POSTSCRIPT: Even After Embarrassing Story, CenturyLink Still Has No Idea That This House Is Not On Their Networkbo

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• You probably remember the story of Seth, the Washington state homeowner who was on the brink of having to sell his new house because — in spite of what their websites said — neither Comcast nor CenturyLink were willing to sell him the broadband service he needs for his home office. Even though this made national headlines, with CenturyLink looking particularly inept, the company still hasn’t figured out that Seth’s house is not connected to its network.

  Just a quick catch-up for those coming late to the story. Before Seth moved in, he’d twice checked with Comcast to make sure the house could get service. After multiple install techs confirmed there was no service and the nearest connection point was thousands of feet away, Seth looked into other options.

  Among those was CenturyLink, which does sell adequate broadband service in his general area. The CenturyLink website even confirmed for Seth that his address could be connected. But after making the appointment for installing the service, CenturyLink cancelled, telling him their website was mistaken and that there was no intention of expanding Internet service to his neighborhood in the foreseeable future.

  And yet, his address continued to remain on the site, even after Consumerist spent weeks chasing some sort of explanation from CenturyLink.

  We were repeatedly promised a comment and that the company was looking into the situation, only to be told after several weeks that the person we’d been dealing with had been promoted and that we had to start all over again with a new media contact — who was on vacation for another week.

  Even by the time we published Seth’s story, about a month after we’d brought the error to the company’s attention, the CenturyLink site was still showing his address as being part of their broadband network.

  At no small expense of time and money, Seth ultimately made a complicated deal with his county — which operates a fiberoptic network, but which is prohibited by state law from selling directly to consumers — and a broadband reseller to connect his property to the Internet, saving him from having to sell.

  But then he goes to check his mailbox and gets the above mailer from CenturyLink, telling him to sign up for the company’s high-speed Internet service, even though it’s still definitely not available in his area.

  How do we know? A) Because no CenturyLink teams have been out and about, digging or running cable in Seth’s neck of the woods; and B) because the CenturyLink site now accurately reflects the connection possibilities at his address:

  

  
  
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by Chris Morran

via Consumerist