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Windstream CEO Claims ISP Will Offer 1 Gbps in All Its Markets

Not to be left out of the gigabit hype race, Windstream Communications this week insisted it would offer gigabit fiber service to every market it currently services. Of course Windstream currently only offers gigabit fiber to a few housing developments in Lincoln, Nebraska with plans to potentially offer it in limited portions of five other markets -- maybe.

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This very limited gigabit fiber deployment was dressed up to be something much, much more impressive than it actually is by Windstream CEO Tony Thomas at an investor conference this week.

"We are drawing a line in the sand that says we're going to launch a 1 Gbps market in 2015 and if the team overachieves, we'll launch in five," the CEO announced.

"I think after that we're going to launch in every one of our markets a 1 Gbps product because in almost every one of our markets where Windstream competes today we deployed fiber."

The problem with Thomas' narrative? Most Windstream customers currently struggle to get 1 Mbps thanks to a core network in desperate need of upgrades (as our user reviews will attest). Just because there's fiber in parts of Windstream's network doesn't automatically mean users on aging DSL lines (with usage caps) will see fiber anytime soon.

Still, Thomas put on a brave face for investor attendees.

"I am confident that the telcos are going to be very competitive with the cable companies from a product portfolio," the CEO said. "Look at where Windstream does business: We have very few customers per square mile and we're not competing in the urban centers like other telcos do."

Granted the very reason so many Windstream customers in our forums complain about slow, capped, and congested DSL lines is because the company lacks the competitive incentive to upgrade. And in markets they do compete with cable, cable's usually able to offer better speeds courtesy of the relatively inexpensive DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1 upgrade path.

The bottom line is it's rather gutsy of Thomas to be promising one gigabit per second speeds when his company struggles to offer one megabit per second speeds. This isn't just anecdotal opinion: FCC data shows Windstream is one of the worst ISPs in the country at actually delivering advertised speeds. Last year the company also had to pay $600,000 to Georgia's AG for failing to deliver advertised speeds.

Surely there's some Windstream customers who'd like to let Thomas use their DSL lines over the holiday weekend so he's a little more familiar with the actual state of his company's network?

Most recommended from 33 comments



Napsterbater
Meh
MVM
join:2002-12-28
Milledgeville, GA
(Software) OPNsense
Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-AC-PRO

3 recommendations

Napsterbater

MVM

And people say there is plenty of competition?

Around here it wasn't until a FTTH ISP (Xcelerate Broadband) recently started deploying in areas that only had Windstream did it then make them fix and upgrade the area for 24Mbps max when before they couldn't even deliver 3Mbps during most of the day.

Xcelerate Broadband is using Federal Broadband Stimulus funds to deploy since Windstream did not and does not meet the definition of "Broadband".

Windstream fixed my 12Mbps connection 1 month before Xcelerate went live, I jumped ship and went from 12Mbps/.7Mbps for $60 to 30Mbps/30Mbps for $63. I would have left Windstream no matter what anyways since I delf with their BS for 2.5yrs and promised them I would when anything else became available.

bockbock
@hcs.net

3 recommendations

bockbock

Anon

Is this a joke?

???
kingofdsl
join:2002-12-11
Indianapolis, IN

2 recommendations

kingofdsl

Member

For what $1,000 a month?

They charge $60 a month for barely a 1 meg DSL connection so can imagine what they will charge for this 1g.