Windstream Communications
Reviews and Complaints

What idiots! I have a digital package with Windstream Cable. I phoned them on July 2 to report an inability to receive the "premium digital" channels in my package. They said someone would fix it; however, they could not tell me when they would come - date or time - so I would just have to sit and wait. They also couldn't give a call saying they were on their way, and they had no ability to contact the people in the field - and they don't work weekends. When I called after the weekend to say I still hadn't received the channels, they said the repair guy said it was fixed. When I asked how he knew this when no one had checked with me, they couldn't answer. Again, they said they would send someone. This time, someone actually came and looked at my connections. His response "I've never seen this before." He said he would have to check further down the line. It was almost 5:00 at this point, and he said it might be the next day before he could do it. When I asked if I needed to be home, he said "no." Imagine my surprise when I returned home several days later (this is a vacation home), and it still wasn't receiving the channels. When I called cusomter "no" service, they said the repair guy said it was fixed. This time they said they would put in a "service order" rather than a "work order" which meant I would have priority. Again, no one came. When we left the house the next day, we found a note on the door saying the guy had come by at 4:00 p.m. My husband and I were both home and near the front door at the time when he says he came. The only thing we can figure is that he didn't use the door bell! So I'm now going on 18 days without the additional channels. When I called today, they offered no apologies and simply said they would put in another service call and once again they couldn't tell me when - date or time - the person would come. If you have alternatives for service, you should definitely use them instead of Windstream. They have no customer service and their repair people are apparently incompetent (or liars).

I have been calling since November, 2009 to your company correct the problem of crossed wiring. You have yet to fix it or even act like you want to. Of course your operators told me to pay for the inside wiring and the problem would go away. What a crock, like charging me more would fix the crossed wiring situation. How dumb do your operators think I am. To start out my service bundle would ONLY be $49.99 but with ALL YOU TAXES ADDED ON it is $73.28 per month. For what? So I spend my days complaining about someone else talking while I am using my phone, that I pay for on time every month. Since when does fixing a complaint for 4 months go away because you want to charge me more? The lines are crossed somewhere and your refusal to fix it is stupid.. How would you like it if I never paid you another dime until my phone is fixed and I can enjoy talking on the phone again? The proof is in all the complaints that I have made to YOUR 800 numbers, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Get the picture?

We have reported our internet/dsl problems everyday for a week and half. They keep passing the problem from 1 person to the other person, each one saying it is fixed. We have had a new router, new modeum and finally they sent a tech out on Wednesday, feb. 25. He replaced a line. Well it is out again, on Friday Feb. 27th @ 2:18pm. We are a business and CAN NOT operate without the internet. I have lost repeated business, my employees are frustrated, I am frustrated and our customers are too. By the way, did I say we are a insurance company? When we can't service them they leave and go across the street to someone who can! Can I afford to lose business in this day and time? NO. We were with a local internet provider before and never had a problem with them. They teamed up with Valor/ Windstream and asked us to go to Windstream. BAD MISTAKE, I DID NOT WANT TO DO IT. WHAT I FIGURED WOULD HAPPEN, DID. There is no competition for Windstream so they could care less if they fix a problem or not. IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE THEM DON'T. THEY DO NOT CARE!

After numerous complaints to windstream for constantly loosing DSL service and almost daily visits by their techs I am still experiencing DSL interuptions and speeds down as low as .14 downloads while I am paying $90 per month for 3mbs service. After contacting them tonight, after their tech was here this morning and said everything was ok, about my being knocked off and speed being slow their support tech wanted me to breack down my computer and move it to another phone jack in another part of my home to which I told her no and she replied that I was being uncooperative at which time I asked to speak to a supervisor and she would not allow it and told me they would have a tech out again in the morning. This has been an ongoing problem for almost 3 months now with no answer to my complaints so maybe someone will read this and help me out !

8 calls in last 30 days from the number listed above. Last call this evening from them and again they hang up just as I answer, computer generated call that had no operator to solicite me. They are calling on behalf of windstream trying to sell me a bundle service that I have. Each of the 8 times they called I returned the call asking to be removed friom the calling list. Each time assured that I would not be bothered again after 8 pm. Just the same lip services that they give me each time I call. I have recorded each of the calls and documented who and when I talked to them. Today the just went to far and I did some research and found the ceo ronald bensens home phone number and called him. [protected] he was probably eating dinner so I left him a message to remove my name and phone number from his list.
If you have the same issue and call him at home please tell him that brian gave it to you and he will get your name off the list.

I am located in South Western Pennsylvania, southern Washington county. I bought Windstream DSL, 1.5 MB in December 2006. It worked fine till the end of 2007 and I started getting lots of disconnects.

From March 2008 every weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the DSL is down. I get sporadic success on Friday, sometime up sometimes down but EVERY Saturday starting around 10:00 - 10:30 AM the DSL would go down. It would reconnect but drop the connection every 2-5 minutes and it would take 3-10 minutes to reconnect. Usually it was fine by 8PM in the evening. Though the past 2 months I noted the problem still occurring after 11:00 PM.

I have the Speedstream 4200 modem. The connection is nothing unusual, its as simple as it gets. The DLS modem is connected to one computer via a Ethernet cable. The DSL plugs into the DLS side of the filer. One phone plugs into the phone side of the filter. The filter plugs into the phone jack.

Rebooting the modem did nothing. I have replaced the filters, 3 so far. I have tried the modem plugged directly into the wall jack. I have changed the phone cable four times. I have replaced the ethernet cable 4 times. None of this solved the problem.

Some techs have mentioned maybe it the electrical wiring in the house. well I have a UPS on my system. On Saturday morning at 9:45 I unplugged the UPS from the wall and ran it on battery. Sure enough at 10:15 the DSL dropped. Hmm maybe there is a problem with the battery?

When finally, after about a year of complaining they sent a tech out and he discovered that the modem was an “A12” version and the current one was the “A25” ok maybe this was the reason. The tech out confirmed that there was a strong signal and the cables and filter were fine or at least he was seeing a good signal when he was here. And the modem was relatively close for a good signal. I set up the modem on a Saturday morning but, as usual on the weekends, the authentication server was down. On Sunday afternoon I was able to finally authenticate the modem. Ok Sunday night it was fine. In fact I was thinking the old firmware was the real problem. The modem worked fine till Friday when it started going down again. So I suppose it wasn’t the modem at all. The new modem would at least display a message saying “We have detected that you do not have DSL connectivity to your Home Networking Modem. After configuration wait a while for DNS to refresh.” Or “Your Internet login needs to be verified before continuing. After configuration wait a while for DNS to refresh.” Either that or it would go into the Authenticate screen. Which is strange because I have already ran the authenticate procedure. It will not complete the authentication, however, it will freeze or the DSL will disconnect preventing anything from happening.

Its difficult for me to imagine replacing all the hardware and I still have the problem but ONLY Friday-Sunday. Windstream techs seem to think its my DSL filter that only works consistently Monday-Thursday then fails Friday-Sunday. Hmm I need to read the packaging more carefully to buy the filter that works the full week LOL.

WHAT is going on here? I think the problem is on Windstream’s end and doesn’t have anything to do with my equipment. One tech DID tell me they usually did maintenance on the weekends to not interrupt business users. Other ISPs do maintenance around 1AM to prevent interruptions so its most likely that SOMETHING is being done at Windsteam on the weekends

ok so my computer has never been stable since day 1. Techs have come out and started looking at youtube on my computer but didnt fix it. Im schizophrenic bi polar. They breached thier contract with slow speeds and disconnects, but still kept me in it. I dont know how to convey the mental anguish they put me through. Every day every 30 minutes a disconnect, every day 10kb download speeds. years

Recently I called 'Windstream' to fix my 'Dish Network' connection. I was told there would be a $99.00 service charge. I told 'the Windstream employee ' that I would not pay the $99.00 service charge and to come and 'get' the equipment. All of IT! Phone service, DSL, and Dish network. I was asked to 'hold on' while I was transfered.

The second person listened to my story that I had been unable to receive most of the channels I had been paying for and that in fact I had been unable to recieve any channels for the last three days and I wanted them, (Windstream' ) to come and fix the problem. The lady told me that I would be charged a $99.00 service charge. I told her to come and get the 'dish', cancel my DSL, and to cancel my phone service She asked me to hold on and she would transfer my call to another person.

A man came on the line and I had to explain the problem for a third time and that I WOULD NOT pay the $99.00 service charge.

My sister warned me to check my next bill because "Windstream' had added fees to her bill that had agreeded up on would be 'free'.

Sure enough; 'Windstream sent me a bill for $220.86. Included was the $99.00 service charge. I WILL NOT pay the service charge. Acording to the youg man that remounted my dish; it had been installed incorrectly and he was surprised that I received any channels! The signal strength was 10!

My mom and I have had internet service with what is currently Windstream Telecomunications.

As an attempt to cut back on bills, she placed the internet 'on hold' meaning the service would not be in use and no charges for the service filed.

That, we found out was the EASY part.

Then three weeks ago, she got it turned back on. We called for days trying to get someone to pull their head out of their rear end to help us. It finally took me calling them, nearly irate... and indeed our service was restored. Then... once it got back online... i had to spend another 30 minute phone call to restore the stupid password to my account.

This company is no better than GTE... They just need to learn to pull their heads from their a$$es and stop taking advantage of customers.

I signed up for Windstream's Bundle package which included phone, internet and dish network. I was quoted a price of $117.22/month. My last 3 bills have been $148.10. No matter who I speak with, I get the that's the way it is. Please be careful when dealing with Winstream. I will be getting out of this situation as quick as I can. Beware!

I began dsl with windstream in may of 2007 with what I thought to be 1.5 meg. Not so. From may to december I was only receiving less than 500k... Sometimes less than a dial up connection. Horrible disgusting and uneducated customer service offered me 15 days credit! What? Come january I called again and spoke with someone in the 'corporate office' and she, to her credit, was very understanding and promised to have the problem corrected and that in the meantime she would reduce my plan to the 'lite' plan of 512k. It was working fine for about 30 days and then again my speed was back to a snails pace and once again I had to make the dreaded phone call to report the problem and once again was told it was a problem within their system. After working fine again for about 3 weeks, I called about another issue - not dsl related - but was persuaded to increase my speed to 1.5meg again. Like a fool, I listened and did request the change. Since then I have not gotten a speed above 500k. They don't credit my account, and this evening after waiting on the phone for 78 minutes to report the same problem, their csr could not understand english. What? I'm sickened! I have been dealing with the same issue with windstream now for 16 months. I will make a final call tomorrow during business hours and hopefully will be able to speak to a representative in the u. S. And that can understand english.in my opinion, windstream is stealing my money.

Service was very good for several years up until a few months ago. My IP address is dropped almost consistently around 4-5pm every day. There are intermittent outages all day long. Not sure what has happened and no one at customer support can tell me anything. A few reps have admitted it's something on their end. The next day someone else denies it. They send tech supports out who find absolutely nothing wrong of course. It is obvious due to the timing of the outages that it has to do with high traffic times or something of that nature. To sum it up, terrible customer service - had to wait 40 minutes both calls just to talk with a human being. Secondly, I'm paying for terrible internet service.

Since signing up for a Windstream land phone in January 2008, I've rcvd non-stop harrassing mrktg calls 2-3 times daily. All come in identified as "Toll Free Service, " but when I call the number, a sales rep answers, "Windstream." I've exhausted almost all local options for stopping these calls, including cajoling, pleading etc with the local company here in Lincoln, NE, and begging the caller (an 18-yr-old college student named "Brad") to stop. Now I'm writing the state atty general. No my Do Not Call defense doesn't apply, since Windstream is my phone provider. If this is CEO Jeff Gardner and Exec VP and Mrktg Chief Ric Crane's idea of selling DSL to hapless customers, they need a refresher MBA course (did they really sleep thru their original classes?) Judging from the DSL service they provide, I can see why they're desperate for new customers, and why the company is repurchasing $400 million of its own shares (generally a poor use of company revenue, unless there is a highly unusual reason).

This letter is in regard to the subpar service that we are receiving from Windstream for internet service. I pay for the top-of-the-line service, which is 3.0. However, I have not been receiving what I’m paying for for nearly a month, now. Online broadband tests often show me at half the speed I am supposed to be getting (or slightly more or less), or the DSL connection is dropped completely. I have called to complain to Windstream numerous times, and it seems that they are incapable of fixing the problem. To start with, their phone techs tend to try to blame the problem on something we’ve added to the computer, like a router or anti-viral software, instead of seeing if it’s something on their end. We’ve had two techs come out to our home, and they do system checks and various tests that they repeat over and over, and can’t seem to find a problem, other than the sometimes mentioned “packet loss”. This packet loss would be an issue on their end, which one tech has admitted to us. However, they don’t seem to be able to fix the issue of this packet loss. My wife has recently started working from home, and is highly dependent on Windstream to provide the high speed internet service that they claim to have. She must have consistent internet service, including the speed that they claim to offer (and that we are paying for). Ironically, the third time a tech came out (Friday, Jan. 26—the day after we complained again), the internet was working as it should with no problems. This is one day out of three weeks, mind you. He said that no one had done anything differently to it. Not very reassuring, since we had just complained again the night before about this, and to find out that they didn’t make an effort to address the problem, and didn’t even send him out until later in the afternoon, given our stream of complaints for a week. Since on this particular day the tech found no problems, he told us just to monitor it for a few days and let them know if we have more problems. The very next day, our DSL was running the same subpar speed, sometimes less than half of what we are paying for. This makes me suspicious that perhaps they tweaked the system since they knew that a tech was coming out again. However, as we figured, we continue to have inadequate DSL service. Apparently, if they can have the DSL running as it should one day, they should be able to do so on a consistent basis. There are no other options for internet DSL service in our particular area. Windstream needs to provide us with the service they claim to have, or they need to step aside and let companies who can provide consistent, reliable internet service come into the area. As a matter-of-fact, I would like to find out if this is possible. Perhaps if Windstream had competition, they would be more inclined to ensure that their customers are getting the service they are paying for. Regardless, it is now that my wife needs reliable internet service, and whether this was personal or business, they need to provide what they advertise. We have neighbors that are also disgusted with the lack of service Windstream is providing. They are extremely upset about this, as well, as they have a home business that also relies on internet access. As it stands, Windstream’s service is unacceptable, and cannot continue in this manner. I don’t see how legally they can get away with charging customers top dollar for service, and then not fixing problems that are brought to their attention. Either they are incapable of fixing the problem, or they don’t really care. My wife must have consistent, fast DSL service in order to do her job. And if Windstream cannot-- or will not-- provide this service and do everything they can to ensure that we are getting it, then we will do what we have to in order to ensure that they do. This is my wife’s career that Windstream is affecting, and we will pursue this relentlessly, until they provide the type of service they are supposed to. Any assistance that you would give us in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

I thank you for taking the time to read my letter.

Sincerely,
Thomas E. Fontaine