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Windstream Communications is under investigation by the Governor’s Office of Consumer Protection because of allegations the company is advertising broadband speeds and performance the company simply cannot deliver its customers in Georgia.
A Windstream employee in a company retail office in Dawsonville told an undercover CBS Atlanta photographer that the company can offer Internet speeds up to 24Mbps. He guaranteed service no slower than 6 to 12Mbps. But Mark Creekmore, who lives in Dawsonville, reports his speeds sometimes barely reach 1Mbps during the afternoons.
Duane Hartness, a Windstream customer, says Windstream has oversubscribed their service by continuing to sell broadband on a network that is overcrowded as-is, which slows speeds for every customer.
“Every customer they add to their oversubscribed DSLAM increases their revenue while further degrading your bandwidth,” Hartness said. “Lacking competition, they can ignore any and all complaints.”
Creekmore wants every Windstream customer in Georgia that is dissatisfied with their broadband service to file complaints with the state agency.
“The more complaints, the more likely the Office of Consumer Protection is to take action,” Creekmore said. “Please make sure to include that you are not getting what you are paying for and any other personal detail that would help them understand what you have gone through. If you have had multiple communications with Windstream, please include those details as well. In short, the more detail the better.”
[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WGCL Atlanta Windstream Exposed for Not Providing Speeds Promised 3-7-13.mp4[/flv]
WGCL — CBS Atlanta reports there are new developments in Georgia regarding Windstream: It is under investigation by the governor’s office for misleading subscribers with broadband speeds the company cannot actually deliver. (3 minutes)
The FCC finds Windstream is the worst of the worst among DSL providers, only giving customers advertised speeds 81 percent of the time. AT&T, Georgia’s largest phone company, doesn’t do much better.
Windstream is the worst-performing DSL provider in the country according to the Federal Communications Commission, with just 81 percent of customers getting the broadband speeds marketed.
After complaints about the company helped derail H.B. 282 — a bill Windstream heavily lobbied for that would have eliminated possible competition from community-owned providers — Windstream representatives quickly began promising upgrades.
“We’re asking our customers to be patient with us because we’re on it. We understand that they have issues and we’re working to upgrade their network,” Bettye Willis, a regional vice president at Windstream, told the CBS station in Atlanta.
Willis added Windstream was committed to solving its Internet speed problems, but not for everyone.
The company released this map showing planned service upgrades for “two-thirds of the communities it serves” in Georgia. But the company warned not everyone would receive improved service. For the remaining one-third, “take it or leave it” broadband service will continue.
I would love to get 1.99mbps like the guy in the video. At times we are lucky to get 0.28mbmps. Many times Dial up is faster than this internet. I hope something will be done about this now.
I have to agree that my phone and internet service is absolutely unacceptable. Sound quality is not very clear, at times the message service delivers days after the call, and the DSL is very slow and at times does not work at all. I would like to add that windstream uses the Berry Company for their yellow page listings. Originally Windstream’s service included a listing in the yellow pages, which was part of the bill. I now receive bills from the Berry Company for this service who I do not have any contract with. I have refused to pay anything… Read more »
Stop the cap! Promised and did not receive
N we are still being told that it is coming!
I have Windstream and two family members that have worked for them. My internet is so bad I’m using my straight talk internet to look stuff up now. I can’t even watch netflix because my internet disconnects all the time. It’s more frustrating to try and watch something then to read a book. Problem is in my area no other internet providers are avaliable….if I’m not mistaking isn’t that kind of like a monopoly because they have all the control in my area?
Me too!
We can’t even stream a video or upload anything!
I pay for 12mbps and get LESS than ONE!
I’ve had Windstream for quite a while in my area. I live up in Northeast Georgia and the support is just absolutely terrible in terms of service. They are lazy and procrastinate around every issue. My area has been told many times we would be getting better speeds constantly over the years, but are still suffering with their so-called “best effort” 1.5Mbps service. I spoke to a tech who came out and set up a second line for us and he said that they already had the architecture set up to give us the better speeds but haven’t done so… Read more »
I JUST DON’T LIKE WINDSTREAM. THEY ARE TOO EXPENSIVE,FOE ONE THING. I SWITCHED OVER TO ETC AND LIKE THEM SO MUCH BETTER. I AM SURE IF PEOPLE WOULD CHANGE TO ETC, THEY WOULD UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT!!!!
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Yet another lie, office off historic 441 tell me 24 Mbps is on it way to me and to keep asking each month. As I do each month at their request. Now I notice Demorest is not on the upgrade list. I watch speed test (net) for what is give to me. At every chance (3 to 5 times a week) I call and let them now I’m not happy and my speed is given back for a time. Tech is directing me to use their speed test set up like that will change my speed results to favor them…… Read more »
I’ve suspected this for a long time!!
Our internet has always been slow. Windstream doesn’t care they just want your money!!
I have called in for two years now stating my Internet is like dial-up! They keep giving me the run around. Finally after telling them to disconnect me the offered a whole $5.00 of my bill!! They told me that I had the option to purchase a new router box for $100.00. I quickly declined. then they offered to send a tech guy out for a service call fee. Declined that as well I am not paying fees when I i I have been a windstream customer now for 15 years. Are they joking??? I now have another router because… Read more »
OMG, I can’t believe they are FINALLY being investigated!!!! I’ve complained for years , but have had to stick with them because they are “the only game in town” for me. I, too, have had tons of problems with slow internet speeds to the point that I could not watch Netflix without internet interruptions in the afternoons, evenings, and weekends because of the heavy usage during those times.
We have 12 mbs line barely ever break 1.78 mbs, service is awful. i hate paying for something you dont get. Please do something abou this bad service and even worse internet speeed.
I have had windstream for 30 yrs and internet for about 10. I never have good service, it is always going down, or there is network problems, its is just a hit and miss, and sure can’t watch Netflix,
I myself am not a windstream customer but I did when I bought my house about a year ago try to get service with them, I was told they did not service my area yet two miles down the road at my mothers house they service that area and have for years, They service most of this road in lower dawson county. So I knew immediately they were lying to me. I of course I know how crappy the service is with this company having experienced it at my parents home for many years growing up, not to mention the… Read more »
same issue in Hazard KY…..
I have internet, cable, and phone service with Windstream and have for several years. I’ve been disatisfied with one or the other service most all the time, esp., the inernet. I’m going with another company as soon as one is available.
I have been with Windstream for years and have never been satisfied with them and they know there the only ones we can go with cause they don’t have any compition in my area. However at my work place we can go with another company and Windstream customer service told me that we were bound by a verbal agreement for 2 years and if we broke it they would charge us $5000.00 to get out of it…….this is absurd in my book, they’re customer services stinks just like there phone & internet stinks…..I really wish someone could do something about… Read more »
about time i live in jefferson ga everyone on my road has very slow dsl and everytime i call they tell me they will make a service ticket and to give it up to a few months to be fixed then next time anyone on on my street or myself calls they act like no tickets have been filed or wants to sell me a new modem for $50
We decided to make the switch from our local cable/internet company to Windstream. The salesman on the phone GUARANTEED we’d have 12 megs. We went with the bundle package that included Dish TV too. Come to find out we only had 1.5 (less than that most of the time), after calling over and over again customer service told my husband that it would be atleast 2 years before our area could get 12megs … but we would be bumped up to 3 megs in a couple of months. Needless to say after dealing with that for over a year we… Read more »
we also have poor and slow service that boots us off repetitively. I have called and they are sending a new router. Also, the guy on the phone found that I have been being charge over $5 a month in late fees even though our bill was paid before the date. Even he said he didn’t know what the issue was and wondered if it was just with us. That’s what we get for just paying the bill and not looking at the charges!
I have been a Windstream customer for several years. I can honestly say that I am a dissatisfied customer. My internet is slow and not what I purchased. My phone service is very bad with noise in the lines most of the time. I will change providers as soon as one is available in my area.
Hi, I have been a customer for 4 months. I am paying for high speed and I still have problems in the programs I open up and have to restart them many times over. I am paying the extra for the highest speed possible. I had to call the Public Service Commissioners office before I could even get any type of service where I live in North Georgia town of Dahlonega. I feel that it should be free if they can’t provide what they say or get out of town one to where some one who can provide service can… Read more »
Please DO NOT type your complaint here…. he gave us a link to click on above. Here’s the link
http://consumer.georgia.gov/form/consumer-complaint/step1
File with the state agency
Welcome to the newest group of dissatisfied Windstream customers. I am sorry to see the first round of embarrassing bad publicity they had in March did not impress them enough to improve service. But then again, if your only alternatives are satellite fraudband or “go without,” there isn’t a lot of incentive. I have found a large number of complaints can make a difference, so I encourage readers to follow Roberta’s advice and formally complain to the state government. Georgia isn’t exactly hard on telecom providers, but when it gets so bad that politicians start getting interested, things can happen… Read more »
We had Windstream until I recently cancelled. We could only get 3.0 where we lived. We normally got .28, .40 and at the fastest 1.2. I argued with them for 4 years before cancelling. I filed a complaint with the consumer protection in GA as well as the BBB. Hopefully they will bring Windstream down. Unfortunately they are the only internet available in our area. I use my AT&T phone now that blazes past Windstream.
Back in 2007 I was able to get 3.0 speeds when Alltel serviced the Internet until 4/2010. When Windstream bought Alltel our speeds dropped to .04 to .21 being the top speed until Jan.2012, though I continued to pay the 3.0 rate. It took a year & half of battles before Windstream admitted to having a filter on the line, supposedly by mistake, The admittance occurred only after I’d confronted with discovering proof of previous speed tests reports showing up too 5.24mbs at our location. Windstream had denied ever being able to provide 3.0 speeds to our location while claiming… Read more »
I live in Pendergrass and our internet has been down 90% of the time since July 27th and when I called and complained they stated someone will come out around August the 13th!! such a joke!! I mean really august the 13th! not to mention we are paying for 12mbps and have had a second line plus they have stated we have the highest speed but when I speed test our internet we are lucky if we get 1 mbps!! This company is a fraud and is overcharging their customers for service we don’t receive. I have filed a complaint… Read more »
OMG!! You guys are getting that good in Georgia? Try Ohio…
I pay for 12 and I’m lucky to get dial up speeds. Occasionallyy it’ll jump up to 4 or 5 but more times than not i get
Windstream speedtest statistics
Download speed —-bps
upload speed 594592 bps
etc., etc
I don’t think Windstream is selective on which state they are behind on. It appears as though is USA widespread…
Yep I pay for 3mbps but never get more than one. I was told that it was up to three not guaranteed 3.
I live 1.8 miles from one of their offices and less than a mile from their repair shops. I have internet cut out all the time. I have talked to the well over 2 dozen times in the past couple of years. When I bought my house I moved 2 miles closer to town, I had 6mb. I asked several times and they guaranteed me that it was 6mb with an upgrade coming that spring of 2012. When I moved in it was only 3mb and has been ever since. Even then I usually only get about 2.5mb of less.… Read more »
I live in Danielsville and have poor service for years. Each time we try to upgrade we are told we have the limit. Now I know that is a lie.
I live in Nicholson Georgia,we might get 7 hours of the day on the internet. They told us that we could not switch to another company because the area is grid locked for windstream.Our service sucks,when the people around us get online it kicks us off.
I had upgraded my service once we had moved to a new area. I was told that It would be faster then before. I had it for month or two and I called complaining that it was slower then the lowest speed that they had. I was not happy with the service at all. I didn’t get an apology or a credit back for the issues. Nothing was done till about a week later to change my service and this was all of last year around April and May. I also have been having major stalls and glitches on every… Read more »
This is one of the worst leading companies in their set of schemes I think I have had the encounter to deal with. Had them for over 20 years for home phone, internet and cable. If we had some other competition in this area they would have been gone a long time ago believe me. Not only do they have high prices for their little service provided but the most worst services that I have ever seem. They never go out of their way to be helpful or rarely fix. It seems all the bigger companies are more and more… Read more »
This may be of interest to Windstream customers in Georgia:
http://stopthecap.com/2014/02/26/windstream-pays-600000-to-settle-false-broadband-speed-claims-in-georgia/
My best guess is that the head of the Georgia Office of Consumer Protection is a large stockholder of Windstream because they refuse to do anything. Our Internet speeds began to drop over two years ago. At that time I began complaining and calling Windstream tech on a nightly basis. Our speeds were testing at lower than dial up speeds despite paying for 6Mbps service. Early last year I filed a complaint with the GA OCP. It took about 2 weeks before I received their reply which was actually a letter from Windstream themselves!!! OCP did absolutely nothing about my… Read more »
One of the worst subscriptions i have!! I work as a journalist from home and our intrenet is down most of the time or is so slow it doesnt function. Total garbage but hell , what kind of choice are we given up in Dawsonville!?
i have complained to the BBB many diffrant times im so glad they are doing something about it now but i still have an outstanding bill i refuse to pay because of this problem and i will not pay for it… and like you all i had call the company many diffrant time and got all kinds of answers to there is an outage or the line is bad in your home and even the equipment has went bad. I only found out that it wind stream had oversold the connections when the techs came out and told us what… Read more »
I have been saying they are ripping people left and right. I knew the speed they claim I certainly wasn’t getting.
I live in the Dawsonville city limits, I must be in a good area or just lucky as I have not had any of these issues. I pay for the 12 mbps service and have tested the speed a lot and always get 10-12 Mbps. We stream youtube and netflix videos on 3-6 devices all the time with no problems at all. The network has very rarely been down, I can only remember 1 time last year, and it is usually back up the same day. the only complaints I have is that I have to pay for a land… Read more »
I live in jefferson and Windstream is our ONLY provider. PLEASE someone bring competition here so I can have options. I thought we had anti monopoly protections in our state/country?
I moved to Dahlonega in 2008,Windstream told I would receive 6mbps when it was connected, it never happened. Then 2 years after complaining i called them again they said i can only get 3 mbps that an upgrade was coming and still never happened to this date. I received 1.5 up stream and if I’m lucky get 0.9 Download its SCAM. In the fine letters reading up to 3mbps. I moved here from another city and had Comcast great i was used to 12mbps and now they’re even better i love North Georgia and plan on retiring here but we… Read more »
Yes and with the high prices they charge for poor service is awful. I am on a fixed income and need the service for my grandchildren to have internet service to complete school projects. They either lose the service or it comes and goes. For the price we pay . They should be ashamed of themself.I had to cut I off coucouldn’t afford it . The service was so poor and they were warned several time. They did noghing about it. It is time they are being investagated. More companies will be getting the same for overcharging for poor service.… Read more »
I’ve had Windstream for 4 years and not once has it worked well. Windstream is the only provider in Helena/McRae and it is ghastly. They claim that they can give you 3Mbs, but that is a joke. I found out after a lot of headache that if they set my broadband speed to 3mb I drop connection every 30seconds. It is literally unusable in that state. So they set me to 1.5Mb, but the internet is still horrible, but it doesn’t drop all the time (Not that it doesn’t). My router light for internet constantly blinks about 10 times per… Read more »
Windstream is terrible!!!!!! My service goes in and out almost everyday. But I still have to pay bill!!!! This past Sun it was out all day, Mon evening it went out again, Tue and Wed out again! GOING to Xfinity!!!!
For most of this year, our Windstream Internet connection goes off altogether about every other evening from around 8 p.m. until about 11 p.m., or sometimes longer. Repeated calls eventually get the information that we have a “temporary outage and we are working on it,” or “there is a new piece of equipment in your area and it is experiencing some temporary problems.” We were cut off the Internet Friday, 28 February; Sunday, 2 March; Monday, 3 March; Wednesday, 5 March; Friday, 7 March, and these are just recent examples. That probably means we will be off again tonight, and… Read more »
I have had to call when my braod band would be down and the would say we are working on it we should have it fixed soon and yes I ask for the 6mbps and they said I couldn’t get it which I’am suppose to be getting 3mbps
I have had several outages with my internet as well
This company is a joke. I had a lady call me and ask me my speeds after I filed a complaint with consumer affairs. At the time my speeds were showing around what I was supposed to get so she told me to call back when they were bad. It took me five different calls on five different days over a span of two months to finally get her to call me back. This woman sends me an email and tells me to use their preferred site speedtest.cavtel.net instead of speedtest.net which is the one I use. Well it turns… Read more »
ISP’s will only guarantee the speeds to their servers, such as the 1.5/2mbit result you got on their speed test. It is not possible for them to guarantee any sort of speed to anywhere on the internet due to all the interconnections and various speeds of connected servers that you may access. If you monitored your speed 24/7 every minute and found no matter where you went on the internet that you only were getting .44mbps then I think you have a valid complaint that they’re seriously overselling their connectivity and not delivering a fair and reasonable service/product as advertised,… Read more »
I have Written the Georgia state governor and my city hall members, yet i got no reply about Windstream being a monopoly. It is the only internet provider in A LOT of cities and yet their prices are extremely high and their quality is absolutely pitiful. I am tired of paying for a 60$ contract and receive a deal that is pathetic. Comcast offers 25 Mbps for 60$ but i’m paying 60$ for 6 Mbps from Windstream. I find this ridiculous and absolutely pathetic that our governor would allow something like this happen. They claim to care for the people… Read more »
I have been having trouble with winstream also it has been being slow and this is the only source of internet where I live so I wish the would fix this crap