CenturyLink Customer Reviews

We have been with Centurylink for years, and have been subjected to a continual decline in service. It has gotten to the point where the internet slows from 10 Mbps in the morning, to 5 Mbps in the early evening, and down to 0.25 Mbps at night. It appears they have over extended themselves with customers, with no upgrade to the infrastructure in our area!

We lose WiFi connection at least once a day. My son is constantly booted out of his game. Constant lag, no power, movies will reload.

I have, from day one, had problems with reliability. Weekly periods of slow response. Constant need to reset modem. Usually not close to paid - for speeds of 3 Mbps download and .75 Mbps upload. First month was lost with no up time. I was told it was my house line. Turned out to be overloaded server at the headquarters. I continually get ads for discounts for upgraded speeds but am told there are no plans to provide them in my area. Will never recommend CenturyLink to anyone.

Started out OK but the price kept creeping up every month without reason. Quality and reliability kept going in the opposite direction. Now I'm having to switch away from CenturyLink.

We do little more than Netflix and Amazon Prime. We are constantly plagued by slow download. DSL is less than great.

Opted for fiber internet through Centurylink and was told we would get 40 Mbps. Once installed we got 2 Mbps on a good day. When we tried to get out because it didn't match what we signed up for they would not allow us to without a step fee for breaking the contract.

I currently pay over $120 a month for 5 Mbps. I am a gamer and it takes hours and hours to download any game. I downloaded a 29 Gb game and it took about 30 hours. The overall service is unreliable and spotty throughout the day. I would not recommend to anyone.

Terrible. So painfully slow. 10 years ago it was good. As the area has grown and more people have more devices their network has slowed to a crawl. CenturyLink refuses to upgrade their hardware because they say the density of customers is not large enough to warrant the expense. Yet in our area their system is maxed out. They cannot take on any more customers because the system won't support it. If you drop them, the next person on the wait list gets your spot. Regular mail is faster than their system.

Their service is pretty reliable but good luck trying to get anything done with their customer support. When I first signed up for them after hours of arguing, they had to send a tech out to the property to confirm Internet was available on my property. Years later I am currently in the same battle whether or not I can receive something higher than 1.5Mbps.

We pay for 20 Mbps service and usually are getting around 16 Mbps. No problem, but about a quarter of the time our service tests out much slower, 5-6 Mbps. At least once a month it shuts down completely. When l I call, they say "server problems".

Internet has routine drops, slow access and crazy expensive for service speed - have to continually call them to get short term discounts applied, even though they guarantee pricing for life. Terrible service.

When it works, it's great, but we have been experiencing increasing network disruptions and non-connectivity issues averaging roughly 2-3 hours a day over the past two to three months. As we are usually connected to the internet an average of 14-15 hours per day, that represents a significant and unacceptable amount of downtime. Currently paying $39.95/month for 20 Mbps, unlimited usage.

I purchased DSL from Centurylink in 2010 when I moved into my house at 1.5 Mbps which was and is the fastest they offer in my area. Speeds were good and could watch Netflix in HD. Sometime probably late 2011 or 2012 speeds started declining to the point now in 2017 where sometimes the data seems to stall out and then cannot watch Netflix at all or continually buffers every 5 minutes. I cannot stream YouTube or otherwise surf the net or send email. I have been told for years I am in a "bandwidth" exhausted area (IE they oversold) and also half the time the representative tells me they are "currently working on upgrading their network soon". They have been saying this canned response for years as well. Overall customer service itself is fairly good, sometimes get transferred 6+ times in one call because "they" can't handle it and need to transfer me, 2 times they transferred me to someone that cannot even "service" Texas customers... whatever that's supposed to mean. I have gotten some credit here and there for the low speeds, but not consistently, and not enough in my mind. Definitely not getting my $45/month (internet-only) worth for supposed 1.5 Mbps down and 0.7 Mbps up. Usually when I check down speed is actually not bad at 1.2 Mbps (especially for my rural area) but upload is non-existent (maybe 0.05-0.10 Mbps), so guessing I could get the data if the other end got the packet telling them to send it? So far, no viable alternatives in my area, except satellite and seems that it is hit or miss with getting good enough speeds based on reviews.

After I switched to CenturyLink I began having problems with signal strength from their WiFi modem. Linked devices stop streaming, calls drop, messages appear that signal strength is weak and the current operation may not continue properly, etc. I called CenturyLink technical support, and they were really no help at all. They sent a new and improved modem, which actually was marginally worse than the first. When I told them that they ran a few tests from their end, which they said checked out so the problem must be location and placement at my end. I have had Internet provider modems and routers in the same location providing signal to devices in their same locations for fifteen years, or so, and this is the first time I've had weak signal issues. Nothing has changed except the modem and Internet provider, so how could it be my fault? The other providers were willing to send a technician for problems russet could not be resolved over the phone. I love DirecTV, but I will be dumping CenturyLink as soon as possible.

Speed is only up to 5 Mbps in this area and there apparently is no plan to improve that service. The internet service is not consistent. It seems like there are frequent, almost daily, service interruptions in the evening. It's a semi-rural area but still relatively heavily populated. I'm sure adding bandwidth would pay off for CenturyLink. But there is no move to improve in this area.

While the customer service line is staffed with helpful, knowledgeable people... if you have to call them every couple months because of poor Internet connectivity, it doesn't matter.

When I first got CenturyLink, I loved it, but now we can't even download apps on our smart TV and we cannot watch movies on apps such as Hulu, Netflix etc.. The movie plays for a few minutes then starts buffering. I have called customer support. I have checked my speed with Ookla speed test, different sites and CenturyLink's speed tester and when my things are buffering my speed runs from 2 Mbps to 4 Mbps. I pay for 10 Mbps. Neighbors in Grand View who have CenturyLink say the same thing. I am looking for a better internet service.

The area we live in is outside of City. Our internet service is slow and spotty at best. When I call to complain, I am always assured I am getting the top speed available to me. Not true, as I often check online as to the speeds I am receiving. I would NEVER recommend this service to anyone.

Just got internet transferred from Medford and speed is horrible. Can’t stream Hulu during the day without pauses and trying to stream Amazon Prime movies at night is a straight up no-go. Constantly getting the Insufficient Bandwidth error message. Very frustrated and going to call CenturyLink tomorrow and tell them if they can’t do better, I’m going to cancel.

Usually I could plan on spending an hour on the phone and being transferred to several agents (in one case it was 11) before coming close to resolving a billing problem. Many of the agents were in the Philippines and sometimes difficult to understand. The internet service was good but hope you don't have a billing problem.

Centurylink might be good in more populated areas, but not in rural Santa Fe county. They are providing DSL internet on the old phone lines, no fiber optic lines or any upgrades during the past 20 years. The service is slow, seldom even actually performing at the lowest level of service they offer. Many evenings when local use is higher, internet service will freeze up and webpages will quit loading. All they do is splice and fix cables, never replacing the miles of lines that should be replaced. If you have another option, go for it. Many of us in rural areas have no other reasonably priced alternatives.

I'm leaving CenturyLink after their 6th major billing error in 9 years. They've applied each of payments on my two accounts for the last four months to only one account, even when I've directly logged into their website under the other account to pay it. They occasionally throttle your speed until you do a speedtest, and then your internet speed returns to normal for about two or three hours.

Hard to watch a Netflix without dropping out. Have to reset the modem all the time. Service drops a lot. Very poor service.

Everything loads very slowly. My service drops at least once or twice a day. It is frustrating to be trying to watch a program or even just surfing the internet and to have to watch the little wheel go round and round. When I am watching a show and I have to go in at least once a day and reset settings to reconnect to internet. Price is too much. I had to bundle with phone service that jacked bill way up for a phone I never use. I use cell phone for all calls. So I get charged every month for a phone I never use and it had to come with long distance. I get free long distance on cell phone. Not happy camper at all.

I switched from Spectrum because they were price gouging me. Now being on CenturyLink for a mere 3 months, our download speeds are extremely slow and we have a data limit. Cancelling as soon as my service period is up. Not worth it. Slower speeds for the same money as Spectrum.

People on the phone are polite but apparently you cannot rely on your order going through. I have now had two orders for speed upgrade scheduled, then put on hold without any notice. So I have already had two days scheduled to stay home for half of the day for no reason and I had to call and check as to why no one has shown up both days. Not to mention the hours wasted on the phone calling about these issues. My experience with existing service has been reliable as long as I did not need any onsite tech support or want to change anything with the account. I'm very frustrated with trying to upgrade. In summary, if you can deal with the headache of hours on the phone trying to get what you need and potentially three or more attempts to get services set up the actual product of internet connectivity is actually good. Not sure it's worth the headache.

Not reliable. Constant connection problems. Can not use WiFi and internet together. I have gone two to three weeks without service. Servers are not reliable, customer service gives you a sad service. Speed is okay but can not trust it to stay up constantly and cost is way to high for constant outages. For this reason, I would not recommend this service.

Internet service is very slow. Most of the time we cannot access it. Just keeps loading with no result. Definitely can not watch any movies, buffers constantly.

Slowing down over time. Service continues to have periods of a dismal speeds. After midnight the service improves to near 5 Mbps. During the day can be 1/10th of that. Paying for 6 Mbps which means they should be delivering 4.8 Mbps. On a good day, it might be 3 Mbps. Freeze on YouTube common now losing sound. Seams that have oversold system adding too many customers.

Download speed .9 Mbps upload speed .50 and that's on a good day. We can't stream or even keep an Alexa unit connected. We also never know when the service will go down. If it were cheap it would be one thing but it's very expensive. Considering we pay for the service when it goes down it costs over one hundred dollars per month.

Worst experience with this place. They are cheap but you get what you pay for. When the service would work it was great, but there were a lot of outages, the customer service wasn't pleasant and they over charge for things you didn't ask for.

For the last 4 years their internet service is all most useless. I have the DSL service at 1.5 Mbps but for the last week it's running at .3 Mbps. Excluding the overhead that's of 30% of the expected service. It's not enough for run Netflix, email is very slow, it take 5 or 6 seconds to open a message and Google is poor. At times, when opening a website, it just hangs up and won't connect. When contacted you get the run around ending with "your modem is receiving the proper sign" so there is nothing we will do. And they don't make any effort to research or investigate the problem. What's even worse they are the only provider for this area so they make no effort to resolve problems.

Mixed results: I've had CenturyLink for 20+ years. Attempting to leave them because they charge $140 for simple 20/2 MB service + basic phone. Can't get anything faster without going to fiber optic to the tune of $1,000 per month. So goodbye landline. Overall rating on a 5 point scale: Price: Zero. Reliability: 5. Value: 1.8 Technicians: 6 on a 5 point scale, they've been awesome. Sales guys: 2 Empathy from corporate: 0.1

Had CenturyLink for years now (first in West Denver, now here in SW Denver) -- they're not bad. Reasonable pricing. Ok coverage. Customer service isn't too awful and they don't try to upsell you all the time. But their speeds are atrocious! DSL with 4 Mbps download and barely 1 Mbps up. That's their BEST package where I live. Wish I had Google Fiber or really ANY other DSL provider here...I'd switch in a heartbeat for better speed.

Overall, CenturyLink is not too bad. But my bill has doubled in 2 years. I lost some functions on the home phone, which as a remote worker is important. The internet speed is the only reason I stay with CenturyLink. Their website is something in the 90's. The TV offering is quite old as well. So if you're primary interest is internet speed, try CenturyLink. But if TV and office phone is what you need, I would look elsewhere.

The service is slow and no matter how many times you call them, it doesn’t get any better. We are limited as to who we can have but I’m definitely going to find a better provider.

While up to 25 Mbps speed is advertised, we only get 700 kbps, less than 1Mbps. Service rep stated CenturyLink is looking at upgraded format for increased speed. I was told that 2years ago... still at 700 kbps speed. Almost non usable...sites keep timing out. Maybe satellite service will work.

The service is reliable and the repair service is very good. But, the upload speed is 1mb with the 20Mbps download. Without any discounts, the usual bill for 2 phone lines plus 20Mbps down is about $275 a month. If you get a special, you can get that down to $195/month. The killer is that to make a payment online it costs an extra $9 per payment. They try to get you on auto pay, but when you do that you will see your bill creep upwards for a bunch of extra services you won't use. The long distance charges, even if you never call long distance is around $60/month for 2 phones. The only real advantage is that the DSL is much more secure than other providers. If your modem breaks down they will replace it almost right away.

We purchased our house in Seminole and were greeted by only one Internet provider, other than Satellite, so we went with CenturyLink. They hooked up the dual DSL line and we had 20 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up per line we were rocking and saw no lag in our data stream. It only took about a month for one of the DSL lines to fail and we have been stuck with half of what we are paying for since then. CenturyLink Customer Support cannot help, as when they ping the router they see a connection (DSL2 line) while there is actually only half of what was promised. They say that there is a connection and that it's on my end with my phone lines. I am very unhappy with how I have been treated by customer service and will jump providers as soon as another, reasonable, one is available. I want to emphasize that when the service was up and both DSL lines were going, it was great. That has just been so long ago I have forgotten what "lag-free" internet was like.

I have had nothing but great customer service experience. My only complaint is a very low upload speed, but I would rather suffer through poor upload speeds than go with others.

We used to have reliability issues with CenturyLink, but after fixing some electrical issues (a bad DIY job from the previous owner of our old house) that I believe was intermittently causing brief power interruptions or surges to the modem, that was mostly resolved. Since then, we only had one other problem, where we had our speed slow down to 1Mbps (supposed to be 8). I called support on Friday evening (9 pm) and they had a tech out Saturday morning before 10 am and fixed us up quickly. They replaced some cables and we have been running at full speed since then, with no more unreliability. The tech support was very patient and helpful, both on phone support and the technician sent to our home.

Very unreliable. I live in a sparsely populated rural area where I have no alternative but satellite that is very expensive. 1.5 Mbps is all CenturyLink offers. It is adequate for Netflix and web surfing when it works. It is often as slow as .2 Mbps which is useless. Customer service is terrible. It is impossible to get a straight answer about plans to upgrade service or to learn why it is so slow.

Poor Customer service but the internet is good for what I use it for at the moment. In a few months, I'll be needing broadband/fiber optic internet hoping it will be an option for me soon.

I consider myself a fair reviewer and wish to fully explore all aspects of a company before making a final decision, but CenturyLink has truly proved to be the worst experience one could have with an internet provider. The customer service CAN be good, but most of the times you'll receive help from someone inexperienced or ignorant. The price is decent, but for the services provided, it is not good value. The internet connection is spotty and slow, though I'm paying for a good modem/router and 25MB of speed, the most I ever got was 10MB anywhere in our 2 bedroom apartment. I also had horrible experiences with setup AND cancellation of services, where we scheduled a setup TWICE and no one came by TWICE, we had to call three different customer service representatives before someone finally switched our internet on and we were able to use it. Took a WEEK after we moved in. Then, when we cancelled our service we needed to extend the cancellation period so I had to open a new account since my roommate moved out to extend our internet for just one week, where I asked if the charges were prorated and they insisted it was- they then proceeded to charge me for the full $45 a month PLUS the prorated fees AND the next month's $45. I ONLY NEEDED INTERNET FOR ONE WEEK. They claim that the price will change when I set up the disconnect but I have zero trusts in this company to think that will actually happen. Cannot complain enough about this service and the little help we got,

The bill is too high for internet only, I have no phone or TV. Customer service is good.

Streaming movies are consistently stuttering and we only stream to one tv at a time. CenturyLink said the bandwidth would be more than ample for our needs. That has not been the case.

I have it for 14 years and it's getting worse on quality and dependable also pricing. Put it like this: my satellite TV gives us more dependable service than CenturyLink internet. Daily loss of internet, sometimes weekly. Actually hit a high today on download speed 2.95 Mbps for about 5min. No system upgrade in sight and they tell me we are on an exhaust line. The only option is satellite internet, could they be any worse?

Paying for 10mbs but actually getting 4-6Mbps. TV buffers, phone voice over WiFi is garbled and intermittent, internet drops out then resumes.

Unlike the rest of the modern world, my husband and I cannot stream anything. Using an internet speed test, I got a 1.9 Mbps. After a discussion with customer service two weeks ago, they promised us a new modem (which we were purchasing full out). It has yet to arrive. They told my husband that we should be getting up to 29 Mbps. That is laughable. I can't stream anything. We were able to reduce our bill from $99 a month to about $55. The $55 isn't worth it.

Every thing was good until recently, getting 9+ Mbps download. Suddenly my service has become almost unusable. Had 5 attempts to fix the problem and their answer was to turn my speed down. To quote one of the techs, "the slower the speed, the less errors you will have". CenturyLink says all they guarantee is 80% of the 10 Mbps that I am paying for. I am not getting but 7 Mbps download and even I can figure that is 70%. No upgrades in the future!!

Where I live in Washington, Utah the speed of DSL is 12mbps downstream. Because of our distance from the C.O. or the closest node (fiber to copper wire), This is probably the best speed I will get - unless the telephone network is updated. I have not had any problems with customer service and I have only had one or two outages. I just received a $1.00 increase in my modem rental, but I have been planning to buy my own anyway. All in all, it works ok.

CenturyLink is awful depending on where you live. I get 3 Mbps, buffering is bad, streaming is hard, multiple devices drags it down more. They say that is the best I'll ever get over a phone line. They have no plans to expand or improve their equipment and infrastructure. They are part of the federal governments CAF11 program and still have no intention to better our internet. The world runs on internet. But the other choices are expensive and cost prohibitive for other families, so we do without. CenturLink really doesn't care, they just keep raising their prices. Like their proprietary modem I have to rent at over $100 a year for how many years now 5, 6 or more?

Not the fastest internet but can’t complain living in a small town, the problem is the price $70 for 5 Mbps. I do appreciate the no data cap but not the price, too high. Wanted to change it but customer service didn’t help at all.

CenturyLink is very unreliable. If you like to play online video games, you will have extremely inconsistent download speed. It works decently well from 7-10 am getting around 10 Mbps but anytime after that you are lucky to get a maximum of 5 Mbps.

I have 25 Mbps VDSL and can stream 4K videos and be on my iPad and also stream music at the same time without any issues. VDSL and DSL is all based on footage from the telephone switch or center office. The Closer the faster speeds.

It's slower than slow, even on the highest "up to" speed we can buy. It's never close to the "up to" speed, so I'm not sure what we're paying for. To top it off, it goes down... briefly...every day or so. It usually comes back on by itself, but when it doesn't, I have to call. I either get a recording about "experiencing a localized outage," or I get great technicians on the phone. The technicians are the best thing about CenturyLink!

CenturyLink is the only option for my location so they have decided not to even try to bring anything faster to the area. Slowest speed I've had at any location in Minnesota or Iowa for the past 15 years. Like going back in time.

Works fine most of the time, however, there are short-term interruptions occasionally.

Internet goes in and out for no apparent reason. Highest speed, 10 Mbps, not fast enough for streaming. So I've been told they have not upgraded their internet in ten years. They need to, as I'm stuck with them for a provider. No other local providers service my area.

I have never had any issues with this service, no down time, no loss of service ever. Since I really do not have a requirement for high speed I have one of the lowest speeds by request and it works very well even on those days where I need to work from home.

I have had CenturyLink for more than a few years now, and it is usually reliable, but always slow. I was always hoping for some improvement in speed, but it never came. Bummer, time to upgrade.

Having only 1-1.5 Mbps download is unacceptable in the year 2017! That is the top speed we get. Often times in the evening or on weekends, simple websites or email accounts won't download at all. We are need of improvements badly!

Very friendly company but I live on fringe of city and my speed is incredibly slow. CenturyLink did bid over $6,000 to run a faster line :(

So far so good ! Just installed a few minutes ago, tech Randy was very knowledgible and quick!!!

Caveat: I am a retired network professional who moved to the edge of "civilization". Lack of services comes with the territory. That said we have two options for internet and one for cell. The internet choice is between satellite and DSL. We opted for CenturyLink DSL based on price ($45/m) and the lack of a bandwidth cap. It took approximately 6 months for support to get us from 680/680 Kbps to 2.272/0.896 Mbps. So for now, having just barely enough bandwidth to do internet and audio streaming with a very limited amount of SD streaming.

We've lived here 12 years. Due to our rural area, we have only one internet provider...Century Link. The customer service is good. They are helpful and courteous. Today's babysitting call was with Trina, and she was excellent. But the mechanics of their billing system has constant flaws. So long as you *babysit* every addition/deletion, promotion, bill change, etc every month, you will be satisfied with this provider. The calls can be time consuming, but they work out eventually. If Century Link could fix their billing software, the value would skyrocket.

CenturyLink is, unfortunately, just about the only game in town. Other land line options in the area don't service our address - even though we are close to multiple vacation spots that draw hundreds of thousands of visitors yearly. Satellite is poorly reviewed and does not provide any "try before you buy" test period - which tells me they don't believe in their own services. CenturyLink service has always been unreliable for us, but over the past several months it has become ridiculously slow - when we could connect at all. All their service personnel will tell us is that there is congestion in the area. That's not my problem - yet they're happy to charge us $50 per month for this lousy service? I love Broadbandnow.com - so glad someone out there is monitoring the deplorable state of communications technology in many parts of the country. It's a pity we have almost no options here, and it does not appear that will change anytime soon. No wonder companies like CenturyLink provide lousy service and a poor product - there is no competitive incentive to do otherwise. Thank you Broadbandnow.com for at least putting all the research together for me so I could see where I stand - up to my neck in the proverbial alligators!

I have had nothing but constant issues with Century Link. Calling tech support is no help, they told me that I needed to upgrade my modem, so I did. I still had really slow internet, called tech support again they said there was a problem at the main box and it would be fixed 2 weeks from that day and still a month afterwards the problem is not fixed and I pay for a speed I don't think I have ever received.

I've had DirecTV for 8 years. The TV is great. CenturyLink has never been above 750 Kbps. I have never been able to use the streaming feature. Techs have visited over 3 times this year and replaced modems, connections etc. I still can not use more than one device at a time and have to reboot constantly. Email times out regularly.

I have had CenturyLink DSL over 10 years. Great reliability until recently. Seems to constantly dropout during high usage periods. Speed has not increased over 6 Mbps for years. If it increased I would certainly welcome it.

No problems with the internet. But it is really expensive unless they give you one of their deals. But those typically are only for a year.

Not bad for somewhere in the middle of woods.

1. Service was excellent, however, after only 6-months the modem went bad. I had a difficult time convincing them that it was the problem, but after I did they replaced it immediately. 2. Their automated phone service lets you listen to a lot of elevator music while waiting your turn, but eventually, you get answers. 3. The internet and wifi are wonderful!

Good internet provider. We have their DSL service and love it! Would recommend!

Where the term "broadband" is considered, CenturyLink DSL in this area barely qualifies. The 1.5 maximum Mbps (actual speed is much closer to 1.0 Mbps, or less) is usable, but ridiculously overpriced compared to real high speed services 30 miles east of here. CenturyLink needs to do some serious upgrading in the South Park valley and offer real broadband at real speeds.

Solid service and speed at a fair price. The customer retention department will lower price and increase speed to keep me as a customer.

Had a great experience with CenturyLink. Had to cancel services due to moving out of service area. Definitely recommend this company and service staff. Go with CenturyLink.

Good techs and service.

CenturyLink is fast when you're in off-peak hours, like 3 in the morning. But anytime in the afternoon or on the weekend, it is awful. Netflix lags on my smart tv. And I have 40Mbps service.

Great service with very good customer service, and always ready to work with whatever issue you have, just need to call.