CenturyLink/DirectTV

[jill]

I have to think my experience is probably atypical or they'd be rioting
in the streets.  But, you asked I answer.  :)  

We switched to Qwest about a year and a half ago when they ran new fiber
through our neighborhood in Chandler.  No TV, just data on a business
account for static IP and all ports.  It was actually decent for a good
long while, never had to call in for support.  When we called for basic
account stuff they were easy to work with.  Speed varied quite a bit
from the advertised 'up to' we paid for, but eh - shared dsl/cable,
don't expect much.  Then from 6/12 to 7/15 we had 6 (known) outages in
excess of 60 minutes.  Everything from failed DSLAM cards and gateways
to 'oops we botched a vlan tag' and 'gee we don't know but hey it's
working now'.  Trying to deal with them on any of those was painful at
best and terribly enlightening.  There is nowhere in all of CL a DSL
subscriber, including a business account, can ever sit and talk face to
face about their account.  Only fiber/t1/pri circuit accounts get that.
Stores can only do sales, no account access at all.  I had one call
where I was transferred 8 times before being told that all departments
who could do account support were closed (at 6:30pm on a weekday, having
initiated the call at 4:40).  Their policy is to cold transfer calls so
you're constantly re-explaining - been told this policy by I think it's
been 3 different CL reps.  We're actively switching back to Cox right
now.  It's a bit pricier, but I know as both business or residential I
can go into stores and get help if I need to and on a business cable
account you get a real live human account rep.  So if that's the sort of
that's important to you, it's worth considering.  (full disclosure
disclaimer: I am also a former Cox employee, but we're talking 6 years
ago.  I've also worked for 2 other cable companies over the years prior
to that, so I recognize my ISP standards may be excessively high!)

I don't know if something might have changed at CL recently, especially
with Eric's experience that they changed residential port blocking in
June.  Your mileage of course may vary, but I'd hesitate to sign a
contract at least at first if you decide to try it out.

-- 
Jill


On 2012-07-26 01:19, Mark Astrauskas wrote:
> CenturyLink recently laid fiber in my area and is pitching their new 
> Internet/DirectTV service. Does anyone have recent experience with 
> CenturyLink's fiber offering or with DirectTV as well? It looks like I 
> could save a good amount every month and could even get a faster speed, 
> so I'm strongly considering it.
> 
> Yelp reviews are awful, but so are the Cox Cable ones (my current 
> provider), so I'm seeking any firsthand comments or experiences.
> 
> Thanks,
> Mark
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