The Boise Broadband/DSL/Cable/Dish/Qwest Thread

[Hesster]

Now that Qwest has their FIOS service available in Boise, CableOne no longer has the cheapest speed for the money. Qwest's stand alone 7MB internet service is $47 per month without phone service, and doesn't have a daily cap. It's cheaper if you have a phone plan bundled in.

They are currently running a promotion where you can get the 7MB service for a year for $27 a month for a year if you sign up for new service with a phone plan. I called a few days ago and asked them how much it would be with a basic phone plan, and the price they quoted me was around $65 for both including taxes.

[icehole]

to hit a few different points here..

1 Qwest does not have fios or a fios like service.. Fios is FTTP (Fibre to the premises) & What Qwest offers is FTTN (Fibre to the Node).. Look at the Speed diffrences for the same price.. For about 60 bucks a month Qwest gives you 12Mbps down & 896Kbps up where fios Will give you a 20Mbps down & 5Mbps up.. Qwest does not offer a plan to match that upload at all & in order to match that download you need to basically Double the monthly Cost..,

2 Qwest does not require home phone service to get DSL for the guy on the 1st page that said he couldnt get DSL since he had no land line.. They will try to sell you one, but you dont have to accept..

3 My Personal opinions.. As a Technofile I Like to stay on the curring edge of things So my opinion isnt gonna be worth beans for a basic user..

TV Service >> I Have DirecTV for the simple fact taht They Have the Best & Most HD Programming.. They are the most expensive of the 3 options available as I am paying 80ish a month for All the channels except Premiums (ie. no HBO Starz Showtime Or Cinemax). I am looking foward to droping them however right no Neither Dish nor Cable one can compete on HD.. Dish is close, & is at this point missing jsut a couple channels from there HD only packages before I make a switch.. Cable One is so far behind in HD that I wont even bother commenting Further..
I Would love to have some other real competor other then satellite like Comcast or Verizon Fios available, But it lookas as if it will be a Long time before anything happens.. Possibly an IPTV solution in the future though (delivered over the internet similar to what netflix does except with a set top Box)

Internet Service >> I have never used CableOne, so I cant comment on them 1st hand.. I Can Only repeat what I have heard.. As already posted them limiting your bandwidth is a Major killer for me (I will explain why below) & I have also heard of them shutting off peoples internet for "piracy" even though they were unable to provide any evidence that the subscriber effected was the one at fault..
Qwest is what I personally use & There price isnt bad, but not really good either.. There Speed is OK & I Get the speeds as described (yes I also understand the diffrence between Mbps & MBps).. My Biggest complaint with Qwest internet is the upload.. They havent increased the upload at all in 10+ years.. The 896Kbps upload which is all that is available on all there speeds from 3Mbps down to 20Mbps down which includes there FTTN customers (including me) They should be giving at least 25% of the download for upload, For alot of people this doesnt effect anything, but any real heavy internet users will notice this & any Online gamers are also effected..

As a Side note for anyone who does have a fairlky High download speed on Qwest (5Mbps & up) a great way to cut cost's if you watch alot of Movies (including both rentals & premium channels like HBO) is a box called a Roku (cost's about 100).. Its a set top box to stream the Instant Netflix movies to your TV.. So for 9 bucks a month you get instant access to there instant queue (about 12k titels available) & Still get one other on DVD out at a time & here to boise the Turn around time is pretty darn fast for there DVD rentals (normally 2 days between when I send back a movie & when I receivfe a new one).. Also there is a large amount of content from there instant queue available in HD & The Regular Roku box Has Both component & HDMI output.. The reason this isnt a good ideal for anyone on cable one is that a single HD movie is more then likely going to far surpass 1gb of transfer thus making it pointless..

Last note on this longwinded post is that if you happen to live in a newer subdivision in Meridian you may want to check Westel Fibre out.. They offer a FTTP service (like fios) with prices competive with fios as well, Only downside is that there are only a select few subdivisions available with there service.. I Wish they would expand elsewhere & Give the rest of the valley a real ISP since there is nothing else decent here, but they are a small company & the lines to my knoledge are only being installed in new construction..

[LilBob]

The following is from another thread about Qwest internet service. It was dialogue between myself and anonther user.

I know my ClearWire is max on Speedtest.net at 900k. I've never got 1.3meg or more. LilBob

Incidentally thanks for the speedtest site. My 3Mbps cable one connection maxed out at 3322k for download and 308k for upload. Of course that is peak performance prior to throttling. MrGrumpy

The standalone DSL 12Mb line will run $57 a month in the Boise area with no additional fees. The wired modem is $60 to buy or $5 a month to rent. I will probably make the switch in the next month or two. (correction modem is free plus $9.99 for shipping and handling or our advance modem is $40 plus $15.00 shipping and handling) MrGrumpy

Fiber optics are now in most of Boise. This is not DSL. We have installed new Lines and we are going working towards Nampa Caldwell area too. We have speeds of up to 20mbps in Boise and here in Meridian we have speeds of up to 7Mbps. The techs (two of them actually) told me that they are working on Kuna and Star this spring. Meridian nodes are going on this spring and summer

All this with a 30 day satisfaction, no risk, no hassle guarantee from Qwest.
Contact me at ArtCat7@gmail.com and I will see what speed you have in your Area.

By the way we have discounts on bundles and you can get internet WITHOUT phone and on Fiber optic here NOW. For less than the competition. Our current promotion is going to end this week. 7megs with phone is $25 a month for first year then goes to $36.99. 12megs is $17.00 for 3 months and then $46.99 a month.
Thanks ..... LilBob

One more thing guys the modem is free. I just help 3 customers with there need on this. We have price for life without having a long term contract. I tested one of our customers line and she had 1.5Mbps and now was upgraded to 7Mbps which did not change her payment monthly and we saved her money on her phone bill. The speed of her 1.5 was true when I tested with speedtest.net. Which makes my clearwire look very crappy. I get 800Kbps download this morning and 200k on uploads.

Bob, just out of curiosity who do you work for? Do you work for qwest or are you just a company that deals with various telecommunication services? Also I have a question for you. My wife has cell service with Verizon as I understand it Qwest and Verizon have merged recently and the services can all be on one bill, so would her cell phone service work bundled with the standalone DSL for a package discount? MrGrumpy

I work for two companies ... My check comes from one company and Qwest pays half of it. I have Qwest ID and wearable clothes that allow me to sell to customers.
I have mentioned to many customers that tech. to do the same job I do cost from $18.00 an hour on up. What Qwest is trying to do is to get a face out there to let people know in person what is happening after the fiber optics are installed.

Yes we have merged with DirectTV and Verizon so all will come on one bill with bundled discounts. Boise is set up on Fiber optics with nodes all on and Meridian is in the works for late spring or early summer.
My business line you may reach me at 208.968.3560

One more thing for all. We at Qwest have now $100 rebate check for those that will come from the other internet providers. We are still giving away modems free for new installs. We now have our 7meg for $25.00 a month when bundled with choice home phone. We have standalone internet no phone needed for as little as $17 for three months then $46.99 and you still get the modem and the $100 if switching from another provider. The modem is a $70 value.
By the way, 50meg is coming.
Let me know if you need help ......Thanks

[MrGrumpy]

Yeah, I would be that other guy that bob mentioned above. I now have the 12Mbps service and it definitely is faster than the 3Mbps connection that I had with Cable One, that being said though it isn't quite as fast as I thought it would be. With cable one on my 3Mbps line my peak speed D/L is about 400Kbps with 4 connections and the speed is pretty constant. With the Qwest 12Mbps connection using the same number of connections the speed is pretty erratic thus far ranging from 600Kbps-1200Kbps. I realize I probably need to open up more connections and I will see how that works but that is my finding thus far. With netflix however, there is a definite improvement with qwest, much fewer connection interruptions of any kind and I am able to use it more freely. I will report back with more experiences. *EDIT* Uh yeah, strike that comment about erratic speeds, I opened up to 8 connections and am now at a stable 1200-1300Kbps. The line is fast enough that it must've been bottlenecked at 4 connections.

[LilBob]

Thanks ... Mr Grumpy for the great comment.

[MrGrumpy]

No problem. Will continue to post results as time goes on.