The impending Qwest upgrade is scheduled for the end of September. I had some questions, which I have sent to Sue Leuchen of Qwest, but I will re-post them here in case anyone has the answers:

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Sue,

I was referred to you by Melanie in technical support as someone who could give details about the Daybreak upgrade scheduled for the end of this month.

My specific questions are:

1. My current service, though provisioned at 10 Mbps download speed, often achieves speeds of 30 Mbps. The upgrade is advertised as providing 12 Mbps. Will my speeds be capped to 12 Mbps now?

2. It seems curious to me that a technician will have to go to every home in Daybreak and spend 2-3 hours for such a small upgrade (from 10 to 12 Mbps).

3. I heard that a 100 Mbps option will be available. Can you provide the pricing info?

My emails to Sue bounced. If anyone knows how to reach someone in Qwest with answers, I'd love to know who they are!

It's official. I got my fiber optic upgrade today, and it is between 30% and 300% slower than our prior service.

Download speeds are capped at 12 Mbps. Right before the upgrade I was getting 18 Mbps, and at times I got 30 Mbps.

Other changes:

1. Upload speeds are faster at 5 Mbps vs. 1 Mbps before (won't affect most people)

2. The new routers come with a qwest.net user name and password. This should enable Qwest to disconnect delinquent accounts, but it also means they can track your internet activity to your account directly (this was more difficult with the old setup).

Conclusion: For the regular user, this was a downgrade. I am told there are faster speeds available for an additional price.

But wait, there's more.

The new service blocks outbound SMTP traffic (port 25), so those of you who use a mail service that's not Qwest and not webmail are out of luck.

The service also makes my VPN connections flaky. They won't stay connected for more than 10 minutes.

OMG! Is it possible to avoid the upgrade. We have to go out of our way to get it by making a stupid appointment with them. What if I just don't make that appointment?

If you don't upgrade, I believe there will come a time in a couple weeks that the old Internet service will stop working. This upgrade is therefore not optional.

After all this, I personally feel like the literature we received was misleading. This upgrade was all about being able to disconnect delinquent accounts, and had virtually nothing to do with providing better Internet service to residents.