 Review by yfradkin 
UPDATED: 1.6 years ago
member for 6 years, 256 visits, last login: 86 days ago
 Farmington,Oakland,MI
 $25 per month (12 month contract)
 about 11 days
 AT&T
 "1500Kbps at 15,000 feet away from CO. Steady connection."
 "Hate what they did with my.yahoo.com; it took 4 months to unmerge Yahoo ID"
 "Good connection. Excellent support on this forum. Inflexible, scripted offshore tech support is of no help."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Update of 4/2008:
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Smooth sailing connection-wise.
Sorry to report price increase from $14.99 four years ago to $25 today.
After the recent update to AT&T-Yahoo anti-virus protection suite it became so bloated, I had to remove it altogether. Replaced with a protection suite from a different source.
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Original review of 10/2004:
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I ordered SBC Yahoo "Express" (dynamic, 384Kbps-1.5Mbps/128Kbps). I was 15,000 feet from CO (borderline distance, as I understand). The modem came in the mail in no time! But on the installation day -- no DSL signal... Once the offshore gatekeepers (a.k.a. tech support) let me through to the local telecom specialists, I started seeing things moving. Ameritech technician visited 3 times(!) and on the 3rd day I had a DSL signal (still don't know what the original problem was?).
My connection was ramped to 384/384 that very same day (I wish the down speed was higher). There was a problem -- occasionally a web page (e.g. cnn, yahoo) would not load the very 1st time; also, subjectively, Internet browsing was only marginally faster than when using dial-up. A kind of contra-intuitive to the BBR's speed tested 312/312 results on my line. I figured out the root cause (not SBC related); it was MSIE 6.0's "Content Advisor" that slowed down Internet's performance. Once "Content Advisor" was disabled, I received the full speed browsing.
Now to the really bad experience with SBC Yahoo. During account registration, I made a bad uninformed decision merging my old Yahoo ID with the newly created SBC DSL ID (full story, »Is it possible to unmerge Yahoo ID from SBC ID? ). That was a fatal mistake! In the next 2-3 days I spent many hours on the phone/online with various levels of courteous yet unhelpful "tech support" asking to unmerge my Yahoo ID from SBC ID. Well... closing the SBC DSL service happened to be the only practical way of unmerging Yahoo ID. I should say that the guy at a local SBC cancellation center was really good; he explained me in details the timeline of cancellation process and promised to call me back when my cancellation will be complete and so that I could place an order to re-open my DSL service. The DSL service close/re-open cycle should take about a month.
The same guy at the cancellation center mentioned that after closing a DSL account I am automatically getting 1..2 months free of dial-up Yahoo! SBC. This way, SBC thanks the past customers. I said I didn't need that convenience, but the guy said there is no way not to get the dial-up. The reason I don't appreciate this forced upon me convenience is: somebody at BBR's forums said you cannot unmerge Yahoo ID from SBC ID until the free dial-up account is closed. I don't want waiting another 1..2 months -- so I will need to remember to make that call to SBC DIAL-up cancellation center... another cancellation to do...
Thanks for reading my story. I hope your experience with SBC is easier.
Update:
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...and in 2 months SBC switched me from the free (yet completely unneeded) dial-up account to the for-fee $24/month account. It took me another long call to cancel that forced upon me "convenience". And of course waiting 2 months for a refund. Anyway... after all those troubles I finally have my olde Yahoo! ID unmerged!!!
And this is a closure to the story of my first, unfortunate encounter with SBC DSL.
Update of 6/2005:
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Yes, I re-ordered "Express" DSL package under a different user ID. It was in 11/2004. The whole procedure was pretty uneventful, as it should be. The only issue was that I received 384 kb speed initially, but after posting the request for help at SBC Direct board, I received a speedy resolution and soon was at full 1500 kb speed. The last time I looked at the modem stats was maybe half a year ago. No technical problems to report. I am pretty happy with connection.
I use no SBC Yahoo! software. I tried to install their parental controls, but it was too cumbersome so I uninstalled that thing.
I don't use SBC e-mail account, not SBC news server. So, cannot comment.
A few days ago I called SBC and switched to their new $14.95 promotion -- even though it was promoted as a "for new customers, online order only". That makes me even happier!
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