I worked for them (as CenturyTel) back in the previous decade. They pushed sales so much at that time that a sales attempt was part of customer service's QA, but if anyone was caught creating accounts they were quickly ejected. The upper management that was over CS at the time has all pretty much moved on by about a decade though.

The corporate vision has always been to pursue bringing modern(ish) telephony and internet service to little-served rural areas. I know they were aggressive as frick about it when DSL first came out, with new pops coming online damned near every month (I was doing IT there when we first acquired the Alabama properties). Even back then though they weren't as competitive as they could have been for speeds. Their point of costs of running such expensive lines and setting up remote shelfs for just a handful of customers has some weight, but when they are still offering only 1.5M after a decade of servicing an area the ol' bullshite meter has to start pegging out.

If I remember correctly they have their own backbone (meaning cost to increasing speeds should be negligible), if not then the Level 3 merger would definitely give them that.

I remember years after they sold off their cellular business to Altell (after being one of the best in the country then letting it fall to shite out of neglect) they decided to get back into the cellular game by being a Cingular reseller. The plans would have been good about 5-10 years earlier and I even voiced this in a meeting, but they went ahead with it anyway. Their sales stratagem was in providing "buckets of minutes", I still remember being in training on this and thinking "bucket of shite".

The good thing about all this is that their stock pays ~9%. If it goes below $20, it might end up being a good buy depending on who succeeds Post (Post, the CEO, has been the driving force behind their growth since the early 90's but is 65 so will probably begin eyeing the exit door soon).