CenturyLink is renewing a battlefront with their cable competitors relative to broadband by labeling theirs as ‘Pure.’ It’s the latest attempt to draw a distinction between cable modem’s shared bandwidth architecture and DSL’s ‘homerun’ architecture, meaning direct connections between the central office and a subscriber’s home for DSL.
CenturyLink’s campaign, Pure Broadband, is counter to many telco’s first instinct, promoting ‘naked’ or stand-alone DSL service, meaning customers can buy broadband without being forced to buy a phone line. They’ve launched a microsite, promoting the offer.
The Pure broadband campaign offers 1.5 Mb/s for $29.95/month and 10 Mb/s for $59.95/month. Some will argue these offers are not too compelling in the face of cable modem competition, especially if that competition comes in the form of DOCSIS 3.0 offers. But CL is trying to differentiate the service by implying their network is “… designed to give you consistent speed all day, every day,” whereas cable modem may offer a faster speed, it doesn’t do so consistently, due to its shared connection. It’s a claim telcos have used for years when pitting DSL against cable modem.
Probably the more interesting news here is CL’s ‘in your face’ approach to stand-alone DSL. Many telcos offer this service, but do so very quietly, for fear that it will only accelerate access line loss. CenturyLink has obviously gotten past this fear, and now is focused on growing broadband share, whatever the access line cost.
This appears to be CenturyTel gaming the Universal Service Fund. Its ISP revenues are unregulated and not counted the same way as POTS revenues. They don’t make money on POTS per se; they make money on by having the Universal Service Fund pay them whatever it takes to get their guaranteed 1980s-era rate of return from their 1980s-era services. If their POTS revenue goes down, USF — a tax paid by the rest of us — simply makes up the difference. And the DSL goes straight to their bottom line. What a scam.
Whatever their claims it does not work out in practice. Many DSL subscribers complain about the poor level of service, which has declined after the Embarq merger. See dslreports.com on CTel DSL quality.
I pay for 3 Mbps and get it inconsistently. It's more like dial-up than DSL. Terrible service.