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 Review by trebzon 
UPDATED: 173 days ago
member for 8.2 years, 1390 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Grandville,Kent,MI
 $45 per month (24 month contract)
 about 10 days
 AT&T
 "Not the worst reliablity (See Sprint)"
 "Customer service is a joke"
 "You are a slave once you sign the contract."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
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Tech Support:
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(ratings below consensus)
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You are a slave once you sign the contract. It does not matter what they change in the TOS, how the service degrades, if you move. The company is pure and complete evil. They will fight you for one month left on your contract and not care that they then screw themselves out of consideration at your new location. Better hope for new customer churn because your customer loyalty is going to &*^%$.
Decent speed but I am in so much hate of this company right now that I could care less.
Bottom line - Useless
Updated - Still useless. I hate lack of meaningful competition.
Followup comments:  
David
No,there is another.
Premium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
clubs: | What exactly happend? Can I ask? | |
| |
trebzon
join:2001-09-03
Grandville, MI
 ·AT&T Yahoo
1 edit | Re: What exactly happend? Multiple issues. Mostly it was very poor training and process. I was told multiple times different stories of when I could cancel and or change my plans. At the time I had DSL, 2 land lines, 2 cell phones, 1 PC Card data plan. All except 1 land line and 1 cell were work related. My job changed so I didn't need the PC Card any longer and it was a nightmare to get a straight answer when I could cancel, what my fees would be. Every call a different story and they always put it back on me to call back. I had to invest 20+ hours of my life just to arrange the cancellation of the PC card plan. I didn't even want to get anything special just a clear answer. Unfortunately it seems that a CSR telling you something means nothing at AT&T and it is up to you to just deal with whatever is told to you in the most recent communication.
And that was just for the PC card. Installer installing jacks horribly, service calls to get call forwarding and multi-ring setup. It really seems to me that the training and communication for employees is seriously sub par and there is no will to improve.
- To clarify the product itself is not the issue. it is the incredible pain and drama around setting up or changing services. I know use AT&T because I have to not because I want to. | |
| |
David
No,there is another.
Premium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
clubs: | Got a question, can you either send me the information via:
1.) IM (click on my name to send me one)- should take you to my page
2.) e-mail me
3.) post a new topic here: »/forum/sbcdirect | |
| | | |
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 Review by TigerNutz
Posted: 175 days ago
member for 8.9 years, 3260 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Maumelle,Pulaski,AR
$40 per month
about 5 days
"Dependable, always on."
"Not as fast as cable."
"Wish I had more ISP options in my area!"
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I had Cox cable and for nearly the same price cable gave me more than twice the speeds, up AND down.
With AT&T I'm getting around 5mbps down 500kbps up.
Set up was not exactly easy. AT&T makes you jump through a few hoops. I had to call customer support for help.
Just wish competition was better around here. ISP choices is very, very limited.
AT&T is a monopoly..........again.
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Review by doctorbits
UPDATED: 178 days ago
member for 178 days, 6 visits, last login: 27 days ago
Canoga Park,Los Angeles,CA
$35 per month
about 22 days
AT&T
"Next day e-mail support is good"
"Bad phone lines cause poor reliability (no upgrade until area is fiber)."
"Poor upload speed, unreliable, not trustworthy."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
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(ratings below consensus)
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Known as SBC, AT&T, Pacific Bell. I have been using their DSL service for about 8 years in 3 different cities. I have been a visiter to DSL reports for about 5 years.
The quality of service depends on where you live. My review is more negative than most, because I have not lived in newer developments or downtown areas.
The good: I am glad to have DSL available. The DSL service comes bundled with Yahoo e-mail services. It also comes bundled with a software security package (currently McAfee).
The rest describes the negatives:
The biggest problem is that they have not installed concentrators to provide good coverage. I have had AT&T DSL service in three California cities, all three had marginal DSL service. They are upgrading downtown areas of larger cities and new developments with fiber to the curb. Older neighborhoods are still wired with Cat 2 or Cat 3 and there are many splices. Sometimes, the DSL will not work until a technician changes the wire within the bundle to reduce the number of splices. Weather can affect speed or cause frequent disconnections.
Most of the technicians are very good at installation using the default settings and can work with the user interface to solve many problems. But they do not seem to understand how the router works or how to work with a computer tuned for security.
Download speed is limited to 768 kb/s on basic plan. In some neighborhoods, you can upgrade to 1536 kb/s (the lines in my neighborhood barely support 768). Residential upload speed is limited and throttled (Limit: 384 kb/s; sometimes throttled to below 128 kb/s).
They only offer discounted contracts (about $30/month total) to new users. No upgrades from my current service are available in my neighborhood. Third party plans are slightly cheaper, but the service is not better.
I say that AT&T is not trustworthy, because they upload router patches without notification. This broke my older model 2-Wire 1701HG) router and required a new router ($90 for a 2701HG). The changes broke my local network setup once and currently, some functions on the router user interface do not work. I do like the router's web interface, but AT&T has removed many features (such as DHCP coordination with software). The router includes a firewall and wireless service (defaulting to low security).
I don't use the bundled software and services much. The security software supplied is not high quality. I use software from other companies (pctools, comodo, spybot, and/or sunbelt) that is free for personal use. I mostly use gmail, because AT&T filters e-mail (even though I have turned off the filter at Yahoo).
I have no TV, so cable internet service is expensive (over $50/month). Time-Warner Digital service (telephone, basic cable TV, and normal internet) is about $110/month. The upload speed is throttled to match AT&T).
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Review by brand1999
UPDATED: 180 days ago
member for 1.1 years, 22 visits, last login: 27 days ago
Bakersfield,Kern,CA
$55 per month (24 month contract)
AT&T
"ATT turns their knob and my 5Mbps becomes 13+ Mbps instantly"
"Right now I'm good."
"If badwidth is important to you upgrade beyond AT&T Elite Speed"
| Pre Sales information:
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I'm an online gamer and actually knew better then to switch to DSL. I just had to try ATT DSL ELITE because they just finished upgrading our equipment on our street and it was $10 cheaper then Bright House Road Runner (which was a consistent & fast 6 mbps). I don't want to bash ATT too much since I understand that our phone lines were never designed to carry this much information and have so many people using it at the same time. Given this though, their advertisement slogan should be revised as follows: "Get up to 6mbps with our Elite DSL package but expect that it may drop to below 1000 kbps at any given time." They did send me an ok 2wire modem/router that has quite a range on it's wireless consistency (70-100%) when compared to my NETGEAR router which was a consistent 90%. After countless hours and numerous calls, I was finally able to get ATT to start a work order so that a tech could come out to my house. This is probably the most pleasant & confounding part of my experience. The first tech said he did find a problem on my street (a grounding issue-yes! problem found) and that a specialist would have to come out to repair. That same day another gentleman came out. He ran the test & stated that there was a serious problem. He went to the street and after about 30 minutes said he needed to test my line because he couldn't find the problem in the street. After doing so he decided that running a dedicated DSL line would probably help. Although the guys who came out were both friendly & knowledgeable and some improvement was noted with the dedicated line, I still have to wait for web pages to load---sometimes. I still get dropped while gaming online---sometimes and overall it has not been worth it. Sorry AT&T, but you've got a lot of work to do to get your network to even touch the bandwidth of cable or even other DSL providers.
******^^^^^That was then...This is now............I am AT&T Uverse
WOW! I just upgraded to AT&T's fastest DSL speed (advertised as up to 18mbps) and what a difference as you can see from my results that I have posted. The cost is $55/month which is $20 more then the Elite speed that I had (advertised as up to 6mbps). They do have an offer right now where you get $10 off your first 6 months. After everything I went through as you have read above, as I was speaking with the AT&T UVERSE rep, who said it may take up to 4 hours for the changes to take place, my speed jumped + 7mbps. Amazing how quickly speed issues can be resolved when your paying extra for it  It is what it is and I'm very happy with AT&T. I can't find a better deal for everything I get (best HD TV package, 5 cell phones, VOIP home phone & fastest internet for under $ 400/month). Hope that helps y'all.
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Review by pzackowski
Posted: 196 days ago
member for 3.7 years, 3 visits, last login: 196 days ago
Orange,New Haven,CT
$75 per month
about 18 days
Southern New England Telephone
"Free DSL (POS)"
"Poor tech support, impossible to reach, phone plan setup incorrectly, then changed incorrecty, then changed incorrectly again..."
"Not happy, STILL trying to get reliability up to par."
| Pre Sales information:
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We had SNET DSL service when we lived in Middletown, but in Orange CT, I have had nothing but issues when dealing with them. First came the installation - Turn up day - open connection. Trying to get a live person? HA! Took 18 (yes, I counted) prompts to find one that finally got me to a repair representative. They scheduled a service person. No one showed up. 3 times they scheduled a service person, and 3 times no one showed up. Turns out "someone" at the CO would run a line test and kick the ticket back. Problem was, the line test was somehow run on the wrong line. Finally got someone to come out, and sure enough, he had to call in a linesman with a truck to come repair the phone line. Turns out the previous occupant of our house had not had their land line ever activated, and when out neighbors line had a problem, they just bridged his connection over and chucked our off at the pole. Now the router they "gave" me as a credit for all the troubles, is a real POS. It's a 2 Wire 2701HG-B Gateway. This thing has had every IT issue known to mankind with it. It drops the ATM PVC, it cannot run a self diagnostic and come up with the correct result - (EX - the connection is up right now, but if I run the diagnostic, it will come back with something impossible such as ATM PVC not found...) Our phone plan - went with an unlisted unpublished number - the full on version, not just unpublished, 2 days later - we are INUNDATED with telemarketing calls... I was furious, and the customer service representative CONFIRMED it was the full package but noted it was removed off the account for "unknown reasons" on my third service call. I asked what else had been removed, and was told "nothing". Well the correct question should have been "what was the plan we were on???" Surprise, here comes the bill - what was supposed to be a 35 flat fee for "basic" phone and LD plus internet turned into 140.00???? That "unknown" person who changed our unpublished/unlisted number saddled us with every option known to the phone company (except voice mail, go figure...) I am still trying to resolve this with AT&T as they show and admit clearly that it was changed, but have said that since I "had used the service I have to pay for it, but they can make that changes as soon as I pay the disputed charges..." I would NOT go with AT&T, and if you do, watch everything. I am exploring other options currently.
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Review by Tweelers
UPDATED: 198 days ago
member for 1.3 years, 11 visits, last login: 197 days ago
Albany,Dougherty,GA
$110 per month
AT&T
"Big organization offers some flexibility"
"lousy unreliable internet speed on DSL 6.0 Extreme"
"Time to check out the competition"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
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Tech Support:
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(ratings match consensus)
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I kind of liked Bellsouth. They were not always the best service but would try somewhat to keep you as a customer. Then ATT took over, and a slow change took place. Service is not as reliable, internet speeds vary greatly, and it seems that there is no improvement in their wired infrastructure as new customers are added, as service is continuing to degrade. Now they've decided to "force" the change to Yahoo for web related services. Yahoo web page is too large and too slow to load on anything but multi-processor machines, and even that doesn't help due to the lousy ATT service. Online support is a mish-mash of Bellsouth-ATT-Yahoo tutorials which only remotely help solve the most basic of issues. Obviously poorly planned. Once the customers agrees to try the new Yahoo site, they are barred from returning to the ATT site as their login is no longer valid. I did not like the old Yahoo site and preferred the ATT site previously. Why do they think I would prefer being forced to have a Yahoo home page now? I hate to say it, but I'm considering cable. I'm tired of fighting my internet service.
Update: It's now a month and a half later and my download speeds are usually the same or less than my upload speeds. Absolutely pitiful service. I would have changed already if things weren't so crazy at work currently. Plan on changing to cable when things settle down. I've already wasted way too much time "nursing" my ATT service!!
Followup comments: 
mamaearl
@bellsouth.net
| AT&T and Yahoo As you are, so am I...TIRED OF FIGHTING MY INTERNET, as well as my email. They have dumped my email 3 times now. I have bills, medical info, pics that are treasures, all kinds of correspondence...GOOD STUFF !!! ...AND TODAY,I can't even send an email! I am totally sick. This has been going on for nearly 4 weeks now. I never know if I have to sign in with my bellsouth.net or my Yahoo.com....WHAT IN BLAZES HAVE THEY DONE !!!!!???? They haven't answered my cries for help either !!! I am very upset with ATT, Bellsouth, and YaHoo.......good luck if anyone replies, because it may not be there when I look ! | |
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David
No,there is another.
Premium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
clubs: | ya know you alls are more than welcome to e-mail me or post in direct if you wish.
Thanks
David | |
| | Tweelers
join:2008-07-26
Albany, GA | Re: ya know I find this response offensive, ya know. | |
| | |
David
No,there is another.
Premium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
clubs:
1 edit | Re: ya know it's just an offer to you for some help, really I meant nothing by it.
suit yourself with what you want to do. | |
| | | | kcir60
Premium
join:2007-02-02
Fort Lauderdale, FL
| Re: ya know Bellsouth cared about all their customers. AT&T bought out Bellsouth because they wanted Cingular and the employee pension fund. They now have Cingular and are about to have access and plunder the pension fund. They don't care about the wire end of the business. They will probably run the wire end of the company in the ground and then sell it or spin it off so that it cant survive. U-verse is the holy grail for AT&T. If you are not a U-verse customer in the future, your problems will be on the lowest list of their priorities. I've seen the future and it doesn't work!!!! | |
|
David
No,there is another.
Premium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
clubs: | Can I still help? it's a viable question. | |
| | | |
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Review by craigmc
UPDATED: 198 days ago
member for 9.5 years, 2497 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
Redwood City,San Mateo,CA
$30 per month (month by month)
about 7 days
"Easy install, much better speed than ISDN."
"none"
"Still great, and now faster (Apr 08)"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings above consensus)
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Due to our rural remoteness, I could only get ISDN a several years ago when we needed good Internet connectivity. Recently PacBell announced that our area had been upgraded for DSL.
I ordered the "Deluxe" package from SBC last week (8/27/03) for self install. The commit date for provisioning was 9/4 (two days from today). I also ordered an Allen Tel filter (splitter) to install at the entrance. (I hate dangling filters on phone cords!) The filter came today, the self-install kit from SBC came yesterday. I installed the filter and modem and did a manual registration using my Linksys router. The order was for 768-1500 up and 256 down. An average of three tests here shows 1103/244 and from the SBC site 1180/246.
I still use my PBI mail account and Joan has a separate provider that manages her business www page so no need for all that Yahoo yahoo.
Essentially zero outages after 6 months, so still a happy camper.
Update, Sept '04: We signed up for the upgrade package to 3000/384 in late July and in mid August got 2500/350 measured speeds, for a lower monthly cost. Also signed up for Vonage and I can upload/download while Joan is on the phone with no conflicts.
Update, Mar 06: Somehow we are up to 3000/512 now and have not had an outage in many months. same cost with no contract, month-to-month rate. Great service.
Update, Aug 07: One outage in July of 1 1/2 days over a weekend. Has been fine ever since.
Update, Apr 08: Ordered a service upgrade a few days ago and, after resetting the modem, our speed has about doubled. Now measuring 5000 to 5200 down and 640 to 670 up. Oh, and the cost is $5 less per month. We are pleased!
Update, May '09: For part of March and most of April we had intermittent noise on the POTS side of our DSL line and frequent, but short, DSL outages. PacBell (AT&T) was very good about responding with a truck roll with a few hours each of the seven time that I called. They finally located the problem - DC on the line from the remote to the CO - and swapped pairs. We have had perfect service ever since.
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Review by Timmn
UPDATED: 211 days ago
member for 9.6 years, 451 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Tinley Park,Cook,IL
$17 per month (12 month contract)
about 1 days
Ameritech
"Better than dial-up, cheaper than Comcast"
"I can't download very large files."
"It works for me, but if I had to pay the full price, I'd go elsewhere"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings match consensus)
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I can't say anything good or bad about it. I won't go with Comcast, that's for sure.
The only problem I am having, which nobody can figure out, is that if I try and download a very large file, the download speed gets slower and slower until it either gets so slow that it will take hours to download, other times it just stalls.
I can't find anything wrong on my end; SBC can't find anything on their end. If anybody has any idea what to check, I'd appreciate it.
It works for surfing the net, and checking my e-mails, if I have to do anything else, I go to work or school.
5/11/2009 I got a note from the "System" that I should update my review, so I am.
Somehow, I got upgraded to "Pro", funny, I don't seem to remember requesting that they do that. However, it did sort of fix the stalling problem, it no longer does that, it just slows down to a slow crawl when dowloading large files. Since I hate AT&T less than I hate Comcast, and since they are my only two choices, I have to stay with AT&T, if I had a viable third option, I would be there oh so fast.
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 Review by jadebangle
UPDATED: 224 days ago
member for 2.5 years, 112 visits, last login: 90 days ago
Olathe,Johnson,KS
$45 per month
about 7 days
AT&T
"at&t shady business practice need to be taken seriously, their employee are run by monkey"
"billing are the worst of all, csr rude and won't make any correction"
"avoid dsl, its a ripoff. slow and costly upfront and after cancelling service"
| Pre Sales information:
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Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
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(ratings well below consensus)
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Update:3/8/09 att billing are horrible and these csr are just pathetic, some of them are mean. they were rude and treated me like i was a little child. they have billed me excessively after cancelling service and won't make any correction. just the kind of company you want to just shove in the trashcan and hope they cease to exist.
how can i be billed 90 dollars??? insane? since i cancelled before my billing date in mid of feb! so i am being bill in full for feb and march! i always hated att and their shady billing practice... its a pain to find a csr that would work with you, most of them are just arrogant they would bounce me around for like an hour i got fed up and just don't want to waste any of my time with these clown anymore.
Update 2/21/09 I have since dropped att dsl because its slow and I don't need it anymore download real fast... upload real slow....and i hate that its a leechband a blood sucking connection. I will not come back anytime soon because I don't want to continue to fund these technology that are very behind the time and are like a floppy drive, obsolete.
Their was no usage cap for the last 10 years and if they do implement in the next 6 month or less it will only prove my point that they are getting worse. They say they will enforce cap but its too late by then the world is going fiber and nobody is gonna wait any longer. if i stick with them and they charge me outrageous fee for going over the limit its bye bye. we the consumer have a choice who say we have to have service with a company that would restrict our usage that was unlimited to begin with.
They are desperately trying to keep this ancient scrap copper based broadband from going under so the only that is going to keep it running is more money, more funding for these greedy company mean more profits and the same crap service that we will never see any improvement in the near future. Its like being on dialup at 28k or 56k indefinitely.
I been with att for 6 months and i can say that its ok lite usage but nothing impressive about it... the download is decent but the upload is pitiful.
Its not economical to have multiple broadband...two connection mean i need two computer to use it. three connection means i need 3 computer to use it. its a pain to bond multiple connection into one.
It is best to have just one that is fastest and cheapest.
If i wanted faster connection why not upgrade to 10/10 for 54.00 or 20/20 for 92.00 from surewest fiber optic which comes with digital tv and telephone service as well and cheaper too instead of paying more for less? We are comparing day and night
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 Review by Sodoshi
Posted: 225 days ago
member for 225 days, 137 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Barberton,Summit,OH
$24 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
AT&T
"Connection only down once, very reliable rest of the time."
"Installation was a mess, no one knew what/when/how."
"I loved my DSL, only moved on due to not offered at new apartment."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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When I moved up from dial-up, Roadrunner was still too expensive for me. So I tried SBC (now at&t), and got a 3mbps DSL for $24.95/month. There was a lack of coordination on the install (all they had to do was turn it on it turns out), but that only took about a week. I had my at&t account for almost five years.
One time I had a connection failure, but it was smoothed over in two days with a call to tech support. Was an issue with the router. Other than that, my DSL had a 100% uptime from my perspective.
I only have two gripes really: 1) The 2wire modem sucked in terms of blocking a connection to a router (to share internet to my two computers), which is more of whoever built the thing. 2) When I had to move, there is no at&t DSL available down here in Canton.
If I could, however, I would have kept my DSL account. I miss it!
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