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Review by NormanS See Profile

  • Location: San Jose, Santa Clara, CA, USA
  • Cost: $33 per month
  • Install: about 7 days
  • Caps of 150 gigabytes/month
  • Telco party SBC
DSL support is very good. POTS is pretty good.
NNTP service is mediocre. Email service is only as good as Yahoo! Mail Plus.
Still needs improvment. And now, they need to ditch the caps, as well as Yahoo!
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

When I started, the name of the service was, "Pacific Bell DSL", which was allowed by SBC, even though they were the parent company. Seven years, and some changes later, the service is now called, "at&t Yahoo! HSI"; a legacy of the outsourcing contract between SBC and Yahoo! (BTW, the name change from "SBC" to "AT&T" reflects a corporate decision by the SBC managment team after they bought AT&T. The "new" AT&T is just the old SBC re-branded.)

Recent changes were made by Yahoo! to the way they hand email through their SMTP Message Submission servers. These changes were made unilaterally, and without prior notice to AT&T, leaving AT&T CSRs to field customer calls when things broke for the customers. These changes pretty much make their message submission servers useless for power users. I am reasonably sure that most ISPs don't force this limitation on their customers. Basically, using an email address different that the account requires prior "verification" with Yahoo! to avoid an SMTP error where email using that as the "From:" address being rejected.

As a result, I have downgraded my opinion of the quality of the services. I probably should have downgraded the "Tech Support" rating earlier, as well; primarily because deciding whether to take troubleto Yahoo!, or to AT&T, can be confusing. Technically, the DSL connecting (AT&T support) is fairly good. However, Yahoo! support for their Internet services is somewhat lacking.

Wish: That AT&T would reconsider their outsourcing conract with Yahoo!.

This is my last word about AT&T. When they announced that they would implement caps, I started re-evaluating my relationship with this company. Though I only, briefly, saw evidence of congestion in the last year, but mostly got my speed, the company as a whole seems more interested in buying legislative consideration than network capacity for their customers. I don't really care for the idea of caps on the service; even though my history shouldn't be a concern. Just the idea protecting content providers over customers isn't cool.

As of about noon, today, I have fired them.

(Updated to add my tested speeds, and their caps. Zip code reflects loation of service.)

member for 23.1 years, 8300 visits, last login: 2.9 years ago
updated 9.8 years ago

stridr69
join:2003-05-19
San Luis Obispo, CA

stridr69

Member

thanks...

for your review, NormanS. I just got ATT/Yahoo DSL service on the 25th of October(768/384), and liked what you had to say. I decided to get DSL service for the price($14.99 monthly)vs $44 monthly for 3Mb/256Kb cable modem. So far, I'm happy with what I got. Currently at 620/320 speeds, but only have had activated service since 10/25. Time will tell...but I DO like the faster upload speed!!
stevem01
join:2004-01-31
Waterford, CA

stevem01

Member

Wow

$18 / month for Pro? I need to give them a call and upgrade. I've been on Express (1.5Mb) for just under three years at $27 per month with the yearly contract... From their site it looks like I could now get Elite for only $7 more. Thanks for the info.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS

MVM

Re: Wow

I think you may have missed the boat. That is an old contract price, but the old contracts are no more. The current price structure is:

Basic (384/384): $14.99
Express (1536/384): $19.99
Pro (3008/512): $24.99
Elite (6016/768): $34.99

»www.sbc.com/gen/general? ··· 37922269

My contract was renewed at the end of July, 2006. The new contract prices went into effect October 3, 2006, or so.

I don't know what I will have available at the end of my contract. Assuming things stay as they are, I will consider whether to keep the Pro at $24.99, or drop back to Express at $19.99.
stevem01
join:2004-01-31
Waterford, CA

stevem01

Member

Re: Wow

Thanks for the replay. I appreciate it. I figured it must be something like that. But even at those current prices, I've been paying $27 per month for Express when I could have twice as much bandwidth (Pro) for a couple dollars less... or 4 times as much for just a few dollars more per month.

By the way, do know if those are the regular rates or if they are introductory prices that change after 6 months or a year, etc... I looked all over their site for that info and couldn't find it, so I was assuming that they are the standard rates.

Anyway, Thanks again.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS

MVM

Re: Wow

They appear to be good for a year. I am not sure if they are "introductory" rates, or if you can rerate a long standing account. I believe that people have rerated long standing accounts, though.

The web site lists two packages per price tier, a "month-to-month", and a 12-month contract. I've seen it posted that you need to get the 12-month contract to get the $49.99 rebate for the CPE. The rebate is the same, regardless of the equipment. You either pay $49.99+Tax, S&H for the SS4100, or you pay $79.99 for the modem/wireless router combo unit. The rebate is the same for each: $49.99.

From what I can tell, though, the rebate is applied to both packages. Perhaps the deal is, if you rerate, you don't get the modem.

»www.sbc.com/gen/general? ··· 37922269