Comcast Internet vs. Century Link in Denver Area

[PaDuKa]

The wife and I are moving into a new place in Denver in a couple of weeks and are deciding between Comcast and Direct TV/Century link for TV and internet. I have had Comcast for as long as I can remember and have not had many problems with their service, but it looks like the Direct TV route might be a little cheaper.

My understanding is that cable internet is always faster than DSL. Have any Denver mags had trouble with Century link being too slow to do things like stream Hulu or Netflix, or is the "up to" 20 mps offered by Century link sufficient?

[flyandski365]

I really can't offer you any advice other than Comcast sucks. They were supposed to come out this morning and set up service at my house, then showed up and realized they don't cover my street after assuring me over the phone that they did. Now I'm without internet until Monday. Fuckers.

[stfu&gbtw]

I spend a ton of time working with all three of those companies.

Comcast and CL are equally shit for customer service. DSL cannot compare to cable for speed. Directv is the best tv service provider I've ever worked with, although recently they are not as good as they used to be. Had a superbowl party lined up one year and the dtv shit the bed at 10am. They had a tech at the house swapping out the whole rig by 1pm. And this is in the middle of nowhere.

[Danno]

I'll take "companies that all suck giant donkey dick" for $1000, Alex.

[Cruiser]

Yeah, it's like choosing between being punched in the nose or kicked in the crotch. We recently switched from CL to CC. Streaming services take less time to buffer now, but its a fairly negligible difference. In the end, the only way you can deal with these idiots is to play the promotional rate game. Get the low "promo rate" for 6, 12, or 18 months and then if the company won't renew it at the end of the period you just switch to the other company. We don't have cable or home phone so it's probably a little easier for us to switch than some folks though.

[PaDuKa]

It is definitely a lessor of two evils type of situation. Does anybody have any experience with Dish Network?

[ColMan]

I pay for high speed access from both companies at two difference residences. Streaming speed (TiVo) seems to be similar. I did find the teaser term lengths for CL were much longer than CC (not sure if having a landline made a difference or not). I would be using CL at both places (I HATE Comcast) if I could but one is too far from a central office to get DSL.

[digitaldeath]

god damn old man - this thread is one of the worst i can remember

you stupid old fuck

cable>DSL

its not brain surgery, but maybe you need some of dat

[Art Shirk]

It is definitely a lessor of two evils type of situation. Does anybody have any experience with Dish Network?

Also curious. Just moved and there is still a dish on the new house. Considering putting it to use (at the least, I plan on spray painting "no new taxes" on it like my old Bonney Lake neighbors used to do out in the sticks growing up).

[2FUNKY]

cable>DSL

its not brain surgery, but maybe you need some of dat

Explain why.

[Swine]

[digitaldeath]

Explain why.

what do you mean explain why? are you a fucking senior citizen?

[DasBlunt]

[Cruiser]

We used Dish for a good while at a previous house. Their service was solid with very few outages. I did have to go sweep off the dish sometimes when it snowed a lot but rain seemed not to have any real effect on it. The on demand content as well as dvr stuff was very nice to have and easy to navigate. My buddy just got their service hooked up and he went for the one with all the bells and whistles. Got all the hoppers and joeys and shit. He's real happy with it and says his crew much prefers it to cable.

[Flyoverland Captive]

It is definitely a lessor of two evils type of situation. Does anybody have any experience with Dish Network?

I've had Dish Network for years; no complaints. But do NOT get satellite internet from them.

[MontuckyFried]

I'll take "companies that all suck giant donkey dick" for $1000, Alex.

Haha. Pretty much.

One of the best South Park moments ever. So much truth to it.

FWIW, I used Century Link's DSL for a while. It was terrible. I couldn't maintain a connection for more than a few minutes, and when I DID have service, it was painfully slow. Even my phone service was very poor quality. They sent a tech out twice, which I had to beg them do to to begin with. It took rounds and rounds with customer service to begin with to even get to that point. The first tech thought he got it working, but it pooped out soon after his departure. The second tech (which took like a month to get out there) told me that it was definitely the connection on Century Link's end, and that there was nothing they could do about it. The techs both bitched about how awful Century Link's connection was in the entire area, and straight up suggested I go ahead and switch to the MUCH more reliable local cable company who provided me with a solid FTTH (fiber to the home) connection. Sure, it cost more than double, but it was well worth it.

You know Century Link blows when their technicians are telling us how bad they are.

But then again, Comcast is a terrible, evil company as well. AWFUL customer service. They, along with all the other cable companies, are working very, very hard to do away with net neutrality, but that's a topic for another thread.

Are there any other alternatives in your area? If I had Google fiber in my hood, I'd be all over that. I'm lucky. Living in a small town, I may have sucky, slow, and expensive internet, but at least the customer service is top notch and that's worth a lot these days. I can actually stop by the local office and talk to somebody who cares and can actually get something done! What a concept!

[PaDuKa]

Are there any other alternatives in your area? If I had Google fiber in my hood, I'd be all over that.!

Google fiber has not made it to Denver yet. Otherwise, I think I am more or less stuck with one of the regular providers.

[H0G]

Google fiber has not made it to Denver yet. Otherwise, I think I am more or less stuck with one of the regular providers.

We aren't even on Google's or Verizons fiber radar yet. My inlaws have CL, and it is HORRID. I turn my phone into a wifi hotspot when I am at their place to surf the web.

Comcast, the great evil, is the best bet. They raised my teaser bill to $80 just for internet. I cancelled service & set it back up in my wife's name. Anything over $50 a month for internet is a joke.

[Garth Bimble]

I have Comcast internet and Direct TV. I had Comcast TV but they kept raising their prices so I starting shopping around and found I could get a much better deal from DTV (for 2 years anyway) so I called Comcast and told them that I'd been with them since 1992 but I'm thinking about switching, what can you do to keep a loyal customer and they said they couldn't do anything so I dropped the TV. I kept the internet because I need it for work and it's been very reliable so I didn't want to fuck with it. My employer pays for it anyway. As for DTV, I'm a little disappointed in how often it goes out, I haven't had it for a year yet and I was out numerous times last winter sweeping of the dish. Rarely had a problem with Comcast, signal wise.

Interesting story about Comcast and how much their customer service sucks, they had a couple of guys walking the neighborhood the other day trying to sell service and I made the mistake of answering the door. After I told them why I'd cancelled the TV one of the guys said he was sorry they hadn't worked with me and to make up for it he was going to get $10 knocked off my internet bill. Bill comes the other day and I see I now have one of those package deals with internet and some fucking TV package called "Latin 150". By doing the package deal the internet bill did drop $10 but with all the additional charges for the TV shit, which I didn't even get my bill was higher. I guess this fucker got a commission for the sale of the TV package. I called Comcast and they cancelled the TV shit and agreed to knock the internet bill down $10 as well, but this is the kind of shit you can expect with these assholes.

edit: I used to have internet from Qwest, which is now Century Link. As bad as Comcast is, Qwest was worse and the speed was slower. Maybe that's changed now though.

[2FUNKY]

what do you mean explain why? are you a fucking senior citizen?

Drop some knowledge on why cable is superior to dsl, be specific. Not by a long shot.

[Skidog]

its not based on last mile
it can fit a heck of a lot more data on the "pipe" (coax)

[Below Zero]

We've had Comcast Performance Internet for about 2.5 years now. It's advertised as 25 Mbps and we do consistently get about 25 Mbps. No issues streaming Netflix and Amazon Prime from our internet ready TV, especially after Netflix told Comcast to quit fucking around and upgrade some shit; not sure what that shit was but it worked. We pay about $68 a month for it.

For TV, we've got DirecTV. I'm thinking about dropping it because we originally got it to get the Sunday NFL ticket, but we haven't ordered it in two years since the 49er's (my wife's team) (Go Broncos!) are usually on regular channels.

DirecTV seems to go out too often due to weather hear in Denver. Cloudy, windy afternoon thunderstorms don't help when trying to get a signal. Plus I've noticed that the DirecTV interface is freaking slow. Sometimes you'll try to page up or down on the Guide and it will just sit there and take too long. Movie search is too slow. Just a lot of slow functions, IMO.

Anyway...I'm going to call and just get a bundle with Comcast. And yes, from my experience with Comcast Cable TV about 5 years ago, their service did suck balls. Hopefully it's better, unlikely though.

[Hott Butt Mud]

In Denver Comcast is fast. When you are a new move you can get a deal on just about anything you want for 6 months. When you get to 5.5 months, call them up and threaten to switch to Century Link. You'll keep your current pricing for another 6 months. Repeat the process every 6 months and it's really not as bad as what a lot of other people pay.

I'm not in Denver, but CO.... I do this and also seem to be getting HBO for free every month.

[concretejungle]

Fuck Century Link. I know nothing about Comcast but there is no way they are a bigger PITA than CL.

Also, when CL fucks you over you'll probably still need to talk to a Qwest representative thus adding to the on hold time and mouth breathing fucktard chuckleheads that you'll encounter along the way to not having your issue fixed in a satisfactory manner.

[digitaldeath]

Kill this thread. It's an abomination and an embarrassment.