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Review by cstone 
member for 2.4 years, 4 visits, last login: 2.3 years ago
lodged 2.4 years ago
 Lehigh Acres,Lee,FL
 $90 per month CenturyTel "higher speed tier" "Stinks for gaming, no one can help me" "I might just downgrade, no need to pay more money for poor gameplay"
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I had Centurylink at my previous address, not to far from where I live now. The difference being that the connection there seemed better (much better ping). I was further from the box there than I am now. I upgraded speeds to help with Xbox gaming and to my surprise, it became worse. The installation was a nightmare, the whole experience was so uncoordinated. It took 3 days of techs in my area just to get the speeds right. I was actually very happy with centurylink where I used to live, but the constant disconnects and varying pings are just ridiculous. Unfortunately this is my only option for internet. I just wish someone knew what to look for to help me out. All i keep getting is visits from techs to my home. The problem is actually on the network.
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Review by Scooter99
member for 3.3 years, 1 visits, last login: 3.3 years ago
updated 2.4 years ago
- Williston,Levy,FL
- $69 per month
- (12 month contract)
- "none"
- "connection"
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I originally had a horrible experience getting my 5 meg service up and
running even having to contact Better Business Bureau after 3 months of
issues. It has worked fine for the last several months (8 or so). I
recently noticed that the speed was slow. I contacted support on the 22nd.
The tech admitted a connection issue since the 16th. I then received an
email that said there was an update as of the 22nd (same day I called
coincidental) but no resolution date. It is now the 27th and still horrible
service and no update!!!
Horrible company to deal with!!!
W. Middleton
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Review by summer4
member for 2.4 years, 1 visits, last login: 2.3 years ago
updated 2.4 years ago
- Wentzville,Saint Charles,MO
- Contract price not specified.
- CenturyTel
- "Great during the day when it works"
- "Download speed at night - don't count on it"
- "Poor response from Century Tel"
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Same problem I'm reading about all over this forum. Download speed during the day is fine which is good because I work from home and depend on it. but after 6:00 PM it drops off the chart. That also tells me that its not my systems that are causing a problem. I'm paying for 1.5 and do see that during the day MOST of the time but I'm lucky to get .5 after 6:00pm. Last night it dropped all the way down to .2 . Came back to just over 1.0 after 11:00 pm but too late for me to watch the program I planned to watch or work on the project I had planned to finish. Numerous calls to tech support over a 2 month period without resolution. No call backs, no concern. Over the years I've had everything from a T1 line to satelite and everything in between... Century Link has proven to be the least dependable and certainly the least responsive to customer inquiry/problems. The tech people I've worked with on the phone all use the same same "how to" card and don't listen. Each time I call its like Ground Hog Day.... do it all over again.
10/21/2010 9:00 pm Once again.. after running all day at over 1+ speed test now says I'm down to .5 Can't watch a thing without it breaking up.
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Review by mdg
member for 2.9 years, 26 visits, last login: 1.9 years ago
updated 2.4 years ago
- Bridgeport,Wise,TX
- Contract price not specified.
- CenturyTel
- "Embarq"
- "The Latency Monster that ate North Texas"
- "Don't use CenturyLink in N. Texas if you game, download movies or need it for online education"
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When we fist started with Embarq, we had a few outages here and there, but they were usually fixed in a day or two. Latency normally ran around 40-50ms and we got 2.4-2.6mbps of our 3.0mbps. About a month after CenturyLink took over I noticed a rise in latency to around 60-80ms, but evening latency would double. Now early hours latency is averaging 80-120ms. But the killer has become the 4:00pm to 11:00pm time period. Latency during these peak hours shoots to 500-800 ms!!
I have made several calls to their tech support and was told that they know there is a problem but can not give any answer to what exactly the issue is, nor when or if it will ever get fixed. I had two of the techs state that they felt the lines had been oversold. If this is the case, then maybe some complaints to the FCC should be made.
CenturyLink's horrible peak hour performance has destroyed my online gaming and Netflix movies have become unwatchable because of the pause every 1-2 min.
I noticed that CentruyLink is trying to merge with Qwest and I'm now wondering if I should start looking for another ISP and drop CenturyLink?
Comments:
 truk77
join:2006-02-23
Ponder, TX | Not just you Ah, so it's not just me who has noticed that the speed has gone to crap as of late.
Of course, what other options exist out West on 380? | |
| | BigVe
join:2005-07-15
Gulliver, MI | Re: Not just you I do game playing online(WOW) Netflix etc. and have no problems | |
| | | | | Re: Not just you Umm. This is N. Texas. | |
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 linicxCaveat EmptorPremium
join:2002-12-03
United State
 ·CenturyLink
| Well... For as many years as I can remember there has always been a bottleneck in
Ft. Worth and Atlanta. When lines are oversold as ISPs are wont to do then congestion at Ft. Worth is unreal -- and this was long before Century Telephone went on a buying spree to get Embarq.
IMHO This telco is a two-bit, cheap, zero support, telco wannabe. Been there done that after being happy on AT&T for 4 years.
I put up with their tricks and listened to their lies for a year, while they gouged my walled, I before I cut the cord. And when I did I lost a $125 per month boat anchor on my check book for dial up speeds. Now they want to offer me $19 naked Internet with no phone line necessary. Right. And that pig of theirs will fly with lipstick, too. Don't you believe it.
If you have any other choices don't walk away from Century Telephone. RUN. I currently pay $115 for VOIP, 7Mbps down Internet and HD cable.
Weather and animals play a big part in rural America Internet services. When it is sizzling hot and icy cold the Internet does not function normally. It acted this way for the 20 years I've lived it in 4 states and several ISPs.
--
Mac: No windows, No Gates, Apple inside | |
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Review by mzr5
member for 2.9 years, 27 visits, last login: 2.2 years ago
lodged 2.4 years ago
- Chico,Wise,TX
- $70 per month
- "Nothing at this point. Wait, maybe its only marginally better than dialup?"
- "Connection restarts, 1000ms pings, nowhere near the speed paid for."
- "CenturyLink is a sinking ship."
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I have had ADSL in this area for seven years. First Sprint, them Embarq, now CenturyLink. Ever since CenturyLink took over, the service is abysmal. I could count the previous service outages over the last six years on one hand. CenturyLink has outages or severe slowdowns at least once a month, and they usually last a week.
Support is useless, and gives the same excuses everytime.
There are no other better choices out here, the cable company is as bad.
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| | Only game in town, basically........ Unfortunately, CenturyLink is the only DSL provide. Cable is available but I left them due to their "overbooking", which caused massive latency in the peak hours. Only thing that will change this type of service is more competition. | |
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Review by Waldo10
member for 2.6 years, 0 visits, last login: 2.6 years ago
lodged 2.6 years ago
- Winterville,Pitt,NC
- $76 per month
- (12 month contract)
- "Installation was easy."
- "Inconsistant speeds at all times of the day, run around with customer service and tech support."
- "If there are other ISPs available try them first."
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My family and I live on the outskirts of town and we only have a few options available to us for internet services. We've tried satellite internet (Wild Blue), which was a joke, mobile broadband set up in a wireless router (Sprint Sierra Wireless Card and Cradlepoint MBR-1000 router), and CenturyLink's DSL. The mobile broadband has been the most successful form of internet to date and it doesn't even reach 512 kbps. Because of our location we can't receive internet from many places and CenturyLink was one of the few that seemed to have a better offer even if the speed wasn't quite as much as was wanted. We received a phone call stating that CenturyLink had made upgrades and that there was a 30 Day Trial available to us if we wanted to give it another try (we signed up earlier this year with no better luck). We signed up (with a package deal because we can't have JUST internet), received the 660HW modem/wireless router, and things started out okay, but we noticed that the speed wasn't any better than the mobile broadband card we had previously, so we called customer service. We found out that we had been signed up for the lowest speed offered, 256 kbps, and we were told that if we wanted to we could up our speed to 3 Mbps and we jumped at the chance. After all was said and done we noticed that our speed was a little faster but not by much. Again, we called customer service who transferred us to tech support and found out from them that our area did not support 3 Mbps and the highest available to us was 512 kbps. So, we moved to 512 kbps, and things were okay for a while, unfortunately things went downhill very quickly. We started to notice that the internet was starting to lag really bad and we ran several speed tests from speedtest.net. During off peak hours the slowest download speed I saw was 10 kbps and it eventually got up to 150 kbps. However, we were told, from tech support, that our speed should not drop below 20% of our highest speed. So, our speed should never have dropped below 410 kbps and here we were at 11pm, 2am. or 5:30am trying to get online and can't because the internet is so slow we lose any patience we have left, and give up. We were once again on the phone with tech support and we were then told that there was an outage nearby that was affecting us and they weren't sure when it would be fixed; it's been out since August and it's now October. We were also told by the same technician that the ports or portals, I can't remember which, for our area were oversold, so there were too many people using to few a number of ports available. Unfortunately, our 30 day trial was up and we were in our contract, so we took the chance of canceling our contract since we were told by a sales representative at our local CenturyLink Store that we were still in our trial period. According to customer service, the trial period was over and we'd have to pay $99 to cancel the contract. We told them we wouldn't pay the fee because they weren't providing the service they had promised and we were transferred to someone else who proceeded to tell us that we'd have to pay $200 to cancel the contract. Needless to say, we asked to speak with a supervisor and they finally waived the fee and we are now free from crappy service.
It was because of all of this crap that we had been put through in such a short amount of time that made us drop CenturyLink's internet service. They need to repair and upgrade their equipment properly, in a timely manner, and tell their sales people to stop selling what they don't have.
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| | Can I help? Waldo10,
Sorry that you all had the trouble that you did. I'll be glad to look into things if needed. Just IM me with your name and verify the account information and I'll see what I can find out. Sorry again.
Joey H
CenturyLink Customer Outreach
Reachout@CenturyLink.com | |
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Review by bmunsell
member for 2.6 years, 0 visits, last login: 2.6 years ago
lodged 2.6 years ago
- Gulf Shores,Baldwin,AL
- $89 per month
- CenturyTel
- "none"
- "Service, Support, Connectivity, Communication, Reliability"
- "No Other Viable Options"
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As with all other reviews of this terrible company, I am in the same boat. No other really viable options in my small town. Mediacom is available, used them for about 6 months but they are even worse than Centurytel. I am a web designer and run my own server out of a data center in Colorado. I constantly lose connection to my server, spend 2 hours on hold, ask for tier 2 support, threaten bodily harm, get manager, manager finds outage listing, tells me the whole city is down, process takes about 2 hours on average. Tonight I tried to bypass that by using online chat and was disconnected by their service rep John M. since that didnt work I had to once again go through the two hour support model. Never thought I would wish for the efficiency of indian phone support outsourcing....
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| | Can I help? Sorry to hear that you've been having issues with your service. I'll be glad to look into the issues for you. Just IM me your name, account info, and billing address. Hopefully we can shed some light onto the problems. Thanks.
Joey H
CenturyLink Customer Outreach
Reachout@CenturyLink.com | |
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Review by langleypaul
member for 2.6 years, 0 visits, last login: 2.6 years ago
lodged 2.6 years ago
- Franklin,Johnson,IN
- $71 per month
 about 1 days- "None"
- "Expensive, inconsistent speeds ind lately, service interuptions"
- "Need to find another isp solution"
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Service passed from Sprint to Embarq and now CenturyLink over a period of time. Reliability and support under Sprint and Embarq was reasonable. Since Century Link ( Oct or Nov 2009), we have experienced too many service interruptions and a noticeable performance downgrade. Hold time to speak with customer support is too long.
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| | DSL Speed I'm close to Lapel, IN. When Sprint had this phone company, we had no DSL out here in the boonies. We didn't get DSL until Embarq bought it. Centurylink bought it and it's no better. I'm at 1.5mbs and it stinks. 100k is tops and thats rare. A 31 to 56k average. I won't upgrade to a higher speed, when they can't get it right at the lower speeds. I bypassed the lines in the house and ran a line directly to the outside box, to the modem and PC and no changes. So it's not the house wiring. It's their system. Your paying for a system that is slow and probably won't get better without CenturyLink doing a upgrade to their phone system and wiring. And that's not going to happen. | |
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Review by drbonney
member for 8.1 years, 665 visits, last login: 5 days ago
updated 2.6 years ago
- Saint Peters,Saint Charles,MO
- $40 per month
- CenturyTel
- "None."
- "Customer Service is terrible."
- "Will change to Charter if they don't fix it."
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Update 9/10/10:
This summer my DSL got worse and worse. Over the last month it has been virtually unusable after 3:30 in the afternoon. I have called the Help Desk over and over. They make out a repair ticket each time but the problem has never been fixed. The tickets are closed out after a couple days with no improvement in my service. I am giving them until next Friday to fix this, if they can't or don't I am quitting CenturyLink and going with Charter.
Old Review:
I upgraded from 3mbps to 10mbps. I was told my Netopia Cayman 3300 modem would be ok for the upgrade. My download speed maxed at 6.8mbps. I did some research on my own and found that my modem max was 8mbps. I contacted tech support and they agreed I needed an ADSL2 modem. Customer Service didn't believe it until they talked to Tech Support who confirmed I needed a different modem. They sent me a Westell WireSpeed Dual Connect NAT Router (Model E90-610014-06). The installation was relatively painless and now my speed is 10.5mbps/750kbps. I test my speed with Speakeasy, the Centurytel Speed Test doesn't work right. The 10mbps service is supposed to be the same price as my 3mbps was (package price $40 mo), can't complain about that!
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Review by jdbob
member for 3.8 years, 1066 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
updated 2.7 years ago
- John Day,Grant,OR
- $44 per month
- about 4 days
- CenturyTel
- "Download Better than Tachyon Satellite"
- "Dynamic IP"
- "Not a lot of choices out in the boonies"
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Looked at Verizon mobile data but I'm not comfortable with Cell phone companies policy of just letting people run up absurd overages rather than just contacting the customer when they get close to their monthly limit.
CenturyTel just started offering their "Extended Internet" (which translates into we are too cheap to install a cabinet) recently to this area, at least officially. A couple of neighbors have contacts with local CT employees, so they were able to get it 6 months or more ago.
I called them on a Tuesday and received the modem friday morning by UPS. The lineman showed up in the afternoon but wasn't optimistic at that point about getting the signal here. He called later in the afternoon to inform me that I now had a connection, although there was a lot of noise on the line.
After about a week they got things fairly stable, now seems to stay synced at 352 down and 256 up instead of jumped all over the place. They charge me for 1.5Mb service in any case. Some test results at »/testhistory/1656151/adcfa
Update 19 Sept 2009: DSL and dial-tone dead since 18 Sept 2009 4PM. Neighbor had his go down the day before. Lineman told him the wiring is falling apart up here in the hills.
Update 21 Sept 2009: DSL back around 10AM, so that's about a 66 hour outage, not impressed.
Update 9 Oct. 2009: Ever since the outage the modem has been reporting a upload sync of 128 but only a margin of 1db. As a result actual upload speeds are in the range of 10kbs to 20kbs. Contacted Centurytel, both via phone in Louisiana and in person locally. In both cases they don't care.
Update 6 June 2010: PPPoE down from JUN 05 20:23:55 to JUN 06 10:56:52
Update 8 Sept. 2010: They added a cable to shorten the total cable length between my neighborhood and C.O. by bypassing a detour up the hill. Noise margin has improved, good enough for a higher connection speed but they are still limiting it to 256K/128K.
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