CenturyLink vs. Optimum: Which Internet Provider Is Best for You?

Compare CenturyLink and Optimum head to head

If you can get fiber internet from CenturyLink, go for it! If not, give Optimum’s cable or fiber internet a try but watch out for price hikes down the road. A history of these hikes may be why Optimum gets much lower customer satisfaction scores in critical categories like price and overall satisfaction, suggesting that customers aren’t the provider’s biggest fans.

We’re not so keen on CenturyLink’s DSL plan, either, which is much slower and yet is slightly more expensive the same as the 500Mbps plan.

Pros and cons: CenturyLink vs. Optimum

Plans and pricing: CenturyLink vs. Optimum

CenturyLink has been expanding its fiber offerings lately, giving you more variety and lower prices (at least in some markets). It also has a middling DSL plan but we only recommend it if your options are limited.

Optimum offers both fiber and cable internet, with excellent introductory prices and multi-gigabit speeds in some areas. If you can get in while the provider is offering five-year price locks, we think you should.

CenturyLink plans and pricing

CenturyLink’s fiber plan gives you lots of speed at a fair price. The Simply Unlimited Fiber Internet up to 940 Mbps plan is its most popular and well-known offering. Even better, though, is the up to 500Mbps plan. It costs just $50 a month, making it one of the best-priced fiber plan you can find anywhere. And 500Mbps is more than plenty for most people, giving you ample bandwidth for streaming, gaming, and more.

If you can’t get CenturyLink fiber in your area, you may have to settle for the provider’s DSL service. DSL is a fusty old connection type built on landline phone infrastructure, and its speeds just don’t cut the mustard for a lot of netizens. If it’s your only wired choice, 5G home internet from providers including Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile may be worth a try.

Optimum plans and pricing

Optimum beats out CenturyLink on prices and speed options. You get a lot more to choose from on an Optimum plan, and you get more promos and deals too. And while Optimum used to hit customers with steep price hikes, it now offers five-year price locks. We don’t know how long that will last, though, so make sure you read your broadband nutrition label during checkout.

If you need speed, choose Optimum over CenturyLink. You can get plans up to 8 gigs! Do you need internet that fast? Not really. Can you find those speeds in all of Optimum’s service areas? It doesn’t look like it. But it’s still kind of impressive that Optimum has rolled out these capabilities for some customers.

Deals and promotions: CenturyLink vs. Optimum

Extra fees: CenturyLink vs. Optimum

With Centurylink, you’ll pay $25 if you do the work yourself, or up to $129 if you need a pro to help. With Optimum, you may get free installation or you could be charged $100 for a pro to come out and help, depending on when you order and where you live.

When it comes to equipment, Optimum is the better choice. You get free rental of an internet gateway with either cable or fiber plans, and if you need mesh extenders the charge is just $5 per month. With CenturyLink, you may have to pay $15 per month to rent a modem if you have DSL, but the equipment is included if you have fiber.

Customer ratings: CenturyLink vs. Optimum

Both of these internet providers end up at the bottom of the pile in our annual customer satisfaction survey—neither perform as well as AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile.

However, when faced against each other, CenturyLink edges into the lead in most categories. It beats out Optimum for reliability, customer service, and overall customer satisfaction. CenturyLink comes in well ahead of Optimum on price, actually making the top five in that category. We suspect that CenturyLink’s satisfaction ratings go down because a lot of its customers have middling DSL service, but CenturyLink also has a much faster and more reliable fiber service that customers have given high marks in the past.

Best TV and internet bundles

Optimum has some well-priced bundle options if you want to pair your internet with a streaming or cable TV plan. You can also sign up for a mobile phone plan through Optimum, letting you get a cell phone plan for just $45 a month (or even less if you add more lines). If you drop internet, though, you’ll see a $20 fee per line of mobile service. If you drop mobile but keep internet, you’ll lose your $15 monthly discount on internet service.

CenturyLink doesn’t really offer TV and internet bundles—you technically can pair your internet service with DIRECTV, but you order them à la carte like any other service and you have to pay full price for both. CenturyLink partners with DIRECTV to bill DIRECTV services with CenturyLink services. You can stream DIRECTV to any TV without a satellite dish. You can also get traditional satellite TV service if you can’t get high-speed internet.

Internet types: CenturyLink vs. Optimum

CenturyLink offers fiber and DSL internet, while Optimum has fiber and cable internet. Fiber is the fastest type of internet you can get, with speeds going up to 8,000Mbps and symmetrical upload speeds that are excellent for Zooming, social media, and livestreams.

Cable is the second-best connection type. It’s still fast and reliable, just not as fast as fiber, topping out at 1,000Mbps download speeds and usually 50Mbps uploads. DSL is the slowest option of the bunch, delivering max 100 Mbps speeds over aging phone infrastructure. Get DSL if you have few other options or live in a rural area.

Data caps: CenturyLink vs. Optimum

Neither CenturyLink nor Optimum has data caps on their internet plans. That means you can use the internet as much as you want throughout the month without worrying about overage fees or throttled speeds.

Contracts: CenturyLink vs. Optimum

Here’s some more great news about these providers—neither one requires you to sign up for an annual contract. You can cancel your service any time without having to pay early termination fees. That gives you more flexibility to sign up for a plan for just a few months or to switch providers if your service isn’t working as well as you’d like.

Installation: CenturyLink vs. Optimum

CenturyLink and Optimum both offer similar options for installation. The best way to go is to opt for a self-install kit that lets you plug in the modem/router and set up the wiring yourself. It takes less than an hour and you can set it all up with the help of an app on your phone.

Sometimes technical stuff can be too complicated or frustrating to deal with, and if that’s your situation, then you can pay a $129 fee with CenturyLink or have the fee waived when you order online from Optimum to have a technician come over and set everything up for you.

Availability: CenturyLink vs. Optimum

CenturyLink has a fairly large nationwide network, covering parts of the East Coast, South, Midwest, and West. Optimum is available in 25 states, including large parts of the South, West, and East Coast. Use our zip check tool to see what you can get from either of these providers where you live.

Final call: CenturyLink vs. Optimum

Optimum has some great offerings when it comes to speed and prices, but the low customer satisfaction ratings make Optimum’s deals less desirable in the long run. CenturyLink is really the winner here—specifically its fiber offerings, which get you primo service with fast speeds and reliable pricing. If you had to pick between Optimum and CenturyLink’s sluggish DSL, though, we’d go with Optimum.

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Methodology

Our HighSpeedInternet.com editorial team bases our analyses on customer input from our annual customer satisfaction survey, results from our speed test tool, and proprietary internet provider data on speeds and pricing. To strengthen our research, we look closely at provider contracts to get hard-to-find information on price hikes, data caps, and extra fees, and we keep tabs on the latest news reports and online reviews. When applicable, we also rely on our personal experiences testing these services.

More about CenturyLink and Optimum

• Mbps vs. Gbps: Do You Need Gigabit Internet?
• CenturyLink vs. Xfinity
• Your Guide to CenturyLink Installation
• Optimum vs. Verizon
• 5 Reasons Why Your Internet Keeps Disconnecting—and How You Can Fix It