I wrote about Qwest’s new initiative to kill off local ISPs a number of months ago. I’m starting to hear more real world complaints from our DSL customers caught in the crossfire.
Here’s the typical story. Customer signs up for 7Mbps DSL services from ISP. Six months later the customer receives a letter from Qwest saying something-to-the-effect of “we accidently allocated too much bandwidth to your area”. The customer is given the option to either cut back their internet access to a much slower 1.5Mbps connection or sign up for Qwest’s shiny new ADSL2+ service with more bandwidth than they are getting now. Hmmm, gee. Tough decision.
I just happened to stumble upon a technical explanation for some of Qwest’s gerrymandering. Apparently their ADSL2+ technology is causing some crosstalk issues with legacy DSL customers. I’m sure Qwest’s marketing department sees this as a terribly unfortunate situation.
The traditional local ISPs are dying and the quality service they offered is dying along with them.
