Subscribe
Suddenlink is throwing a hissyfit over Frontier’s aggressive advertising.
Now come on, you are both pretty… slow that is.
Suddenlink Communications is crawling mad that Frontier Communications has been hammering the cable company over their broadband speeds, which PC Magazine this week proclaimed were nothing to write home about. The cable operator successfully challenged some of Frontier’s ads with the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
The group recommended Frontier cease making claims that its DSL service offers “dedicated” lines to the Internet in contrast to Suddenlink, which forces customers to share their connection with the whole neighborhood.
Frontier claims Suddenlink’s network can bog down during peak hours, while Frontier makes sure customers consistently get the speeds they pay for.
Many of the ads targeted customers in West Virginia, who regularly tell Stop the Cap! neither provider competing there offers particularly good service.
“Is Frontier kidding?,” says Shane Foster, a former Frontier customer in West Virginia. “I was supposed to be getting up to 6Mbps service and I was lucky to get 1.5Mbps at 2 am.”
Foster says he believes Frontier oversold its DSL network in his area, with speeds slowing even further during the evening and weekends when everyone got online. While Frontier may not require customers to share a line from their home to the company’s central office, congestion can occur within Frontier’s local exchange or on the connection Frontier maintains with Internet backbone providers.
“The technician sent to my house even privately admitted it,” Foster tells Stop the Cap!
Foster switched to Suddenlink, but he is not exactly a happy customer there either.
“Their usage caps suck, the service is slow, and their measurement tool is always broken,” Foster shares. “West Virginia doesn’t just get the bottom of the barrel, it gets the dirt underneath it.”
Frontier Communications says it has been making improvements in West Virginia and other states where it provides DSL broadband. Some areas can now subscribe to 25Mbps service because of network upgrades. Foster says he would dump Suddenlink and go back to Frontier, if they can deliver speeds the rest of the country gets.
“Sorry, but 1.5Mbps is not broadband and with their prices, tricky fees and contracts it is robbery,” says Foster. “They need to clean up their act and I’ll come back. I hate usage caps with a passion.”
Frontier says it will appeal the NAD’s decision. But Frontier might do better advertising its broadband service as usage cap free — something customers consistently value over those running Internet Overcharging schemes.
Other stories of interest:
- Frontier’s Wilderotter Claims W.V. Among Top-5 Broadband States; Facts Say Otherwise
- Updated: Frontier’s Free DSL Speed Downgrades; West Virginians Wonder Where the Better Broadband Is
- West Virginia Upset With Current State of Broadband; Companies Losing Business Over Lack of Service
- Update: Suddenlink Usage Cap Numbers Arrive, Company Declines to Comment
- Suddenlink To Boost Internet Speeds In Lubbock and Midland Texas – New 36/2 Mbps Tier Also On The Way
This company in long overdue to be served a lawsuit for fraudulent advertising claims. They should be court-ordered to provide refunds to their current and past customers base who have been ripped off of millions for locked-in contracts and (practically unusable) close to dial-up network speeds. Being a former frontier customer, 1.5 mpbs for their “high speed” is about right. What they do is start you out at 6 mbps and then throttle you down to 1.5 – 2mbps after a month or two. This is so they can cram as many people as possible on their frail, tarnished 100 year old copper wire network. They claim they cant guarantee constant 6 mpbs speeds (which is reasonable) but after they throttle you down you will NEVER see 6mbps again or anything close! You can forget about Netflix and other streaming services because of this. Constant buffering.
We finally got rid of their mess to switch to TWC which is the only other real option in Rochester, NY. TW also does not guarantee constant speeds on their 15 mbps service (which is what we have) but our speeds range from 9mbps to over 25! That is REASONABLE.
I have no experience with sudden link but I’m glad someone else is finally waking up to make note of and contest froniter’s lies, and I will be the first in line when the class action lawsuit comes out against this company (Frontier) for blatantly false claims of service. They have got to be the sleaziest provider in the telcom industry.
Isn’t this about like watching a couple of Kindergarteners trying to fight like adults?
They try to imitate the Big Boys, and just make all the spectators laugh about it.
I have emailed/talked/forumed 3 different Frontier people lately to see what my maximum possible DSL speed is, at my home. All 3 have told me 3Mbps down is the maximum possible at my home. I live in a suburban subdivision of over 3,000 people, and a town of 13,000 people. Frontier does a bad job in our town. My other alternative is Comcast, which is much faster. I am waiting to catch a really good deal from them. AT&T is another local telco(in Peoria and East Peoria) that potentially has 120,000 customers in those 2 towns. They have not improved their 3Mbps residential DSL speeds for 10 years.
During the Verizon to Frontier transition, I documented a few weeks of 15 to 20 Mbps down DSL speeds. This was about 3-4 months after Frontier officially took over from Verizon DSL. So, I know that they are capable of so much more than they currently offer.