 Review by icp1 
UPDATED: 337 days ago
member for 7.9 years, 2888 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Saint Louis,Saint Louis City,MO
 $24 per month
 about 7 days
 Southwestern Bell
 "Moved service with little problems"
 "Merge of account needed intervention"
 "Online support kicks booty!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Got 384/128 at 39.95 including ISP. Install was easy to schedule as I got it before most of the demand hit. Have Alcatel Modem since my speedstream was fried by lightning. (They did replace it for free, though it took 10 days).
The biggest problem is with support. Since the FCC ruled that SBC must have a separate sub to do DSL (ASI), the have had a heck of a time coordinating between what is now 3 companies...you need SWBell Internet for your billing and ISP questions, SWBell telco for actual line work, and ASI for DSL setup and support. All the tech support can say is "power off the modem, reboot, etc etc". Oh well, for 8 of the 10 months I have had it, I haven't had a single reboot/dropped line/email/speed problem. So right now things are great.
Latest news: This fall I had a lot of problems with dropped connections and loss of service, where I had to reboot 3 or 4 times a day to keep my connection. I believe we finally found out that it was them changing over all of the connections to PPPOE and during which they made a number of mistakes. I still am on a dynamic IP which is supposedly better if they would stop knocking me off the connection!
Last month has been much better, but I lower my connection reliability and service ratings.
UPDATE:
In the last 6 months connections have been much more steady, but my speeds were worse (500/100) from my usual 900/100. I tried the tweaks which showed my RWIN too low, but it would never "take" even when I hacked the registry myself. (win95)
Next I put together a new comp with win2k, plugged in the modem and set the browser and BANG, look at my speeds again - back up to 970/109, like I was before. So to those of you complaining of speeds, there is a good chance it is NOT your line/service, but your own computer and settings! I have been testing my speeds the last week and it hasn't been below 970 at any time of day. Put that with the better connections and I up some of my ratings.
After trying to use newsgroups to help with my new computer build, however, I lower my mail/dns/news rating. Their newsgroup servers are so pitiful it isn't even funny!
Latest update:
I moved to a new house, and ordered DSL moved with my phone service. Only took 7 days to live, which is excellent. With a little help from online support here at DSLreports, they merged my old account and I was up and running on my due date with little trouble.
Latest, latest update:
Upgraded to 3mb Speed in the last year or two. Pretty consistent speeds about 2300 usable. Little to no downtime last couple years, though a few mail problems.
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AT&T Southwest
