The Quest for Qwest

I've had Clearwire internet for the last two years and have hated it for nearly that long. I could recount the fluffy reasons I chose Clearwire, but they all seem so obtuse in retrospect. Certainly the most compelling reason was my desperate and immediate need to kick Comcast to the curb, but that's not an excuse to put up with mediocre service and slow internet speeds for TWO years. My husband finally gave me an ultimatum last year.....change or stop complaining. Again, being the aficionado of the Path of Least Resistance, aka POLR, I plugged my ears, shut my eyes.... la la la la la la la la la la.....

Of course, all lazy things eventually come to an end, and last week, the internet stopped working altogether. Yes, I tried unplugging to reset the box, etc, etc, to no avail. Sometimes you need a swift kick in the ass to get things moving along in a different direction.

So, I did the least logical thing, and called Comcast to hook me up. Believe it or not, I went through the autobot on the line, entered my phone number, waited for them to connect me to a salesperson, and voila! the autobot informed me that they, "were unable to process (my) request at this time." Since when did COMCAST, the money-grubbing behemoth, ever turn away customers due to technical problems? Cut employees in the technical service department, sure. Massive lay-offs in the customer-complaints department, fine. But SALES????

Naturally, I thought it was just some quick error that would be instantly resolved, so I called back an hour later, jonesing hard for my internet connection (why else would I come snivelling back, tail between my legs, were I not completely desperate) and was told the same thing. Weird. So I got online (some neighbor has an unlocked Netgear account...slow but sometimes intermittently works in a pinch) and went directly to the Comcast site and opened a Chat with a sales rep. Almost there! The only downside was the 6 day wait for installation, but I could overlook that, I think, when......the connection failed and I lost the Chat. That was the end of the line. Obviously God did NOT want me to use Comcast. Simple as that.

So, I got online AGAIN, and this time tried Qwest. And, with all companies who pride themselves on immediate and personalized customer service, the highly impersonal person-to-person Chat is the way to go. Who needs to connect a face to a voice when you have neither? This is SO my style.

Anyway, I'm Chatting with Daniel, my uber-helpful sales rep, and I'm ready to sign up. I chose the 3.0Mbps for $30/month (along with $9.99 set-up fee, $9.99 to ship the modem, and $59.99 for the modem itself), which is purportedly adequate for web-browsing and streaming live movies and tv. The Chat was moving along smoothly, prepping me to take the plunge and BUY, when my pirated internet connection FAILED!! Seriously, someone is trying to tell me something, but I refuse to listen.

Trying to re-establish a Chat with someone at a huge company like Qwest is beyond impossible. I had failed and would have to start from square one. Deep breaths were in order.

Luckily, helpful Daniel recognized my plight, and signed me up anyway, spinning off a friendly email telling me that he would be happy to cancel the order immediately if he misunderstood my interest in the service. DONE!

UPS delivered the modem the next week (sadly, it still took several days for the do-it-yourself method, even after I offered to go to the Qwest office to pick up the modem myself, which is NOT DONE) and I set up the system (modem plugged into the wall, plug in the phone cord, plug into Apple Time Capsule router, pray for a miracle) in just over 30 minutes. Of course, it didn't work the first time out, so it took another couple hours of figuring out why, why, why! Basically this involved internet research on how to configure my Time Capsule properly and following the directions to a T.

I realized early on that the speeds varied wildly within a single sitting, an irregular sinecurve that bored straight through my patience, leaving me to wonder if everyone else passively endures these frequent lapses or if I am all alone.

However, it was Netflix that finally did me in. Based on the package I purchased through Qwest, I should be able to stream video with ease, but as I warmed up on my treadmill, gearing up for 40 minutes of Lost, it froze and said that my internet speed was insufficient to play the program. Annoying. I checked the modem, and sure enough, the internet light was off, indicating a big problem. After 30 minutes of mind-numbing frustration, I made my first call to Qwest. The service tech was amiable and told me that by plugging the phone cord directly into the jack, rather than through a splitter, my problem would be solved. Wow. I thanked her profusely for her help and hopped back on the treadmill, ready to sweat and relishing my decision to choose Qwest.

Three minutes later, Lost froze again, and I cursed that decision. Perhaps Comcast wasn't so bad after all? I called again, this time getting Monique on the other line, who was less efficient and seemed slightly put-out with my annoyed tone. I assured her that I had JUST called and thought my problem was resolved and YES, all the cords were plugged into the correct spots.

She told me that I needed to move the modem at least 3 feet from any other electrical devices to avoid interference and then we ran Speedtest.qwest.net. What we learned was that it was running at 1.614Mbps rather than the 3.0 that I was paying for. She then spent the next 25 minutes putting my service onto a different circuit, whatever that means, and then coming back to ask me to do the Speedtest again. This time it indicated 2.279, which was an improvement, though not the 3.0 they advertise. I ran it again, to be accurate, and this time it was at 2.034. Monique was perfectly satisfied with this speed telling me that it was CLOSE to 3.0.  I don't know about you, but to me, 2.034 is only 68% of the expected 3.0 speed, which is a D, failing in my book. When I brought this to Monique's attention, she dismissed it by telling me that it didn't matter what the speed was because "the Speedtest isn't accurate anyway." What?? That begged the question, "then why bother to do the Speedtest?" to which she responded that it was only to check for IMPROVEMENT, which we did prove. Agreed, 2.034 IS better than 1.614, but is it acceptable? Apparently it is to Qwest.

I haven't tried to continue Lost on Netflix because I'm frankly exhausted by this ordeal, and feel better venting here rather than exercising.  The quest continues .....