Brighthouse has been the only solution in our neighborhood that best fit our needs for the longest time, but it’s come time for us to try another carrier. Prior to recent, the other option we had was to get broadband and satellite tv (in Florida, no thanks). We had a Brighthouse solution which was composed of a hd dvr and broadband (10Mbps). Pretty straight forward solution but the price and the fact that another service is available offering a better package at a better price has got us thinking we will switch.
Centurylink started pushing a new service called “Prism” in our neighborhood recently so my wife and I decided to see what it’s all about. (click here for details)The service includes 2 boxes (1 hd dvr, 1 hd). They share the hard drive from the dvr so recordings can be watched in either room. Of course, broadband (10Mbps) is also included (wireless router also included).
After 1 week of testing the cable and internet I have to say I am pretty pleased and am going to officially disconnect Brighthouse this week.
Brighthouse: They were reliable. The cable was ok but had some jitter (Max Headroom type stuff) that would happen on occasion and I’d call in and they’d give me the same routine as always – we’re checking on that. That’s all I’d ever hear from their tech support. I did like that they had cable that did not require a box for every tv. Is it worth it though? We’ll see.. we have to give this other company a shot. I did call and see if Brighthouse would compete with the Centurylink package and what I got was an attitude from the sales person on the other side of the phone when I made my call. That kind of left me a little bitter – made me feel like they (Brighthouse) are arrogant and thought they had the better service (best thing since sliced bread comes to mind) and they may have it but it gave me the extra push to try someone else.
Centurylink: After a week of their service (broadband and cable) I have to admit I am pleased. I’ve called in a few times to test the support and they’ve answered relatively quickly and been supportive of my needs. I don’t like the fact that a box is required for every tv but I agreed to that. I don’t like the included wireless router (a Cisco 2200 that’s a/b/g). I’ve taken care of that by disabling the wireless and attached my own Asus rt-n56u. The other issue involved port forwarding to my internal network but I have since resolved that by enabling it on the Cisco. I was given the username and password (user:user) to the router and I poked around and tinkered with that to get it working as I desired. Dynamic DNS is also supported by the Cisco but I have a script I run on a linux box that handles that for me – so no need to make changes but nice to know the Cisco handles it.
That said, we’re moving forward with this.. Hello Centurylink… Bye Bye Brighthouse.
Update: When Centurylink performed the install I was taking care of my son which sets limits on the monitoring i was not able to perform over the centurylink installers. Because of that I missed :
1. One stb (set top box) was not configured. That was actually ok because it enabled me to test calling into tech support which went well. (ding for the installer tho)
2. The (unused) coax cables were nicely crimped with new ends but were left dangling. There wasn’t much thought put in by the current installer about my future business (ex:adding a cable box). They should have taken some more time, labelled items, and wired things up better – perhaps a larger splitter and connected cables or a dummy splitter for those loose cables.
Update 2: just took back the Brighthouse gear and cancelled service. While there 3 people overheard my conversation with the Brighthouse rep (specifically when i was asked reason for cancellation, my answer: ” you finally have a competitor” then the next question was, who; my answer was “centurylink”. The final question was why? I stated better offer then current Brighthouse offers which was 2 HD capable boxes, dvr, and 10mbps internet for under 90 bucks.. the brighthouse rep shook his head stating clearly we can’t compete with that. Two ladies started discussing Centurylink immediately while the 3rd person in the office met me outside to ask me more.
Goos stuff!!
