CenturyLink Loses Another 90K Frustrated Broadband Customers

Centurylink continues to bleed subscribers as a consequence of its failure to upgrade aging DSL lines. While CenturyLink has engaged in some very selective fiber upgrades (like in the Seattle area), there's still millions of customers within its footprint that can only access pricey DSL at sub 6 Mbps speeds. As cable providers increasingly deploy gigabit speeds via DOCSIS 3.1, more and more customers are being lured away from telcos and to cable competitors. And, since many of these telcos don't think upgrading these DSL lines is profitable enough, quickly enough, they're effectively allowing it to happen.

As a result, CenturyLink's latest earnings report indicate that the telco lost another 90,000 DSL customers last quarter.

In the wake of the departures and lawsuits regarding misleading pricing, CenturyLink has tried to simplify its pricing structure and promotions to retain these users, though it's pretty clearly not working. Speaking on the company's earnings call, CenturyLink COO Jeff Storey tried to put a positive spin on the losses, insisting the ISP's price for life promotion was paying dividends.

"We rolled Price for Life less than six months ago and we have over 1 million customers on it already, so it's been very successful," Storey said. "Our customers have reacted well to it and it makes the experience they have with us feel better for them."

Again, though, simpler pricing doesn't address the fact that millions of the company's customers can't get even the FCC's base definition of broadband at 25 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up. And like so many other telcos, CenturyLink's debt load and minimal competitive incentive in many areas means that's likely not happening anytime soon. It is, however, occurring in select areas that CenturyLink deems worth its time.

"We have opportunities to sell more high-speed or very high speed 100-megabit and above, 40-megabit and above," Storey said. “We need to make sure that we're doing that."

You think?

Telco upgrade apathy not only generates frustrated customers, it effectively gives cable operators like Comcast and Charter a growing monopoly when it comes to higher speeds especially. An FCC report recently indicated that while there's minimal competition these days between telcos and cablecos at 25 Mbps, it's virtually nonexistent once you get to speeds of 100 Mbps or higher. With less competition comes higher cable broadband prices, and even less incentive to fix what is historically awful customer service.