 Review by pleekmo 
UPDATED: 269 days ago
member for 6.6 years, 3536 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
 Manchester,Hartford,CT
 $40 per month
 AT&T
 "Reliable. No caps. AT&T forum here is great!"
 "Tier 1 tech support can be a little clueless."
 "Get it if you can."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Note: This service is actually the same as the original SNET DSL service I reviewed nearly four years ago and was bought by SBC and then by AT&T.
Ordered 1.5/128 almost as soon as it was available in this area (Spring 2000 or 2001, I believe -- I found the original work order a while back while cleaning the apartment). Installation was swift and painless; the installation tech was on time. Speed of connection has always been as advertised. Ordered 3.0/378 (billed as "Pro HSI") service about a year and a half ago. Implementation was as easy as a modem reboot. It is also as fast as advertised. Supposedly ineligible for 6.0 MB download service due to distance from CO, but with the recent connection reliability (see below), I wonder if this is no longer true. I think my 12-month contract has expired, hence the apparent high price for this service. (Time to call them up again, I suppose.)
Service is mostly reliable and usually the only reason I notice service interruptions is because I'm downloading Grateful Dead shows 24/7 and am up most of the night after I get home from my 2nd shift job. However, about a year ago I had an issue in which my DSL connection would go down often. Eventually punched up a trouble ticket for the issue. The issue was fixed quickly and a day before the stated completion date. I have no idea what they did, but the problem was fixed. The connection for the past nearly three months has been absolutely flawless. I've had the same IP for the past 80 days on this supposedly "dynamic" connection.
Main equipment is a SpeedStream 5260 DSL modem. It was swiftly replaced when it eventually went poof after about three years of service. Service is dynamic IP PPPoE. Works great!
Mail service with the old SNET e-mail servers was spotty and there were often failures. I've since migrated to the SBC/Yahoo! servers, which are more reliable, in my opinion. The newer AT&T e-mail servers are mostly reliable thought they'd recently apparently has some sort of systemwide authentication issue slowing down the sending of e-mail. DNS fails only a few times a year and again, I'd not notice this if I didn't have the habit of surfing in the middle of the night when these things tend to happen during maintenance periods. I don't know how well the SBC/Yahoo news servers work because I don't have time to check newsgroups. Back when I did have time for it the SNET N.G. service was very good.
As noted in the sound bite above Tier 1 tech support can be a little clueless -- early in my service I had occasion to call them up to let them know their network was broken. They didn't believe me.
In the past, notice of potential service interruptions was nonexistant. Now we do get some notice whenever I get around to checking out dsl.snet.net. Usually my notice of such potential interruptions now comes from the AT&T forum here.
I've not availed myself of the opportunity to check out the provider's package options. All I want is a reliable pipe and that is what I've got. If you want to find out how good (or not) AT&T's package options are, you'll have to find some other review.
I use AT&T's eBill(SM) to pay my bills with this provider. Unfortunately, for some reason, it takes quite some time (several minutes) to log into their site if you don't use Internet Explorer to do so.
My service with AT&T DSL has been reliable and mostly free of hassles. I consider it a good value for the money and have no intention of giving up my service with AT&T.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of AT&T DSL Service |
|
AT&T DSL Service
(75)
(46)
(16)