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 Review by mpelle4456 
Posted: 7.8 years ago
member for 8.3 years, 3080 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
 Tacoma,Pierce,WA
 $45 per month
 about 15 days
 "When it works, it's great, but we're getting screwed on the price..."
 "When Excite@Home folded, ATTBI chopped the bandwidth in half."
 "AT&T is a greedy, arrogant bloodsucking corporation"
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Remember how everyone used to hate the phone company? Somethings never change.
And AT&T Broadband is no exception.
Everything was just great until AT&T changed us over to their own network. Before the change, I was routinely getting as high as 3,800 kbps downstream and 178 kbps up. My ping was stable at around 80 ms. No real service problems.
And then Excite@Home folded and AT&T changed us over to their own network.
Service was only out for a day, but when it came back, we suffered through speeds as low as 56 kbps downstream for the first couple weeks. It was really eratic. Really ugly. It was all you could do to pick up your mail.
After that, DNS problems plagued us. Ping times varied from 20 ms up to 4,000 ms. We were constantly disconnected in the middle of games. The modem lost sync suddenly for no reason.
About a month following the conversion, the line speed and latency problems finally settled down. And eventually, the DNS and sync problems went away, too.
But what we were left with was a mere fraction of our former downstream speed - I average about 1,400 kbps downstream, now.
AT&T has capped the rates at 1,500 down /128 up. To "optimize our internet experience," they say.
And still they persist in charging us $45 a month - for a a little over a THIRD of the bandwidth we had before - it's like a 150% price hike!
Why? Because they're greedy! And it won't stop, here.
They'll wait till the dust settles and people stop complaining, and then they'll introduce a "premium" 3 mbps service for say, $80-90 per month. This will happen before summer, I predict. I'm accepting bets on this...
AT&T is a greedy, arrogant, self-serving mega-corporation that has no interests at all in its customers, other than as "revenue producing units."
If you can find some other broadband option, I suggest you do so and avoid getting screwed.
You do remember why everyone hated the phone company, don't you?
Right!
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Review by scrims
Posted: 7.8 years ago
member for 9.1 years, 914 visits, last login: 5.8 years ago
Flower Mound,Denton,TX
$35 per month
about 7 days
"Price, Timely Installation"
"Customer Care, Registration"
"At $35.95 per month, a great deal!"
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Seven days from order to install. Went with the basic install and special promo, (six months for $24.95). Installers show up on time and did their job. The installers left the, 'Virtual Technician", CD and basic verbal instructions on how to register. 24Hrs later and three calls to Customer Care and the service is up and running. The "Virtual Technician" sucks! Registration via this method, for me, would not complete. Customer Care was worthless in resolving this problem. Searched the attbi forum at DSLR and found how to register without the CD. Thanks to the attbi techs that hang out at the attbi forum. My DL/UL is right at the cap, ~1450/124, after minor tweaking. No other complaints. A great deal for my money.
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Review by FIFE_WA_TECH
Posted: 7.8 years ago
member for 7.8 years, 36 visits, last login: 7.7 years ago
Tacoma,Pierce,WA
Contract price not specified.
about 4 days
"Easy use and configuring. Easy to self diagnose."
"12/01 Fiasco was a bumpy ride for a bit."
"I am on the internet with no problems."
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ATTBI has provided me with an inexpensive and simple way to be on the internet. I do not need the supreme speeds so I am fine. Looking forward to a longterm relationship with them. I based my personal review on the services I recieve at my home.
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Review by clydei1
Posted: 7.8 years ago
member for 7.8 years, 1568 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Salem,Marion,OR
$38 per month
"reliable and fast enough"
"no service from Dec. 1 through Dec. 28 during changeover"
"other than botched change over for me it has been very good."
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Originally signed up with @home. During the changerover my account was damaged and would't work. They finally got a tech to my house he verified the account problem and spent almost three hours fighting with tech support to get the account rebuilt. Finally the account was rebuilt but of course it took several more hours to activate. The on site tech called me the next day to make sure everything worked fine.
The phone tech support is terrible but the local techs seem to be very knowlegable and helpful.
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Review by jbrinson2001
Posted: 7.8 years ago
(review was emailed from domain mediaone.net)
Alpharetta,Fulton,GA
$59 per month (12 month contract)
"When it works its great."
"When it doesnt it sucks."
"Overall good service and high bandwidth."
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This used to be a reliable service, I assume since the excite changeover
they are having problems. I went from good service to very on-off type
of outages about 3 days out of a week.
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 Review by cherry4
Posted: 7.8 years ago
member for 7.8 years, 140 visits, last login: 5.8 years ago
Wilmette,Cook,IL
$40 per month (12 month contract)
about 4 days
"Consistent 1.5 speed, VERY reliable, speedy installation, Browsing is a dream!"
"Cap is annoying"
"Great service"
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I ordered ATTBI on a Monday, the tech said it could be installed the next day but I wasnt going to be home. You're only supposed to be charged the $20/month deal for the first 3 months, but he gave it to me the first months! He also gave me free premium installation. (Technician does everything) It was installed promptly on friday, and when I got it, I was only getting 300 bits per second down. Turns out I had a shitty line running from the street. A tech came and ran a new one, and he let me trade my dumb looking RCA Modem for the Surfboard 4100.
Now I get 160KB/sec+ downloads, and sub 50 pings in Half-Life. Browsing the internet is really great. The online LiveChat reps are REALLY nice and helpful. Customer service really cares... at least in my experience. Mail servers are fine. So far I am extremly satisfied.
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Review by MiSFiTIII
Posted: 7.8 years ago
member for 7.8 years, 35 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago
Ft Warren Afb,Laramie,WY
$30 per month (6 month contract)
 Qwest
"always-on, good ping in onling gaming"
"upload rate could be slightly better as well as download rate"
"good quality for the dollar spent"
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Althought I've only had broadband for the first time ever starting 2 weeks ago, it sure beats dial-up. I noticed the difference right away and being a huge gamer, this is something I'd been wanting for the last couple years. AT&T may be the only cable internet service in my area, but I'm not complaining nor do I really have room to complain...yet. Sure, I've heard and read some bad things about ATTBI, but since I've never used broadband before, I have to give it a chance. When and if something goes wrong, you better believe you'll hear about it here on DSLR.
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Review by badkarma
Posted: 7.8 years ago
member for 7.9 years, 2408 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
Portland,Washington,OR
$48 per month
about 7 days
"Connection has been reliable and low maintenance"
"A little to expensive for my needs, news/mail servers die occasionally"
"Has given me satisfactory Internet access, w/o a lot of hassling"
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I signed up originally with @Home thru AT&T cable, in January 2001. Installation went smoothly, the installer was very competent, made sure everything worked before he left and gave me some pointers. My intro offer was 19.95 for first 6 mos, including modem rental. Now its $48/mo, with modem. I'm planning to buy one eventually to save the $10/mo rental. I've got an RCA DCM215, which has worked great since I got it. I'll probably buy an RCA just to stick with what works.
The switchover to ATTBI on Dec 1 went very smooth for me. I lost no down time, it was switched the same morning that @Home cut off ATT customers, happened before I even got out of bed. There has only been one outage of 4-6 hours since then.
With @Home, I got 3-4 mbps down. I asked the installer what speeds to expect, he specifically told me "no speed guarantee", and wouldn't even state a number. Right after the switch, speeds varied from 800-1400 kbps, after about a month, they've settled down to very consistant 1400+ kbps. Up has varied 90-125 kbps, now is consistantly 120+.
I've contacted customer service a few times since the switch. Once soon after the switch, I tried to chat, started out at 900+ in the wait queue, gave up about 45 minutes later at #400. About 2 weeks later, I dropped into chat with no wait at all. The chat resolved my question (billing, nothing technical). I also called by phone during the 1 outage I experienced. Connected to Tier1 immediately, they couldn't help so transferred my to Tier 2, waited 40 minutes on hold, when I finally got to talk to someone, they seemed slightly clueless, but eventually determined that there was an general outage in progress, so could not help. Service was up the next morning w/o further contact.
Also right after the switch, the mail and new servers occasionally stopped working, for a few hours at a time. After about a month, they've worked fine.
Actually, I'd be happy with less download speed for a lower price. I'm waiting for the tiered pricing to see if they have a lower speed, lower rate option. I'm not a power user, just like to cruise the net, use email, read newsgroups, and occasional large file downloads. This service is really a bit overkill for my needs, but I got used to fast internet access at work, and didn't want less at home, and the price was reasonable.
Overall, I'm satisfied with it. It does what I need w/o any hassles, don't need to hang up the phone line with a modem, and its as fast as I need. If they'd drop the price, I'd be a very happy camper.
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Review by greynom
Posted: 7.8 years ago
member for 7.8 years, 1 visits, last login: 7.8 years ago
Lakewood,Pierce,WA
$30 per month (6 month contract)
"before conversion from att@home"
"conversion down-time, customer no-service, refund for down time, big bully w/monopoly"
"AT&T does not care about their customers; they are cut-throut bottom-line only types."
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This is an AT&T cable broadband Internet (attbi.com) horror story.
Lakewood, WA 98498
Forced service transfer from @home due to inability of AT&T and
Excite@home to work out an acceptable fee arrangement that would allow
Excite@home to operate at a profit. AT&T will not pay more per hook-up
and Excite will not sell domain and@home. Excite@home obtains
permission from judge in bankruptcy court to turn off service.
This was a nightmare!!! Service was down for at least a month. Call in
and stay on hold for hours waiting as phones are jammed. Cannot get
through and need to get to work. Try another day, same results. Weeks
later - no very minimal service, 99% of URLs typed in get "This page not
available." AT&T relies on the almighty configurator to auto-convert by
unplugging modem and rebooting computer. This is told to you
innumerable times on phone. Problem: doesn't work for WinXP. Call some
more, finally get through and man says there is no configurator for
WinXP and they're having troubles with their DNS servers, but don't
worry, they will not charge you for down-time. Use dial-up to try their
chat help - wait for two hours in queue and still no help. Got to leave
for school.
Weeks later, unplug and reboot finally works. Configurator or web link
comes up and fixes system. System speed now maxed@ 1.2 Mbps in stead of
5.4 Mbps, and often much slower. Get bill with only a few days credited
for downtime. Call customer no-service and they say I should have
called in; they can only give me a week because that's all my area was
down for. Argue about inaccessibility of phone system and true down
time of over a month. Yell and scream - no help. Ask for supervisor,
still no help. Give up and cancel AT&T dial-up service and start
surfing the web for DSL or other alternatives, no matter if twice as
expensive because you're so pissed-off you can spit!!!
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Review by GMcGlauchlin
Posted: 7.8 years ago
(review was emailed from domain republicEbank.com)
Chicago,Cook,IL
$50 per month (3 month contract)
"Duh, easy to set up?"
"Double your 56k modem speeds with ATT SkinnyBand!"
"Worst performance I have heard of for broadband"
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Dear broadband aficionados,
A big thumbs down for ATT Broadband Internet!
The performance on my Excite@home broadband was always fairly lame compared
to others' ratings on your WEB site.
However, since Excite@home went under and ATT Broadband Internet took over
the Chicago market over one month ago, I lost much more than my connectivity
for four days.
When they switched us over, I went from a reliable static IP address to
DHCP.
From that time on, my earlier average of 300 kbps download speeds and 500kbs
peaks dropped immediately and consistently to 75-100 kbps avg. downloads
with 150 kbps peaks.
AT&T SO-CALLED BROADBAND might be honest and call themselves Skinnyband, or
skinflint band. Or how about 56k X2?!
When I went searching for solutions, ATT Broadband phone tech support
several times has left me on hold for nearly an hour, then disconnected me.
I finally gave up on getting a knowledgeable human on the line.
ATT Broadband's online Chat support line gives you level one techs who
apparently know little about networking and immediately blame your "home
system" for the problems you have (even though nothing changed but the IP
address and the provider!).
I tried many variations to refute their claims that it was my D-link
switch-router, such as taking it out of the loop and using more than one
machine to test their software solutions.
I used several networking tools to measure throughput and everything
indicates that nothing is wrong at my end, and
Merely narrowed the pipeline to 150kbps tops.
The end result is CLAIMS 1.4 Mbps downloads are possible, when they provide
FAR, FAR LESS!!
I am extremely disappointed with ATT Broadband Internet support and service
levels.
Excite@home was not perfect, but they made an honest effort to provide good
performance and provided honest, intelligent tech support. I understand from
the press that they were not providing shareholders large enough profits
which led to their demise.
But if screwing the customer is ATT Broadband Internet's answer to
shareholders concerns, ATT Broadband Internet shouldn't survive long either.
Unfortunately, we need a viable competitor. Any prospects?
Gary McG
gmcg8@attbi.com
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