 Review by linicx 
UPDATED: 155 days ago
member for 5.7 years, 1788 visits, last login: 29 days ago
 United State
 $95 per month (12 month contract)
 about 30 days
 CenturyTel
 "telephone works"
 "not much go for the dough"
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(ratings below consensus)
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Gather your wagons around, boys, this has been a circle chuck from the start. I was in the process of buying a house, closing a house sale, and moving between two states with a dying spouse when I ordered the service. The installers were supposed to be at the house the day of closing as we would be returning home the next day. They showed up a day late. And we paid for one month of no service because no one at tha local level bothered to check records. They assumed all was well when it was not. Nothing worked. The copper pair that came to our house had been assigned to someone else. I essentially paid to roll out the truck to fix it.. It still irks me.
The sales gimmck the lady offered would give me a $20 bonus per month for new service for getting the local/LD/dsl bundle. She forgot to mention the caveat. I had to send in one coupon per month six times. Let me be the first to tell you that IF you are the sole caregiver of a blind sick patient at home, you don't think about ponzi schemes, you think about the patient, ER, ICU, Rx. meals, death and dying. And I lost the $120 bucks. It is my fault, but this is one of the most unnreasonable telco I ever dealt wilth. They make Ma Bell look like a piker when it comes to plain old-fashioned mean spirted customer relations.
Something else I did not know is the local telco sold out to Centurytel before we moved. It promised to be a bumpy ride and it has been. I can't keep a signal. Filters were replaced twice and the Starbridge Lynx 220 modem was replaced twice, too. A new copper pair from the office to the house was installed, plus the office equipment was reset or reseated four times. And it sill doesn't work very well. I guess I've been without service for at least 12 days in the last four months.
To their credit, when the phones only worked like a half-duplex card they fixed it the same day but only because the work order went to a compassionate repairman who knows my sick spouse. These guys are the cream of the crop, but they are over-worked and under-paid. Sooner or later someone will be hurt.
The DSL is iffy. When it's hot, it's hot, but when it's not, dial up is faster. A lot faster. CenturyTel has room to improve in terms of consistent up/down speeds. But in terms of office staff and first level tech support, this car-wreck-about-to-happen needs a complete overhaul.
The good news is wireless from a local-owned company in a nearyby town is coming soon. The better news is I have the land, the building, and the electricity to power a new tower.
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