 Mbps for years. Not long ago I received notice that faster speeds are available in my area, so I jumped at the chance to upgrade. I called CenturyLink (Embarq) and was told I could upgrade to 10Mbps. I also requested a review of my bill to reduce my cost from $99, as the $69 plan being offered was exactly the same services I was already receiving (with 10 Mbps Internet speed). I was told my upgrade to 10Mbps would happen in 30 to 60 minutes. Two weeks and multiple calls, emails and chats later I was informed my line cannot be upgraded to 10 Mbps because I am too far from the Central Office. Why was I not told that initially? I called again to follow up on getting my bill reduced to be more in line with the services I currently receive. I was told that since I am not a new customer that I cannot get the $69 plan I was offered in the first call. I emailed the regional VP of operations to complain. To this day I still have not received a response. However, a couple of days after I sent that email, my account page was changed to reflect that I was eligible to upgrade to 4Mbps. I decided to upgrade, so I went online to chat (it was after hours for calls). This was last week. The person I chatted with told me I would be upgraded to 4Mbps and I would get the $69 package price. I asked specifically when the changes would take effect and was told April 13 (Monday). Here it is April 16 and I still have 1.5Mbps service and a $99 bill (although I did get a discount on this month's bill). I emailed Customer Service to request an explanation for the failure to upgrade my services and reduce my bill, and I requested a response by Wednesday, April 15, that included what steps CenturyLink plans to take to rectify this situation. Again, no response, although I did receive an email today indicating they will not put their response in writing and I need to call them so they can help resolve the problem. At this point it is useless to call them AGAIN since nothing they have agreed to do on previous calls has been done. The only option I have left is to take all this information and include it in an FCC complaint, with a copy to the NC Attorney General's office. CenturyLink does not seem to care much about communicating with long-time customers to resolve problems, so I am finished wasting my time giving them chances. I would switch to Time-Warner Cable for my internet service but I already cut the cablevision cord because their services were not worth the cost, and when they started cutting the number of channels but raising the cost I called it quits. CenturyLink is now making me rethink whether it may not be better to have Internet service by Time-Warner. member for 14 years, 27 visits, last login: 6.8 years ago updated 8.9 years ago
4 years ago CL was nice enough to finally run DSL lines out to my very very very small "neighborhood." And everything worked fine for 2 years. When they ran the lines, we could only get 512k package. Eventually they upgraded us to 1.5Mb. After 2 years, I encountered my first issue. I game online every day, and I started noticing really crappy ping and my download speeds were terrible. However, speedtest.net..and of course, century link's speed test website, gave me my normal speed as a result. So, nobody cared. I will tell you right now. Bottom line is "if you are getting the speed then we cannot help you." That's right. If your speeds are "normal", then you can basically piss off. Any other problems? They do not care about. Latency? Piss off. I called multiple times every day. I always get "nothing we can do. there are no problems." etc from everyone. Guess what? 2 days later, I have no internet at all. The port on the DSLAM went bad. They repaired it and boom, internet is back to working normal. Imagine that? If they had listened.. Moving along, the next 2 years we are fine. Mind you,however, they have not upgraded the DSLAM still. Everyone is still on 1.5Mbs. And that brings us to July 4th, 2014...because this is where everything went to hell and there are no signs of turning back at this point. On July 4th, 2014, around 4PM EST, a storm rolled in. A few minutes later, lightning flashed and my internet was out completely. I called and complained, they stated they can't get anyone out until Monday (july 4th was a friday) I'm super pissed but whatever. About an hour goes by, and I called back to try to reason with them about Saturday. Instead, I got the voice message saying "We are aware of a problem affecting your area." I just hung up and decided I'll get over it. I go to work the next day, Saturday, come home and I noticed all my modem lights were on. Guess the problem was severe and they decided to get people out over the holiday weekend. Cool. Except...not. This is where it all started. From that moment on, when I got my internet back, everything was and still is broken to fuck. I was playing WildStar(MMORPG) at the time and ever since logging back on after they "repaired" the internet in my area, I began noticing small lag spikes and delays in combat. It drove me nuts; I finally downloaded a latency monitor to see what my latency is in Wildstar and guesssssss what! anywhere from 90ms-300ms. Spiking everywhere. No stability whatsoever. All over the place. Did my standard procedures. Reset modem, etc. Nothing worked. So here we go... Ran speed tests...and here's the interesting part. speedtest.net pings are fine (90ms). Speed tests on centurylink.speedtest.net are all 200+ms. And,by the way, it still is that way. Called century link. The next 3 months, up to this day, would involve me arguing back and forth that there is a problem and them arguing back that there isn't. I finally got escalated to CHRONIC (their "team of specialists" who noticed my line was building a lot of FEC errors. (it still is, by the way, by the millions per day). And over these 3 months I would have multiple techs come out and show off their lack of education in the networking field(HOWEVER:They were extremely friendly, and talkative. In retrospect, they probably aren't even trained in the networking field anyway. They are line techs. They did prove very friendly and at least helpful in respects to the line; probably the only saving grace of the company). Regardless, they did their job and replaced splices/ect along the line, "groomed" it, and ran a new jack in my house for me. (At least, so im told they did all these things). Doesn't matter. 200+ping ms to everything. And this month, about a week ago, I finally got an email saying they basically "give up" and are blaming the issue on network congestion and bandwidth exhaust. I was told that starting in July, the DSLAM usage spiked to 80% and has constantly been there. This is why I can no longer do almost anything. Which, by the way, makes no sense because the problem is here 24/7. Unless of course, everyone around here doesn't sleep (like myself) because I can't fathom why my ping is 200ms to chicago at 4am in the fucking morning if the problem really is "congestion." My area went into permanent bandwidth exhaust in November of 2013. Yet I didn't have a single problem until July4th, 2014. So tell me, what's the deal? Nobody knows. Nowadays, my ping displayed ingame is "fine." Playing titanfall, for example, I have 60ms ping. Great. But it sure the hell doesn't play like 60ms ping at all. I recently tried to play ArchAge, a new MMO. I cannot see my ping..but I can tell it's likely 150-200+ because of the 1 second input delay in combat. Can't even play games in my own fucking country anymore it seems. So, yeah. Permanent bandwidth exhaust. No hopes of ever upgrading or fixing issues in this area, ever. Needless to say, it makes me that much more excited to leave here. member for 9.6 years, 30 visits, last login: 7.8 years ago updated 9.4 years ago
Update 3-5-14 Finally managed to get bonded DSL in my area on 2-27. First customer in entire area according to install techs. So far it has been outstanding. 25Mbps/2Mbps package and my lines can actually obtain more than that if they'd unthrottle me. But hey..twice the speeds is very nice to have finally. Latency and gaming has also been tremendously better. Still not able to stream Netflix at HD but I'm thinking that's due to CTL limiting that. I'm able to get full HD from other HD providers (YouTube, Vudu, Hulu, Amazon) just not Netflix. I can switch to my LTE connection and stream through Wifi hotspot to my tablet and get HD on Netflix so this is why I believe CTL is doing some trickery. Now, if CTL would throw a sizeable chunk of money into the infrastructure of this area and areas it routes through that would be great. All the issues below have gone away for now but I'd imagine that they will be back. Because of this, I'm going to wait to update my actual rating of them. Updated costs to new package. I've said it before in the forums, if it was for CTL_Joey and all the hard work he and his team have done for me I would've permanently gone away from CTL to someone else even if that meant much higher costs to me. Thanks again Joey for all you've done. Update 11-7-13 Issues have gotten progressively worse at peak time hours. Gaming latency will hover around 200-300 and can't stream a single HD movie from Netflix or HD clip from YouTube. Update 5-10-13 Issues haven't been resolved and is slowly getting worse. Update 1-15-13 I'm seeing the exact same issues that I describe below prior to leaving them. Slowness during peak times, very high latency and pretty much crippled if I want to do anything online. Reliability rating is kicked back down. Update - 11-14-12 After leaving CTL for a WISP and then coming back after I was promised multiple times that the issues were put to bed, I went back to CTL. Pure broadband only. 10Mb package. I've been back on it since Julyish of this year. Other than a couple hiccups with slowness, it's been pretty rock solid like it used to be prior to CTL. So, I'm changing my review (Connection reliability only) just a smidge. Update 2-14-12 Still having same issues described below. Each and every week night 5pm+, my speeds come to a crawl and just about anytime on weekends they crawl as well. Multiple phone calls to cust serv and numerous exchanged emails. During daytime since I've started seeing these issues, my speeds are great if not FANTASTIC. Updated all rankings to reflect on going issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- I currently pay for the 10Mb package and have had since the first day it's been available in my area. (approx march/april of 09). I live in the Sanger, TX area. modem is the 660R Prior to upgrading to the 10Mb package, I rarely had to call into support for help. Since upgrading i've had numerous speed issues and siginificant amount of downtime. I've got every issue documented since upgrading and they go back to april of 09. Most of the issues have been horrid speeds (worse than dial up numerous times....no joke) but also have had issues of net being completely down. Customer service through the 800 line is horrible and most folks run you through the script even after you've done it 7 times with everyone else. Gets extremely frustrating when you already know where the problem lies. good experiences with centurylink/embarq?? working with the fine techs that monitor these forums. I've gotten much better customer support and response with the folks who monitor these forums compared to the 800 line. Prices are just about right. Overall?? Unfortunately my side of the street can only get dsl while my neighbors have cable to choose from as well. I've been with this service for years ever since it was sprint/earthlink, then embarq and now centurylink and because of the amount of issues i've had since upgrading to the 10Mb and the frustrations of dealing with 800 line, I'd jump ship in a hearbeat if i had any other suitable option. member for 15.3 years, 229 visits, last login: 6 years ago updated 10 years ago
I was paying $112/ month for bundled phone and DSL service at 1.5 Mbps. Speeds normally have run between 1.1 and 1.4 Mbps. Completely satisfactory service until Thanksgiving week 2013. Then download speed dropped to average .53 with service sometimes totally unusable because of slow or no webpage loading. In 2011, I had Centurylink Prism TV installed. Techs were on time and had system working in about 90 minutes. Company rep promised monthly rate would be "substantially" less than $179 I was paying for combined Comcast TV and Centurylink bundled phone and DSL. First full bill was $50 more than previous combined Centurylink and Comcast bills. Called and rep told me the best they could do would be a $10/month discount if I signed a 2-year contract. I declined. She asked if I wanted service removed. I said no. Called Comcast and had TV service reinstalled for $15 less than I had been paying. then called Centurylink to remove Prism service. Service rep asked why. When I told him, he said he could fix it and get my combined bill down to $100/month for phone, DSL and TV. I asked why the other rep had not made that offer. he told me it was because I didn't tell her I was going to have the service taken out. Figure that out??? New bill for Centurylink after removing Prism is now $127/month for same service I was paying $112 for. Seems I lost a special DSL discount of $15 a month which was good only until I made changes in my service. That was my token of appreciation for trying their Prism service. That service was great technically but programming is sorry...especially sports programing. Very little SEC football which Comcast is heavy into. Assumed current Centurylink DSL slowdown problem was kids out school for holidays, Black Friday and other pre-Christmas sales but problem continued through January. Finally contacted internet support the last week in January 2014 and guy tried to hustle me for another $10/month to upgrade to 10 Mbps. When I asked him why I should invest money for 10 Mbps when they can't even produce the 1.5 Mbps I'm paying for, the guy hung up on me. No effort at all to resolve my problem. Finally, this week speed seems to be increasing back toward normal and am actually getting some speed tests pushing 2 Mbps. However, right now (1st week in Feb. 2014) those are intermittent and short term. Insiders tell me the company has big time capacity problems which they won't address until pressure is on. Would go to Comcast fir internet and phone but have had significant problems with them on TV and friends say they are having huge problems with Comcast phone and internet. Two or three years ago the Florida legislature removed all telcos from service quality oversight by Florida PSC because telcos said they "unfairly" had to meet service quality standards that competitors (cable companies) didn't have to meet. Common sense solution would have been to require cable to meet same service quality standards as telcos. That way the consumer would be the winner and playing field flat. Customers used to love telcos and hate cable. Now they're learning to hate both and neither entity cares. Telco and cable lobbies pump millions into political parties and legislators campaign funds thus leaving consumers holding an empty bag. Time to write legislators to tell them to go back to service quality regulation for both entities if they really care about consumers. member for 10.1 years, 3 visits, last login: 10.1 years ago updated 10.1 years ago
I've been a Centurylink (previously Embarq) customer since 2007. I'd like to sit here and tell you it's been fun and games since I became a customer, but sadly that is not the case. In the 5 years I've been a customer, I'd say my connection has been flawless less than 20% of the time I've had it. In fact, in 2008, I had scheduled a cable install after dealing with a high latency/slow speed problem for over 5 months. Only after I was personally contacted by an employee of then-Embarq asking me to allow them to help did I stick around. It turns out our area had been placed on bandwidth exhaust (big surprise there), and the problem was fixed another 2 months later. Since 2007, I haven't sniffed a speed upgrade - I had 3Mbps then, and that's where I'm stuck. 5 years and no upgrades? Come on! Nowadays, I rarely get my advertised speeds, and I am experiencing high latency and slow speeds during the evening. I know, I know - why not go to cable? The answer is two-fold: First, my local mom-and-pop cable provider (Northland Cable »User reviews - Northland Cable Television) is notoriously bad, even worse than Centurylink (if that's possible). I have to laugh when I see folks complaining about Comcast/Charter/etc. - I'd give anything to be serviced by them. The other reason I haven't dumped Centurylink is because I have been a true dry loop DSL customer since I started, so I literally pay $39 a month for 3Mbps internet, no bogus taxes or fees that are tacked on like with their insulting "Pure DSL" offering. Since they no longer offer true dry loop DSL, I'm hesitant to drop them - especially if Northland didn't work out. If Centurylink ever removes my grandfather status, I'm outta here. Ultimately, like many other smaller towns in the United States, the problem is lack of competition. Well, let me rephrase - Centurylink and Northland are certainly in "competition" in Greenwood, South Carolina - but it's a contest of who can provide the worst value for the most money. member for 17.9 years, 4483 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago updated 10.1 years ago
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