Adam Hunt <[email protected]> wrote: > As much as I may hate admitting it, switching back to Comcast after a year > with CenturyLink was one of the best decisions I've made in quite awhile > (though, it might be that I make an inordinate amount of suboptimal > decisions). > .. > I guess what I'm saying is that I have a hard time even imagining how bad > my service through CL was. 240 millisecond ping times weren't uncommon. > Actually, 240 ms wasn't even all that bad in the scheme of things. I'm not > a gamer but the latency would often get so bad that I wasn't able to hold > an SSH or VPN connection together, it was almost like being on a satellite > connection (e.g. HughesNet, dishNet, Blue Sky, etc...). > > Please, unless something drastic happens, stay away from CenturyLink at all > costs.
I agree with you on CL's customer service - it's pretty poor and there is a lack of coordination between the actual CS dept and the Sales dept. As for the quality of the service I think it is at least somewhat dependent on your distance to the exchange, the state of those old copper lines, and your modem. I'm in SE PDX, very close to an exchange and the lines have mostly been upgraded except for the drop to our house. All the interior wiring has upgraded as well and routed away from EMI sources. On to the modem.. The residential modems CL sells - mine is an Actiontec C1000 - get rather hot and we all know what too much heat does to electronics. I was able to rig a 5V fan (scavenged from a laptop cooler) and power it off the near-useless USB host port on the modem. Stays very cool now. Anyway, minus the drop to the house, things are as good as they can be and I'm getting pretty much the advertised speeds, though it does vary some depending on the time of day. Uploads are capped at like 789kbs but for me it's enough. I use ssh sessions a lot and they've been pretty stable; some have stayed up for weeks at a time. The IP is dynamic but only changes maybe every 6 weeks. Netflix streaming is very good, even over a wireless link. VoIP (not via CL) is also good. I'm guessing that a business accounts are a much better experience though likely at 2-3x the residential rates. _______________________________________________ dorkbotpdx-blabber mailing list [email protected] http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/dorkbotpdx-blabber
