CenturyLink → Out of Capacity

Century Offered me an upgrade from 5mb to 10mb so on October 11th I pulled the trigger and did the upgrade. We were told the upgrade would be completed by 10/17 just power cycle the modem when we get home that day. 10/17 modem power cycled still 5mb, we call CL and they say sorry there was an issue and should be done by 10/19. 10/19 still 5mb so I call again and they said they are out of capacity and waiting on someone to disconnect their service so I can be upgraded to 10mb and this would be completed by 10/26. Today is 10/26 call CL because still have 5mb service and they now told me the new date is 11/30. This whole time they said I would not be billed for the 10mb upgrade...long behold this week I get my bill and get to spend 45 minutes of my time with billing getting the charges reversed along with a $20 unexplained fee. Amazing they can't offer 10mb service without waiting for other customers to disconnect...sounds like someone needs to do some serious infrastructure upgrades.

Folks have to remember that EVERY ISP says "UP TO". It can be 0.5 mb and they are OK. Unless you have a business account with an SLA.

The more that I read in this forum about stories like yours with not enough bandwidth selling speeds that they cannot honor. I wonder how they can stay in business.

It would seem to that the ISP "police" would be investigating this company.

It is pretty sorry.

Sweeping generality. Probably doesn't apply in most cases. I believe that AT&T guaranties a "floor" on their tiers; i.e., for their "Elite" tier, which is 6Mb/s, at least 3.1Mb/s. And my ISP, which offers "up to" 20Mb/s, only considers .5Mb/s "Okay" if the loop length precludes faster.

I'll bet that I can list many more ISPs that has this "UP TO" than you can counter with that does not. No Business accounts.

But my ISP does offer, "Up to"!

»www.sonic.net/solutions/ ··· /fusion/

The thing is, they just don't blow the customer off by saying, "You're getting .5Mb/s, so we're delivering". Their caveat is a function of the distance limitation on DSL; and they will work on delivered speed issues if the delivered speed is not consistent with distance constraints.

My experience with AT&T was similar. They don't use their "up to" caveat to blow off customers experiencing sub par speed due to congestion; they moved my connection to a different aggregation router when it was running consistently low due to peak hour congestion.

"Up to" does not, should not be an excuse for failing to deliver advertised speed.

The problem with CL advertising their 'up to' speeds is that the speeds are impossible to achieve.

Their 'up to 1.5 Mbps DSL' service can never ever get that speed, ever, can't be done. At 3am, it is possible to achieve 1.3 Mbps, but not 1.5 Mbps.

They should be forced to sell it as 'up to 1.3 Mbps at 3am, but not when you're normally awake'.

They might as well advertise 'up to 1 Gbps', as it can't get that either.

CL false advertises all the time, on line, on the phone, in the post.

Ah. So what CL calls, "up to", is different from what other ISPs call, "up to"?

Or maybe not: xsbell brings up an interesting point. WRT AT&T, whose ADSL service I had for a little over ten years, they sell modem sync speed in tiers. I was on a 9,156 foot loop, over which the estimated "MaxRate" (based on data from the Siemens SpeedStream 4100 ADSL modem) was 5400kb/s. The AT&T tiers sold are, "Elite" (6016/768), "Pro" (3008/512), "Express" (1536/384), and "Basic" (768/384). If they could not deliver the tier rate for the highest tier, they would only offer the next tier down. So, at 5400 MaxRate, AT&T could never deliver 6.0M service, and never tried. We got a solid 3008/512 sync, though.

But measured speed was another matter. AT&T delivered ADSL over ATM, with PPPoE authentication. PPPoE requires MTU set to 1492 and ATM encapsulation reduces data throughput by ~15%, so measured speed is (sync*.85). For their 1.5M service: (1536*.85=1305.6). So an AT&T customer could never achieve 1.5M.

Now Verizon, and probably Fairpoint and Frontier, will sync their 1.5M tiers at 1766kb/s instead of 1536kb/s.

AT&T is decommissioning their ADSL gear as fast as they can move their customers to ADSL2+, or VDSL "IPDSLAM" service. They sell the same tiers, but delivered over a PTM network with 802.1x authentication. No PPPoE means MTU can be set to 1500 (optimum setting for Ethernet), and PTM means no additional overhead due to encapsulation for ATM cells. There is still some overhead, but AT&T "U-verse Internet" speeds will be (sync*.96): (1536*.96=1474.56). Closer to the tier speed.

Basically, a DSL provider can only deliver an "honest" 1.5M speed if they set the DSLAM to sync at a higher rate than the tier speed.

FWIW, my current provider does not sell "modem sync" tiers. They sell an honest "up to". On my old 9,156 foot loop, instead of artificially capping the sync rate, as AT&T did, they let the modem/DSLAM run free to find the best sync rate for the loop. ADSL2+ will sync at ~5700kb/s on that 9,156 foot loop. They still use ATM, but no PPPoE. So I could set MTU=1500 (instead of AT&T's 1492), but speed is still (sync*.85); so (5700*.85=4845) (Sonic.net "Fusion" uses ATM). Not 6.0M service, but very close to 5.0M service on a loop where AT&T would only give 1.3M ((ADSL)+PPPoE over ATM), or 1.48M ((ADSL2+)+802.1x over PTM).

I suspect that customer expectation is a problem. Customer doesn't:

• Understand the technology (not customer's fault).
• Read the "Terms of Service" (customer's fault).

AT&T does bury this caveat in their ToS:

quote:

---

The speeds identified at »www.att.com/speedtiers are Service Capability Speeds, which are the downstream rates at which your line transfers Internet access data between the network interface device at your home, office or apartment building to the first piece of routing equipment in AT&T's network. Service Capability Speeds should not be confused with Throughput Speed, which is the speed at which your modem receives and sends Internet access data ("Throughput Speed.").

---

What does the CenturyLink ToS have to say?

That's because of the high overhead mainly from the ATM encapsulation between the modem and DSLAM. Almost every provider here accommodates for this though by giving you a higher profile.

The whole "up to" thing was started mainly because of loop distances on legacy networks. It still applies with FTTN, but providers now have a better idea of what a customer can get because of the things they do before hand, like condition loops, remove bridges, etc..

Now, guaranteed speeds (after you get the right profile), that's a different topic altogether.

NormanS I read your link and I do not see anything different with Sonic than other ISPs. They state the max they deliver is 20mb (the UP TO) with the caveat that you will not get this depending on your distance from the CO. Well, what else is new? As you correctly stated "Their caveat is a function of the distance limitation on DSL". Doesn't this apply to all DSL ISPs?

If I can get 18mb and Joe can get 12mb and Harry can get 8mb, does Sonic charge each one $39.95? Or are they grouped into traditional tiers? The link only states on price.

I do give Sonic a pat on the back for being upfront with their customers (who do not know this) on the distance limitations on DSL.

""Up to" does not, should not be an excuse for failing to deliver advertised speed." That is correct and my point.

"One price fits all": No tiers. Why should there be tiers? Does it really cost the ISP more to deliver 18.0M than 8.0M?Ever read your provider's ToS? AT&T may not be "up front" on their service availability/order page, but their ToS is pretty clear about expectations.The question is: If AT&T promises 1.5M, but only delivers 1.3M, are they wrong? If you read their ToS regarding speed, are they still wrong?

Substitute your favorite DSL provider for AT&T when you consider the question (I only use them as an example because I am familiar with their ToS).

CL just plain sucks anyway, they say things are exactly as before when they were qwest but there are many customers that disagree.

That's what Bellsouth customers say about AT&T!

Hi callenbrand, this is Joey with CenturyLink. Our team would like to look into this trouble for you. Please send us your information via email to TalkToUs@CenturyLink.com. We can work with local management to find out exactly what happened and what the plan is to resolve this issue. Thanks.

Joey H
@CenturyLinkHelp Team

Thanks Joey, email is sent.

What is your MODEM syncing at?

Modem syncs at 1792 Down and Up it is 320.

You are on an ATM circuit. D/L = sync * .85.

1792 * .85 = 1523.2