iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
 ·Comcast
| Seems like a decent enough idea While WS isn't laying fiber everywhere, they're one of the better rural telcos out there. 3/768 broadband is available across most of their footprint for $35 or so dry-line. ADSL2+ gets them speeds up to 12/768 for residential, 12/1 for commercial. They have even launched 24/1.5 fiber in an area or two to compete with cable, though it would be nice if they did that in more places.
This is a far cry from companies like Frontier who can't seem to figure out how to give their customers decent speeds or pricing, downgrading folks from 10M speeds because they won't upgrade their backbone links to support the load and increasing prices as they go.
On the CenturyLink side, they don't seem to be all that bad either. They've got 700MHz spectrum that they'll either use to backhaul remote DSLAMs or provide direct customer service on (I've heard that the former is more likely). They're looking into pair-bonded DSL (20-30 Mbps speeds over copper) and have competitive packages in fiber areas.
Granted, neither Windstream not CenLink currently have packages that are as fast as 15/2 cable, at least in most markets. However when you're big you can buy in bulk and get lower pricing on everything from bandwidth to modems. The result: higher speeds and a company that won't go bankrupt because it bit off more than it could chew.
Yes, FiOS beats pair-bonded CenLink DSL and WS fiber combined, but WS and CenLink aren't selling anyone off; I'd rather have 3/768 DSL for $35 than 1.5/256 satellite for $80 or 3G for $70. |
