Sunday, May 13, 2012

CenturyLink DSL


UPDATE: 5/24/2012:
So far, nothing has improved, in fact, it is worse. My current speed is at 0.86mbps here is the speed test: http://www.speedtest.net/result/1969011445.png
That last I have heard from CenturyLink DSL was that there is no way I could get 3.0mbps, my question to them was: "Then why have you been selling me that service since the summer of 2010, if you can't provide that speed?" There answer: silence. Before their silence, it was made clear to me that they were not happy with me complaining on Twitter.
I was advised by a few people to fight it, and to complain.Which I did this past weekend, with the FTC, FCC, BBB, and he Florida Dept. of Consumer Affairs.
Yesterday, I lost connection, and when it finally came back online, the speed was drastically lower.
Unfortunately, CenturyLink DSL is my only affordable choice right now.
My 14 year old stepson who has Aspergers' Syndrome loves the internet, and gets a lot of joy from watching youtube videos, and researching various interests cannot understand why he can't surf online like everybody else, no matter how much I've tried to explain it to him.



Since 2010, I've been paying for a 3.0mbps subscription to CenturyLink DSL ( formerly Embarq ).
I never got thos connection speeds, usually it was around 1.5mbps, and if I was lucky, I might get it almost up to 2.0mbps.
Being disabled, I rely heavily on the internet to do a lot of things. We are also cord or cable cutters, being that we can't afford
satelite TV or cable ( actually too far off the road for cable TV anyway ).
We are in a fringe area, which means we can't receive digital TV signals over the air with an outdoor antenna, so we could watch the local TV channels.
So we use our DSL to watch NetFlix, Hulu, and other streaming video programs on our Roku player.
I was getting frustrated with our problems with Hulu Plus, so I submitted a post to Twitter about it.
Hulu Plus confirmed that we need a 3.0mbps connection to get a decent feed of their videos.
CenturyLink @CenturyLinkHelp also replied saying they could help with my connection speed problems.
The technician came out yesterday, and ran some tests, and made a few tweaks, and said that we will
never get a 3.0mbps connection where we live ( even though I've been paying for that for almost 2 years now ).
He said in his opinion the best we could get is 1.5mbps , so he bumped it down from 3.0mbps and asked me to
test it out this weekend, and to let him know how it affects my connection on Monday.
So far, I can tell it is slower. I'm now getting about 1.36mbps connection speed, see my results from:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1948440806.png
I worry about how it is going to affect my participation with www.virtualphotowalks.com on Google Plus Hangouts.
My bandwidth may still be OK enough to participate, but time will tell. I may have to tell the tech to bump it
back up to 3.0mbps and take it as a loss.
My question is this: Why would CenturyLink willingly, and knowingly charge me for a 3.0mbps subscription, when I would only get 1.5mbps, or less?
What do I want? I want my 3.0.mbps connection that I have been paying for all along.
I have also been participating in the FCC SamKnows Broadband performance tracking at: http://www.testmyisp.com/

I've reached out for help at Twitter also: https://twitter.com/#!/wolfcrane/status/201994356465475585



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