Review by sbken 
member for 11.2 years, 95 visits, last login: 34 days ago
updated 228 days ago
 Etowah,Henderson,NC
 $73 per month BellSouth "Down time is usually short and relatively infrequent" "Quality is equal to third-world and not about to get any better!" "ATT gets steadily worse. Their goal is to grow and increase their bottom line."
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Several years ago I agreed to participate in a international ISP project called SamKnows. You can search for that organization using any search engine. They still may be accepting volunteers. SamKnows supplies a Router (mine is a Netgear WNR3500L) free of charge and they continuously monitor my internet connection. BTW: I do NOT have any privacy concerns with this organization. In response to an email from me I received the following email from SamKnows a short while ago that states, in part, the following:
"As for the data, I don't think it entirely reflects a high quality and usable connection. Looking at your packet loss statistics you percentage is frequently over 1% and hit over 0.75% a good amount of the time. This means that 1 in every 100 packets of data you request are not getting to you. you would notice this most in stuttery voip calls and streamed video. In extreme cases you might get websites failing to load.
Your average ping is in the high 90's with an expected ping on an average connection being around 20ms. Your ping has gotten as high as 938ms in some cases. The website load test is a real world test of the effects of these and it shows that you sometimes wait up to 25 seconds for a page to load which is a massive indication of poor usability. You would expect this to be way below 1 second.
It is would be reasonable to approach your ISP with this data in order to demonstrate the problem. Please bear in mind that if this is due to poor external infrastructure there may be a limited amount they can do in the short term."
I should add that ATT/Bellsouth admits my connection speed has been capped because their equipment is overloaded and added that they have no plans to upgrade the equipment in the foreseeable future. My only option for Internet connection is ATT. No other providers are available in my area and I am too remote to get cable service.
Whenever I've experienced connectivity problems they encourage me to buy an replacement DSL Modem/Router from them since my ATT-supplied 2Wire 2701HG-B is over two years old and they recommend replacing Modems over two years old. (?) Besides, they no long support their 2Wire!
Note: My ATT/Bellsouth maximum possible internet speed is: 1536/384 which is never achieved. They openly state that the listed speed is a goal, not a actual promised speed.
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