Review by DaveInAL 
UPDATED: 35 days ago
member for 45 days, 3 visits, last login: 35 days ago
 Cullman,Cullman,AL
 Contract price not specified.
 AT&T
 "It's available In my area....and now is reliable"
 "It took a couple of years to get the right repairman out to find my problem"
 "The right tech guy makes all the difference"
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Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Where I live In Alabama, we have only two real options for broadband at a reasonable price, AT@T DSL or Time Warner Cable (Roadrunner). About five years ago, I signed up for Bellsouth DSL. The best I could get at the time was 1.5mps/256k. At the time, it was a big jump from dialup and for the most part it was reliable unless there was lightning in in three county radius from where I live, then the modem would loose sync. Still, that was about the only issue I had.
But After a year or so, I started loosing sync randomly, and for an online gamer, it was frustrating. But Ma Bell was the only game in town, so I stayed with it until Adelphea bought out the local cable company, made some upgrades and offered cable internet service. RIP Adelphia, you were the best I ever had. I never had a moments problem with my adelphia service...ever!! I went from 3mb to 5 mb and didn't even know it was avialble. Everything just got faster one day. It was great.
But Adelphia blew up and Time Warner bought them out. On the day the switched the service to Time Warner servers, I inherited 50% packet loss and the people at Time Warner could never figure it out, so back to ma bell I went.
That was two years ago. On the day i did my self install, the drop sync issue was still there. I call tech support, and honestly, these folks are nice. I try not to yell at them. Crap equipment and false promises aren't the the fault of some underpaid and under trained tech support guy.
Things have only gotten much worse since AT@T bought out bellsouth. I drop sync, go hours without service, harass tech support and the technicians that come to my house, but nothing ever changes. They've swapped the modem, put in filters, taken out filters, changed my port at the CO...the list goes on...and on and on.
The line technians that come to my house are great guys and very good telephone repairmen, but I haven't met one that knows much about computers or dsl or why it doesn't work.
So i am left with the delema of suffering through AT@T and pray for an hour or two of uninterrupted service or trying Time Warner again and their unresolveable 50% packet loss. I have considered a 3rd party DSL supplier, like HIWAAY out of Huntsville, but when i talk to them, they always remind me that the phone lines are Bellsouth/now AT@T responsibilty and not theirs, and they charge more for service.
The Real bottom line is that the lack of options is my biggest problem, because those I have aren't reliable.
Updated review: After repeated calls to tech support over dropped sync and having repairmen to my house to trace the problem, I finally got a repairman willing to try to find the problem. Over a three day period, he came to my house several times, made several changes and then finally replaced the drop from the pole to the nid. Problem solved. The old line drop from the pole was very old. It wasn't even twisted pair. Since he replaced the line, I haven't lost sync once, I get full sync rates, download speeds are always near max and even nearby storms no longer knock me offline. Most of all, even with as many calls as he had to answer, the repairman didn't give up until he found the problem. As of now, i am very satisfied with my service.
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