Alabama residents sue Windstream to get higher wireline broadband speeds

A number of Windstream's customers in Alabama aren't happy about the wireline DSL speeds they are getting from Windstream, and they are suing the company in the hopes the telecommunication company will respond by upgrading its wireline infrastructure. In St. Clair County, three lawyers are collaborating with the goal of motivating Windstream to upgrade its infrastructure in these areas, stemming from complaints residents have had about the service they get today. A number of users in Broadband DSL Reports' User Reviews site say that many customers have reported they can't even get 1 Mbps DSL speeds.

Michael Teague, a Windstream spokesman, said that the lines in the area were never upgraded with next-gen technology such as ADSL2+ or VDSL2 because of the belief that more consumers would just use their wireless devices as the primary means to get Internet services. Being a wireline-centric provider itself, Windstream capitalized on the 4G LTE buildout boom by building out fiber to cell towers in its service area to provide wireless backhaul services. What changed in the home was the advent Wi-Fi and the growing consumer appetite for streaming video services such as Netflix and Hulu. "Industry-wide, we found people still want that broadband delivered to their homes so they can stream multiple devices wirelessly," said Teague. "It created a kind of shift in the thinking, and it's come back around."