Is CenturyLink a Good Internet Service Option?

CenturyLink is an Internet service provider that’s one of the only options for some people because of geographic restrictions. Today, let’s dive deeper into exactly what they offer with their Internet packages and take a look at their current customers think of their treatment so far.

CenturyLink Breakdown

CenturyLink does provide several advantages that could make it well worth your time and money. First and foremost is their price lock or “Price for Life” guarantee. This means that once you lock in a monthly bill for your Internet, it won’t change for as long as you keep your contract with the company.

Speaking of prices, Internet plans are priced pretty affordable, ranging from $49 a month to $65 a month on average. Most of the plans can offer you download speeds between 15 MB per second and 100 MB per second, although the fiber-optic plan can go as high as 940 MB per second.

All their Internet offerings are provided without contracts or long-term engagements; you can pay month-to-month if you like. However, as seen above, most of their download speeds aren’t very competitive compared to what other Internet service providers frequently offer their customers. To make matters worse, CenturyLink may be the only Internet service provider option for your local area. So if you are stuck with DSL speeds, you won’t be very impressed, especially since the prices don’t go lower than $49 a month or so.

CenturyLink Ratings

We can figure out CenturyLink’s general customer reputation and overall user satisfaction from a variety of resources. The Better Business Bureau, which is a website that collects user reviews for service and product comparison, has CenturyLink stuck at a measly 1 star out of 5. This definitely indicates general customer dissatisfaction or a high number of complaints.

But let’s see things change when we examine a different resource. Consumeraffairs.com also provides industry insight and collects user reviews from those who’ve actually taken advantage of what CenturyLink has to offer. Their review collection system has 1815 ratings in total over the last year, all of which combine for about 3.6 stars out of 5. It’s much better than what the BBB shows, but it’s still not super impressive overall.

We can also turn to reviews.org, which is a site that publishes various reviews for different products and services. In their review, they give CenturyLink 4 out of 5 stars, showing much more improvement and a much better response to CenturyLink’s Internet offerings overall. Their review praises the impressively high speed that CenturyLink provides to its customers, although they take away a few points for prices. CenturyLink does benefit from no contracts and the price lock guarantee, of course.

CenturyLink Complaints

CenturyLink has plenty of complaints from its customers, and many of them share common themes. Particularly in light of the recent COVID-19 quarantine, many customers are experiencing spotty Internet coverage or general data throttling, although the exact correlation between these events and the company’s performance isn’t very clear. Their customer service representatives don’t appear to be helping things; many customers report that customer service reps are overall unhelpful or provide half-baked explanations for various occurrences that don’t actually pan out or lead to real change or improvement. 

Even worse, a few customers have told horror stories about trying to return various equipment, like modems, to CenturyLink stores or warehouses. One customer, in particular, found that CenturyLink didn’t credit their return, even though they gave back the equipment and expected a refund. It seems that keeping track of all your receipts and every dealing you make with CenturyLink is a smart idea, given the possibility that they may not trade with you fairly. 

Their customer service representatives do seem to be very active on engagement channels and on review websites like the BBB, however.

CenturyLink Lawsuits

CenturyLink has been at the heart of several lawsuits throughout its company history. Most recently, a successful lawsuit in Arizona saw CenturyLink ordered to provide its customers with $1.9 million directly to those consumers who didn’t get a certain closer discount, in addition to other fees, like $2 million to improvements to their infrastructure and $7 million to the state itself.

This is not an isolated incident; it’s part of a larger trend where CenturyLink doesn’t always provide its customers with the respect they deserve. If you have a grievance against CenturyLink, maybe Fairshake can help in some way.

We have lots of experience battling big companies like CenturyLink on behalf of their consumers. We can help you pursue independent arbitration against them so you can find a resolution for whatever grievance you might have with their company or their customer representatives.

Best of all, you can begin the process by filling out one of our contact forms below; it’s easy!