As promised, I told many of my friends and customers I would report back on the new Century Tel DSL service being offered in the area so here is my 'report'...

About a month ago, I received notice from a local customer that CenturyLink (formerly CenturyTel) was now (finally) offering DSL Service to some areas of Howard.  For those of you whom have been around for a while, you'll note that many of us have been 'hounding' our local CL office to provide this service even to the extent of getting a petition together at the local CL office to let them know exactly how many of us were really interested.

Because I work from home, a good quality, consistent connection is very important to me, actually...it's a must.  Given that; I was not in a position to immediately ditch the RidgeView Tel connection for the new CL option.  My plans were to keep both services for the first month after which I would put the RVT service on 'away' status for a few more months until I was positively sure that all was consistently well with the CL DSL service.  The CL services, so I was told, would be $29 for the lower service and $39 for the faster service.  I was going to be saving $10 a month for the first year for signing a contract. I would be able to save on additional telephone services by bundling the two services together and would also be able to get some credits for referrals.

I ordered the standard DSL modem from CL, assuming that it would be free with the contract.  In actuality, I was not told that it was going to add $4.99 a month to my bill. Not a big deal but I should have been told that up front.  I was also charged $14.99 to have the modem shipped out - but I was told that would be the case up front.  The modem arrived within 3 days.  Upon receiving the modem, I called to local office to see if I could be connected a little earlier than I had been scheduled for and Perfecto said no problem and he had me up and running within 30 minutes.  One catch though...... because they (CL) were still trying to move some traffic to another line to clear up more bandwidth, I would only be able to receive the lower 1.5 Mb/s speed for the first week.  I agreed to that and started using the service.  From day one, the service seemed to be very consistent and as promised, at the end of that first week, the speed jumped back up to 6Mb/s.  Again, the service was consistent at 6Mb/s download and 1.5Mb/s upload speeds.  That lasted for 1 week.

The following Monday, I logged on and noticing a markedly difference in the download speed - and not in a good way - I called to find that they had kicked my service back down to 1.5Mb/s because they were still experiencing bottleneck issues between Cotopaxi and some other point.  I was told that they might be able to jump me back up to the 6Mb/s speed by the end of the month....might.  The only problem with that was the fact that my 30 day money back guarantee period ended on the 20th.  I called their customer service and asked what they thought I should do and at least they were honest enough to tell me that they felt I should invoke my 30 day guarantee, take my services back down to what they were before the DSL connection, wait for a month or two until they could provide the consistent level of services I needed and then sign up again.  That is what I did.

So....had I kept the service, I would have been able to save about $20 a month over what I was currently paying for CL telephone and RidgeView Tel internet access combined, my internet access would have been 3 times the speed and I would have had unlimited long distance as part of the 'bundled' upgrade.  I hope that they (CT) can get the kinks worked out of the system so I can take advantage of that after all.

Bottom Line:

• IF you are OK with CL's 1.5 service for the time being, you stand to save some money over RVT and in addition may be able to save on phone service by bundling the two services together.  If you have "the need for speed" as I do, you may wish to wait for a short time until a consistently fast service can be offered.
• If you do choose to sign up for CL DSL, don’t feel that you need to 'rent' the modem from them.  You can get a standard DSL modem through the internet or even through local retailers such as Wally World.  You should expect to pay from $25 and up, with the average being about $40 for a standard DSL modem or about $70 for a modem / wireless router combination.  At about $5 a month, you'd break even in about a year or less.
• When you do speak with someone from CT, get their name, the date and time and write down the details of what you're told.  I dealing with different individuals over the course of the last month, I was frequently told conflicting details from different individuals.

Feel free to let me know of your own personal experiences with the new Century Tel DSL service if you feel it would help others to have it passed along.