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BadMagpie
join:2011-02-05

BadMagpie

Member

[Qwest] Availability of 40/20 in former Qwest areas?

I'm exploring the possibility of moving to another house in the West Jordan / West Valley City / Kearns area of Salt Lake County. Some of the houses do qualify for 40 mbps down, but when I try to order this package, there's no option to actually set the upload speed. Is 20 up available at all? Is it 5 up only? Or is it dependent on distance from the DSLAM?

neill6705
join:2014-08-09

neill6705

Member

I have a neighbor who lives right next to the DSLAM and the best he can get is 40/5. DSL is a very asymmetric medium. Frankly, you're lucky to be getting 5mbps up.
BadMagpie
join:2011-02-05

BadMagpie

Member

What county / area?
I guess what I'm asking is if the 12A profile is available in Qwest areas in order to get the 20 up.

A couple of years ago I had 50/10 DSL from Telus, and this was on the 17A profile. I was around 200-250 metres from the DSLAM. The modem was synced at 76/12.

neill6705
join:2014-08-09

neill6705

Member

I'm in central Minnesota and my modem uses the 8A profile. I've never seen anything higher than that around here.
silbaco
Premium Member
join:2009-08-03
USA

silbaco to BadMagpie

Premium Member

to BadMagpie
They do offer 40/20 in former Qwest areas. I don't if they offer it in every region though.

crazyk4952
Premium Member
join:2002-02-04
united state
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite
Ubiquiti UniFi AP-LR
Polycom VVX300

crazyk4952 to BadMagpie

Premium Member

to BadMagpie
said by BadMagpie:

I'm exploring the possibility of moving to another house in the West Jordan / West Valley City / Kearns area of Salt Lake County. Some of the houses do qualify for 40 mbps down, but when I try to order this package, there's no option to actually set the upload speed. Is 20 up available at all? Is it 5 up only? Or is it dependent on distance from the DSLAM?

I live in a former Qwest area and I currently have 40/20 (although I qualify for 60/30). I believe that you have to be pretty close to the DSLAM to get this speed.

When I was first looking at Centurylink, their website stated that I only qualified for 20/5 (I think). I had to call and speak to someone to find out that I could get a faster speed.

I would just give them a call with the home addresses that you are looking at and they can more reliability check the speeds that those houses qualify for.
xthepeoplesx
join:2013-10-21

xthepeoplesx to BadMagpie

Member

to BadMagpie
I personally would not buy a house that only has one internet option. Especially cl. You do not want to get involved with them. I called my local cable company before buying mine and they said they offered internet here. Once I moved in they said they couldn't. So now I'm stuck with cl for a tad bit longer. Also I wouldn't believe what they say until the install is in. Check with the neighbors and see what they have and ask what they think about cl, just do it...
BadMagpie
join:2011-02-05

BadMagpie

Member

Sounds good.
No, the house is going to be a rental; I'm about 12-18 months away from being able to buy. In the mean time, some places on my list will be both cheaper to rent and closer to work.
If I'm lucky, I'd get 40/20 for the 1-year promotional rate, return the modem and keep the bill at under $35/month. I will remember to check on Comcast availability too, though.
brad152
join:2006-07-27
Chicago, IL

brad152

Member

said by BadMagpie:

Sounds good.
No, the house is going to be a rental; I'm about 12-18 months away from being able to buy. In the mean time, some places on my list will be both cheaper to rent and closer to work.
If I'm lucky, I'd get 40/20 for the 1-year promotional rate, return the modem and keep the bill at under $35/month. I will remember to check on Comcast availability too, though.

CenturyLink is generally going to be great in former qwest areas, and I do not think that they sell the 40/20 package online anymore to residential unless you ask for it

Check the small business site and see what it says you can get as that's generally a representation of what's actually available to you.
BadMagpie
join:2011-02-05

BadMagpie

Member

I was checking the small business site about this time a year ago, but I hadn't thought of checking it this time around, thanks for the reminder.
xthepeoplesx
join:2013-10-21

xthepeoplesx

Member

Don't just rely on that. Speak to someone in business because they say I can only get 5mbps which is wrong on the business site.
BadMagpie
join:2011-02-05

BadMagpie

Member

Very interesting. When I check the business site, one of the addresses that had 40 down available for residential, offers not only 40/5, but also 40/20 and 60/30!
xthepeoplesx
join:2013-10-21

xthepeoplesx

Member

That prompted me to check again and weirdly it says 8mbps for a split second and then changes to 5mbps. Weird?

Irish Shark
Play Like A Champion Today
MVM
join:2000-07-29
Las Vegas, NV

1 edit

Irish Shark to brad152

MVM

to brad152
brad152 See Profile why are former Quest areas better than other areas? I don't remember who was here in Vegas before CL. Embarq?

billaustin
they call me Mr. Bill
MVM
join:2001-10-13
North Las Vegas, NV

billaustin

MVM

It was originally Central Telephone, which eventually was acquired by Sprint, which spun off Embarq as a separate debt-laden company, which combined with CenturyTel to become CenturyLink, who then brought Qwest into the fold.
brad152
join:2006-07-27
Chicago, IL

brad152 to Irish Shark

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to Irish Shark
said by Irish Shark:

brad152 See Profile why are former Quest areas better than other areas? I don't remember who was here in Vegas before CL. Embarq?

Quest invested quite heavily in finding the dark fiber lines and installed VDSL2 pretty much everywhere they could, whereas Embarq and CenturyTel pretty much relied on the old ADSL2+ they installed years ago to get them by

And yes I'm Vegas it was Embarq before
BadMagpie
join:2011-02-05

BadMagpie

Member

Right. So I've found a house in West Jordan and ordered a 40 mbit package. The address qualifies for as high as 80/40 and even 100/12 if I enter the address on the small business site.
What do I do if after I plug everything in I only get 40/5? Could I still get 40/20? I read a few months ago that someone also in West Jordan qualified for 60/30.
brad152
join:2006-07-27
Chicago, IL

brad152

Member

said by BadMagpie:

Right. So I've found a house in West Jordan and ordered a 40 mbit package. The address qualifies for as high as 80/40 and even 100/12 if I enter the address on the small business site.
What do I do if after I plug everything in I only get 40/5? Could I still get 40/20? I read a few months ago that someone also in West Jordan qualified for 60/30.

I think CenturyLink stopped "offering" anything other than 5Mbps upload on residential packages.

Although, if you can do 100/12 then once it's installed have them manually push the order through for you (it's an extra $5/mo I belive)

That's how I got my pair bonded 40/5 as they swore up and down it could not be done on residential. All it takes is someone who actually knows how to work their system
BadMagpie
join:2011-02-05

BadMagpie

Member

Odd, they still list 40M and 40M+ on their price list. Or has that changed?
brad152
join:2006-07-27
Chicago, IL

brad152

Member

I've not been able to order it on any residential account as of recent, but have been able to get it calling in.

The rep on the phone i got last time said they officially stopped selling it to residential customers as they "should not" need that much upload unless they're running a server.

Atom90
join:2014-12-05

Atom90 to BadMagpie

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to BadMagpie
CL is awesome at hiding their upload speeds.
BadMagpie
join:2011-02-05

BadMagpie

Member

I wonder why; 3 out of 5 residential packages I can order from Comcast have an upload of 10 mbits or higher.

Atom90
join:2014-12-05

1 edit

Atom90

Member

@BadMagpie
I'm assuming you are talking about cable internet, which uses a thicker coax cable and has much more bandwidth available to it. Cable internet is usually better all around just because of the RG6 coax, compared to thin DSL phone wire. And so, due to embarrassment I guess, CL makes no mention of what upload speed you will get from their service and basically force you to buy their service and find out like I did.
BadMagpie
join:2011-02-05

BadMagpie

Member

I know, the fact is the new address happens to be close enough to the DSLAM to attain higher speeds, at least 40/20. I used to have a 50/10 package with Telus' DSL back in the day, on the 17A profile. With pings in the sub 10-ms range, it was a great alternative to cable. Nowadays, Telus is offering a residential 100/20 package with two lines, and actual upload speeds are closer to 28 mbps. My main disappointment is from the fact that speeds on Centurylink are being restricted on residential packages even though the lines themselves can run much faster.

Atom90
join:2014-12-05

Atom90 to BadMagpie

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to BadMagpie
said by BadMagpie:

My main disappointment is from the fact that speeds on Centurylink are being restricted on residential packages even though the lines themselves can run much faster.

Quietly jipping you on upload speed is the Centurylink way. Pic is of my current sync rate. While I'm on the edge of my local DSLAM, I still have plenty of upload bandwidth being unused.

Naked DSL
$56 a month


coryw
join:2013-12-22
Flagstaff, AZ

coryw

Member

As I've mentioned, that's an Embarq thing, although at your distance you may not qualify for anything in a Qwest area, at least without sacrificing some (or all) of your margin in order to increase max rate, as the 1.5M package is 1536/896k.

This whole "fewer options" thing is definitely new as of the last few months. Up until December or January, if you stumbled upon an address that supported 40/20, you could order 40/20, 40/5, 20/5, 20/896k, 12/5, 12/896k and so on, even on the residential site.

If I had to guess, it's not that it's "the CenturyLink Way" -- it's that legitimately 90% or more of their customers that can order advanced upload speeds never did, and the ones that did are typically (although obviously not always) the ones who are running servers, and so on.
coryw

coryw to Atom90

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to Atom90
Cable is different but as far as access technologies go, I don't know if I'd really say it's "better." As BadMagpie See Profile mentions, you can get a fair amount of speed out of DSL. Just because your specific DSL doesn't go that fast doesn't mean it's not possible. AT&T U-Verse is starting to deliver 75/8 using pair bonding and profile 17, for example.

(Although if you want a good example of strangled uploads, at least CenturyLink has a 20M upload package, along with 60/30 and 80/40 using bonding. AT&T, likely out of trying to keep things simple, won't let you get more upload speed even if each of the lines in your bonded pair will happily sync at, say, 60/30, which isn't too uncommon on the U-Verse forum.)

The thing about cable is that regardless of what the technology can do, there's almost nobody actually doing it. The cablecos aren't willing to sacrifice any channels for upstream, so you end up with 100/5 or 100/10 being just about the best you can get. In some Comcast areas you'll get 100/20, but for me, 60/30 or 80/40 DSL from CenturyLink is a more useful product.

So, cable has more "bandwidth" almost all of which is being used by TV channels. TV is their primary business, so they're typically not willing to give up much of that spectrum. The Telcos are willing to give data the entire available spectrum of a phone wire (which is really the same spectrum, it's just that coax will carry it further and the physical arrangement of DOCSIS plant is more well suited to sprawling suburban neighborhoods, because there are nodes/repeaters/amplifiers everywhere which you can't use with (most) DSL technologies) because data is how TelcoTV (where it exists) is delivered.

toby
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
Seattle, WA

toby to Atom90

Member

to Atom90
said by Atom90:

@BadMagpie
I'm assuming you are talking about cable internet, which uses a thicker coax cable and has much more bandwidth available to it. Cable internet is usually better all around just because of the RG6 coax, compared to thin DSL phone wire. And so, due to embarrassment I guess, CL makes no mention of what upload speed you will get from their service and basically force you to buy their service and find out like I did.

Thickness of wire has nothing to do with upload speed.

CL does list the upload speed in the package when you order it from their site.

Atom90
join:2014-12-05

4 edits

Atom90

Member

said by toby:

Thickness of wire has nothing to do with upload speed.

Thinner wire has higher line loss on higher frequencies, meaning that coax cable has more bandwidth potential over longer distances. The difference between RG6 and RG59 is huge, and phone wire is even thinner than RG59.

I'm just saying the cable companies have much more spectrum to work with.
said by toby:

CL does list the upload speed in the package when you order it from their site.

Never seen it on their site. Never saw it when I bought it. Never see it when I log into my Centurylink account. Never seen it.....
said by coryw:

As I've mentioned, that's an Embarq thing, although at your distance you may not qualify for anything in a Qwest area, at least without sacrificing some (or all) of your margin in order to increase max rate, as the 1.5M package is 1536/896k.

Emarq gave me an upload sync of around 600k before Centurylink came to town. No this is a Centurylink thing.

Cluser
@t-mobile.com

Cluser to brad152

Anon

to brad152
My mom lives in West Jordan and has had the 40/20 Tier for nearly two years with no issues whatsoever.