Broadstripe vs Qwest DSL, Western Washington

posted by Jordan Peterson on Wed, 08/04/2010 - 23:47

Input from others:

BROADSTRIPE ALMOST KILLED MY HUSBAND
Last month my husband was having chest pains. I tried to call 911 but there was no dial tone on my phone.

I HAVE BROADSTRIPE AND I F-ING HATE IT!
IT NEVER WORKS. ... IT WOULD BE FASTER FOR ME TO GO DIAL UP. EVERYBODY AROUND US HAS THE SAME PROBLEM. ...NEVER EVER SIGN UP WITH THEM. EVER!

I experienced the same outage, then had to activate my cablemodem over the phone with them. Then they accused me of stealing the modem because it was in their system under my old account from before I moved.

We were watching TV one day and all of a sudden, the cable goes out. I go outside to see if the kids had maybe kicked the ball into one of the junctions, but to my surprise, there was a Broadstripe truck out by the pole. "Mam!", the technician said, "I'm disconnecting you because you didn't pay your bill." I looked at him and replied "I sure did!" Turns out they had an old customer at the same location years before or something who hadn't paid. What a wacky billing system they have. --Erin

I have used. Qwest DSL for 8 years and have never had a problem!!!

We have had Broadstripe since May. We get Internet outages every day at least 14 times..... They over promised and under deliver. We cannot even talk on the phone without getting disconnected.

Don't like it? Cancel and they will go out of business.... Bitching is a wast of your time.

Broadstripe is selling what they can not deliverer! From an insider I was told their equipment is sub par. they are over extended.

I swear, with all the companies that are going bankrupt I am hoping that Broadstripe will be the next to go!

Please, please, please. If you have problems with Broadstripe, complain! To both them and to the City of Seattle (read the City of Seattle's Cable Bill of Rights; Broadstripe must comply with it). When I had an issue with Broadstripe, that I took all the way up to a District Manager, she said, "but no one's complained about that before."

IF YOU WANT PROOF HOW BAD THIS COMPANY IS JUST GO TO THE BEACON HILL NEIGHBORHOOD AND SEE HOW MANY HOUSES/APARTMENTS HAVE SATELLITE DISHES!!!! C'MON PEOPLE WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS

After having a number of cable providers across the country I can say that Braodstripe is easily the worst.

PLEASE COMPLAIN TO THE CITY OF SEATTLE!! 

THESE ARE YOUR CUSTOMER RIGHTS: 

http://www.seattle.gov/cable/2001_Bill_of_Rights.htm 

HERE IS WHERE YOU COMPLAIN: 

http://www.seattle.gov/cable/comments.htm 

UNLESS WE COMPLAIN, THESE TERRIBLE PEOPLE WILL STAY IN BUSINESS AND CONTINUE TO HAVE A MONOPOLY IN CERTAIN NEIGHBOURHOODS AND BUILDINGS!!

F**K BROAD STRIPE!! WE ORDERED THE UFC FIGHT FOR A 200+ PERSON PARTY ON 5 TV'S AND THEY F**KED ME!!! WE ADVERTIZED THE FIGHT, SENT OUT E MAIL, MADE FLYERS AND THEY TOTALLY EMBARRASED ME AND MY FRIENDS!! F**K THEM I HATE THEIR GUTS AND AM SWITCHING TO DIRECT TV TOMORROW. THEY CAN BURN IN HELL!!!

Yea Broadstripe sucks, even the name reminds me of a long wide shit streak on some undewear!

Seems Broadstripe preys on remote areas where no other comparable service provider would exist, therefore giving their customers no other options.

Agreed...I finally had enough and kicked them to the curb...Verizon DSL, Direct TV, bye bye Broadstripe! 

Duvall, WA

Port Townsend...broadcrap cable company...forget service...call the help line if you delude yourself...ONE HOUR frozen image on channel 2 tonite...Broadcrap's answer..."duh, ya got other channels right? I'll put in a work order for tomorrow..."

Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula HAVE NO REAL cable company...isn't it time we get one???

What other BS customers think...

See "Broadstripe Service Theft", my new article on Broadstripe services!

Do I have to say "my opinion is?"

Broadstripe, formerly Milenium Digital Media, provides cable TV, phone, and Internet services, but the most proficient service they provide is taking your money. 

The 5 - I likes about Broadstripe Internet

  • The red, white, and blue colors in the Broadstripe logo are pretty and make me feel gay (happy)
  • Doubles as a barometer: Broadstripe services drop when the wind blows or rain develops
  • I like the letter B
  • I like how Broadstripe has gotten me to hang out with my friends more often because, at least they have Internet...
  • I like how no one will hi-jack my intermittent Internet connection

How Broadstripe's UP TIME may affect your daily life

Since Broadstripe's UP TIME (the stability of the connection) wavers unpredictably from day to day, please consider how this behavior may impact your dependencies on the services offered:

  1. Broadstripe Internet may not work for online college courses (Angel, etc). Online college courses have time tests for which a typical Broadstripe outage will cause you to fail the test. The college doesn't care if your Internet went down. Of the few people I know taking college courses online, none use Broadstripe. A friend of a friend was taking a final online using Broadstripe and got a pretty bad grade due to technical issues of his Broadstripe connection.
  2. I do not recommend using Broadstripe Voice and Telephone services unless you have a backup plan, such as a cell phone. Imagine your landline telephone is through Broadstripe. If you need to call 911 in the event of an emergency when Broadstripe is having another "down time", you will be furious... or dead. At least a cell phone without service can dial 911.

Think carefully before you put all your service dependencies in one basket; especially a reputable basket full of holes.

Broadstripe charges rent for an incomplete modem access point

Besides Broadstripe's modem not being able to connect to a wireless laptop out of the box, additionally they will rent you this single function modem for $5.00 a month. On the other hand, Qwest DSL will sell you a modem that does routing and wireless out of the box!

Cost per Megabit of bandwidth

I am paying $62.87 to Broadstripe per month for a 15/2 Megabit connection (15Mb down, 2Mb up), for which my averages come out to be around 1Mb down and 2Mb up (calculations made from complete down times as well). I am paying $62.87 per month per Megabit of download throughput. With Qwest DSL, you get 1.5Mb/768Kb (1.5 Megabit down, and 3 quarters of a Megabit up) for $20 a month. If you do the math, that's $13.33 per month per Megabit of download throughput; that's almost 5 times less expensive.

Update: Many times my 2 year old Google G1 Cell phone on T-Mobile's Edge network downloads mail quicker than on a computer hooked through Broadstripe.

Low quality installation

I had went out to a customer's house who had Internet issues from getting started up with Broadstripe. After arriving at the site, I hadn't even put my foot on the ground before noticing that cable was hung all over the front side of the house with no intent of doing it cleanly. The idea behind running cable on the exterior of a residential house is to follow seams and or hide the cable completely. In this case, the installer clearly did not know how to install cable. Later I found out that the installer was a contractor without company logos or a standard field van to work from.

Poor Scheduling

When the cable guy needs to come out and hook something up, they need access to the interior of the place. If I can't be there, because I'm at work, I like to schedule a time that we can both meet. However, even scheduling didn't do anything for me, as the service technician was calling me while I'm at work, wondering where I am, or, in the case of another customer's complaint, showed up at 9 PM to do some work!

Conclusion

Go with Qwest DSL. They are stable, not money vultures, have competent field technicians, supply you with everything you need to get Internet to your wireless laptop, offer the most bandwidth for the dollar, and you can rely on your Internet always being on.