Windstream : All reviews | DSLReports.com, ISP Information

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Maddening

»www.speedtest.net/result/2445528259.png

After 3 days of barely working, today it's what it should be.

I've had the runaround with them myself. Been working from "home" for 3 days and monitoring, have to juggle what I do around how well it works on any given day.

Good luck with nursing school, it will be well worth it, my wife is a clinician and "signs off" on patients etc., often from home, or checking records etc while "on call". We need this to work.

If this wasn't a rural area I'd have switched long ago and part of me wishes sit would just stop working altogether and then I'd have to try alternatives.

A couple of hours later;

»www.speedtest.net/result/2446070208.png

permalink · 2013-01-18 12:44:30 · Print ·

Spewed

join:2013-01-17
Joaquin, TX

Reviews:

Re: Maddening

I wish I could have switched along time ago. They were great for a couple of years, and of course like everyone elses story they gradually turd into a pile of garbage and neglect their consumers.

When they sell you the Internet they make you believe you're getting sortve speed guarantee. They claim to guarantee that you get half of the speed you pay for, well.. When you call the corporate office to lodge your complaint exclaiming you're supposed to be getting half according to the sales representatives, they then tell you "Well, our Internet is not regulated, so that's not true".

Okay, so you're falsely advertising on PURPOSE? Then when an issue arises you have no response to rectify the situation. Their business model is disgusting and I hope it winds up biting them in the ass one day. A bankrupt Windstream would appease me, subsequently, a sued Windstream would be even better. I've contemplated getting a lawyer, but I feel it's a waste of time.

permalink · 2013-01-19 11:47:04 · Print ·

Forums > comments on review of Windstream

Review by alisha627

member for 126 days, 1 visits, last login: 125 days ago
lodged 125 days ago

Moultrie,Colquitt,GA
Contract price not specified.
"sluggish all the time; impossible between 4pm and 11 pm"

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»www.speedtest.net/result/2432539081.png

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Forums > comments on review of Windstream

Review by MicroBell

member for 4.8 years, 293 visits, last login: 37 days ago
lodged 125 days ago

Carmichaels,Greene,PA
$57 per month
about 12 days
AllTel
"When it's up and working no issues"
"The whole Winstream network is over provisioned."
"Avoid if you have another ISP choice"

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Windstream as a whole has some serious issues. Taking into account my experience with getting my issue resolved and the others posting on this forum regarding their troubles most of these problems can only be cured by a major upgrade to the system network. Simply stated Windstream is in the ISP business to do one thing and that is to make money and in doing so their network is not capable of handling the traffic that's on it.

I can't speak for every market but it's likely they oversold most of the DSLAMS out there which results in the speed and latency issues many are reporting. It took almost a year to correct my issue (speed issue and packet loss) and they had to install upgrades into the DSLAM and fix the network backbone servers which caused my loss and the local DSLAM was 80% oversold.

Story can be found here »What can you do?

Customer service is pretty much useless so all contact should go to TIER II or higher if you want your issues addressed. Technical knowledge varies on who you talk to as some are knowledgeable but many are not. In closing I would avoid Windstream if you have another choice in your area, but if you live in a rural area you may not have a choice. Currently I'm on the 12MB package at $56.78 per month and less then 1000 feet from the local DSLAM in the western PA market.

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Raymcc
Premium
join:2005-10-08
Atlanta, GA

Reviews:

Windstream is simply Terrible

I was going to write my own review but I agree with all that Microbell posted. When I started out in 2005 with ALLTEL it was rock solid for years. Currently their max here in northeast GA 6mb service $50 a month. Often it's simply barely usable, except for web surfing and Netflix streaming, almost can't handle Vonage.

This can last days. I started out myself on tech support with a Chicago cable company. This is a little vacation cabin we have, if this was at home in Atlanta we could not tolerate it.

I’ve tried the gamut of tech support, they know there is a problem but cannot or will not fix it. Some answers they give are gibberish, and in the end “well you are lucky to have internet”. They could find nothing wrong in our place, Duh! While it worked flawlessly for years under ALLTEL, all that changed was the company. But they can see it running at dial up speeds for days; other times 6mb for a little while.

I guess I’ll have to invest time and effort and vacation days in getting someone else, if that’s possible, they actually laughed and said it isn't, well of course they'd say that. Of course reluctant to switch as while not good it meets very basic requirements and we have the alarm system via the phone line. But at this point years of terrible service I may even see what options there are for switching monitored alarm systems to an alternate method etc.,

permalink · 2013-01-17 10:56:39 · Print ·

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Review by sierge

member for 2.9 years, 51 visits, last login: 46 days ago
lodged 128 days ago

Glasgow,Barren,KY
Contract price not specified.
"Horrible service"
"If your in Glasgow go to the cable instead."

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When this was Altell the DSL was awsome but since it became Windstream it has declined steadly. I am paying for 6 meg but have rarely seen anything close to this for quite some time now. Even posting here on the forum doesn't help improve the service and they have had to give me credit for lack of service.

For what I am paying I can get 20 meg from the cable company and even with their worst case loading people see 11 meg. I cannot stand Windstream anymore and will be switching.

If you are in the Glasgow, KY area DO NOT USE WINDSTREAM as their service is terrible. I will also be dropping my phone line because I have a cell phone so who needs this kind of agravation from a company that does not care about their customers!

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Forums > comments on review of Windstream

Review by berrabbit5849
(review was emailed from domain gmail.com)
lodged 130 days ago

Daingerfield,Morris,TX
Contract price not specified.
"Slow DSL speed and no one cares"

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In the Daingerfield ,Texas ,75638 surronding area our survice is very
poor. Paying for 3 M speed and get 400K most of the time. Thinking about
going back to Hughes net.

Comments:

BigVe join:2005-07-15 Gulliver, MI	You can't be serious??????? quote: "Thinking about going back to Hughes net. " Anything is better then those jokers even dial-up
	permalink · 2013-01-07 17:16:31 · ·

Ladonna @optilink.us	Ripp off We stopped our service and still getting bills and threats.I paid them anyway because of threats of being turned over to a collection agency.I called them and no one will give me a straight answer.I reported them to the BBB.Stay away!
	permalink · 2013-01-11 15:23:16 · ·

Forums > comments on review of Windstream

Review by Piggie

member for 7.4 years, 791 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 130 days ago

Orange Springs,Marion,FL
$30 per month
(12 month contract)
about 2 days
AllTel
"Price - When it works it works but read bad points"
"Extremely slow to resolve network level issues"
"It's the only choice I have besides Hughes and Dial UP. If you are happy with your cable or wireless don't bother with them"

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My Other Reviews

·HughesNet Satell..

Summer 2010 - Helping a friend set up his restaurant I noticed he paid for 3m but only has 1.5 m. He wasn't over loaded, you could open up 20 download streams and it flat topped at 1.5 M. So I called, figuring this is easy, a provisioning error. They would not send a tech, they said your area has latency problems and until they are resolved we are not opening tickets. I said it's not a latency or over subscribed problem it's provisioned wrong. I had to go through the same crap every time I called since they would not open a ticket (waste of their money). Finally someone did look at it and it was provisioned as 3m. I said well something is still wrong, I never ever see a spike above 1.5 m on my software meter in my computer or router. They said well then it's latency. I said no!! .. I was lucky. I ran into the local tech one day and asked if could look at it. Sure enough I was on a pin that had previously been assigned to someone with a static IP that bought 1.5 service, even then an obsolete speed to sell. He moved me to a new pin and bingo I had 3m. That was after 9 months of calls weekly. I have not been too happy since.

Then in 2012, since I also have Windstream at home, noticed loosing bandwidth at night. It's gotten worse since. Even weekends all day are trash. I pay for 3m at home and it's .8 or 1.5 at best in the evening. Better than some people that are literally seeing dial up speeds on DSL in many other states.

This is not isolated. Windstream has over sold it's entire network, except maybe in Louisville KY it's flag ship city for new stuff. Meanwhile the CEO Jeff Gardener has an annual salary of $5.6 million. They buy other companies. They kept telling me they were broke and waiting for govt stimulus. Broke my sweet porcine bottom. They just gave any money they made to the board, and shareholders, customers, noting except adding more and more accounts to already over sold lines.

Corporate welfare at it's finest. Sure it's legal, but in a just world, they people would be in prison for stealing tax payer and customer's money. It's good to have lobbyists so you can legally steal isn't it Windstream?

Update Dec 15, 2007 - Since something was fixed about a month ago with the intervention of WS employees that read my complains, things have been very good. My speeds are staying fine during prime time and my random disconnects have stopped. But I really think the random disconnects stopping are due to my upgrading my Tomato ver 1.13 firmware and it's quality QoS system. I set my max up and down to 90% of provisioned and set anything that uses a lot of bandwidth to medium. The disconnects apparently now for about 2 weeks have stopped.

Update Aug 16, 2007 - 4 T1's fried coming into my DSLAM, that was 2 weeks ago. No resolution to the problem is known calling CS. If you see a problem and you are a Windstream customer, call right then and there, because if they issue you a credit it can only go back as far as your first call. Don't think just cause your neighbor called you don't have to call. Not going to do a lot of good to call a lot, but do call right away. Sad that it takes so long to resolve an equipment failure on their part. Maybe a week, to troubleshoot and most of that week waiting on parts, but we are well past that now. If you are curious to keep up with this problem I am having here is the thread.

»Piggie has now joined the Haters! Till next time, boys and girls...... Pig OUT! :@)

Update Nov 30, 2006:

They finally after 7 years of promises and me circulating a petition to prove they have over 100 possible customers, put a DSLAM in my remote switch. Thank goodness I finally get DSL and off satellite.

I can say as soon as they put in equipment their turn on time is fast, in the order of 2 days. They activate it the next or the next and send a modem overnight to you. It's mostly a self install. But they send a disk that is a movie that guides anyone thru easy set up. There was such a pent up need for DSL in my neighborhood, that after the tech installed the DSLAM, he put up a sign that it was available. They sold 14 accounts in the first hour! Of course a lot of it was networking from all of us in the petition. I heard within the first week they sold over 50 accounts. Why they didn't see this sooner is beyond me. I told them years ago that their threshold of 30 customers would be met very fast and indeed it was. I asked the local tech and they crossed 30 by noon the next day, which was 20 hours after the work at the switch was finished. Now that is fast pay back. It shows that bureaucrats don't have a clue what happens in the ditches.

Anyway, it working as advertised. I get 260kbps down of raw data on a 3mbps service, which from what I read is about as good at it gets, so I must have tweaked my system correct. Our upload here is advertised at 386kbps, and I see about 325 to 340 real upload. So that is not bad. And that is with a single stream, not multiple FTP, HTTP or NNTP connections, but a single connection.

And I can say after much frustration for 7 years, now that I have their DSL it rocks!

End of Nov 30, 2006 update.

=============================

I am not on Alltel, but guess I wish I were. This is a time line of broken promises, lies or just really bad intelligence on their part about installing DSL in our area.

Time Line:

1997 - Moved here and had 43 kbps modem download. Not bad being about 3 miles from our towns main switch building.

1999 – Due to supposed growth in our area (none seen) a remote switch is installed to give them more phone lines in our area. 4 of the original lines were combined to give the new switch a T1 and the neighbor was now feed off the switch. Obviously killed my modem speed down to 26.4 on a good day.

Was told "not to worry" that because a switch had been placed closer to my house and as soon as DSL was available I would get awesome speeds as it was a short run from my house to the switch. I was told soon would be a couple years. Not happy. Beginning of their "misinformation" campaign.

Considered Starband but heard too many horror stories and stuck it out on the modem.

2003 - Saw Alltel digging and found they were feeding my remote switch with fiber to replace the wired T1. Again told this would make the switch ready for DSL. But it would still be about a year till they upgraded the switch. They are still in an information vacuum or they were just still "mis-informed". Told DSL was coming the first of 2004.

2004 - First of the year I start calling Alltel, assured that as soon as downtown (feed off the main switch building) got DSL, that my remote would be a few quarters later. March 2004, downtown did get DSL. Called again about my switch and they said then against previous statements, "your remote switch is never scheduled for DSL upgrade". Wonderful. Took them 5 years and lots of calls for them to finally admit the truth to me.

Spent a lot of time asking Alltel why? Many many days on the phone, finally talked to the local supervisor. He gave me the truth, finally! Our switch placed there in 1999 was used, old and not up to date. They removed it from another remote to upgrade them to DSL. Our area was considered a remote area and didn't need anything else for our phone service. The shelves in the switch could not be upgraded to accept DSL cards. The only way we would ever get DSL was if they replaced our entire switch and that was beyond their budget.

I told them they hadn't done their demographic research as most of the people with computers and business owners lived in the area servered by the switch. That they could get as many or more DSL customers off that switch as the main building. They were not impressed. They said if that was true, then I needed to canvas the neighborhood with a petition to prove to them they had customers there. I asked isn't that a task for your sales dept? The answer was no and it’s still not in our budget.

June 2004 – I have a DWay dish installed, tired of fighting the Alltel machine. While not the perfect solution or even true broadband it was a lot better than my modem. Most of the serious internet users get DW dishes and turn off their spare phone lines. Many angry just turn off the lines and use cell phones that are cheaper anyway.

2005 – As the internet grows, web pages become more bandwidth intensive. I was lucky with my previous (before getting DWay) modem speeds 26.4, as asking more neighbors most of them were at 21.4 or 24.0.

Most of them disconnect their extra line for the internet as it's just no longer worth the price for slow browsing. Virtually everyone in the area disconnects any extra phone lines and several totally to use cell phones (more do to price than dis-satification with Alltel landline phones).

But! This frees dozens of lines off the new remote switch, which was placed there 6 years ago for phone line expansion in our area! Less than 10 new houses were added to our neighborhood in that same time. Net result was they now had more free lines than they did 6 years ago. Which was the "reason" for the switch in the first place.

2006 - They totally stonewall my calls now and any field engineers that are to call me about it never return calls. I order the DW7000 upgrade from Direcway and sign a new 15-month commitment, as I don't see any changes ever in our area. And I write this review to warn other's never to believe what Alltel tells you.

Comments:

MeSue join:2007-01-15 Fort Mc Coy, FL	Windstream woes (early 2013) Hey Piggie... remember me? How is your Windstream service these days? It is just awful across the river here. Since Christmas we have been getting less than dialup most evenings and rarely over 2M during the day. Several times this week it has been completely out. They say it's a known "Latency outage" but don't seem in any hurry to fix. Grrr!
	permalink · 2013-02-22 17:16:34 · ·

Forums > comments on review of Windstream

Review by alvahdale
(review was emailed from domain gmail.com)
lodged 130 days ago

Harrison,Boone,AR
$68 per month

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Windstream DSL service has been on a downhill slope now for approximately 6 months
Can't use voip now because of the slow speed. Started with slow speed in the
evening hours and has continually gotten worse since, It has been at a crawl
for the past 36 hours and now even having trouble getting my email. It's an
embarrassing situation to call customer service any more because they know
all about the problems but are at liberty to say..
Just hoping another service will be available in this area soon..

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Forums > comments on review of Windstream

Review by rallifane

member for 132 days, 8 visits, last login: 117 days ago
updated 132 days ago

Windsor,Ashtabula,OH
$60 per month
"Works just fine during non peak hours"
"coordination between CSR's and techs is terrible"
"Avoid them if there are other options"

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To start, my modem was supposed to be delivered by the tech who checked the lines pre-install. He told me it was getting mailed. Three weeks later when the modem arrived, I could actually use the service I was paying for.

The latency during peak hours is horrid. From 8PM EST to roughly Midnight, I might as well not even consider myself to have an internet connection.

The customer service reps are nice enough to talk to is about the only nice thing I can say.

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Review by MADasHELL

member for 133 days, 14 visits, last login: 30 days ago
updated 133 days ago

Alto,Habersham,GA
$87 per month
"Not much"
"Only ISP available in most of their areas. DSL speeds not consistent."
"If you have a choice of another provider you should consider looking elsewhere."

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Windstream is not a solid ISP. They have bad bandwidth bottlenecks that are not being upgraded or at least they are not being upgraded fast enough to meet the demand of the oversold DSL. This means during peak internet usage times there will be high latency and slow download speeds. It didn't use to be like this but they have been pushing hard for more DSL sales and probably higher speeds which all eat away at the available bandwidth through the bottlenecks they have.

They only offer 12Mbs download as their top speed in most areas. The upload rate is only 768Kbs unless you have a business DSL line but that is still only 1Mbs.

Their tech support reads from scripts. They are never any help unless you need to know how to reset your modem.

The modem equipment they offer is typically pretty bad stuff.

If there was another ISP offered in my neighborhood I would have changed long ago!

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Review by rlee33

member for 199 days, 21 visits, last login: 115 days ago
lodged 133 days ago

Trinity,Trinity,TX
$60 per month
"Not even close."
"Pretty much all the time."
"56k may be worth looking into if it's your only option (not being sarcastic)"

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Started having trouble in early September 2012, it's now January 4th 2013. Connectivity and latency issues have still not been resolved, even after contacting BBB and FCC 3 months ago. I would advise anyone considering Windstream to find any other option, seriously, it can't get any worse. However, I am pretty sure their business model is to go into rural areas where they are the only show in town, set up cheap and then ignore people when they start to complain due to overselling.

I put in 7 calls between September and October, every time I was told that someone from their Tech unit would call me back to find a solution. I have still not received a call back from anyone at Windstream. The only help I found was from someone on this site, who after several weeks told me that they were going to change out a card at our d slam on the 31st of December. Obviously that did not happen because I still have crappy speeds. Feel free to check out the speedtest reports I've kept since it all started (I'm currently paying for 12 meg down by the way):

»www.speedtest.net/results.php?sh···96&ria=0

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snuffyss

join:2007-09-23
Hedley, TX

Reviews:

Same story here

Same story here and about the same time line. My problems started in late August. A google search gives the same story from Texas to Georgia...they are getting by with overcharging for services they don't deliver. I called & sent written reports for over a month. As soon as they figured I had been in the telecom business for decades and they couldn't con me the problem became a higher level problem...someone would get back to me within 48 hours. I never heard from anyone. The problem is simple. Windstream oversold and overloaded their system grossly for what they have. They want the extra money without any investment. With the regulators looking the other way they get by with it. Makes you wonder what is done with our tax dollars. I pay for 6.0 mbps here. It's almost midnight & my download speed is 0.17 mbps. The local DSL loop is the same as always. Good signal to noise ratio & loop speed. The same as it has been when I had a solid 6.0 mbps. Attached is a screenshot of my latest speed test.

permalink · 2013-01-05 00:57:41 · Print ·

rlee33

join:2012-10-30
Trinity, TX

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