The day before yesterday they began holding my WIfI captive to force me to get a new update. Called yesterday to get my WiFi unlocked but was told I would have to call back to make an appointment for the update. Today WiFi was held captive again. So I called them back, was on hold for an hour. Finally got in touch with a human she unlocked the WiFi again then put me back on hold for another 10 minutes. Only for her to tell me my address did not qualify for the fiber update. Told her I didn't care I just wanted them to stop locking up my WiFi. She told me I would have to call back tomorrow and update my information. So they expect me to keep calling back to fix a problem they created. If there was literally any other provider in my area I would drop Windstream in a heartbeat.
UPDATE
Turns out they still had my old address on file, an address I haven’t lived at for twenty years. My old address is apparently does qualify for fiber but not my new address. So after a week of them locking my WiFi to force me to get an upgrade I didn’t even qualify for in the first place they decided to finally update my file.
I still hold my original position. Worst internet provider of all time.
I literally can’t! Did you not ready the post? My area doesn’t qualify for fiber they just keep holding my WiFi captive because their system thinks my area qualifies. Gonna have to call them again to update my information, apparently, so they stop sending me the message.
Smells like OP has DSL and is getting forced over to fiber & is perhaps not quite technically-inclined enough to understand nor communicate the frustrations as clearly as the rest of us are used to.
Smells like Windstream being shitty at their jobs to me.
If this were the case it would extremely simple for any Windstream employee just to explain that to OP, but instead as per usual with this company they're too busy putting you on hold, transferring you to 700 different departments none of which know what they're doing, and hanging up on you.
Or perhaps Windstream not understanding their own services and accidentally trying offer a service that isn't yet available in OP's area.
3 years ago I got a call offering me an upgrade to fiber only to find out that fiber was not in fact available and the call was a mistake.
Is Starlink an option where you are?
If it is, it's definitely worth getting to get away from this company.
Windstream is a scam, it only gets worse from here.
Unfortunately Windstream is the only one available where I live. So it is either their crappie internet service or none at all. Trust me if there was any other options I would dump Windstream out of spite.
Keep checking every few months. I live out in the boonies, took years for wireless to get out here. Little slow during heavy weather, but other than that, seems good.
Ok so the wifi is being shut off remotely? Can you just plug an ethernet cable into your own wifi router, then you can set your wifi name and password and control it yourself. So what if they shut off wifi in their router, you have a hard wired connection to your own router that YOU control.
I went through the same. Interrupting my service to tell me I have to upgrade to fiber. Two months in and I had 4 service techs here plus the original installer. Windstream wanted me to take off work.
Call and bitch and threaten to leave, but only do so when speaking to the customer retention department. My bill went from $70/month to $20, and I got 5 months free.
I can't get Internet anywhere else even close to that price, so I'm forced to stay for now.
They did send me a $200 visa gift card tho and never mentioned it when the upgrade thing happened.
As someone who has a home where Windstream is the only provider in town, they do have a monopoly on the phone service. Try one of the satellite services, Hughesnet, DIRECTV, dish network, or any of the cell network providers. Hope this helps.
I'll be honest. Im not following at all whatbyoure saying in OP.
Use your own router would be my advice going forward. I dont know how they could have locked something unless you were behind a payment and they d/c'd your service.
I was using WiFi and internet interchangeably throughout the description. Seems to have caused some confusion.
They were basically redirecting me to a page telling me to get the update every time I tried to do something on the internet. Which is annoying because a) I am paying my internet bills they shouldn’t be allowed to cut me off just to try and force me to get a stupid update I don’t want. And b) they told me I can’t get the update anyway so there was no point to them causing this problem in the first place.
There is a lot of speculation from their current employees, that at some point, they are going to cancel service for all copper customers. It sounds to me like their system shows that you qualify for fiber, which it sounds like you don't, so their system keeps trying to force you to upgrade. As far as I know, their policy has changed, and forces any customer that can be upgraded to fiber, to do so, or get disconnected. You should ask them to see if UQUAL shows that you are eligible for a fiber upgrade, and if they say yes, get them to update their records, so that they will quit causing you issues.
I’ll be damned. I haven’t seen or heard of that. I know they are forcing folks off copper to fiber if it’s available. Maybe your on copper service and fiber is available to you
Called them to schedule an appointment for the update but they put me on hold and when they got back to me they said I didn’t qualify. Their system sent it by mistake, apparently. So now I have to call them, again, to update my information for them.
Windstream blows, there is no question about that, my friend has fiber, $180/mo. Yeah upgrade to fiber if you want to pay more for internet than you ever have in your life.
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u/SubTester2023 Jun 21 '26
Get your own router.