I have CenturyLink & probably live near you, since I have all the tiers & am in south Minneapolis & on the same side of 35W. The CO is at 24th Ave & 33rd st. I'm about 3 blocks from there & am very happy with the speed. I do have to power cycle their modem (it was offered to buy or rent, so I bought it) every few weeks. If I don't, the connection will degrade or drop. I've been temped to use a UPS & cron to automate it but haven't bothered. Otis reliable & fast. I used to have 40/20 & have since dropped to 7/5 (down/up) as I sensed that I was mostly bound by the remote server rather than the local connection. I wish I had a static address but dyndns is good enough. Thomas On Jan 18, 2013, at 3:02 PM, Jeremy MountainJohnson <jeremy.mountainjohnson at gmail.com> wrote: > Comcast historically doesn't bend much, but occasionally you get a > caring customer service rep or manager who can wiggle a little bit of > consumer respect ;-) The fee thing is new to me. What infuriates me is > that I don't want to pay to decrease service- it's not much granted, > more the principal of it. > > Also, I have of all of Century Link's DSL tiers available where I am > at. The phone line to the modem may need to be upgraded, which is > something I could do relatively easily. > > -- > Jeremy MountainJohnson > Jeremy.MountainJohnson at gmail.com > > > On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 1:39 PM, Andrew Dahl <droidjd at gmail.com> wrote: >> I recall my sister and her husband trying CenturyLink and it being >> unbearable, although we live in Woodbury where the highest rate you >> can get is 1.5Meg. Maybe their 7Meg offering would be better, if it's >> available for you. >> >> Comcast recently hit me with that same increase (same promotion that >> ended even) -- If you do end up being able to successfully haggle with >> Comcast, you should let me know! :-) I attempted it the other day >> with no success, unfortunately. >> >> Good luck with your search! >> >> -Andrew >> >> >> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Jeremy MountainJohnson >> <jeremy.mountainjohnson at gmail.com> wrote: >>> Good afternoon, >>> >>> I was on a promo for Comcast (30 MB down, known as Blast), and called >>> to get service downgraded since my promo ended and the price nearly >>> doubled. The guy wanted to charge me a fee to downgrade (I have no >>> contracts with them)- I pushed back but he wouldn't wave it so I plan >>> on speaking to a manager later. I have been putting off shopping for >>> Internet providers since I last tried Qwest DSL in 2008 (it was no >>> where near the speed they advertised when I was living near downtown, >>> so I stayed with Comcast). The audacity for Comcast to charge for >>> downgrading service, combined with their already high prices has >>> pumped some motivation into me to look at broadband providers again. >>> >>> Is anyone using Century Link or USI Wireless? I don't believe we have >>> any other options in Minneapolis for broadband (Clear doesn't appear >>> to be an option for my usage). Unfortunately I'm on the wrong side of >>> 35W for USI fiber to be option. I don't do video streaming (aside from >>> short news stories) but may pick this up again in the future at some >>> point. I occasionally work from home over VPN, which makes me a >>> little nervous with USI and the reviews I've read. At our house we >>> mostly do a lot of intensive web browsing and publishing, ssh (inbound >>> and outbound), and a small amount of RDP traffic outbound, light >>> gaming (Steam), and occasional large downloads (mostly Linux iso's / >>> packages, and Steam games). I do use CrashPlan in Linux for frequent >>> backups, so anything capped low (like Clear 4G) could present a >>> problem- no worry about longer upload backup times, it runs as a >>> service in the background and I can throttle it. >>> >>> How has USI been recently? Is it worth even trying? I'm in south >>> Minneapolis and the nearest node is two blocks away, which is another >>> potential drawback. Does anyone have Century Link that could provide >>> some feedback about it? >>> >>> Someone also mentioned Clear 4G recently. My concern with that (and >>> the other providers) is capping bandwidth, which everyone does to some >>> extent, but Clear seems really low (40 GB), which might be a problem >>> with CrashPlan. >>> >>> Thanks in advance for any suggestions / feedback. >>> >>> -- >>> Jeremy MountainJohnson >>> Jeremy.MountainJohnson at gmail.com >>> _______________________________________________ >>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list