My Transition

FYI: I am not employed by Mountain Broadband (MtnBB) , nor will I benefit if you choose service from them.

I was frustrated by slow Internet service and the high cost of landline service, even as a bundled package. Ever since my bad experience with truly lousy service from Skybeam (formerly the wonderfully responsive and attentive Wispertel, until they were bought out) , I had been looking for a replacement with higher speed than CenturyLink.

CenturyLink has no incentive to provide higher speed service to most of us than their basic DSL. Their claim of 40 Mbps (very high speed indeed) is only in areas that are newly constructed where the infrastructure was put in place from the start, or if you are right next to the connect panel and can get fiber installed! Retrofitting our mountain neighborhoods is not a priority. Just examine their business model, and it will become apparent. So imagine my delight when a flyer appeared in the mail about Mountain Broadband. Since no one up here for whom I email addresses had their service, I asked several questions of Mountain Broadband over the course of several days about their service and their long term plans. I was satisfied!

I had Mountain Broadband install their service (12/21/13), and in transition retained our current CenturyLink service, just in case.

I am absolutely pleased with our new MtnBB service, so much so that I am transitioning off of CenturyLink altogether and our phone will be using the MtnBB service for BasicTalk Voice Over IP (VoIP) instead of the traditional "landline". On 1/10/14, the CenturyLink landline went silent.

I have run a series of tests of the MtnBB system over the past few weeks and have been very pleased that they are delivering the bandwidth I'm paying for, and it is substantially more reliable with regard to speed and availability than CenturyLink DSL. I recently downloaded a file of more than 30 gigabytes. Yes, it took quite a while, but the download was continuous and seamless, AND we could still get on-line for email and such during the download. AND use the VoIP telephone. Exactly what I was hoping for, and they delivered.

Here's a few things that you might want to know:

Not everyone can "get" the service; you have to have a line-of-sight connection to their site/tower. That being said, they can come to your address, or check their maps, and tell you if they can give you service. All it took for us was a phone call and 24 hours later, I had service.
If your CenturyLink connection loses power, you phone will work, but your Internet service will not (necessarily). This was 100% of the time for our service; every time the neighborhood had an outage, we lost internet service. MtnBB has a generator at their sites and will continue to operate even if their site loses power (for a reasonable number of days; not forever!). That being said, if you have a serious medical condition, you might want to retain your landline to be safest. There are options for lower cost service if that is the case.
While the MtnBB lowest speed Internet service a bit more expensive than just the CenturyLink stated cost of $29.95/month, the overall cost of your Internet and Phone service may be lower, and your Internet speed would be about twice as fast. My phone service (with the nationwide calling plan attached and bundled) was about 2/3 of my total bill. I now have 10x the speed of CenturyLink and retained my old phone number and am paying $4/month less with unlimited nationwide calling.
During the transition from CenturyLink to BasicTalk VoIP, the landline was still active, and had DSL Internet service. Normally, it takes 7-10 days for the transfer of your phone number; this was my case. I requested the transfer on 1/1 and on 1/7 it was acknowledged to have happened by BasicTalk. From 1/7 through 1/9. both the landline and the VoIP were active, meaning that a phone call placed on the landline showed as my home number and a call made on VoIP also showed as my home number. I will be contacting CenturyLink this morning to fully cancel the service (make sure it is closed out and no more billing). The landline is now dead, so I know CenturyLink has finally finished their part.

Hope this helps someone!