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CenturyLink Drops TV Services, May Ditch Residential Broadband

CenturyLink is what you might call a hot mess right now. The company's lagging broadband upgrades make it clear that residential customers across countless markets simply aren't a priority. That apathy has resulted in a steady stream of customer defections as customers in many un-upgraded markets flee to faster cable speeds. While millions of customers within its footprint struggle with sub-6 Mbps speeds, CenturyLink has shifted its focus toward enterprise service with its recent acquisition of Level 3.

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CenturyLink is also facing a wave of lawsuits over fraudulent billing, after a whistleblower revealed the company routinely overbills its users and upgrades users to services they neither wanted nor asked for.

While this is all occurring, there's every indication the company is giving up completely on TV service; both its Prism IPTV service, and the company's short-lived foray into streaming video.

CenturyLink recent stated that the company would be killing off its creatively-named CenturyLink Stream streaming video service after only a year or so of trials. The company's website now says the service is ending and CenturyLink is no longer taking new customers. The company gives no explanation for axing the service, though it's believed that the one-two punch of CenturyLink's residential apathy and consumer disinterest doomed the project.

Users in our forums also say that CenturyLink has effectively given up on its more traditional Prism IPTV service, something the company has been hinting at for the better part of a year. Customers who used to subscribe to Prism TV are now being sold DirecTV as a bundle. Though that hasn't gone smoothly either, with CenturyLink recently having been sued for sloppily exposing user data to the open internet.

"Due to emerging market trends in video content and delivery, we do not plan to expand our Prism TV service offering," CenturyLink tells Fierce Wireless. “We will continue to provide service and support to our current Prism TV subscribers and make the service available to qualified customers who request it in the markets where we currently offer Prism TV."

CenturyLink also confirmed the death of its streaming video ambitions.

“CenturyLink continually evaluates the products and services we offer and makes changes when needed,” the company said in another statement. “We conducted various trials of our CenturyLink Stream over-the-top video solution, but plan to discontinue this service in April 2018. We are exploring options to meet market demand for streaming video services.”

There have been ongoing rumors that CenturyLink may just divest its consumer-facing assets (read: sell off all unwanted residential networks) and focus entirely to business services, but the company remains mum on such plans. At the very least CenturyLink is signaling that it no longer thinks residential broadband, especially upgrades for un-upgraded areas, are particularly important, which will only drive defections.

In short: pay TV margins are tightening, upgrading aging DSL lines is expensive, and CenturyLink may just prefer to focus on more profitable business-grade services in the largely urban areas it appears to actually care about. As with Frontier's dysfunction, this is all great news for cable operators happy to see even less viable competition across many of their markets, but less stellar for customers who'll see higher prices and less incentive for improvement as a result.

Most recommended from 111 comments


kucharsk
join:2001-03-30
Louisville, CO

29 recommendations

kucharsk

Member

Fun with CL reps

CL recently had sales reps going door to door in my neighborhood because their "faster Internet service" was now available in my area.

I asked the speed, and they replied 20 Mbps.

I replied I had gigabit service from Comcast, and they said "that's only in testing labs."

I then ran a Speedtest from them on my front porch and showed them my WiFi connected iPhone had a download speed of 400+ Mbps.

They didn't say anything but instead quietly left.

SimbaSeven
I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT
·StarLink

1 edit

21 recommendations

SimbaSeven

Member

Oh, we know..

After moving to Joliet, we had CL set us up with a 20/2 bonded (like our old place), and later finding out their DSLAM is overloaded to hell and back. To say the least, we were a bit disgusted.

It was funny when I asked the tech about our 20/2 connection. We were the only ones in the WHOLE TOWN that knew about it, and was curious on why we would need those speeds. I was appalled and disgusted at that point.

Also, CenturyLink seems to not give a s**t. The only ones they've upgraded is the library and the school.

It's no wonder the whole town hates them, but it's the only thing we can get. For now..

CGMason14
Nj Roaddog
join:2002-07-22
Mountainside, NJ

9 recommendations

CGMason14

Member

They would have customers if they knew what they were doing....

CenturyLink in NC is pretty pathetic. Recently my relatives moved to a new construction house served by one of their few fiber equipped COs. What did they run to brand new construction? Why copper of course.... with 3Mbit (if you are lucky) DSL available. Naturally everyone in the development is a Spectrum customer.

Whats sad is that they were CenturyLink customers before they moved (from a neighboring town). They had VDSL2 service with Prism TV that they were happy with.

TIGERON
join:2008-03-11
Boston, MA

6 recommendations

TIGERON

Member

I?m all for the idea of CenturyLink selling off many of its unwanted copper

Since most of that unwanted copper is in rural and suburban areas selling it off to smaller telcos would be a better solution.

jchambers28
Premium Member
join:2007-05-12
Peculiar, MO
·Comcast XFINITY

2 recommendations

jchambers28

Premium Member

They can't even beat LTE

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They can't even beat a phone's internet connection they're only offering a five megabit connection here. I'm better off using my unlimited data on my phone instead of there slow internet

Eagles1221
join:2009-04-29
Vincentown, NJ

2 recommendations

Eagles1221

Member

Sod you CL

Their business customers are not valued by them either