A Honest Windstream Internet Review, According to Customers

Peter, an IT administrator in Sugar Land, Texas, finds his Windstream fiber reliable. “I haven't talked to Windstream customer service in the last 12 months. That says a lot about the quality of their data line,” he says.

Another Kinetic Fiber customer, who posts on Reddit under the name toddsing, loved the installation experience. “My Windstream install tech was great,” they tell Reviews.org, adding that when they pushed back with a technician about superfluous equipment, rather than insisting he was right, the technician did a little research. Eventually, he agreed with toddsing that no more equipment was needed.

But other Windstream customers felt that the service leaves something to be desired.

When Ron Ames moved homes in 2019, he planned to sign up for Spectrum Internet. However, he learned that Spectrum service ended half a mile down the road, leaving him with Windstream. "I have no other provider, too, so I'm essentially captive,” he says. “Not even cellular wireless is available to me."

Ames bemoans Windstream for not investing in fiber infrastructure earlier. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2019, and Ames is still dealing with what he feels is subpar service. His DSL download speeds reach only 35Mbps “on a good day,” and his upload speeds max out at a mere 2Mbps. Those speeds are well below federal broadband standards, but he still pays a painfully high price.

"Kinetic Fiber is around $50 to $60, and they're charging their slowest speed customers more than that," he says, noting that he pays $82 a month (after all the fees and taxes) for his DSL plan.

Some customers seem to have reached the end of their rope with the provider. “They lie,” vents Mikayla, a small business owner in Bent, New Mexico. She’s had Windstream since 2006 and feels the brand hasn’t been truthful with her on multiple levels. “They lie about their service, their speeds, their price. We were told in 2016 we would have fiber within the year. We still don't have it today and later found out that Windstream never had any plans to bring fiber to our neighborhood.”

Mikayla preferred not to share her last name due to harassment she’s allegedly received from Windstream personnel in the past.

And Reddit user, 223pk, says it’s been a pain trying to get a store-bought router set up over Windstream’s Kinetic Fiber network. “My understanding was that I could use my own router instead of paying a monthly fee for theirs,” the Redditor says. But the router is still not connected, with no help coming from the customer service department.

“My options are to cancel and go back to Spectrum or pay their modem fee and run my Wi-Fi network off their router,” they said, adding three question marks at the end of their statement to emphasize how ridiculous they feel this is.

Windstream offers two different service plans: DSL and fiber. DSL, or digital subscriber line, works off an old-school telephone setup, while fiber internet uses bundled strands of fiber-optic cabling to send photon signals. DSL has been on the outs over the past several years, and lack of investment in infrastructure improvements means it tends to be slow, buggy, and not too reliable. Fiber is the complete opposite.

“Fiber transmits data at speeds of up to 70% the speed of light, exceeding other technologies,” explains Dave Faggard, Kinetic Senior Director of Reputation, Social Media and PR. “It can do this because fiber-optic technology uses light instead of electricity to transmit data at higher frequencies.”

Windstream’s DSL availability is fairly limited, and the fiber service (Kinetic Fiber) is even more restricted. Availability maps from the Federal Communications Commission indicate that Windstream’s fiber to DSL ratio is about 1:4. So the likelihood of living in a Kinetic Fiber area is possible but not large.

Still, according to Faggard, that’s not for lack of trying.

“Kinetic is committed to our communities and investing a multi-billion-dollar effort to provide many underserved and unserved Americans access to high-speed internet. With Kinetic Fiber, customers get reliable and faster-than-ever internet speeds needed for today’s digital demands, ensuring that no community is left behind,” Faggard says. “We are busy making rural, often-forgotten towns and counties multi-gig ready.”

If you want Kinetic Fiber but need to know if you're eligible, you can look up your address on the Windstream website.

Windstream is available in 18 states in the South, on the East Coast, and in the Midwest. Some locations have DSL, and some have fiber—it all depends on your city and neighborhood.

Windstream's prices compare favorably to those of other providers during the promo period but fall short once regular prices kick in.

Kinetic Fiber prices are neck and neck with Google Fiber during the promotional period, and $50 a month is pretty average for DSL. After these prices wear off after one, two, or three years, Windstream becomes less of a budget provider and more of a luxury-priced one. This makes Kinetic Fiber less of a bargain—most fiber providers give you a flat rate with no price hikes.

But Windstream shines in other aspects. Unlike Xfinity, it has no data caps. And while we don’t usually recommend DSL, if your area has a dearth of other internet providers, it’s nice to have Windstream as an option.

Is Windstream for you? Then try our zip finder to see if you’re eligible.