A Communications Company that Cannot Communicate.
We ordered their service in June, and they originally gave us a date at the end of June for the service to begin. Unfortunately, not one person at Centurylink was capable of understanding that they'd pulled their line back away from the house about a year and a half earlier - just because it was hanging too close over the road and it was easier than putting in another pole to support it (and we didn't have service with them at the time, since they didn't have internet out here yet).
Their corporate inability to understand had them back the date up by almost a week, and then another week, and then... they didn't communicate at all. After another couple of weeks, I called, and they said there was some difficulty with getting it installed, but they didn't know the details, because they use another company to do the actual physical work!
When we realized they were thinking (maybe) about running the line underground, we made it clear to anyone we spoke to that we wanted the line back on poles, as it had been before.
Over 2 months after it was originally supposed to be installed, they ran the line - underground, across our driveway, destroying a cattleguard, and across the yard and around the house. I give it 5 - 10 years before it's destroyed and has to be repaired when someone goes digging in the yard to install something else.
It's still not "installed," however, at this point. Now it's September 5, and there's a man in a Centurylink truck out in the field at the drop. I guess he's making the connection between what the last people put in the ground, and what comes down from the pole, itself. Centurylink called me Aug 28 to say that he'd be here on Aug 30. I told them to give me enough notice before arrival that I could arrange my schedule for them - I got a text 15 minutes before arrival.
Oops, he was in the field, but now is gone - without communicating a word.
They said they could get us at least an 8mg down speed, compared to the barely 3mg we get from Wave. They promised better reliability. The price is supposed to be $20 better.
After over 2 months since the original install date, I kinda hate their service, and I haven't even had the chance to use it yet.
update: Sept 13, 9:50am.
Sure, they got internet installed on Sept 5, but it's SLOW! This far out of town, they promised 8mb/s, but the absolute best it's managed thus far is 1.70. I called on Monday (09/10) to see if they can fix it, and promised a tech to come out on Tues (0911) between 8am and noon. Around 3pm the schedule was revised to start at 4:45pm until 6pm. It was late the next morning before the schedule was revised yet again to have someone out here between 8am and 5pm. This morning, I got a text at 7:15am saying a tech was coming, and when I checked the website, it said a tech would be here working from 7:15 until 8:50am. Nearly 10am, and still no tech - and after talking with support on the phone, I rechecked the website and it now says 3:19 - 4:54pm. Yet again, I'm trapped at home, unable to even shop for groceries, because I'm stuck waiting for someone who may never arrive. 2 1/2 months since they promised service would start, and it STILL doesn't work.
I feel bad that some poor soul working overnight in India had to deal with yet another irate customer on the phone, but this is really becoming a problem. I can't even take a test from my online college (WGU), because the bandwidth isn't high enough right now to deal with the online proctor! I'd use the hotspot from my phone, but it's too unreliable (ATT).
As of this point, I'd gladly leave a 0 star review, but it's not possible to go that low on Yelp. read more
