Using Century Link?

[Tom Johnson]

All:

In today's mail I have my bill from Comcast, which has suddenly gone up $40 and I'm not sure why.  I have the 3-part package plan.  In the same mail comes a flyer from CenturyLink promoting "high-speed internet at a price that won't change for 5 years -- $20 p/m."  CenturyLink claims "Speeds up to 12 mbps."

I assume CenturyLink is only DSL.  Does anyone on the list have any experience with CenturyLink?

-tj

--

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J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --   Santa Fe, NM USA
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[Gary Lee Nelson]

My comcast jumped $40 when I started my second year with them.

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[Dena Aquilina]

I am using CL - have high speed wireless with them and have been pleased with the service; the one time there was a problem they were quite helpful and it was fixed right away. Dena --- On Fri, 11/16/12, Gary Lee Nelson <gne...@oberlin.edu> wrote:

[Chad Kieffer]

I'm curious to know which Comcast service plan you have and what the plan's data rates are. 

I believe I have the basic plan at approximately $55 or $60 per month. 

Any CNSP or Cybermesa wireless subscribers out there? 

[Tom Johnson]

Chad,  et al. --

We have the 3-play plan, which was about $114 p/m but after a years, I guess, jumped to $140 a month.  And my extras are a Comcast cable modem ($7 p/m), supposedly high-speed internet ($10p/m) and an extra decoder box ($1.99) to bring digital to a third TV.  So the whole package comes to $180p/m including about $10 in strange taxes.

-tj

[drew einhorn]

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 3:49 PM, Tom Johnson <t...@jtjohnson.com> wrote:

 

In the same mail comes a flyer from CenturyLink promoting "high-speed internet at a price that won't change for 5 years -- $20 p/m."  CenturyLink claims "Speeds up to 12 mbps."

I assume CenturyLink is only DSL.  Does anyone on the list have any experience with CenturyLink?

Century link has many kinds of DSL.  I don't have all the acronyms, and terminology correct.

And CL does't like to talk about the details, because it's confusing, and it depends on a lot of things:

• the kind of dsl modem you have
• the distance between your location and the box that serves your neighborhood.
• the equipment in the neighborhood box.
• the connection between your neighborhood box and the next box upstream
• the capabilities of the upstream box
• yada, yada, yada

You will have to talk to CL to find out what options are available at your location.

At my location the best I can get now is a pitiful 1536 kilo bit/sec down and 896k up.

CL says the are upgrading my neighborhood box to support 12 mega bit/sec down.  I don't remember the up speed.  But, I have a vague recollection of 3m up. I need to call CL Monday morning and find out what's happening.  The last I heard was that the upgrades would be done and improved service would be available in October.  But it didn't happen.

Unfortunately, I'm too far from the neighborhood box.  I'll be stuck at 896k up.  But, I should be able to get a faster download speed.  And, I won't have to upgrade my modem.  

CL and satellite are the only options in my neighborhood.  CL's current dsl is better than any reasonably priced satellite service I've heard of.

 

I hope your options are better.

--
Drew Einhorn

"You can see a lot by just looking."
  --  Yogi Berra

[Owen Densmore]

On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 12:36 AM, drew einhorn <drew.e...@gmail.com> wrote:

<snip>

At my location the best I can get now is a pitiful 1536 kilo bit/sec down and 896k up.

Me to, very annoying.  I have a cybermesa (local santa fe isp) DSL account and I believe they resell CL bandwidth.

I find it interesting that DSL is finding ways to improve service.  I thought the problems were twisted pair limitations.  Possibly they are finding nifty new stunts?  I know bonding multiple lines is possible.

   -- Owen

[Edward Angel]

You can get good bandwidth from twisted pair over short distances. Quest had to upgrade the lines and interfaces to get within around 1/2 mile of your house before it could make DSL available. When we started build our house 10 years ago near SFI, neither cable or DSL was available even though the cable and CAT5 were in the ground locally. Within a year both Comcast and Quest were offering us cable and DSL.

Ed

__________

Ed Angel

Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

1017 Sierra Pinon

Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home)   an...@cs.unm.edu

505-453-4944 (cell)  http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel

[Bruce Sherwood]

I'll comment that we had reasonably high-speed internet access (for the US) with Comcast, but they couldn't keep it working, and typically denied there were problems when we had no service. The final straws were that twice a service visit was scheduled and no one came, but their records showed that someone had come. So we switched to Century Link DSL, which in our part of town (near the intersection of Old Santa Fe Trail and Old Pecos Trail) is relatively low speed (speedtest.net today says 2.6 Mbps download, 0.5 Mbps upload), but the service is highly reliable, the opposite of the situation with ComCast.

I was told that if we lived just slightly closer to downtown Santa Fe Century Link could offer us much higher speed.

Bruce

[Tom Johnson]

Thanks, Bruce.  Since we are farther from downtown than you are, even by a small bit, then I guess I shall stick with Comcast and literally pay the price.

-tom

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[drew einhorn]

On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 1:36 PM, Bruce Sherwood <bruce.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

Century Link DSL, which in our part of town (near the intersection of Old Santa Fe Trail and Old Pecos Trail) is relatively low speed (speedtest.net today says 2.6 Mbps download, 0.5 Mbps upload), but the service is highly reliable, the opposite of the situation with ComCast.

speedtest.net has gotten a lot spiffier since the last time I looked. 

When choosing a server zoom out a bit and pick some interesting servers.  And run a bunch of tests.  

Then go to "compare my results" and click on sever comparison,  and try to make sense of the graphs.  

I just realized my wife started streaming from netflix in the middle of my initial testing.  The conclusions I was reaching are bogus!

-- 

[drew einhorn]

On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 2:20 PM, Tom Johnson <t...@jtjohnson.com> wrote:

Thanks, Bruce.  Since we are farther from downtown than you are, even by a small bit, then I guess I shall stick with Comcast and literally pay the price.

Call CenturyLink and ask.

The answer might be quite different than what you are expecting.

 

[Owen Densmore]

Big bump .. but: I now have both cable (comcast/xfinity) as well as DSL (cybermesa).

The differences are dramatic in terms of speed test, but I'll wait for a few months just in case there is truth to the usual conspiracy theories.

I get around 30Mb down, 5-6Mb up cable, and 1.5Mb down, .5Mb up dsl.

On the other hand, for every day use, it makes little difference.  But for large backups and youtube videos, its quite obvious.

On the other hand, the day after I finally got comcast to work with my house wifi, it went down and because I had a spare airport operating the dsl line, it was trivial to switch over.

I found comcast to have better customer service than rumored.  The hookup guy was able to deal with difficulties within our house wiring and to get me running on my laptop.  On the other hand, they can't manage Apple Airports of any kind .. they do not use the usual webpage administration but have their own app .. which does run on windows I think but is a bit too complex for comcast.

I plan on keeping both for at least a year to have redundancy and to see how they evolve.  DSL is apparently pushing to get neighborhood hubs which give reasonable performance. 

   -- Owen

--

[Bruce Sherwood]

Alas, for us the operative phrase was yours: "On the other hand, the day after I finally got comcast to work with my house wifi, it went down". Comcast was fast, but it doesn't matter how fast when it's down, and it eventually got into a state where it was down for many days. First they claimed there was no problem, then they repeatedly set up an appointment for a technician to come who never came, and finally we got Century Link DSL, whose speed today is 2.7 Mbps down, 0.5 Mbps up. Not great, but it never goes down.

Bruce

[Roger Critchlow]

I've been speed testing Xfinity since February, because videos stopped playing reliably after I finished the Hamming lectures.  From March 12 to today, Comcast has been delivering reliably less than 1Mbps download over 40 tests.  Speed test rates the performance as a D+ on the national curve.  My bill says "high speed internet" but doesn't make any further qualifications as to what that might mean.  The name of my service doesn't even agree with any of the named service classes on the Comcast web site.

What's maddening are the endless ads on cable where someone who looks like Ed Angel keeps harping on how "awesome" Xfinity is.

Basically, you're on a bus with whoever else subscribes in your neighborhood.  If one of your neighbors decides to upgrade their service, then Xfinity changes the priorities on the bus to reapportion the bandwidth on the bus.  So they get the neighborhood to bid against itself to constantly reallocate a fixed amount of internet service.   When everyone on the bus segment is bitching about how horrible the service is, then they might adjust the segments, but why bother otherwise if the money keeps rolling in.  

-- rec --

On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 11:45 AM, Bruce Sherwood <bruce.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

Alas, for us the operative phrase was yours: "On the other hand, the day after I finally got comcast to work with my house wifi, it went down". Comcast was fast, but it doesn't matter how fast when it's down, and it eventually got into a state where it was down for many days. First they claimed there was no problem, then they repeatedly set up an appointment for a technician to come who never came, and finally we got Century Link DSL, whose speed today is 2.7 Mbps down, 0.5 Mbps up. Not great, but it never goes down.

Bruce

--

[Owen Densmore]

Good points .. and indeed why I plan to keep both for a year.

The xfinity offer was a middle tier, not the lower one.  And I opted to go up another level as well, because they say you can drop down anytime you'd like.  Also the word "blast" is used, not sure what that means.  I'll report back when I get the bill.

Finally, I bought my own modem rather than use theirs.  The setup is:

    Motorola SB6121 Cable Modem and AirPort Extreme

Was a bit difficult to get the airport running, but eventually, after reverting to factory settings, it all works now.

   -- Owen

[Steve Smith]

I envy all of you!   I am *happy* to have what I do, but your worst days sound like my best ones!

Have you considered starting a mesh in your neighborhood on top of your own connectivity?   I assume you can grow a mesh that crosses service areas such that when the Cable or DSL (even) goes down in your neighborhood, you can (temporarily) draw off of surrounding ones?   Is there more than just 1 Telco and 1 Cable infrastructure most places (seems likely) in town?   Is the only other option Satellite?  Even dedicated Telco is going to use the same infrastructure, right?

I know ISPs want to keep you from "sharing" but if you are not abusing them, just increasing *everyone's* quality of service, it seems like they could overlook it.  Even encourage it?

I always leave my own routers open for guests and/neighbors to use incidentally... I have (otherwise) fairly good internet hygiene so don't worry too much about security.  Unfortunately I am alone.  My 3 neighbors (also on TewaCom) used my open router (at my suggestion) to test the quality, etc.  but when they set got up, they locked theirs down.  Why?   You have to practically be in one of our yards to steal the signal...  you can never be too safe!  I recently spent a week without internet back and forth with Tewacom only to discover that the problem was a flakey wallwart feeding DC to the antenna/receiver.  It looked like *them* dropping me.   A quick hop onto a neighbor's network would have indicated the problem was not their tower/router but my own end.

When in Berkeley I was the only open router among dozens (7 years ago now!) and every once in a while I'd feel boggy and go look to see... I had dozens of freeloaders.   I could shake them off and most would not return for days or weeks.  I suspect it was only *one* of them bogging me with a torrent server or worse.  I would have liked it better if there were three or four of us to share the freeloaders load and to cross borrow when needed.   But nooo! you can never be too safe.

My service (last 4 years) is a Motorola Canopy (Microwave Link) managed by the local Pueblo (think third world bus with chickens and goats on top with you, lucky to have gotten a ride at all).   I paid for the higher speed service (nominally 3MB up 1 down) but I see no difference from the 1.5 up, .5 down I started with.   I rarely see over 1/2 the rated speed and usually much less.   The base station shooting my direction is on a water tower powered only by a solar system.  This is very greeen and all, but during bad weeks in the winter we get huge dropouts (hours, days) and very diminished service (not sure why it degrades any way but abrupt?).   I'm guessing someone drives to the tower and recharges the batteries by generator eventually because it often comes back before the sun does.

I'm of the opinion that if those of us who want and can afford it pay the premium that maybe that will help them get over whatever economic and technological humps they have to go forward.  Unfortunately Pueblo Politics (not that different from any other, just smaller scale and sometimes smaller minded) get in the way.  A year ago they fired their excellent (non Pueblo) network manager and took on some folks from inside the fold as well as (I think, it is opaque) deferring a lot to a commercial service in Espanola.   The result is more spotty service than ever.

I kept my Wild Blue for a year overlapping TewaCom but never bothered to set up multiple routing... just used Wild Blue as a backup if/when Tewa went down.... they were much more reliable the first year of service than the most recent year.   Wild Blue was 100% up (from my perspective) but both limited in latency and their answer to bandwidth was after reaching a monthly quota they dropped speed radically (1/10?) to almost unusable.   I understood that satellites were  expensive and scarce, so wasn't offended... just inconvenienced.  My wife started streaming video "because she could" and never quite grasped that this was self-defeating beyond the most incidental usage.  It got to where burned our quota in a week and limped for three then burned it again.  Short of network traffic shaping at our router I had no solutions.

There *is* no DSL or Cable to my (rural) location.   At best I might get  a feed from Grappa (same tech as Tewa) but I think they are defunct and shooting off of SF Baldy (or wherever) is probably much less reliable than the 1 mile shot I get from San I's water tower.  Black Rock in Los Alamos could give me a similar link, but probably just as marginal as Grappa and much more expensive (dedicating one antenna to me alone).  I can (barely) see SF Baldy and Pajarito through gaps in the hills around me...

 I have tethering with my ATT plan but even with a repeater only get Edge at home and then only marginally...  I tether in Denver, SFO, PDX with 3G and burn through my 1GB prepaid pretty quickly... and at $15/GB additional couldn't use it as a replacement.   I have a friend in ABQ who plugs his Verizon Dongle into a (Buffalo?) router alongside his DSL modem.  He is grandfathered into an unlimited Verizon plan but still sets his parameters to prefer the DSL as long as it is there.  He gets *no* interruptions in service this way even though both systems have their moments on their own.

I pay $69.99 for "High Speed"...  I think "Regular" is $49.99...  My ATT tethering is no extra cost, but when used clocks in at $15/GB after the first.   I also have a prepaid T-Mo at $3/day unlimited but can get *no* data at my house from it.

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[Jack Stafurik]

I recently dumped my Dish Network and am going Internet (Antenna TV is problematic here in Los Alamos). I have an Earthlink DSL service through Centurylink which I have been using for about 10 years now. Using a Roku box, I find there is a large variety of free and paid stuff available, although much of it is dated if you want the very latest. One of my channels tested my internet speed and complained that it was too slow. (I was getting consistently about 2 Mbps download speeds). I called Earthlink, and they upped it to the next level at no cost, so now I am getting about 5 Mbps. At no time during my time with them had they told me there were even different levels of service! I guess you need to complain to find out what they can do for you.

[Edward Angel]

Is what's madding the content of the ad or that you have to watch someone who looks like me?

Ed

__________

Ed Angel

Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico

1017 Sierra Pinon

Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home)   an...@cs.unm.edu

505-453-4944 (cell)  http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel

[Roger Critchlow]

Both.  Your doppelganger wouldn't be so bad if he weren't mouthing such BS.

-- rec --