 Review by Alakar 
UPDATED: 1.5 years ago
member for 7.4 years, 2045 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Milwaukee,Milwaukee,WI
 $11 per month (12 month contract)
 about 4 days
 Ameritech
 "Very Reliable, Consistant Speeds Day or Night, Price"
 "Customer service and changes to service can be frustrating."
 "The service is a great value for the price."
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(ratings match consensus)
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First a disclaimer: I am an SBC/Ameritech employee. I wanted to make that clear so no one thinks I am posting a bogus review. To confirm that I am an objective reviewer please see my review of Road Runner. Now on to the review.
I ordered my SBC/Ameritech DSL service about three years ago. I had and liked TW Road Runner, but because of financial problems had to drop it because of the price ($46.95/month). At the time of my ordering DSL, SBC was offering employee's a price of $29.95/month. This was the same price that regular consumers could get. The service I ordered was ADSL over PPPoE, 768 up/128 down speeds with a Speedstream 5260 DSL Modem, line filters and a network card for free. I am within 4500 ft. of the CO. When I ordered, I was told provisioning the line would take 1 week. By day four, my line and account had been provisioned and activated. This was exceptional considering employee orders are last in line, as far as priority. From day one I had a rock solid download speed of 660 K and upload of 138 K. My speed doesn't vary by time of day or type of weather.
Since then SBC has eliminated my speed tier and moved me up to the next tier for the same price, which is 1.5 M down and 128 K up. Speeds are still rock solid (1.25 M/130 K) and I have only had one outage of service in three years. Two month's ago the DNS servers in my area (Milwaukee, WI) had problems for about 8 hours. First and only trouble I've had related to the service.
The only major problem that I have had, is with customer service and the two times I have moved. The service was suppose to move with me but both times the move orders were processed as new orders. What this means is instead of moving my account to my new address, my existing account was closed and a brand new account established at my new address. The first time it happened (prior to SBC Yahoo!) I lost my email address's because they were all Ameritech.net and new accounts were getting sbcglobal.net address's. The second time they were able to recover my account info so I didn't lose anything besides two hours on the phone Tech Support.
Overall I think SBC/Ameritech DSL is a good deal. The speeds are great for the price's and are comparable to cable at the same speeds. No variation in speeds because of too many people on the same pipe. The down side is customer service is not as sharp as they should be (TW Cable has excellent customer service in this area). I have and would again recommend this service.
UPDATE: I have now upgraded to the 3000/384 speed tier. Rock solid performance again, but also some order issues as far as billing. Took a couple of months to resolve the billing issues, but the service is wonderful. I still highly recommend SBC DSL if you can get it.
UPDATE: I again want to make the disclaimer that I am still an employee of AT&T/SBC/Ameritech. I have upgraded to the Elite package, 6000/768. The speeds up and down max out and sometimes exceed my max listed speeds. The service has been rock solid for the more than 4 years and I have had only 5 outages in that time. Again, upgrading didn't go smoothly, with my account being upgraded on the billing side, but my connection never changing. beach boy, in the AT&T Direct Forum found the order had never been worked at the switch and took care of it for me. Since then, no problems.
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