# No internet for 2 days... Damn century link



## woodchucker (Sep 10, 2021)

It's been 2 days of no internet. Lost it yesterday around 10am.
century link said it would be back by 8pm...
2 minutes before 8 we lost power until 2 am... 
get on this morning nothing. no internet.

I'm using my neighbors service now, a different provider. They went back to cable.

I have been seeing people comment they have been down for more than a week. and century link says I should be up by 11pm... well yesterday it was 8pm.

Damn frustrating.


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## aliva (Sep 10, 2021)

Time to change providers.


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## NCjeeper (Sep 10, 2021)

I feel your pain. I have Century link also. Only game in town out here in the sticks. Takes me 4-6 hours on the average to upload a Youtube video. It is so painful.


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## Lo-Fi (Sep 10, 2021)

Starlink.... My mate a few hours away gets 220Mbps down, 20Mbps up. Rock solid since they completed phase 1. He's absolutely thrilled with it.


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## NCjeeper (Sep 10, 2021)

Yeah 6-8 month wait I was told when I checked into it.


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## woodchucker (Sep 11, 2021)

no internet again today. called, and the automated support tells me my connection is resolved.... no it's not.
get on with a human (robot)  he reads the script ... I do what he wants... no internet.
he looks and says theres an outage .. I said, I know, I told you that, I said when's it going to be resolved. He says he doesn't know the last time they updated it is 9/7 at 7:49pm.  that's days ago... WTF..

wife is finally agreeing to move her financials to a gmail, and damn the torpedos.

century link is so useless. my other choice is also useless... but I'll be going back to them to get high speed. my current 6mb down is very spotty and my .5mb up is useless.


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## woodchucker (Sep 13, 2021)

again the automated system tells me there's no outages in the area (while my neighbor tells me that a facebook for our town tells the story of hundreds of people without internet).. after waiting over an hour to speak to someone, the queue rang , then hung up on me.

Even though I have been out since last Thurs, they tell me I have never reported a problem, I have no tickets open. 

WTF is wrong with century link... if you ever move to an area with it.... DON'T. Some people on the facebook site tell that century link is not crediting them for the outage.  so don't provide a service but charge for it anyway...

sometimes you understand how people can go postal... I'm not even close, but I'm not a happy camper...I just want a date.


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## RJSakowski (Sep 13, 2021)

We have Centurylink as well.  I used to have to fight them every time the internet went out.  They would insist that the problem was on my end and they would send out a repairman to correct the problem.  If the problem turned out to be in my equipment or wiring, I would be billed for the service call. Before calling, I would make it a point to check everything out.  It helped to call the neighbors and verify that they had lost service as well.

We happen to be on a dead end run for service with a half mile of copper exclusively for us. The nearest fiber optic terminus is over a mile away so the best we can do is about 3.5 Mb/s on download and .75 Mb/s on upload.  Centurylink got a huge grant to upgrade rural service in Wisconsin around ten years ago but we never saw any of it.

Lately, our internet has been dropping out for short periods of time and then coming back on line.  The latest was this morning.  Their service is bad but there isn't another option.  With the Covid pandemic and prople working from home anf remote schooilong, those of us in a rural setting are ar a distinct disadvantage.


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## FOMOGO (Sep 13, 2021)

They all suck. Maximize profit, minimize service. That's the corporate credo. Mike


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## woodchucker (Sep 14, 2021)

well, 6 days without internet.
I went to the cable company and picked up a modem, I now have internet through them.  Century link is still a black hole sucking in all manner of brain cells and good feelings. nothing comes out of the black hole.

we have to keep our century link while we move any accounts off of our old emails.. I called century link again today.. again I was disconnected after waiting a long time... I kind of wonder.. is it intentional, is it just total incompetence, or do they want us off their system.


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## woodchucker (Sep 16, 2021)

Just keeping a log here.. still no centurylink internet.  They actually sent an email asking how things were going, how did I like the service and were things resolved properly.

enjoying our new service using the cable company. I imagine a lot of people in my town and surrounding towns will be dropping these bastards.


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## Winegrower (Sep 16, 2021)

woodchucker said:


> Just keeping a log here.. still no centurylink internet. They actually sent an email asking how things were going, how did I like the service and were things resolved properly.



My cell phone died and I went to Xfinity to order another.  Got on the website to where you can order a phone, logged into my account and the security scheme asked “what is the 6 digit code we just sent to your cell phone”.

Who thinks of these things??


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## RJSakowski (Sep 16, 2021)

We are looking around for an alternative.  We also use Centurylink for voice.  The hills surrounding us preclude using cell phones.  We also make a number of international calls each month so international rates are a concern.  There is talk of installing land based repeaters for high speed internet but I haven't heard anything lately.
One consideration is VOIP and possibly Starlink.  One of our neighbors got Starlink as a beta site and is happy with th service.  However, we still have a landline if the power goes out which we will lose if we switch to a satellite service.


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## woodchucker (Sep 16, 2021)

@RJSakowski  I hear ya, we keep a land line.. we are dinosaurs around here. I can't see dropping a land line yet.  Our cell service here is spotty. Go in one room and you lose it.. It is a lot better than it used to be though.


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## woodchucker (Sep 19, 2021)

still no century link. How do they stay in business? they have to be totally incompetent managers to think this is ok.I can't get them to respond, I have asked for a supervisor, and they tell me that's not possible.  I figure in 2 months we'll be off them completely.. no more email from them.l


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## RJSakowski (Sep 19, 2021)

I got my monthly from Centurylink last week. $180 for voice and low speed DSL.


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## rwm (Sep 20, 2021)

I thought Spectrum was the worst company on the planet. Apparently they might be second.  In Charlotte, I am paying $99/mo for 300mbs. No voice or TV. Problem is my brother pays $29 for the same service in the next county. What a scam. I actually fault the regulators for letting this happen. Without starting a political debate, I feel like the FCC has the power to level this playing field.
By the way, I have a tip for you. If you have an unresolvable problem with a cable company, file an FCC complaint. Surprisingly, not that many get filed and the company is required to resolve it in a timely fashion. I filed a billing fraud complaint against Time Warner and I got a call from a supervisor who resolved the issue over the phone. You can do all this online (assuming you have working internet!!!!)
Robert


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## higgite (Sep 20, 2021)

woodchucker said:


> They went back to cable.


Sounds like a reasonable and less frustrating solution. No?

Tom


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## Joe F (Sep 20, 2021)

woodchucker said:


> It's been 2 days of no internet. Lost it yesterday around 10am.
> century link said it would be back by 8pm...
> 2 minutes before 8 we lost power until 2 am...
> get on this morning nothing. no internet.
> ...


After years of similar frustrations with US West/Qwest/Century Link, and really slow speeds (2.3Mbs), I switched to Starlink when it became available last year. Am very happy with it!  It has never gone down in that time. Speed varies but averages about 90Mbs. 
Joe


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## woodchucker (Sep 20, 2021)

higgite said:


> Sounds like a reasonable and less frustrating solution. No?
> 
> Tom


I already did, the problem was the wife didn't want to change all the emails for our financial.  but now we have done that.


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## RJSakowski (Aug 22, 2022)

Reviving an old thread.   Caution Long Rant!
Our Centurylink internet service has been poor at best the last two weeks.  At worst, it has been virtually nonexistent.  We are paying for 4.75 Mbs DSL service and have been plagued with connection drops as many as twenty times in a day.  When the connection is up, the speed drops to sub Mbs, often as low as old dial up speeds.  Ten days ago, I called up Centurylink customer service and got the usual song and dance about reboot the modem, disconnect the power and phone cables and reconnect, stand on your head and recite I am an idiot three times and so on before the expert finally stated that there was nothing further that they could do and a service technician would have to be dispersed.  They said a repair ticket would be issued and a service technician would be sent, arriving three days hence between 8 AM and 5 PM and someone should be present to allow the technician access with a charge of $99 for non-compliance.
_"If our technician is dispatched and no trouble is found in our facilities, you must
be available to allow access to the wiring and equipment on your premise or be available to meet
with our technician. If you deny access or an adult is not available on premise, a charge of up to
$99 will apply. Inside Wire Protection would NOT cover the cost of this trouble isolation
( 28m 47s ) Sri K: While I am getting the ticket together, I would like to tell you about our Inside
Wire Protection Plan that can protect you from unexpected repair costs. If the trouble is
determined to be on our side of the Network Interface Device no charges would apply. However, if
the trouble is isolated to your side, a charge of up to $95 will apply. Inside Wire Protection would
cover thWhile I am getting the ticket together, I would like to tell you about our Inside Wire
Protection Plan that can protect you from unexpected repair costs. If the trouble is determined to
be on our side of the Network Interface Device no charges would apply. However, if the trouble is
isolated to your side, a charge of up to $99 will apply. _

So on the designated day, I sat around the house, waiting for the service technician to show up which he did around 1 PM.  We started going through the connections starting in their box and ending at the modem.  Three bad connections were found; one inside in my wiring and two in their box.  By bad, I mean broken wires. Finding three simultaneous faults strongly implies that the faults are not the root cause of the failure but a symptom.  In this case, I suspected a lightning induced transient.  The wiring was completely redone and the the line tested and it checked out fine.  The modem booted up at 4.79 Mbs, the highest it has ever been, and everything looked great. 

As the technician was leaving, I asked him to keep the ticket open as intermittents have a nasty way of biting you in the burr just when you think you have them licked.  He told me that they weren't able to keep tickets open but he gave me his cell phone number in case the problem recurred.  All was fine for two days  but then, they're back!   I called the technician to inform him and he told me that he could no longer initiate a repair ticket and I would have to contact Centurylink to start the process.  He suggested going through their online chat for faster service which I did. 

After going through the automated gobbledygook about reboot the modem, disconnect the power and phone cables and reconnect, stand on your head and recite I am an idiot three times, etc. the the automated response said I would have to chat with one of their expert service technicians.  Here is the transcript of that chat:
_Chat Started: Friday, August 19, 2022, 14:14:47 (-0500)
Chat Origin: Rpr ENS Cons Data
Agent Sri K
( 4s ) Sri K: All technical support chats may be recorded for quality assurance and training
purposes. Thank you for contacting CenturyLink.
You are speaking with Sri, please give me a moment to review the information you provided.
( 51s ) Sri K: Hi, Thank you for contacting CenturyLink, While I am pulling your account
information, could you please help me with your alernate callback number?
( 1m 23s ) Robert Sakowski: redacted phone no.
( 2m 10s ) Sri K: Thank you for confirming, kindly share your email address for future update
( 3m 17s ) Robert Sakowski: redacted email address
( 3m 56s ) Sri K: Thank you for confirming
( 4m 21s ) Sri K: how may i help you?
( 5m 56s ) Robert Sakowski: We have had problems with a intermittent dsl connection for some
time now. A service ticket was initiated and a technician came out. Several bad connections were
found and repaired. The connection is still intermittent. The original ticket no. was 615863. I
called the repair technician and he asked me to request another repair ticket.
( 7m 29s ) Sri K: Please allow me 2 minutes so that I can search more information regarding the
issue.
( 11m 53s ) Sri K: I would like to set you up to receive digital communications from CenturyLink,
this would include updates on items such as your orders, repair tickets and billing statuses.
( 12m 39s ) Robert Sakowski: OK
( 14m 57s ) Sri K: , I'm sorry to hear that your internet is not working. I will run some tests to
identify the issue. Can you tell me what is the color of the lights on the modem, please?
( 20m 11s ) Sri K: are we still connected?
( 21m 24s ) Robert Sakowski: The internet is working at the moment. However it goes out
intermittently. All the connections were redone by the technician up to the service box.
( 22m 17s ) Sri K: May I ask if the Intermittent is affecting both wired and wireless devices or just
the wireless?
( 22m 32s ) Robert Sakowski: At he moment the connection is shown as poor on the modem and it
may go out at any time.
( 23m 14s ) Robert Sakowski: Wireless is and was working fine throughout .
( 23m 37s ) Sri K: Can you please check and confirm if the DSL wire is directly connected to wall
jack and there is no filter/splitter attached to the modem?
( 24m 46s ) Robert Sakowski: The technician wired separate lines from your service box for dsl
and voice.
( 25m 31s ) Sri K: I'll certainly assist you with this issue. Please give me a minute or 2.
( 27m 29s ) Sri K: I have tested your connection remotely; however, a technician needs to come
out to ensure that it does not go down again. Commitment DateMon, Aug 22nd 2022
Earliest Time08:00 AM_
That was last Friday.  Today, Monday, after waiting around the house for seven hours, I went to their online app only to find out that a repair ticket had not been generated.  I went into their chat site, went through the the song and dance to find out why and was told that another repair ticket would be initiated.  Again, nothing happened so I called the service technician.  He told me that he would contact his supervisor and have him generate the repair ticket.  So we go yet another day or more with worse than usual internet service because of ineptitude on the part of Centurylink and its employees.


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## woodchucker (Aug 22, 2022)

They are still my phone service... useless. They are being sold to BrightSpeed... Can they be worse than Century Stink..??? It's a very low bar to be better, but yea I suppose they can be worse.  I have a friend I play volleyball with, he's still on with Century Stink, and has had no service for 2 weeks now. What can you say about that kind of poor service.


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## 7milesup (Aug 22, 2022)

@RJSakowski I would redact your phone number and email in that post.  Maybe not a big deal but bots can troll the internet looking for numbers to sell to scammers.

One option regarding the poor service is to contact your state politician.  Tell them that doing any sort of online business is impossible because of the speeds and poor service.  Sometimes this gets their attention.  The FCC report is valuable too.  In Wisconsin, we have the *Office of Consumer Protection*, which sometimes will go to bat for you.  A couple of their representatives are guests on WPR occasionally with good tips on how to get stuff done.


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## Jubil (Aug 23, 2022)

All this sounds exactly like my experiences with Windstream. They must be using the same people for tech support because they are using the same protocols, even the verbiage. But the bill will be the same unless you call and tell them how long it was out. Then they look on their records and verify the outage. Amazing how that works, huh?

Chuck


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## woodchucker (Aug 23, 2022)

Same experience here, after a month of no internet I get the bill and they bill me. I call and get push back, and eventually they drop the charge.  Funny how bad companies can be.

Back in the 90s I worked for ATT, I bought a cell phone on one of their employee days. The last day of the month. They charged me for that month, even though the phone hadn't been sent yet. They refused to remove that month, saying I signed up during the month and therefore the charge was valid.. They said read the fine print. Needless to say I never bought a phone from them again, I also left them .. Such dishonest BS.


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## RJSakowski (Aug 23, 2022)

7milesup said:


> @RJSakowski I would redact your phone number and email in that post.  Maybe not a big deal but bots can troll the internet looking for numbers to sell to scammers.
> 
> One option regarding the poor service is to contact your state politician.  Tell them that doing any sort of online business is impossible because of the speeds and poor service.  Sometimes this gets their attention.  The FCC report is valuable too.  In Wisconsin, we have the *Office of Consumer Protection*, which sometimes will go to bat for you.  A couple of their representatives are guests on WPR occasionally with good tips on how to get stuff done.


Good Point!  Thanks for the reminder.


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## RJSakowski (Aug 23, 2022)

To be fair, the repair technician was cooperative.  Its their online and phone personnel that are the problem.  It doesn't help that their personnel are a half a world away.  I have difficulty with my hearing and dealing with their accents just makes things worse.  I have had my phone service with the same provider for 25 years; the company has just changed hands, going from a locally owned telcom  to the present Centurylink. In our secluded location, there are few options.  We are literally at the end of our line.  If a phone were installed in our barn, it would be another provider.  There is a snowball's chance in hell of landline broadband service being offered as the telcom would never recoup the capital expense.  Highes net and Dish are expensive and problematic.  Our next door neighbor tried satellite and dropped it after a few months.  StarLink would be an option but not available until late this year at the earliest.  I am also not a fan of Elon Musk.  

One possibility is land based repeaters which has been proposed by UW.  They would consist of repeaters servicing a relatively small group of customers which wouldn't be line of sight with larger repeaters. The repeaters would be located near a power source and with a reasonable view of the potential customers.  It was proposed that they could be mounted atop a farmer's silo or a utility pole. The concept would be similar to cell phone towers.  This is probably the most cost effective way to provide rural broadband.


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## Winegrower (Aug 23, 2022)

RJSakowski said:


> One possibility is land based repeaters which has been proposed by UW.


I had this in Healdsburg, CA, from a mountain top a few miles away.   It was a good service at a few Mb, which seemed terrific at the time.   Now I have Xfinity 300Mb and wish it really did that.    Maybe 100 on a good day.

Edit:   just ran a speed test...75 down, 10 up.


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## RJSakowski (Aug 23, 2022)

Winegrower said:


> I had this in Healdsburg, CA, from a mountain top a few miles away.   It was a good service at a few Mb, which seemed terrific at the time.   Now I have Xfinity 300Mb and wish it really did that.    Maybe 100 on a good day.
> 
> Edit:   just ran a speed test...75 down, 10 up.


My current speed is .657Mbps up/ .574Mbps down


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## NCjeeper (Aug 23, 2022)

RJSakowski said:


> My current speed is .657Mbps up/ .574Mbps down


Sounds about the speed we had (even though we were paying for 3mbps). I was so happy to get rid of Century Link when Point Broad band ran fiber out in our neck of the woods.


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## 7milesup (Aug 23, 2022)

I, too, am on CenturyLink.  Terrible company.  The service techs are decent, but they are dealing with so much bureaucracy now that it is hard for them actually to do their job. I have a friend that worked for CenturyLink for 15 or so years and just recently quit because of the overwhelming corporate culture.  
I also live on a dead-end road but only about a 1/3 of the way down.  CenturyLink is the only provider BUT the local cable provider has fiber going along the county road that our dead-end road connects to.  They, of course, will not come up our road because of ROI. However, they have received millions in grant money to provide rural communities with high-speed fiber.  Now, here is the real kicker for me... about 300 yards away from my house, there is a fiber line from the local provider which runs to a cell tower.  When I asked them if they could run the fiber to my house, they said "sure, for $10,000".  What a bunch of jackwagons.


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## Winegrower (Aug 23, 2022)

RJSakowski said:


> My current speed is .657Mbps up/ .574Mbps down


Wow, RJ, that’s WAY better than dialup.   

But actually pretty close to unusable these days.   Sorry to know that, but happy you can keep your great posts coming.


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## 7milesup (Aug 23, 2022)

Here is an interesting article that just showed up on NPR today.









						Fed up with poor broadband access, he started his own fiber internet service provider
					

Over 40 million Americans lack reliable internet access. Jared Mauch is among the ISP "mavericks" taking matters into their own hands. Now, he's getting help from the government to continue his work.




					www.npr.org


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## woodchucker (Aug 23, 2022)

Winegrower said:


> I had this in Healdsburg, CA, from a mountain top a few miles away.   It was a good service at a few Mb, which seemed terrific at the time.   Now I have Xfinity 300Mb and wish it really did that.    Maybe 100 on a good day.
> 
> Edit:   just ran a speed test...75 down, 10 up.


They are supposed to hit 80% of their advertised speed. Any less and they are not providing service.
Document it using date/time and http://www.speedtest.net/


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## Boswell (Aug 23, 2022)

anyone considering Starlink?  I know it is not fully deployed yet but might be better than what you have.


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## woodchucker (Aug 23, 2022)

Boswell said:


> anyone considering Starlink?  I know it is not fully deployed yet but might be better than what you have.


@rabler  has it. I'm not sure if he has reported on it recently, I think he likes it.


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## rabler (Aug 23, 2022)

woodchucker said:


> @rabler  has it. I'm not sure if he has reported on it recently, I think he likes it.


Starlink is a definite upgrade from HughesNet (geostationary satellite).  I get better than 10Mbps download when I test, just tested 16 up 9 down. It does sometimes go out for a few seconds to a minute from lack of a satellite.  I generally don't find that too problematic and hopefully that will improve as they get more satellites aloft.  Also will sometimes go out for 5-10 minutes during heavy thunderstorms. They provide an app that you can use to see past outages. The one challenge is that you need a clear view of the sky in a fairly broad area, as the dish uses a combination of phased array and motor tracking to keep satellites in view as they orbit past.  I ended up building a 20' mast, and put it out some distance from any trees.  You can download the starlink app without a subscription, and it provides an overlay on your cell phone camera of the area of visibility you need based on your location.  Less than perfect visibility will work with increased outages.

The basic kit ships as a WIFI only setup.  It is completely DIY on the setup.  You can buy an adapter to run it to a router, which I did.  Unfortunately at that time anyway, it took them another 2 months to get me the adapter.


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## Lo-Fi (Aug 24, 2022)

Boswell said:


> anyone considering Starlink?  I know it is not fully deployed yet but might be better than what you have.


A couple of mates and 2 of my customers using it. I'm surprised any of the existing satellite services are still in business by comparison... In an uncongested area you'll easily hit 250mbps and reliability is already very good even up at these latitude's. It's not even expensive for what you get.


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## John281 (Aug 24, 2022)

Boswell said:


> anyone considering Starlink?  I know it is not fully deployed yet but might be better than what you have.


I just installed StarLink at my off-grid cabin and it works very well. ($110/mo. plus the one-time cost of the hardware)  I had a little trouble at first but it turned out to be connector that was not fully inserted.  The troubleshooting guide on the phone app helped resolve that issue.  The antenna is on the same pole as my solar panels and there is one tree that is slightly obstructing the antenna's view of the sky but it doesn't seem to affect the performance. Previously, I had no cell coverage but now I can make calls using WiFi calling over StarLink.  Double bonus.
Initially, the service was not available in my area but I signed up anyway.  Within a few months it became available.  You might consider signing up now so you're at the top of the list.  I think they can only handle a certain number of users per region.  You can always cancel if you change your mind.


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## rabler (Aug 24, 2022)

93 Mbps up 6 down at my starlink test just now.  Note that I'm in a waitlisted/"expanding in 2023" area according to the official Starlink.com/map


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