[Cialug] OT: Qwest and Mediacom Internet Service Advice

[David Champion]

Matthew Nuzum wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 6:44 PM, Todd Walton <tdwalton at gmail.com 
> <mailto:tdwalton at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 12:22 PM, Alan Maupin
>     <alan.maupin at gmail.com <mailto:alan.maupin at gmail.com>> wrote:
>     > I'm asking for advice for a friend on Internet service in
>     Ankeny.  It's been
>     > awhile since I've negotiated a deal and I'm not sure of what to
>     tell her.
>     > She's been offered two deals:   Qwest 7 mbps for $41 per month
>     and Mediacom
>     > 8 mbps for $39.  Since the price and download speeds are very
>     similar what
>     > other criteria should she consider?  One possible negative is
>     the fact that
>     > Qwest requires a two year contract.
>
>     Given the otherwise comparable plans, the contract would be a definite
>     no-go for me.  Why should they get to lock you in like that?  What if
>     you don't like the service?
>
>  
> CHECK the deal with Mediacom. Is that pricing only for the first 12 
> months? What does the price change to after that?
>
> I try to avoid mediacom purely on the principle of their misleading 
> advertising. I'm on qwest now and have had awesome reliability. 
> Mediacom wasn't bad (DNS was the biggest problem and opendns solved 
> that) but my *feeling* is that qwest has been slightly better 
> regarding reliability.

All of the DSL service providers will get you roughly the same level of 
reliability, any of them is probably going to be better than a cable modem.

The problem with Qwest is when you need customer support from someone 
who knows more than reading off a script, or to get your service request 
processed in a reasonable time, or even 2 weeks later when they took 
your order but didn't enter it into the service queue, or for them to 
not send you to a collection agency for a second voice line you didn't 
order (oh, that's what they did when they lost your service request!), 
and you never received a bill for.

-dc