I sat down the other day to call Qwest and Comcast to find out what my options are for internet access. I was expecting to find that DSL would be a little cheaper, but that cable would be able to be installed more quickly. My primary concern at the moment is cost, but installation speed is a close second. I was surprised to find no real advantage to either one.
I called Comcast, and the girl on the phone was extremely helpful (which has been true of most of the people I’ve spoken with at Comcast). She answered all my questions and gave me any bit of information I might need, as well as letting me know about some options I didn’t know were available which saved me some money.
She knew I was about to call Qwest to compare pricing and she said “I’m pretty sure you’ll find it’s a little cheaper for DSL, but I really think you’ll be happier with us…” and then she sweetened the deal by giving me the installation kit for free and knocking $10/month off my bill for the first three months. I asked about this, and it turns out Comcast gives their operators some leeway to give some free stuff to customers to motivate them to stick with their services if they’re thinking about leaving.
It boiled down to about $45 per month with Comcast. That’s $10 cheaper than normal because I’m going to have normal cable services as well. The installation fee was only about $10, the modem/install kit was free, and she knocked $10 per month off my bill, so for the first three months I’ll only be paying about $35, and back to $45 after that. Also, they could get someone out to install the cable on the day we move in, so that’s nice.
Then I called Qwest (actually, I called the company that would be my ISP, DSL Northwest, who I’ve used before, and are pretty good). Maybe I just got a guy who doesn’t normally run the phones, but it was like pulling teeth to get any information out of this guy. He told me that it’s $51 per month for stand-alone DSL services (nice that I don’t have to get a phone line anymore), with a $20 installation fee. He was unclear on whether or not Qwest would also charge me an installation fee. Finally, he said that they could have DSL installed in 5 days, which is a dramatic change from the 2-3 weeks Qwest took last time I got hooked up (which was, admittedly, four years ago). He seemed to be in a hurry to get me off the phone, so I did, but I felt like it was a toss-up.
Both Comcast and Qwest are within $5 of each other, and both could get my services hooked up by our move-in date. Neither one had an outrageous installation fee, and neither one required a phone line. In the end, I chose Comcast simply because I’ve generally had good service with them (the phone calls are a good example, but we also had Comcast internet in Washington), and I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with Qwest. I know it’s a silly thing to base this choice on, but with no clear advantage to one over the other, why not base it on the fact that Comcast actively wants me as a customer, and was making offers to get me, while Qwest didn’t even want to answer my questions?
David
I think you’re completely justified given your vast experience with Qwest and their lackeys. I thought judging companies and services based on customer service was something that only old(er) people did but the older I get the more I realize that it’s almost more important than the actual services they offer.
Mariah
wow this gives alot of information. i am looking up for school in my computer apps class which one is better. one of the questions was who ranks higher in customer satisfaction and this clearly answers my question. it is amazing that i found this site cuz this helps me alot. thank you.
Erik
Well I’m so pissed off at Comcast’s poor service and lack of any kind of “giving a damn” that I called QWEST this morning to order their high-speed service.
Comcast couldn’t care less!
Brandon Buttars
Yeah I thought about Comcast and may still use them. My city runs their own internet and it always drops no fail when I need it the most. But it’s taken a week after things should have been installed to get Qwest internet up. I was suppose to have 7mbps and I’m only getting about 2mbps. I still have my old cable connection and the speedtest on that is saying I’m getting about 5 to 6 mbps and it’s $20 cheaper. What the hell Qwest. Oh by the way since my 5 phone calls in a week to Qwest every single person I’ve talked to has been in India.
Meng
So this mean that QWEST isn’t as good as COMCAST?
Or which is better?
Anyone can help me out?
Scott
Well, the short answer is that they both suck.
The long answer is that in my experience here in the Portland, Oregon area, Comcast is slightly better – but it’s really about picking the lesser of two evils.
The best advice I can give you is to document everything – whenever you make a phone call make a note of what number you called, at what time, and the name of the person you spoke to. If you can, get a badge or ID number from the person as well.
That way if everything goes poorly, you can assert yourself firmly by referring to your notes if different people tell you different things, and if worst comes to worst, that information is what you’ll need to submit a complaint to the Better Business Bureau.
Stephanie
I’m about to relocate to my own little apartment to the East side and I have contemplated getting a different internet provider, being from Portland too… I’m unaware of any other offers out there except Qwest and Comcast. Ugh.
Jacob
We have Comcast cable internet and I personally hate it. At this moment in time I am getting 32.0 Mbps on my desktop with an Excellent wireless connection from my router which is roughly 10 feet away. We have the Xbox 360, PS3, and Apple Macbook, a desktop, and a notebook all connecting wirelessly at any given time. The problem is that Comcast throttles bandwidth and constantly sends out fyn packets to reset the modem and disrupt our service. This has been going on foe the last two months. I play a lot of MMRPG and FPS games and I am constantly getting logged out of the servers due to the interruption of service. My room mate downloads a lot of content using P2P networks and this is why out service was been degraded to dialup speeds most of the time even though we pay for a premium “faster” internet service. Since the account is in my roomates name, I have decided to get the Qwest DSL Platinum service to connect directly to my desktop via CAT5 Ethernet for my own personal gaming use.
Ebin
Times have changed my friends!
It’s 2011, and CenturyLink has acquired Qwest communications. Along with this massive improvement in business is an improvement in internet and TV. They’ve already improved the fiber optic network which NEVER THROTTLES your speeds!!! This is huge for someone who actually uses the internet and doesn’t just check 1 email every other week. This guarantees you a sustained high speed connection and not just when you first click on something. If you really want to know how your internet company is treating you, don’t do a speed test, do a SUSTAINED speed test. Anyone can look good on a speed test, but CenturyLink (previously Qwest and still currently branded Qwest for awhile) will dominate a sustained speed test. They used direct lines to each individual residence as opposed to a shared loop that Concast hasthat is shared with ALL OF YOUR NEIGHBORS! Ever experience an extreme slow down when the kids are let out of school? Ever notice a site was fast at first then slowed to a crawl? Ya, you probably have Concast… I don’t have those problems at all, why should you? Oh ya, and I pay a little less because they aren’t overly proud of their service. It’s nice to not have to worry about it. Oh ya, another thing, they locked in my price for 5 years without a contract. I can’t even tell you how many times Concast jacked up my price. I feel like I’ve finally come home.
Joshua
Thanks for the advice, Ebin. I’ve about had it with Comcast after being a customer of theirs for many years now. Their customer service has gone from bad to worse and their internet service has done much the same. It has it good moments, but like you said, it slows down a TON (downloads literally can fall by as much as 20Mbps) once kids get off school or people get home from work… unfortunately, this is also when I need to use it the most. I can only hope that Qwest truly has improved with CentruyLink acquiring it, and that they now offer service to my area.
David
I just picked up qwest and i hope it is as good as ebin says….that being said dude you sound way to much like a salesman. Do you work for qwest? if so its really dishonest not to mention that in your post. Anyway, I wanted to add a warning to people. Most of you probably know this but it bears repeating. Service providers deliver In Mbps or Megabits per second. Your games download in MB’s or Mega bytes per second. This means that a 20 Mbps speed from qwest will download at about 2.5 Mb per second max. its an 8-1 conversion. As for the customer support…I’m with the guy above who mention the lesser of two evils. I have had nothing but trouble with customer support though qwest and this is after the century link deal… I would pay an extra 5$ a month just to have good accent-less tech support. I wish they offered that separate for a fee…
setaglm
okay, whatev re all of that qwest to century link now hence the dawning of a new day. hey ebin – you sound like a groupie or like you have been programmed by a cult. anyway, nuttin but grief here with qwest, oops, ur, uh, centurylink. my internet was a little slow, i called to see what i could do, was walked through a few steps, was advised i could ramp my speed up drastically for a mere .01 cent but that they would have to, “come out to the line”. something external. the short of it is 3 of our 5 computers no longer have internet access at all. after hours on the phone with the tech he concluded that i should use my computers at a wifi location and that all three that did not work must have something wrong with them. i said, “seriously? three computers all went down at the same time one of which is a brand new mac that my son tote to and from school where it works just fine?” he said, “yes”, “something is wrong with them”. alrighty then… ever since i have been trying to get customer service to sort it out – to no avail… i am online now trying to do service comparisons as i am ready to go to comcast. i am all centurylinked out already. i am going to get rid of their landline too for good measure. we all have mobiles and i was really keeping it for my teens. no need.