We got CenturyLink DSL for the office!

We had CenturyLink DSL at my home for the last 20 years. A few months ago I realized it wasn’t even plugged in but I was still paying for it. For a while I kept it as a backup of last resort. But it was at my home, not at the office where all the equipment for your service is located.

So, if all hell were to break loose and everything is broken, we need to have a backup so we can pull images/do diagnostics, etc, with no dependence on KPUD or NoaNet or my other tail circuit providers we are working with. The natural choice? CenturyLink.

So 3 hours on the phone with a friendly lady, and I was able to cancel my old service and order service at my office. Our building previously housed a call center; there are 50 phone pairs coming into the building. CenturyLink told me only one was available and it was capable of 5mbit down 0.5mbit up. After a long time, we got that up to Bonded ADSL2, “possibly 24mb down, 2mbit up”.

Tech shows up to install with a modem. Service order was explicit - customer supplied modem, no rental. Order shows rental for modem and “office plus package”, loading an extra $34 a month in useless fees on, getting my monthly over $90.

I called CenturyLink to “correct the order”, and after thirty minutes got a person who informed me that it was too soon - call back in a few days as my order isn’t in their system yet.

I am now the proud? owner of a 20mbit down, 1.7mbit up service, for $91.38 a month that I hope to never use.

update - next day, after another hour on hold, my order was cancelled and a new order created as they could not figure out how to take the never installed modem off the original order. The helpful person on the original call put in all caps DO NOT INSTALL NEW MODEM.

update - 4/25 - got our first invoice, modem was still on the invoice, business plus $25 per month, all history lost, $114 per month for 24 months. One hour later, we are having a tech come out to install a modem at no fee, convert to residential service instead of business. and hopefully now we are at $75 per month.

update - 5/24 - got our first “fixed” invoice. Rate has doubled to $100 per month, $250 in fees due. I spent 35 minutes as of this writing being transferred between residential and small business; nobody could open my account. Both sides said it was the other kind of service. I just want to know what the rate will be. How hard is that?

Update - 6/23 - got a survey for how our callback was on 6/21 from CenturyLink (we scheduled it last month) unfortunately, nobody had called us back. Got our latest bill, it is still $100 per month. At this rate I may just opt to use our T-Mobile hotspot we keep in the installation truck as my “backup plan” Sheesh.