CenturyLink Fiber?

[ericgoetz]

Has anyone switched from Comcast to the new CenturyLink fiber service that was rolled out to parts of WS a few months ago? I’m not talking about CenturyLink’s crappy DSL. I’m talking about the 100Mbps / 1000Mpbs fiber. Just wondering if anyone can comment on the relative speeds/reliability. Especially folks that work from home. I’m paying way too much from Comcast right now and wondering if I should threaten to leave, in order to get the price down or just actually leave.

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[wakeflood]

Nothing wrong with doing both, eric. I work mostly from home on Comcast business and I’m really steamed right now.

Spent half an hour on the phone a few weeks ago complaining to them about short term outages and slower speed and cost. I wasn’t getting any satisfaction from the person I was talking to who’s only solution was for me to buy their phone service so she could bundle me further. So I used the magic words, “I guess I’ll just take my business elsewhere”, and I get put through to a customer retention mgr.

The first thing this guy says to me is “so you wanna’ leave for SLOWER speeds??” To which I responded, “and you wonder why you guys have a crappy reputation with your customers? YES, I’m thinking about leaving.”

He got real apologetic and serious and said the following things:

1) I’m refunding you several days of service for the interruptions.

2) I’m dropping your rate for your internet/cable service by $30/mo. and giving you an upgraded tv package back to the one you dropped six months ago because it was way too expensive.

3) I’m sending you the replacement remote you asked for and having tech check your area for other issues in case they need to fix anything.

What actually happened:

1) They took 1 day off the internet bill.

2) They restored the channels but DIDN’T change my rate. No $30/mo. discount.

3) They sent the wrong remote. And no tech person has ever called or confirmed any local issues.

I get to call them back again when I have time and see how they respond this time.

So do what you can with a clear conscience. They do.

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[ericgoetz]

But, in theory, CenturyLink 100Mbs should be equivalent performance to Comcast, and the 1000Mbs should blow it out of the water, so Comcast’s “you wanna leave for slower speeds” comment is no longer even accurate. I’m so thankful we actually have a choice, now. Hopefully Wave will come to the area, soon, and then we’ll have some real competition.

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[cjboffoli]

I recently made the switch from 120Mbps Comcast (business class) service to 1 gigabit Centurylink service. The transition was sloppy (as I wrote about here in the Forums a few weeks ago), mostly due to Centurylink’s general disorganization and lack of any kind of prioritization of customer service. But to make a long story short I got it installed with some stops and starts and a great deal of hassle.

The installation itself wasn’t easy and took three days. This service is new even to the installers who are still adjusting to the process. I think I underestimated the process myself, including the drilling of a big new hole in the side of my house. And there were also some wires (or rather fibers) crossed at the nearby switching station which delayed my service from being turned on. Fortunately, I hadn’t cancelled my Comcast service yet at the time the Centurylink install was happening. So I was as patient as possible while the harried Centurylink installer did quite a bit of head scratching over the course of three days.

The verdict: The service doesn’t feel that fast. With everyday use there seems to be no practical difference between a 120Mbps from Comcast and the Centurylink 1gig service. Curiously, if I use Centurylink’s speed test it shows an average of a 930 Mpbs symmetrical connection. But when I use various other independent speed test sites (like TestMy.net) the speeds it shows are MUCH slower. Still fast compared to most broadband available in Seattle but certainly not blazing and nowhere close to 1 gig.

One of the things that is important to remember is that, as great as it sounds to have 1gig service, your experience is only going to be as fast as the websites that are serving you data. I expect that things will get better over time. At least I hope they will. But as of right now, I’d guess that most websites aren’t going to deliver downloads at speeds you might expect.

So essentially, the 1gig service feels about the same as the 120Mpbs Comcast service. The greatest difference is that the Centurylink service is less than half of what those vampires at Comcast were gouging me. I’m very happy to be free of Comcast, especially because once I cancelled they told me there was something in the fine print of my contract that entitles them to charge me for two more months of service, even though they’re not providing anything. Just a horrible, horrible company in so many ways. To me there is no better example of a business that it so effective at lobbying and paying off politicians so as to create a favorable business environment for itself at the expense of consumers.

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[ericgoetz]

Thanks so much for the great writeup, cjboffoli. This is very useful information. I’m a little surprised to hear that your connection was symmetrical. The CenturyLink sales rep (or bot) I chatted with on the website said it was 1000Mbs up / 100Mbs down. I work in the film and games industries, so having fast upload speeds is quite important. If I got significantly faster uploads on CenturyLink, that would be a win.

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[cjboffoli]

Eric: I don’t know if connections vary by location, distance from the switching box, etc. But my connection is absolutely symmetrical. The upload speed is a big deal for me too as I’m a photographer and filmmaker and always moving large files around, doing backups to the Cloud, etc. Ask the technician who comes out to do the install. They often have better info about connection speeds and technology than the sales reps.

In my experience the quality of Centurylink’s sales reps can vary widely. After I initially signed up for the 1gig service I got a mysterious confirmation in the mail welcoming me to Centurylink’s 40/5 service. I called in and not only did they have no idea what was going on, they almost convinced me that fiber wasn’t available at my address. And this was AFTER I had already signed up for the service on their site, after I had watched the fiber being installed on my block, and after a Centurylink technician had been out to do a fiber pre-install from the pole to my house. Another sales rep told me that the $109/mo service that I signed up for online wasn’t available and that I’d have to pay $159/mo which also wasn’t true. Even now that I’ve had the service for a couple of months, I’m getting regular marketing mailings from Centurylink inviting me to sign up for 12Mbps service. The company just seems totally disorganized and no one seems to care about the customer experience. But the service is working well so far so that’s what matters the most.

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[dhg]

Working for an office in Bellevue, I was provided a Clink email and asked to coordinate the fiber install. I called Clink, couldn’t get the guy in the email but the rep couldn’t relate my work order with anything in their system. He then checked for fiber for that building and said it did not exist, best speed they could do would be 7mbps dsl. I ran out to the office only to find the fiber is installed and connected to a Juniper rack mounted switch. More calls to Clink got the current install up and running. Clink doesn’t know what it’s doing, their phone support is unreliable. Be careful who you get in bed with.

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