Expert Overview of CenturyLink's Services
CenturyLink is a major DSL Internet provider serving residential and business customers nationwide in the USA. Their services mostly leverage “fiber to the loop” landline networks to deliver digital data, which allows for speeds much higher than dial-up but still a bit slower than cable or fiber. In some areas, CenturyLink also offers fiber connections, although these have limited availability. They have network coverage in Arizona, Colorado, Washington, and 47 other states.
CenturyLink commonly bundles their Internet plans with phone service and/or their “Prism TV” digital TV platform. While their top download speeds often clock in slightly lower than cable, they are overall more consistent with their pricing for long term customers. They are one of the few Internet providers that offers true “locked in” pricing for Internet and phone service.
CenturyLink DSL And Fiber Networks
Most CenturyLink DSL connections are what’s known as “Fiber to the loop” connections, which means that subscriber data is transmitted over copper phone lines from the residence to a DSLAM device nearby, which switches over the connection for all subscribers in that area into a fiber line. This is known as a “backhaul” connection, and usually connects to an Internet exchange of some sort which allows data to flow across the Internet to any point in the world over fiber backbone connections.
In simpler terms, DSL from Centurylink can be thought of as a “phone line” connection. DSL is a major improvement over dial-up Internet (which also used phone lines) because it can share the line with phone service while delivering much higher bandwidth and speeds. DSL is typically in the 3–35 Mbps range, depending on the network quality in an area. It is usually presented as an alternative to cable in suburban areas, or an alternative to satellite in more rural areas. While the overall speeds are lower than cable, DSL connections are known for being more stable when it comes to speed since they are “direct” connections to provider, vs the “shared” connection you have with cable.
CenturyLink Corporate Structure
CenturyLink is organized into five regional divisions: Eastern Region, Midwest Region, Central Region, Northwest Region, and Southwest Region. CenturyLink has acquired a variety of smaller companies over the years, including Tier 3 in 2013 and the similarly-named Level 3 in 2016, growing to become one of the largest telecommunications company in the US. CenturyLink adopted the current name to replace the older “CenturyTel” name in 2009, and officially changed their corporate name in 2010.
CenturyLink Approval Rating
To date, we’ve collected 61,985 customer ratings for CenturyLink. Among those, 35.3 percent of subscribers recorded a positive rating. These results are average within the broadband industry, as the average approval among all Internet providers is 48.4 percent.
CenturyLink get’s strong marks for maintaining consistent pricing compared to other providers. While they use the “promotional pricing” strategy that’s near-universal among Internet providers, they don’t raise the rate nearly as high as some others once those promotional rates run out. They also have a history offering true “locked in” pricing, which means that customers don’t have to spend time on the phone arguing down price hikes every year, as is common with many of CenturyLink’s cable competitors.
CenturyLink implemented a data cap of 1 TB on most residential broadband plans in recent years. While this is high and won’t matter for most customers, it’s worth being aware of for large households that plan to do a high volume of OTT (Over the Top) streaming via services like Netflix or Hulu. Most families only use a fraction of this data every month, and CenturyLink earned a #10 spot on Netflix’s top ISPs for streaming chart as of 2018.
CenturyLink Availability
CenturyLink’s core strength is their rural availability, which is made possible by leveraging existing telephone infrastructure to provide Internet access. This is what makes DSL in general one of the most widely-available broadband technologies — virtually every house in the US has been wired for phone service at one point or another, so virtually any house wired for phone service can get DSL service, even if it’s not particularly fast in some areas. CenturyLink has strong speed averages for a DSL-based provider, and is known for consistent pricing compared to the cable alternatives many suburban residents choose them over. CenturyLink is a strong alternative to satellite for rural customers and provides comparably stable service with high data caps.