![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Jul. 8th, 2012 10:16 pmBoy, you'd think tech companies didn't actually WANT you to understand their pricing or products. After a 9 day outage on our cable, including our Internet, I decided to try DSL instead.
CenturyLink offers six months at $29.99 for a 7Mbps download speed. That's a nice saving over the current charge of $50 for our Comcast Internet. But wait... if you dig through the offer details, after six months, the rate goes up to $45, for a slower download speed - Comcast currently gives us around 12Mbps.
Well, OK, but DSL is advertised as a dedicated, CONSISTENT speed. Cable speeds can vary with demand, so DSL still sounds like a good enough deal. Until you read through the agreement for DSL from CenturyLink:
"Download speeds will be up to 15% slower due to network requirements and may vary for reasons such as customer location, websites accessed, Internet congestion and customer equipment. Consistent speed claim is based on CenturyLink providing High-Speed Internet (HSI) subscribers with a dedicated, virtual circuit connection to the CenturyLink central office."
Yes, I realize many of those things are out of their control - but this sounds like KYA language to me. So the speed may be 5.95Mbps on a good day (allowing for the 15% management overhead), but may go down to ... what? No idea. Better read some reviews.
You can't fault Centurylink for their honesty - they allow customers to post reviews of their DSL on their own website. I know, that means they'll all be good reviews doesn't it? The marketing guys will weed out the bad ones, but hey, it's worth a look...
The first TEN reviews were all bad, from 'marginally deficient' to 'downright awful'. I didn't read further - maybe they don't HAVE any good reviews.
Still, I could give it a one month try. The six month period is listed as 'no term commitment'. Just checking the fine print... Early termination: Full payment of remaining months of offer period, up to $200. Well, that sucks.
I'd like to leave Comcast behind, but it sounds like I might be jumping out the fry pan into the fire with DSL. and we don't have any other companies or options in Albuquerque. Scratches head....
CenturyLink offers six months at $29.99 for a 7Mbps download speed. That's a nice saving over the current charge of $50 for our Comcast Internet. But wait... if you dig through the offer details, after six months, the rate goes up to $45, for a slower download speed - Comcast currently gives us around 12Mbps.
Well, OK, but DSL is advertised as a dedicated, CONSISTENT speed. Cable speeds can vary with demand, so DSL still sounds like a good enough deal. Until you read through the agreement for DSL from CenturyLink:
"Download speeds will be up to 15% slower due to network requirements and may vary for reasons such as customer location, websites accessed, Internet congestion and customer equipment. Consistent speed claim is based on CenturyLink providing High-Speed Internet (HSI) subscribers with a dedicated, virtual circuit connection to the CenturyLink central office."
Yes, I realize many of those things are out of their control - but this sounds like KYA language to me. So the speed may be 5.95Mbps on a good day (allowing for the 15% management overhead), but may go down to ... what? No idea. Better read some reviews.
You can't fault Centurylink for their honesty - they allow customers to post reviews of their DSL on their own website. I know, that means they'll all be good reviews doesn't it? The marketing guys will weed out the bad ones, but hey, it's worth a look...
The first TEN reviews were all bad, from 'marginally deficient' to 'downright awful'. I didn't read further - maybe they don't HAVE any good reviews.
Still, I could give it a one month try. The six month period is listed as 'no term commitment'. Just checking the fine print... Early termination: Full payment of remaining months of offer period, up to $200. Well, that sucks.
I'd like to leave Comcast behind, but it sounds like I might be jumping out the fry pan into the fire with DSL. and we don't have any other companies or options in Albuquerque. Scratches head....
