Community Post

Broadstripe Internet Woes

Hi everyone,

I know we’ve been down this path before, so I’m not trying to start a b!@#$ fest, but… I just got my Broadstripe internet back after being out all day today. I could understand, given the weather, but in the last year it’s been out 4 times during “weather situations” for long periods of time.

I’m considering moving to Qwest DSL and/or DirectTV. Has anyone with either of those had any connection problems lately?

Thanks for the feedback in advance!

P.S. Go play in the snow, it’s good fun! :)

0 thoughts on “Broadstripe Internet Woes

  1. Some frustrating moments have occurred due to slower than promised speeds, but it does generally work and has been very functional all day today.

  2. My Interweb has been up all day long but it was slow. I hate Broadstripe mainly because I want Howard Stern on Demand and they don’t carry On Demand. BoO!!

  3. We haven’t had any big issues with Qwest at our home / office in Madison Valley, and hardly have had any blips in a really long time (knock on wood, praise Cerf, I welcome our telecom overlords).

    You also should check if the new Qwest fiber service is available on your street. That’s like the Internet access in other countries that have taken the Internet seriously over the last 10 years, e.g., ~10x faster than DSL. Qwest fiber is rolling out in parts of Seattle already, though I haven’t yet heard of anyone in the Central District who can get it.

  4. I’ve had speakeasy dsl for the last couple years and it’s been very reliable. It’s not absolutely blazing fast, but good enough, and always up. Plus their customer service has been great—easy to deal with macs & linux.

  5. We switched from our comfortable, consistent Speakeasy DSL to Qwest to save some $. We kept Speakeasy in the background just in case. Watching movies over the Qwest was next to impossible. The download speed varied greatly. While they advertised faster download, it could vary from 2.5-600 KBS. There is a huge suspicion that they throttle–reducing your connection speed at certain hours. Being unsatisfied, we switched back to Speakeasy, but Qwest cut our complete service & was hard to deal with to get it back on. I don’t understand the technical aspects, but I do know that it took Speakeasy to make them promise to fix it.

  6. We have Speakeasy here at HQ, and we’ve had only one problem in years. They’re incredibly responsive and the performance is very consistent.

    The only complaint is that they are $$$, especially if you don’t have landline phone.

  7. We do miss the on-demand! :( Though Howard Stern may not be our primary reason… ;)

  8. They even came out and rewired my phones downstairs because the previous owners figurative ‘Uncle Joe’ had wired the phones to begin with. No charge — it was all in aid of getting the DSL to work. The other vendors route through the same equipment as Qwest up there on 23rd, and there just are some limits to what we get down in Madison Valley.

    Sometimes onine video doesn’t scream, but compared to what happens at work with the load on the network there and compared to sharing my neighbor’s Comcsst uugghhh it died every night it seemed, the Qwest connection is great.

    Only thing, Qwest seems only happy with it’s own equipment. So I’d go speakeasy if I wanted to securely host a website or have real home networking.

    I pay for 7 MB, was told to expect around 4-5 MB before I signed up, Usually that’s what it is. Just right now speakeasy says I’m getting under 768K but I see no functional difference, even watching Scott’s videos.

  9. Qwest service is Excellent. Make sure when you sign up that you get the DirecTV bundle…. and the Actiontec M1000 modem. You can also ask them for the W1000 wireless upgrade module for the M1000…. it’s super easy.

    Enjoy

  10. I’ve been using Qwest DLS since the program went into beta in the 90’s.

    On the plus side, they have the most competent and friendly customer service of any phone/cable company out there. The only time I ever lost service was when the Code Red virus took down my Cisco modem back in the day, but Qwest had a patch ready the next day. And, Qwest was the only major phone company to refuse to allow Bush/Cheney to wire tap our phone conversations.

    The max available bandwidth varies depending on where you live. The max bandwidth we had in the CD around 19th and Jefferson was pretty good. When we moved near Volunteer Park in Capitol Hill, they offered higher connection speeds. I was told by a Qwest representative that they prioritize areas for bandwidth upgrades based on the squeakiest wheel.