US Telco Support > CenturyLink > Higher DSL speed available....then gone?!?

Higher DSL speed available....then gone?!?

That's happened to me a few times.

Conversely, an upgrade was available to me last year and nobody told me, like they said they would. I had to find out myself.

I don't know why their website says one thing and A CSR says another, but with a big, bureaucratic corporation like CL I guess you kind of have to expect it.

Some times the DSL service provider finds out they do not have an inventory of clean pairs. When I moved here in 2007 Embarq over time reported anywhere from no DSL availability to 768K, 1.5Mbps and 3.0Mbps. When I asked why speed availability varied I was advised that they did not have enough clean pairs without bridge taps or other impairments to provide high speed DSL service. Keep in touch with local sales they can tell you of availability of service.

reply to epcotbob
Thanks for the replies.

Interestingly, I have a second "bare" DSL line to the house and I was able to upgrade that to 3mb.

Could it have anything to do with line quality? We seem to have problems sometimes with people hearing us on the other end of the phone line on the main connection.

If the transmission quality is always poor it is your line. If the quality varies depending who you call then it is beyond your central office. One way to check is to call some friends. If the quality varies from friend to friend the person with the poorest sound quality may have a bad line. If the problem occurs during different long distance calls then the problem is with the long distance carrier or interoffice trunks. In some cases the carrier has installed unloaded cables to allow easy installation of DSL but that can affect voice transmission quality. This article in Wikipedia explains loaded voice circuits:

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_line

reply to epcotbob
I once moved apartments in Raleigh, NC. Wanted a bigger place so I moved across the street to a larger unit. Getting my DSL moved was, well... interesting. Conversation basically went like this...
"I want to move my DSL to my new apartment"
"Sorry sir, DSL is not available in your area"
"I had it at my old apartment"
"You may be too far away from your old apartment"
"I can see the old apartment from here. I can even read the numbers on the front door"
"It may be a matter of how far away you are from our dslam box"
"Your box is in between my new place and my old place. I see your logo on the thing."
"Sorry sir, but DSL is not available at your new location. It doesn't show in our system at your old location either"

Wonder who I sent the bills to each month?

reply to epcotbob
In my case, it was simply a matter of the CSR systems not being properly updated.

I got CL in 06/11 even though max DL for my area was only 1.5M

After checking and checking, 09/11 the website told me that my area now had 40M available but I waited to upgrade over the phone.

CSR initially said that 40M was not available but I insisted she must be mistaken. She "checked another screen" and lo, that speed WAS available but she would have to do "something, something, push through a paper order".

So about 30 min. later, I got a follow up call from her and we were good to got my new modem 3 days later and actived the next day.

It's a shame that some CSRs can be so on the ball and dilligent and others can be sooo, well, you know...

reply to epcotbob
The CL site showed a higher speed available to me once too, wouldn't let me order it though.

Its VERY unusual that the CL actually works long enough to do anything.

reply to epcotbob
I have the oposite problem. Had 1.5mb since it was offered, then started having problems in November. Now they tell me the line from the central office (less than 1 mi from my house) cannot support that speed. They dropped the speed to 650 and it still is not working.