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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain houston.rr.com)
lodged 9.1 years ago
 La Porte,Harris,TX
 $39 per month "Call Quality, Sign up special, time to get TA, ease of install if you do it their way." "few features, clueless cust. serv. reps., have to put TA in front of router" "I am happy now that I have worked past the issues AT&T knows about but does not tell you about."
| Pre Sales information:
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I signed up for Callvantage the day it became publicly availble which was a
Friday. The special was no signup fee, free TA and $19.99 for the first six
months. I got an e-mail confirmation a few minutes later with my new
number, which was already active when I called it. The e-mail said I should
get my equipment in 4 or 5 business days. On the following Monday I called
to see if there was an orderstatus or tracking number, the rep. Said no
tracking but I do show the order is being processed. I called back on
Wednesday and got someone who did not know her head from my head. She just
kept saying no tracking available, you should get it between today and
Friday. She came up with the answers after putting me on hold about 10
times. She also said I would get an e-mail when the TA shipped, which to
this day I still have not gotten. She told me all of this with out ever
asking the phone number I was calling about, she was only going by my name.
I hung up and called right back and explained the situation that the
previous rep. Was no help what so ever. I had a tracking number and ship
date (the previous day) with in two minutes of talking to the second rep.
She said I should get it the next day which would be Thursday, hmmm the
first rep was right I should get it between Wednesday and Friday. She had
the info the whole time she just would not give it to me. I had the TA on
my front porch when I got home, it came early since it was only coming from
Dallas. I hooked up and activated the TA on the website and was making
phone calls. There has been some issues with the service and the fact that
the TA must go directly behind the modem and in front of any routers you
might have, which is not a good thing. My internet traffic slowed to a
crawl while I would be on the phone, this is an issue I found out today that
AT&T has known about all along. I have worked around my issues and all in
all the service seems to be pretty good. I am satisfied with the quality of
the calls and have not had any problems with incoming or outgoing calls.
Comments:
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Review by extravoice 
member for 9.1 years, 0 visits, last login: 9.1 years ago
lodged 9.1 years ago
- Trenton,Mercer,NJ
- $40 per month
- (12 month contract)
 about 5 days Verizon- CLEC party: Covad
- "Excellent Pre & Install Information, 30-day free trial period"
- "Tech Support is a Facade"
- "It's great when it works, but you're in trouble when it doesn't."
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The old saying goes, "Too many cooks spoil the broth" and that's exactly what we have here. ATT contracts their DSL service to COVAD, who in-turn uses Verizon equipment & lines in my area. Add the fact that tech support is on the other side of the planet and if something is broken, it isn't getting fixed easily.
But first, the good news. ATT's pre-sales info was very good, and Covad's information system regarding line activation, and equipment delivery is top-notch. Installation was quick and easy.
Second, some annoyances. While it is listed in parenthesis on one of the pages that appears when you set-up the account, ATT didn't really make it clear that you need an email reader that supports "Secure Socket Layer" and that your email servers have to change. That caused some minor frustration with my obsolete email client.
Finally, the big problem. For whatever reason (probably I'm just a little too far from the central office) my DSL link was intermittent. When it worked, it ran at 650/108, (advertised at 768/128) which I regarded as acceptable. Unfortunately, the modem would drop the link, sometimes for hours. Calling tech support was horrible. My average wait time was 35 minutes! The person on the other end of the line was always friendly, although not particularly helpful. We did the usual stuff of disconnecting other phones, etc, but the problem persisted. They put my link in "safe mode" for 24 hours, and this greatly mproved reliability, but the data rate was abysmal at around 128K for the downlink.
Then we got caught in a loop. I would call and complain about the speed, and they would throttle me back up to 650K, at which point the link would become unstable. Then I would call back to complain about the instability and they would throttle me down to 380K. (Of course they did NOT tell me they were slowing my link down until I SPECIFICALLY ASKED if they were doing that.) When I complained about the speed, they set the speed back to 650K and the instability returned. This loop repeated three times before I gave up.
I honestly believe that the only control tech support has is line speed. At no time did they suggest any other possible action to solve my speed/instability issue. But you wouldn't exactly expect them to be able to do a physical test of your lines from India, would you? Heaven forbid they contact Verizon, that may incur a cost to them. Alternatively, I imagine they aren't allowed to suggest that maybe my line can't support anything faster than 380K.
Fortunately, they have the 20 hr/month dialup feature. I needed it a few times when the DSL modem wouldn't connect.
So, I packed-up the whole thing after about 3 weeks of frustration and returned it during the "free trial period." However, to add a little "salt to the wound", I had to wait on the telephone for 30 minutes to get an RMA number for the modem.
I've been an ATT dialup customer for about 9 years, and it would have been nice to keep my email address and website on their servers. I was even willing to pay the extra cost ATT charges over Verizon to do this. Unfortunately, the DSL service was so bad I now plan to use a cable modem.
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Review by rblanton
member for 11.8 years, 3003 visits, last login: 34 days ago
lodged 9.1 years ago
- Richmond,Henrico,VA
- $41 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 6 days
- Verizon
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Much less expensive than Comcast Cable"
- "Works very well. Occasional outages but rare."
- "Very Good value for the money"
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I use AT&T as my local TELCO provider. They have been more helpful, very generous in their credits, etc. I moved and they waived the $38.50 installation charge. Try to get that from Verizon! I ordered the service online and tracked the emails. Up and running in 6 days! After about 30 days the DSL crapped out. The telephone works great. After and hour of trouble shooting the premisis wiring a trouble ticket has been issued. They claim the problen in prem wiring or NID. Great! How could it have worked for 30 days and then there was something wrong with the wiring. I don't know but a technician has been dispatched to fix it.
I normally got 632 down and 108 upload, which is fine for me. I dropped Comcast Cable for this reason: they wanted $58.95 a month for broadband. I could reduce the charge to $45.95 if I got basic cable for $8.31. Well basic cable for me was 8 channels four of which were program guide channels. I can get the same with a $2 antenna. I think the cable guys have gotten very, very greedy. I will update the status of my service after the technician comes out. The Covad tech was great. He removed something called a 'half ringer'. The service was upgraded to 1500 down and I usually get 1230. Still not bad.
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Review by jgrob
member for 9.2 years, 2 visits, last login: 9.1 years ago
lodged 9.2 years ago
- Morristown,Morris,NJ
- $39 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 10 days
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Order, Implementation went without hitch"
- "Cost, Cable is faster same cost"
- "AT&T also provides 20 hours dial up which I need at summer house."
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Ordering went easy on the Internet, They provide nice follow up of the provisioning and delivery of the kit. Installation kit was well engineered so the installation task was easy enough for a child. Up and running in 20 minutes. DSL provides me with 613 KBPS Down and 108KBPS Up. AT&T also provides 20 Hours of Dial Up which I need when I go to my summer bungalow.
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Review by farhang1
member for 11.4 years, 107 visits, last login: 4.2 years ago
lodged 9.2 years ago
- Sunnyvale,Santa Clara,CA
- $50 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 15 days
- CLEC party: Covad
- "installation kit and connection delivered as promised"
- "installation kit did not work properly"
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I had dsl service from pacbell for 3 years. At the begin was my download speed about 1200kbps and now it is about 600kbps. The technical support of pacbell said I am too far but I live in the same house as 3 years ago. I canceled my contract with pacbell 15 days ago and ordered AT&T dsl service. The sales person at the phone said it needed about two weeks to give me the dsl service. Today I received the installation kit. The installation was a little tricky but I did it and the dsl runs again. Today is exactly 14 days after my order. Good job.
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Review by BlueSkye
member for 10.5 years, 219 visits, last login: 8.7 years ago
lodged 9.4 years ago
- Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
- $49 per month
- (12 month contract)
- Southwestern Bell
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Dealing with Covad"
- "Dealing with AT&T (Horrible support)"
- "If you can, go directly with Covad"
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AT&T DSL is provided by Covad.
I went with AT&T Worldnet DSL in order to keep my 8 year old email address. Dealing with Covad has been a pleasure...they are knowledgeable, helpful, polite and quick to respond. However, if you have an email issue, you have to speak with AT&T. AT&T support is useless: not knowledgeable (you start with someone in India reading from a FAQ--really), rude, incompetent. I don't wish to sound like an irresponsible flame, but I have had nightmare experiences with AT&T email support--hours on the phone, service reps who are rude and wrong, being routed to wrong departments, being cut off. I have not had a single positive experience with the AT&T side. I can count at least 8 instances in which the AT&T service rep was just plain wrong.
That being said, the DSL works fine (provided by Covad).
Bottom line: go with Covad directly, avoid AT&T like the plague.
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain clevelandstreet.com)
lodged 9.5 years ago
- Sammamish,King,WA
- $45 per month
- (12 month contract)
- "Big Pipe, Big Gulps, No Waiting"
- "Slows when the neighborhood is downloading the newest Anderson Video"
- "No Comparison, Comcast Rocks"
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Review by grantsandy
(review was emailed from domain att.net)
lodged 9.5 years ago
- Houston,Harris,TX
- $40 per month
- (12 month contract)
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Repaired house phone at no charge. Line service fairly reliable."
- "Poor initial install & poor transition to new provider. Laking in customer care and good business sense."
- "Probably going to cancel service in next 24 hours and go back to free Juno dialup."
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I got AT&T DSL service in Houston, TX about 1 year ago. They are now going
out of business in the area. The initial install of AT&T DSL was not a
good experience and the transition is so bad to COVAD that I am probably going to
call this morning and cancel the whole thing. I'd rather go back to my
free Juno dial up than persist with this.
1. Lie: When I signed up sales told me it would work with Windows XP. Truth:
Installation CD does not work with XP, you have to get tech support to walk
you through an XP install.
2. Lie: Sales told me it work with an in home router. When it did not
work with router, I was told it was not supported. I never got the router
I bought to work.
3. Lie: Sent a CD 11 months later and told they were switching service provider in area. It would be back up in 7-10 days. Truth: On day 10 I get an email from new provider outlining a lengthy process to install that will take at least
another 7-10 days.
4. Lie: Told me the CD would handle switching from DSL to dial up for 7-10
days that service was down. Truth: When service went down without notice,
I had to call Tech Support to have them walk me through installing their
dial up service.
5. Lie: Told me that in 7-10 days the new software installed from the CD
would detect that the service was up and automatically connect. Truth: I
have been switching the wiring between my AT&T DSL modem and my computer
built in modem several times a day for the last week to see if things were
working and it would connect. Got email yesterday outlining a tedious process to get connected allowing them about an additional least 7-10 days.
Other problems:
1. Ever since I installed AT&T DSL I have had trouble with resolving names
on links that I find with my browser. About 1/4th of all the links that
show up in Google and other search engines do not translate. I get the
"The page cannot be displayed" screen. I didn't have this problem with AOL
or Juno. AT&T says it's not their problem. I haven't been able to resolve it.
2. Email indicating this would be another 7-10 days was from source:
"Conrad Auto Service". Being back to dial up, I have been using my web
mail rather than Eudora to be sure and delete all adds and spam before
downloading so it doesn't take forever. I thought this was an automobile
add. I came within a hairsbreadth of deleting it without even reading it.
3. When I was considering going ahead with the conversion to the new
ISP. I asked lots of questions about when service would go down. How
would I know it was down? How would I bring service up on dial up? How
would I know when it was back up. To every question, and every time I
called, the question was, "Didn't you install the CD?" Answer,
"Yes". Response, "The software that is installed with the CD will handle
all that automatically".
4. First email from COVAD says the address is bad. It says they can't
take the next step until I correct it. But, it is correct. What a
mess.
I'm calling to cancel this morning. AT&T obviously does not want to
be in the DSL business, if they treat their customers this shabbily. Answer from them, "Well we sent you $100 to compensate you for your trouble." A little customer care on their part could have avoided all of this. An hour's programming effort would have fixed the installation CD a year ago to be compatible with XP. They have spent more money in calls to customer support and tech support than it would have taken to fix the problems in the first place. They not only don't care about their customers. They don't have good business sense.
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Review by greenbeltdud
member for 9.7 years, 1 visits, last login: 6.7 years ago
lodged 10.1 years ago
- Greenbelt,Prince Georges,MD
- $50 per month
- (12 month contract)
- Verizon
- CLEC party: Covad
- "Fast, Reliable 1.5mbps/128kbps"
- "Online Support Very Limited"
- "Highly Recommended"
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AT&T/Covad kept me constantly updated on installation process. Equipment delivered and service activated when promised. Since activated 3 months ago, no outages or other problems.
Only bad (if you call it that) problem is AT&T Worldnet's online help (especially for the DSL) is very poor! And it is almost impossible to find an email contact for customer service!
Other than that, I highly recommend this service!
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain att.net)
lodged 10.1 years ago
- Bellaire,Harris,TX
- $60 per month
- (12 month contract)
- Southwestern Bell
- CLEC party: Southwestern Bell
- "Excellent sales, knowledgeable"
- "Snail mail in getting the installation hardware to me."
- "Would I do it again?? Yes!"
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Signed up for DSL service with ATT Worldnet, very helpful phone staff. Self
installation was a piece of cake,especially after talking to a SBC installer on the street before I signed up, he advised using one filter/splitter at the interface box and running a dedicated line to the modem; up & running quickly. No problems with
speeds.
Mark
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