Qwest to see how many suckers live in Minneapolis
- April 25th, 2008
- 4 Comments
Looking to put a nail in its own coffin, Qwest is now offering 20Mbps DSL service in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area for $119.99 per month ($109.99 per month for the first year) in order to compete with Comcast’s high speed internet service, which offers speeds of up to 12, 16, or 50Mbps for $42.95, $52.95, or $152.95, respectively.
Qwest’s 12Mbps offering, for comparison, carries a regular price of $69.99 per month, about 34% more expensive than Comcast’s comparable plan. To be fair, you can lock in 12-Mbps Qwest service at $56.99 per month if you sign a two year contract. You also get $5 off of your monthly internet service if you have a landline through Qwest.
According to the Star Tribune, “The higher speeds are made possible by installing fiber-optic lines as far as Qwest’s neighborhood ‘nodes.’ Qwest can’t afford to run fiber-optic lines all the way to customers’ homes, so copper wire handles the last part of the trip.” Classy.
I tried both Qwest and Comcast when I lived in Minneapolis. I went with Qwest’s basic $34.99 per month plan (1.5Mbps) to try to save a little money but after taxes and modem rental and all that stuff, I was still paying $50 per month. And it was slooooow.
It’s really the lesser of two evils here. Comcast charges up the wazoo for internet service, but at least it’s pretty fast. Paying over $100 per month for 20Mbps DSL seems downright ludicrous, though. I’m really interested to see what happens to DSL providers once WiMax starts rolling out everywhere.
yoshi (Who am I?)
5 months ago
Your point isn’t valid here. With Comcast you are stuck with Comcast as the ISP. Live in Minneapolis…. if you choose Qwest DSL you DO NOT have to use them as an ISP. So the fact that Qwest was slow for you isn’t relevant. I have a naked DSL line (no phone line) from Qwest with Visi as my ISP. In all the years I have had them (going on 5) there has never been a problem and my speed is exactly what I pay for (7Mbs down). Meanwhile my friends with Comcast have to deal with slowdowns, non-existent service, and unreliability. The death for Comcast Internet in Minneapolis will be the public wifi system that is just going into production.
So why don’t you do a little research once in while… Once I can order the higher speeds I’ll seriously look at it.
Doug Aamoth (Who am I?)
5 months ago
I had naked DSL. Qwest provides it. I had no ISP and no phone line.
VISI uses Qwest’s circuits (Frontier’s too, but just up to 2Mbps). The whole ISP part of the equation doesn’t really matter. It’s still Qwest DSL. The ISP part is mostly fluff. You get better customer service and maybe some more web space and some e-mail addresses.
VISI (great company by the way, nothing against them) offers DSL access of “Up to 3-7Mbps” down starting at around $40 per month for Qwest DSL service plus another $19.95 per month for VISI to act as your ISP. If you’re getting sustained download speeds of 7Mbps, that’s great. Most people aren’t nearly as close to the DSLAM, though.
My connection was slow enough and my ping rates were high enough that I couldn’t use VOIP services or play online games reliably, so I switched back to cable. How much is your bill each month, if you don’t mind sharing?
steve (Who am I?)
5 months ago
don’t try and play games from 3 to 7 on cable all your neighbors are using up the band width. one feed for your entire neighborhood! at least with qwest you get your own line and your full band width no matter how many people get on the web
Paul (Who am I?)
5 months ago
Well, I would like to be able to use this review information but since it seems more emotional than factual there are some things to consider here. First off, this is an ADSL2+ roll-out, this is not the same as the previous ADSL networks. Adsl2+ operates on different frequencies and will have less issues with interference, it’s really ADSL’s fixes and replacement. No mention of channel bonding in this review either. So, I guess I am not sure whom your readers represent but if they are remotely in the know, you sort of sound like an idiot.