Normally I would transfer you to a customer service representative who could assist you, but the call center is closed. Please call back during our working hours Monday through Friday until 6pm.

Goodbye, and thanks for calling Qwest!

Brilliant. The bill is due on Sunday.

It is possible to buy wholesale bandwidth from Qwest as a residential end-user. Despite what the customer service representatives may tell you, you can order a working Internet connection to your house billed at a wholesale rate.

I ordered the Qwest Connect® Silver with Internet Basic, which is simply a 1.5Mbps DSL connection with Internet service and nothing else: No email, no anti-virus or firewall, no Microsoft Live/MSN bundled garbage, and no “Price For Life” term-commitments or promotional offers of any kind. It costs exactly $42.99 a month without local phone service. The price can be found on this: Convenient Rate Card.

(The rate card would not open for me in any other pdf reader besides the official Adobe Reader. Be warned, you could get a big question mark if you try to view the Rate Card with PDFView or in Preview.)

My bill is $136.91 this month. Last month it was $40, and the month before that it was $3.83.

I have Naked DSL service at the 1.5 Mbps speed, which should cost $49.99 month-to-month with no commitment. I expect to be billed for that amount every month.

I try my very hardest to articulate my desire over the phone to the Qwest representatives, but every single month without fail, they fuck it up. They explain to me that Qwest bills one month in advance, which somehow justifies the discrepancy in my bills. Every time I pay my bill, I verify that my account is paid-in-full to make sure that I have no past-due amount on my next bill, yet this month my bill has charges for August, September, October, November and December.

I called to disconnect my Plain Old Telephone Service on August 31st after I read an article that explained that I didn't need to pay for the phone service in order to have access to the DSL on the line. I already had the modem, as well as the 1.5 Mbps DSL service, I simply wanted to drop the dial tone and quit playing the “price for the first 12 months” bundle-and-save game with Qwest.

Qwest likes to thank me for “choosing” them, and they use that word a lot. Twice in one paragraph on my most recent bill, as well as with every person I talk to on the phone. It is almost like they're rubbing the fact in my face that I have no choice, and then silently laughing about it. I hate Qwest with a passion, and would not choose them if I had a choice in high-speed Internet providers.

I am so sick and tired of calling Qwest every fucking month because they can't simply bill me the advertised price for the service I want: $49.99 for a DSL connection. Every month I call and get put on hold after navigating the stupid phone menu before being transferred to multiple service representatives, all of whom require me to repeat my story before putting me on hold and transferring me to another one. While I am on hold I get to listen to the Recorded Qwest Man telling me to BUNDLE AND SAVE! BUNDLE AND SAVE! BUNDLE AND SAVE!

No, fuck you Recorded Qwest Man.

Get in the loop, the Unbundled Loop, that is.

An IMPORTANT NOTICE arrived in my mailbox yesterday, which informed me that Qwest's records indicate there is a past due amount of $69.02 on my account, and that payment must be received by September 4, 2009. The notice further goes on to clarify with an itemized list containing this record:

Service ProviderAmount Past Due
QWEST MSN S $41.37

It went on to explain the security deposit and restoral charge, and in detail, the various penalties and punishments I would be subjected to in the case of my non-payment.

The notice was unaccompanied by any other sort of documentation, besides the official Qwest envelope, curiously without postmark due to the prepaid postage printed on it.

After thanking me for my business and prompt attention, the Qwest Customer Financial Services closed with their 800 number: 1 800-423-8994

The number wasn't the regular Qwest number I call every month, which I have forever ingrained in my memory: 1-800-2-44-1111, so I went to Google to investigate.

I found some fraud reports, and some disgruntled customer reports, and other Qwest business-as-usual.

I continued my search, and came across an article that explained Naked DSL: the digital Internet service connection WITHOUT plain old telephone service, in an Unbundled Loop.

An answer to my prayers! Could it be? Can I really JUST get Internet from Qwest, without a side of bundled garbage? Can I really have a bill that does not fluctuate wildly from month to month?

Further investigation led me to Qwest Wholesale Broadband with a straightforward rate card.

I excitedly wrote down NAKED DSL and UNBUNDLED LOOP on my important notice so I could order it when Qwest began another business day,

...which was this morning. My confirmation number is C46643150, and my phone service cuts off on Thursday. Hallelujah!

I got a Skype phone number, so people can leave voicemail. It is an Internet Phone, and the number is (171)9966-420-8! Dude. That's seriously cool.