Purchase:
Qwest
offers several package deals and bundle discounts, prices for their DSL
service start at $19.99 a month for basic 1.5Mbit DSL service (with a
qualifying home phone package), not including taxes and other fees.
The normal rate is $39.99 with a
qualifying home phone package, $44.99 with a basic home phone package.
Pros:
Home
or business bundle discounts.
Premium service benefits.
Technical suport is quick and helpful in
most circumstances.
Cons:
Qwest
technical support will only officially help set up or troubleshoot
Qwest and Actiontec products.
Occasional service outages.
Availability.
Requires a 'qualifying' phone package.
Full
Review:
Qwest
is a well known telephone and Internet service provider in Minnesota,
offering an array of packages with speeds from 1.5Mbit to 20Mbit.
For our home and business services, we
have a Qwest bundle of telephone and DSL. This bundle saves us a
significant amount compared to Qwest telephone alone with another ISP.
Qwest support has been helpful to us for
our own questions and our customers who have Qwest DSL or dial-up under
normal conditions, but during outages and other problems that affect a
wider area their support lines are often overloaded. To help customers,
they usually provide an announcement on the support waiting line about
problems that are already being resolved.
In the time we have had Qwest DSL
services we have experienced three service outages per year up to half
a day in duration. In each case we were not the only customers affected
and Qwest was already working on a resolution when we called the
support line.
Even though Qwest only officially
supports Qwest and Actiontec branded hardware, we have had mostly
positive experiences getting the correct settings for Linksys, Motorola
and Netgear modems and routers to work with Qwest DSL. Only once has a
Qwest support technician refused to answer questions due to the fact
that we were using non Qwest hardware (we completed the installation
successfully anyway, since the NetGear modem/router we were using also
had an autodetect feature for line settings).
We have tried other ISPs, but found
their throughput (claimed to be 1.5Mbps) and response times to be
insufficient for our IP Television system which requires a minimum
speed of 1.5Mbps. Worse than that, one blamed the problem on our
computers or network equipment. Switching to Qwest resolved the problem
with no changes to our network, Qwest provides the advertised
throughput of 1.5Mbps, with overhead and other factors the effective
transfer rate is between 160KBps and 150KBps.
Average value, good technical support,
average hardware.
Qwest is a good ISP with a fair price.
Their included software and bundle discounts may make the deal even
better for some customers.
If Qwest is in your area and you already
have phone service with them, Qwest DSL will be less
cost-wise than any of the competitors.
