RANT – Qwest DSL AGAIN

[cjboffoli]

For the past few months my Qwest DSL service has been all over the road. I pay for a 7 Mbps downstream connection but as of late that speed dwindles to less than 1Mbps in the evening. I’d be fine with 5-6Mbps. But under 1Mbps is a crime when you consider what I’m paying. I call tech support. They put me on a new “gateway” and things are fine for two weeks. Then the problem returns.

Each time this happens I call Qwest tech support. I always get routed first to a offshore call center where they check the line and promptly tell me that everything on their end is fine. I quickly discovered that you have to ask to be escalated to local tech support (I think they are in Colorado) to actually reach someone who is empowered to remedy the problem. The engineers in Colorado will usually tell you the truth.

Tonight I got one who REALLY told me the truth. From what he said it seems they have a capacity problem. They only have so many 7Mbps connections. However, it seems they have absolutely no qualms about selling 7Mbps connections to anyone who is willing to pay. But in terms of providing that service, they just can’t do it.

The engineer empathized with me. He says Qwest is being reactive as opposed to pro-active and he’s caught in the middle. They wait until a customer calls to complain and then they put that person on one of the 7Mbps “pipes”, simultaneously bumping someone else off the other end. How they can charge people for more fast connections than they can provide without it constituting fraud is beyond me. And there seems to be no recourse. I could seek out a 3rd party DSL service but Qwest owns the hardware. So there is no guarantee I’d ever get what I’m paying for. It’s not all that clear that Comcast internet service would be a lesser evil.

On top of all this I’ve heard that, after the first of the year, Qwest and others will be rolling out even more expensive and exotic high-speed internet plans (slower and exponentially more expensive than similar service enjoyed by the citizens of about 20 other countries).

Obama says he’s gonna fix this. I wish him the best of luck.

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[HeavyMetalConservative]

I have Qwest and it has slowed down recently. Tonight I power cycled (unplugged and then plugged in) my modem. It helped a bit.

Comcast gave me better speeds consistently but I hated their cable service. Maybe Verizon will be in West Seattle soon.

Is Clear Wire upping its speeds anytime soon?

Hey, maybe Obama can… I mean those Illinois and Chicago politicians know how to FIX things.

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[SMS]

I had the same problem recently too. Seems like it should be illegal to sell something they can’t (or won’t) consistently provide. But since most customers don’t actually know that Qwest is doing this, they don’t know to complain about it. So unethical.

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[WesCAddle]

I know that everyone likes to complain about Comcast, but I must admit…it’s the best service available for internet. It was down earlier this week for the first time in years (Seaview neighborhood, down for around 4 hours) and I’ve never had a problem with their cable TV. I’ve been using them for 9 years.

I just signed up for their phone service (triple play they call it) and am pretty happy with that also. It’s around $30 a month and that includes all long distance in the USA. I really only use my cell phone anyway..but it’s nice to have.

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[littlebrowndog]

For 3 years I had problems with Qwest DSL. I cannot tell you the number of times I made calls to their tech support, got told no problem with the line, got told their MAY be a problem with the line, had technicians come out, got a new modem, got the problem kicked up to very high levels in their tech support system—I cannot believe I stuck with it for 3 years, what was I thinking. So recently I had ComCast come out and they were unable to connect me, something about cannot drill a hole through my siding so the only option was for them to put some sort of connection on the opposite side of the house at my TV connection and give me a cable to run around the ceiling or base of the walls to connect to my computer. NOT! So I got ClearWire, which seems to be my only option except I guess wireless? ClearWire gave me outstanding speeds the first 2 weeks and now variable speeds. Emailed tech support, got told to disconnect and reconnect modem, slight improvement but not great. I have concluded I have technology gremlins.

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[austin]

My experience is somewhat similar to Wes. Been using comcast internet in various places around seattle since 01. It was down for a couple of days in 04 but other than that I’ve had zero problems and fast connections (suitable for streaming movies and online games). I can’t speak for their television or phone service as I use a mobile phone and don’t use television. Maybe I’ve just gotten lucky but definitely get what I pay for. I think they have a cap of 250 gb /month data transfer but personally I can’t get near that. May be a problem if you stream a lot of HD or something.

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