<html><head></head><body name="Mail Message Editor"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; background-color: white; ">As a field service tech for HR Block, I've installed over 25 Qwest DSL's in the Des Moines area. Because we bridged all the Qwest Modems, I've has to call and work with a Qwest tech support person every time. 90% of the time I've called, I've spoken to a fairly nice, polite person. Now that's not to say that they've been technically savvy but they have all been located in the US and have helped us bridge the MODEM. The fact is that we have been moving away from other DSL carriers towards Qwest and I have been happy to change over. I can give you on example of why. At one of our locations we were unable to get a Qwest DSL line until this a few weeks ago. Last season the DSL in that office went off because of a power failure. The office was without power for more than 4 hours. After the power came on we couldn't get the DSL to work. After hours of trying to find the problem, we discovered that the provider (not Qwest) had to actually restart the DSL on their end. I've never heard of that problem from Qwest. The provider stated that this would happen every time the DSL was off-line for more than 4 hours. I immediately decided to try to switch to Qwest. (Since we switched providers in that office, the DSL speeds have more than doubled.)<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; background-color: white; "><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; background-color: white; ">I'm not a Qwest representative and I personally use Iowa Telecom at h
ome but I did want to put in some of my own experience. We chose Iowa Telecom because it was less expensive at the time we were looking for DSL. Since we've been hooked up our DSL/phones rates have crept up to about where the Qwest levels were.<br><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; background-color: white; "><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; background-color: white; ">I'd say my experience with Qwest has been has been a good one over-all. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; background-color: white; "><br></span></div></span></div></span></div><div id="replyPrefaceElement">On Jul 13, 2009, at 10:49:45 PM, "Matt Stanton" <inflatablesoulmate@brothersofchaos.com> wrote:</div><br><blockquote style="padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; border-left-width: 2px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: blue; color: blue; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="width: 749px; "><div id="felix-mail-header-block" style="color: black; background-color: white; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: silver; padding-bottom: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; width:
749px; "><table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td width="70px" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 8pt; color: gray; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; font-weight: bold; "><span>From:</span></td><td style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 8pt; color: black; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; padding-left: 5px; "><span title=""Matt Stanton" <inflatablesoulmate@brothersofchaos.com>">"Matt Stanton" <inflatablesoulmate@brothersofchaos.com></span></td></tr><tr><td width="70px" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 8pt; color: gray; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; font-weight: bold; "><span>Subject:</span></td><td style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 8pt; color: black; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; padding-left: 5px; "><span style="font-weight: bold; ">Re: [DM-MUG] ISP advice needed</span></td></tr><tr><td width="70px" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 8pt; color: gray; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; font-weight: bold; "><span>Date:</span></td><td style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 8pt; color: black; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; padding-left: 5px; "><span>July 13, 2009 10:49:45 PM CDT</span></td></tr><tr><td width="70px" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 8pt; color: gray; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; font-weight: bold; "><span>To:</span></td><td style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 8pt; color: black; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; padding-left: 5px; "><span title=""Des Moines Mac Users Group" <dmmug@dmmug.org>">"Des Moines Mac Users Group" <dmmug@dmmug.org></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div id="felix-mail-content-block" style="color: black; background-color: white; width: 749px; "><div style="font-family: monospace; color: black; background-color: white; font-size: 8pt; ">Switching to qwest is give-and-take. For one, dsl loses transmit speed<span class="Apple-converted-spac
e"> </span><br>the further you are away from the local switch, so when they say<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>"1.5Mbps download", they mean "1.5Mbps download *max*". They seem to do<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>a pretty good job of getting pretty close to the 1.5Mbps max number,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>though. If you want that extra 700Kbps, just realize that you are<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>giving up the ability to speak with someone from the United States if<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>you have a problem. I've had to talk with someone in India 3-5 times to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>get a problem fixed every time I've had a problem. They always tell you<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>to clear your browser cache, which does pretty much nothing (if I was<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>having problems that seemed browser-cache related, I would have done<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>that long before calling, but they assume that every customer is a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>driveling idiot).<br><br>All-in-all, when qwest is working, I'm perfectly happy with it. When<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>it's not, there's no point in calling tech support. You can call the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>local office and punch buttons until you're actually talking to someone<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>near here to get some reasonable help or report an outage, but<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>apparently you can't tell tech support anything useful, because they<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>have no way to report to the local techies that something is wrong.<br><br>Jon Engelhardt wrote:<br>> Not sure this is a Mac related topic but I would appreciate feed back,<span class="
Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>> if you would prefer to share advice off list, please email me privately.<br>><br>> We live in the country near Adel and have had Prairieinet.net for 6<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>> years. It has worked very well for a broadband set up, it was our<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>> only choice at the time (besides dial up) and the service has been<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>> excellent. However, we can only download at at 896 kb/s and that just<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>> seems slow when compared to Qwest @1.5 MS/s for $10.00 less a month.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>> At this time we can access Qwest so there is a choice.<br>><br>> Thoughts? Ideas?<br>><br>> Thanks.<br>> Jon<br>> _______________________________________________<br>> DMMUG mailing list<br>> Use this Address to send mail to the list:<br>> DMMUG@dmmug.org<br>> Use this page to modify subscription options:<br>> http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/dmmug<br>><br>><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>DMMUG mailing list<br>Use this Address to send mail to the list:<br>DMMUG@dmmug.org<br>Use this page to modify subscription options:<br>http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/dmmug<br><br></div></div></div></span></blockquote><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; background-color: white; "><br></span></div><div class="aol_ad_footer" id="uC365D21278DF445E9EC85D727C9D4CF9"></div></body></html>