Qwest v. Comcast: The First Month

After the first month of service, the first problem, and the first bill, who wins: Qwest or Comcast?

Qwest. No contest. (Yet.)

Setup

If memory serves correctly, it took us several phone calls, visits, and quite a bit of downtime to finally get Comcast working. Comcast eventually refunded two weeks worth of service, I believe, but I would have preferred forgoing the headache instead.

Qwest had me up and running when they said they would.


Service

I'm inclined to be a little more lenient to Comcast here, simply because our last apartment was old, as was the wiring Comcast had to deal with. However, even after they put brand-new wiring in, they couldn't keep my Internet connection up and running.

So far (knock on wood) my Qwest connection hadn't had any problems except a brief downtime that was fixed by rebooting the modem/router, but it's only been a few weeks. This is better judged over a series of months. We'll see...


Support

Qwest wins again. When my connection died, I called up customer support. Unlike Comcast, who refused to touch my wireless router (and enjoyed blaming problems they couldn't figure out on it), the Qwest support guy didn't even blink when I told him I had a wireless router hooked up to their modem. He simply walked me through rebooting it, in addition to their modem, which fixed the problem.

I can't go too far blaming Comcast for not wanting to deal with "unsupported hardware," but it certainly wasn't that difficult for Qwest, and it made all the difference in my opinion of them.


Billing

Again, this is better judged over a series of months, but my first Qwest bill was correct, and (helpfully) told me which month I was on in my discounted promotional period. Comcast rarely got a bill correct two months running.

Let's hope Qwest continues to impress.