 Review by BuriedCaesar 
UPDATED: 319 days ago
member for 5.6 years, 1578 visits, last login: 17 days ago
 Richardson,Dallas,TX
 $17 per month (12 month contract)
 about 7 days
 AT&T
 "Excellent, very knowledgeable and competent assistance from on-site tech."
 "Not really given a choice about upgrading to U-Verse in Richardson, TX"
 "Call Tech Support directly if you own a Mac, or hope for a competent on-site tech. Any install CD/DVD disk will be useless."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Most recent review at the top - original at the bottom... thx.
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Update January 5, 2009:
Sometime in mid-October 2008, I got a letter from AT&T saying that a third-party company was going to come through the area and update all the DSL lines - Completely Free of Charge! - and we would now have U-Verse as our DSL connection. We had absolutely no choice in the matter if we wanted to keep that DSL connection, and they offered a price of $17 per month for 1.5/3.0MB for the next 12 months. The letter said to call AT&T to make arrangements to get connected to U-Verse "in a few weeks" but it happened practically within a week of getting that letter. The third-party guys proceeded to rip out the guts of the box which sits in the alley directly behind my house early one Monday afternoon, and leave the old box in the middle of the alley - which my neighbor discovered that night and asked if I knew it was there, which I didn't, so we moved it out of the MIDDLE OF THE ALLEY (I wish I could remember the name of the third-party doofii who did the work - I'll add their company name here if I ever do) and replace it with a completely new box. So I had to move fast. Fortunately, I got through to AT&T pretty quickly that same evening, and managed to set up a date and time for a technician to come out the very next Wednesday to set things up. Two days of no DSL. I can handle that. So I took the day off. The expected arrival time that morning came and went, so I called after waiting about 30 minutes to find out the status, and was summarily told by the clueless workerbee that my appointment was on the schedule - in three weeks.
ME: WHAT? Three weeks?
THEM: That's what I'm seeing on the screen here.
ME: Um, no, sorry, lack of DSL in my house is now in its third day now and I'm expecting a tech to show up TODAY because that's what I was told when I called to schedule the appointment two days ago.
THEM: Well, I'm sorry, but that's not going to be possible - all of our techs are out on other jobs - can we send a tech out tomorrow?
ME: No, I don't want to take another entire day off from work to wait for something that's probably not going to take more than an hour to accomplish. Do you have anyone who can come out this weekend? If not, then I may have to look at my other options.
THEM: As a matter of fact, we do have a slot this Saturday.
ME: Very good. I'll take it.
And I then enjoyed the rest of my day off puttering around the house.
So, I got an appointment for that next Saturday - first ticket of the day. Fortunately, the phone drone did what she said she was going to do. And Elizabeth, the AT&T tech, shows up promptly at 8:45 AM. On a Saturday morning. In an official AT&T service truck. I come to find out that she's prepared and highly competent and even friendly, with a degree from UT-Arlington in Economics. She told us her father worked at AT&T before it was broken up so she probably has forgotten more about the phone company and how things worked than she's retained as a result. And my 4 year old son asked her question after question after question about what she was doing. Saved me the time of having to do it myself, because she answered him as if she were talking to me, which was gratifying. And he nodded, and then asked another question and he flirted, too. That's my boy. She was single. They got along great, and I listened in.
Here come some of the interesting parts - when this third-party group installed the new box in the alley, the reason it so effectively killed my DSL connection is because they combined all the circuitry into one board - no more separation of phone and DSL. That's right - the main phone line to the house and the DSL/U-Verse connection were now one and the same. So much for a potential naked connection if I ever wanted to get rid of my POTS, and strange that having only three wires in the rest of the house wasn't a limiting factor any more. (You'll have to read my earlier review below to get the context of why this is significant.) Elizabeth discovered all she had do was connect the existing phone line to the previously dedicated DSL line that went into the house just on the opposite side of the wall from the porch. So now I have a completely useless gray box and extra heavy-duty telephone cable running from the pole in my alley to the house. On a somewhat positive note, that extra line and the other attached lines is probably keeping the pole from falling down and crushing my pool house or fence or the neighbors garage or fence - it appears to have been eaten through at ground level by termites - the pole moves through a good 4-5 inches back and forth with a very light two fingers push. Telephone poles aren't supposed to be that wobbly, are they?
Anyway, back to the installation. Once Elizabeth finished the outside wiring, it was a simple matter of hooking up the new AT&T U-Verse box - which was even BIGGER than the box I was giving up - Elizabeth had to take it - and I said "fine" - I really wasn't interested in keeping a $1,500 DSL modem (again, read below for the why). At least this new box was a little more attractive than the ugly blue/green thing that was happily going away. And it came with all sorts of additional connections that I'll probably never use, since we don't have cable TV and other stuff I'm not interested in paying for. The coax and other connections besides the phone line into the modem are just going to waste away at my house, because all I really want/need is a DSL connection. I'm not going to be interested in all the other offerings. No matter how cheap they make them out to be initially. Seems as if it took a bit of magic to get the modem to fire up and be recognized on the network - she was simultaneously on IM with her boss back at the office and her boyfriend and at one point took a phone call from both - but since she'd been doing such good work, I let the phone call from the BF slide - it was while we were waiting for the connection to the new box to complete its initialization. One of the good things to come of this whole upgrade experience is that the U-Verse box (a 2WIRE 3800HGV-B) has a built-in WAP, so I found I was able to repurpose my Airport Express brick to another place in the house, and stream iTunes through some really cool and portable teardrop JBL speakers.
Oh, yeah, one more thing - my trusty 14" dual-USB iBook for which I so diligently worked to set up the wireless network for the house (again, see below) gave up the ghost last week, so now I'm writing this on a bright, shiny new aluminum 20" iMac 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo running OSX 10.5.6. It's a glorious machine, and all I had to do was connect the backup I had of my laptop (you bet I had a backup - two actually, on separate drives) to the new machine and let the migration wizard do its thing. Never had to do anything else to reconnect to the WAP on the U-Verse box. All the settings ported perfectly, with no glitches. And with a more powerful built-in Airport card in the iMac, it can now see several closed WAPs in nearby neighbor's houses.
So, while I'm no longer technically a SBC Yahoo DSL customer, my "sbcglobal.net" email address remains the same - I'm just paying AT&T U-Verse for the connection, which has been very reliable and stable and I'm enjoying the minor speed boost from what I had previously (which was 256/1.5 Mb). At least that's how it will be for the next year. We'll see what they do to keep me as a customer when the $17/month promotion ends.
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Update December 28, 2004:
Well, I previously had SBC Yahoo DSL in Dallas County, Dallas proper, about 5 miles south of where I currently live, which is now in Richardson, TX, Zip 75080. I have altered the ratings categories accordingly, based on this latest experience. It was rather good for all things, but now I'm a little suspect of the Pre-Sales folks and for sure leery of the install coordination folks. Read on for more...
I the transition would be nice and smooth after the nice conversation I had with the friendly assistant when I called to get a new phone number and transfer my DSL connection to the new number. This was in mid-October 2004. We were scheduled to move into our new house in early November. I got the new number, and was told I'd hear from the DSL folks "soon" about the transfer. Then I didn't hear anything. For two weeks. I finally called and inquired about the transfer of my service. It was then that I learned that I was going to be living in an area of Texas (the only one in the state at the time, I might add) that had "Fiber-to-the-Curb" service for phones and DSL. I got one of those people on the other end of the line that immediately raised red flags for me when I heard "oh [pause] you're in Richardson. You've got "Fiber to the Curb. This is going to take a little longer." Boy, did it ever take longer. I had no idea.
My previous experience in Dallas was that I placed the order, got the installation kit in the mail, and had DSL up and running within about four days of placing the initial order. It was spectacularly fast and I had absolutely no problems. Not so with this transfer. If you want to stop reading now, just know that it took until December 20 (more than two months) to finally complete the process and get DSL running in my house, from a totally dedicated new line that they had to run from the fiber box in the alley to a plug in the room where we have the computer.
Want to learn the gory details? Here's the long version:
For reference, we have a pool in the back yard, with its own safety fence, and then the yard fence is also padlocked in the front and back to prevent any "attractive nuisance" mishaps occurring in or around the pool.
So, we moved in to the house in early November 2004. I was initially told that DSL service would be installed on November 24. On November 19, I get home from work and there's a phone message: "Hi, um, this is Mark, I'm with SBC and I'm trying to install some cable for your DSL service and I need to get in the back yard. Can you leave your back gate open so I can come back and install your wiring? Thanks." And that was it. No phone number to call back, no last name, no warning whatsoever that anything needed to be done in advance of the installation date I'd initially set with SBC. I immediately called SBC and asked what was going on and why did someone come before I expected them to and leave a cryptic message with no way for me to get back in touch with them? Suffice to say, there are some separate offices working on this, and the one can't talk to the other and neither of them could tell me how to get to the other to ask what was going on. I specifically took November 24 off from work to be home to make sure the back yard was unlocked for the tech to do his work, and called SBC and told them a week in advance that this would be the case.
Then, on November 23 I called to confirm that the tech would be coming and it is then that I'm told that the tech will NOT be coming, since they "couldn't work me into the schedule, and we didn't guarantee you a slot on that day anyway", and further that there is another person who will need to come inside the house to complete the installation, and since the outside tech can't come on Nov 24, then the inside tech can't finish his work, so there's no point in them coming either. Can you be home on November 30? I told them NO, the next time I can be home is December 20, when I have an entire week free and will be home on December 20 and 21 and which of those two days will they be coming? December 20 would be the day when the outside tech guy would come and finish the outside installation. Would an inside tech need to then come to finish the inside work? No, there will be only one person coming to your house to do the entire job, inside and outside, and by the way, they will be bringing you a different DSL modem than you currently have. Huh? A new modem? Yes, and it will cost you $1,500 if you don't return it should you move or discontinue service. Wow. $1,500 for a DSL modem. This must be one fancy-schmancy, super-duper advanced modem! No, it's just the one that will work best with the "Fiber to the Curb" technology in Richardson, TX. Oh. Okay then. See you on December 20.
I get another call from SBC DSL folks a few days later:
SBC: We're not sure we'll be able to send anyone out on December 20, and can we try for an earlier day?
ME: Sorry, NO, December 20 or 21 are your only two choices, since it's been this long, I can wait a little longer, since it will all be done by one person at the same time, right?
SBC: Yes.
ME: Okay, see you on December 20. What time?
SBC: Could be anytime that day.
ME: WHAT? Can you narrow that down a little?
SBC: How about sometime between 8 AM and 12 Noon.
ME: Okay. Can the tech call ahead to say they're on their way?
SBC: Sure.
Well, December 20 rolls around. Finally! The day has arrived. About 9:00 AM and the phone rings. It's the SBC tech - he's on his way! Will be there in about 20 minutes. He shows up as announced and it turns out his name is Mark. The very self-same Mark who called back in November trying to get into the back yard. I point out the pool, and I think he finally understood the issue I had with leaving the back gate open with no-one home. Just wasn't going to happen.
I asked Mark what he'll be doing inside once he gets the new line run outside. "Oh, no, I'm only doing the wiring to the house. I don't do any inside work." Um, well, that's not what I was told. Very well, get to work and I'll be making a phone call. About the time I'm picking up the phone to call SBC about this new development the front doorbell rings and lo-and-behold, there's another SBC tech at the door. He introduces himself as Troy and says he's got some work to do to install my DSL modem and make sure the wiring is good. Well, so we're now back to two techs. And they're both here at the same time. GOOD. Maybe I'll have DSL before lunch. Sure enough, that's the case. Troy takes one look at the wiring in the house and determines that we don't have but three wires for the main phone line, so he'll have to run entirely new wiring for the DSL installation. Great, so what does that involve? Running wire from the new box that Mark is installing outside to a dedicated line inside. Turns out that one of the walls that the outside line is being installed on is right outside the room where we want the inside connection anyway. So all Troy has to do is drill a hole through the wall, feed his line to the box, and that's that. About the time Troy finishes his inside work, Mark is just completing the connection to the main line outside in the alley. Seems that the connection box is right outside our back gate, which is convenient, so he doesn't have to run a hundred feet down the alley to hook us up. Everything happened within about 40 feet. From phone box on pole in the alley to the box on the exterior wall of the house, just above the electricity meter, through the hole to the plug in the wall to the modem.
Ah, the modem. Yes. That "$1,500" modem I described earlier was actually made in 1999, according to the packaging that Troy left upon his departure. I find it hard to believe that it's even worth a tenth of that. Still, it plugged right into my iBook. Troy helped to get the account registered and transfer the existing account to the new phone number and I was up and running. At the same speed as previously ordered, only this time it was set up over PPPoE. It was very easy to reconfigure my Airport for operating under PPPoE and then I was really back to operating at previous levels. Haven't noticed any difference in how PPPoE speeds and responses are compared to the direct Ethernet connection I had with the previous DSL service - so far they appear to be equal in all aspects.
So, finally, after two months (62 days to be more precise) of wrangling and vaguely incomplete information (not to mention having to get SBC to issue credits to my account for charges for DSL I wasn't getting during that two months), everything is now working satisfactorily. We'll see if there are any other charges that crop up from this lengthy installation process, that in reality only took the two guys about an hour each to complete, once they finally got there. The only little tidbit I can offer anyone considering DSL in Richardson is this: 1) Be prepared to wait. 2) Ask as many questions about coordination of the installation as you can so you'll know up front what to expect. Keep in mind I am living in Richardson, TX and I've seen some other reviews that folks living in other parts of the city had even MORE significant problems getting SBC DSL.
Caveat emptor!
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Original Review: May 2004
Overall wonderful experience - three full days from order completion online to live on the internet. I ordered on Tuesday late, and the box with the DSL modem arrived on Thursday, and I was live on Friday with the capable assistance of live tech support after just about one hour, and have been happily cruising along since, with no individual problems (one regional outage, but everyone was down, not just me). Was really quite surprised, because they said it would be at least a week before activation - must have had a lucky convergence of events. Okay, for the nuts and bolts - ordered 1.5/384 for $29.95/mo for 12 months. No setup fee - first bill was just $44, including the suspect "shipping and handling fee" for modem - and since I didn't have to pay the even more suspect $50 setup fee, I thought it was a bargain - will see what's offered this time next year to keep me as a customer. I own a 14" iBook/800 Dual USB with 640MB RAM. Email has worked flawlessly and have been happily downloading music from the iTunes Music Store and checking out the movie clips on the Apple Quicktime website. Safari loads tons of tabs within seconds and the connection speed has been consistently at or above 1.0, even being more than 12K away from the CO. Pretty pleased customer, I am. Only drawbacks - didn't really need the "install CD" and was not really that interested in the Yahoo portal - the Tech guy was specifically told he couldn't help get the connection set up using my Airport Base Station, but that was pretty much a cakewalk after getting the service up and running through the ethernet on my iBook.
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