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 Review by darthfadar 
UPDATED: 1.5 years ago
member for 8.2 years, 1955 visits, last login: 20 days ago
 Castaic,Los Angeles,CA
 $35 per month (12 month contract)
 about 5 days
 SBC
 "Reliable DSL connection. Speed as advertised Support at ATTDirect forum is awesome"
 "No special pricing, anymore."
 "2007 Very reliable! Speed ok"
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I'd hop over to cable but the horror stories aren't worth the cost savings.
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 Review by agent_007
UPDATED: 1.5 years ago
member for 6.3 years, 698 visits, last login: 247 days ago
Simi Valley,Ventura,CA
$23 per month
AT&T
"Never a disconnect, always advertised speed."
"Pacbell.net email sever is the worst. Foreign tech support is completely worthless."
"Good price. No need for change. Email unreliable"
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4/25/2008. I bought an iTouch and tried to configure it to my current email servers. It would not work with the settings that was assigned to my other computers. But get this, once I tried to connect to my email, my other computers would not send or receive email. My wifes account also wouldn't work. That is because I have what is called a legacy account, that is my email address ends with pacbell.net and not with att.com. Once I tried to connect to another server with my iPod everything switched and nothing worked afterwards. India tech support completely worthless. A&tt doesn't care. So I threatend to switch to another provider. They are willing to call my bluff. Two days on the phone it still doesn't work. Being pretty good with this sort of thing I figured it all out myself. The bottom line is the average customer wants Web and email. The web is flawless. But the email servers have grown so large due to AT&T monopoly that they have become unmanageable.
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 Review by PeeWee
UPDATED: 1.5 years ago
member for 8 years, 4513 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Clovis,Fresno,CA
$16 per month (12 month contract)
about 20 days
SBC
"Very good reliable connection. Deteriorated over time"
"First tier tel. has always been useless. It finally got so bad I could no longer forgive the ignorance of the support people."
"Good reliable DSL connection gone bad. Even the tech they sent to my house was ignorant and abusive."
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Review by NormanS
UPDATED: 1.6 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 2624 visits, last login: a few hours ago
San Jose,Santa Clara,CA
$30 per month
about 7 days
SBC
"DSL support is very good. POTS is pretty good."
"NNTP service is mediocre. Email service is only as good as Yahoo! Mail Plus."
"Still needs improvment."
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When I started, the name of the service was, "Pacific Bell DSL", which was allowed by SBC, even though they were the parent company. Seven years, and some changes later, the service is now called, "at&t Yahoo! HSI"; a legacy of the outsourcing contract between SBC and Yahoo! (BTW, the name change from "SBC" to "AT&T" reflects a corporate decision by the SBC managment team after they bought AT&T. The "new" AT&T is just the old SBC re-branded.)
Recent changes were made by Yahoo! to the way they hand email through their SMTP Message Submission servers. These changes were made unilaterally, and without prior notice to AT&T, leaving AT&T CSRs to field customer calls when things broke for the customers. These changes pretty much make their message submission servers useless for power users. I am reasonably sure that most ISPs don't force this limitation on their customers. Basically, using an email address different that the account requires prior "verification" with Yahoo! to avoid an SMTP error where email using that as the "From:" address being rejected.
As a result, I have downgraded my opinion of the quality of the services. I probably should have downgraded the "Tech Support" rating earlier, as well; primarily because deciding whether to take troubleto Yahoo!, or to AT&T, can be confusing. Technically, the DSL connecting (AT&T support) is fairly good. However, Yahoo! support for their Internet services is somewhat lacking.
Wish: That AT&T would reconsider their outsourcing conract with Yahoo!.
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Review by indesman
Posted: 1.7 years ago
member for 1.8 years, 21 visits, last login: 78 days ago
Orinda,Contra Costa,CA
$50 per month
AT&T
"Generally trouble free with few outages."
"Slow."
"I really wish PacBell/SBC/AT&T would upgrade their equipment."
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We started DSL with Pac Bell almost seven years ago and paid $50/month up until December of 2007. In December I spoke with a service representative about another matter and he gave me a new rate of $20/month.
While 1.5Mbps was really fast in 2001 it's feeling pretty inadequate today. My brother-in-law in suburban Atlanta just got a 7Mbps DSL line at thanksgiving and I'm wondering why we can't get that here. I'd go with cable but don't think it's as reliable and what's the use of a high bandwidth connection if it's not there when you need it?
I will say that I've always gotten excellent technical support from first Pac Bell then SBC and now AT&T since our local provider has changed twice in the past seven years.
Reliable, Stable, SLOW.
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 Review by jmorlan
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 3429 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Pacifica,San Mateo,CA
$39 per month (12 month contract)
about 45 days
AT&T
"Fairly reliable, good value."
"Billing screwups never fixed, long waits on hold to support"
"Good when it works."
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When I moved into a new house, I ported my old phone number and ordered DSL at the same time. This was in December 2000 and the start date was supposed to be February 1st. The deal was $39.95 /month with a $100 modem charge that would be rebated with a self-install.
The modem and software arrived separately. Install seemed to go well until I tried to register at the registration site. The site was down that weekend. Many calls to support and hours on hold found that nobody could manually register me although some people tried. None of these attempts worked. Finally a week later the registration site worked and I was actually online.
The next horror story was when the bill came. I had been charged for two accounts and two modems. One of the accounts was a bogus one that a support person had created to try to get me online while their authorized registration website wasn't functioning.
A call to billing got the charges reversed, but on the next billing the reversed charge for the modem was added again. This continued for several more months. Eventually I was charged for five modems and credited for only three. I was still out $100 for a modem I never received. As of now this issue is STILL UNRESOLVED. They claim it takes two or three billing cycles for the credit to show up on my bill. This is insane. It only takes one billing cycle for charges to show up.
My next issue was the speed I was getting. I was capped at 386. I finally got them to lift the cap to 768, but my modem wouldn't sync. So I had to have it lowered to 386 again where it was reliable. Recently I installed a Seicor Splitter that I bought cheap on eBay on the outside and did a homerun wire directly to my modem. After that my line quality improved so that I was able to get the cap lifted to 768. They claim I'm over 18,000 ft from CO so I'm lucky to get that speed. My modem will now sync anywhere between 544 and 640.
Another separate issue was that my modem died 3 months after installation. A tech came out and confirmed the modem was bad. He told me to return it in the box it came it. The modem came with a return USPS mailing label which I used. I then learned that I had sent the modem to the wrong place. PacBell doesn't warrant modems after three months. The modem needed to be sent back to Efficient Networks in Texas who told me that it needed an 8 point ROM upgrade which takes at least six weeks because they have to send it to Mexico to get it done!
I was not optimistic about ever getting my modem back, so I bought a cheap internal modem on eBay and was back online in two weeks. Eventually I got the modem repaired and returned and it seems to be working well now, but I'm still out the $20 for the internal modem and have not yet been credited with the two weeks I was offline, although billing promised I would be. I'm still waiting for the "two or three billing cycles" for the credit to show up. Sigh.
If I had to do it over again, I would have told them I had no USB port or ISA slots and insisted on an ethernet modem. I now know they are faster and more reliable than the cheap USB modems they give you.
Another problem is usenet service. When I first joined, we had access to a wonderful fast feed offered by flash.net. Unfortunately SBC decided to shut it down and we are now limited to several other slower and poorer servers and it's getting worse. The loss of flash.net means that if you want fast, reliable nntp service with complete binaries, you will probably have to pay for a premium news service provider. As yet, I haven't done that, but instead pieced together a multiplex solution with multiple news servers. The loss of news.flash.net added insult to injury. It was a shining light in an otherwise rather abysmal enterprise.
Another issue is that PacBell DNS servers are crappy. That can slow down surfing considerably regardless of your connection speed. Here in Pacifica, PacBell is about the only game in town, but if cable becomes available, I will seriously consider it.
In general I would rate my experience with PacBell DSL as unsatisfactory.
UPDATE 26 September 2004
I'm still with them and things have improved. I added a "home-run" line with an external Seicor Splitter which stabilized my line. Eventually I dumped the old 4060 USB modem and bought a used 5100b on eBay. The results were dramatic. My sync rate went from about 550 kB to 1500 kB/sec; close to triple my former download speed. Then I added a LynkSys wireless router and speeds increased a little bit more.
It's nice to be getting the full speed out of this connection finally. Also my upload speed is now 384 which is quite nice. Furthermore the price has dropped since I signed up. I'm now paying $26.95 /month with a one year contract.
The email services under Yahoo are a little better, but the usenet services continue to deteriorate. It's still an excellent deal for pure bandwidth, but ISP services are below par.
Edit June 28, 2007
Not much has changed since my last update. The service is solid and reliable. The name has changed to AT&T; prices have dropped and gone up slightly. I'm now on a one-year contract at $19.99 with a one-month free deal.
Billing screw ups are now fixed promptly. There were a lot of billing problems early on, but not any more. Service is better now I think
Edit February 20, 2008
Service has been solid. I am still on the $19.99 per month deal for 1.5/385, but I had to call them to get the promised free month. The Usenet offerings are still very weak. I had hoped the merger with BellSouth would have strengthened Usenet but that has not happened. I bought a spare modem, a 4100b on eBay for $15 which I am now using. It's a little more stable than my old 5100b which I'm keeping for a backup.
They seem to have no interest in opening up the nearby RT to my address. I am currently at the limit they offer DSL. In fact my neighbor on one side is not eligible for DSL at all. If I give up this service, I would probably not qualify for new service at this location. I think I'll keep this service for as long as I can. It's a good deal for the bandwidth.
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Review by kws7114
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 7.5 years, 128 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Newton,Harvey,KS
$65 per month (month by month)
about 1 days
SBC
"I am a legacy user with static IP's. I have found that you let those go un-reported"
"To get real help from someone that knew or understood my question was a Tier 2 tech"
"Good for my money and hosting small websites. No down times in 9 years"
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Have only one other option in town. Cox has a dismal local record of being flaky and offline.
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Review by RaulG
Posted: 1.7 years ago
member for 7.9 years, 214 visits, last login: 326 days ago
Chico,Butte,CA
$24 per month
about 4 days
AT&T
"Great value for your money. Good speed."
"None so far..."
"If you can get it, get it!!!"
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I got the PRO service. Great bargain. 24.99/mo., no contract, free modem or wireless gateway (after rebate), and 3000/512 (2.5/430 real). Can't get better than that. Even registered my account without having to install the AT&T/Yahoo software.
I would definitely recommend it !!!
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Review by g0sp33dracr
Posted: 1.7 years ago
member for 4.3 years, 12 visits, last login: 1.7 years ago
Berkeley,Alameda,CA
$24 per month
AT&T
"none"
"connection is very unstable;"
"find a more reliable isp"
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I received the 2wire modem/router and proceeded to set up everything. The connection seemed to be fast at first, but after 1 hour it showed signs of crapping out. It needs to constantly reconnect throughout the day (at least 1x/hr but can be more than 5x/hr).
It's also really annoying when it needs to reconnect while you're using a browser. The 2wire modem notifies you of your bad connection when you click on a link or open a new page. Once it reconnects, it directs you to a page saying "resolution successful" but says to close and reopen your browser. If you're researching a topic, and have multiple tabs or pages open, it becomes troublesome. I had to set firefox to automatically open all my tabs upon restarting it.
I
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Review by Two Man Riot
UPDATED: 1.8 years ago
member for 7.9 years, 1806 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Sherman Oaks,Los Angeles,CA
Contract price not specified.
"good connection, high speeds, easy to install, not given the run around"
"none so far"
"i would recommend it"
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I ordered pac bell on february 5th after being screwed around with by earthlink. On the 12th i got my install kit, and on the 13th (one day before my turn on date) i was online and surfing. Tech support was helpful although the only time i talked to them was when i was ordering. I am getting about 1200 down / 115 up which is pretty good for me, way better than 56k. I would recommend pac bell dsl to just about anyone.
UPDATE: ALmost 2 years to the day that i ordered and although i have moved onto college where my life revolves around an insane OC-48 line i am still pleased when i come home to see my DSl running smoothly and quickly.
UPDATE: My DSL is still cranking away. I have since moved home from college and works as good as it did the day I left. I believe it is now SBC Yahoo or ATT Yahoo and with the potential merger it might be ATT MICROSOFT but as long as my service doesn't bug out I intend on staying with them for a while.
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Pacific Bell - SBC
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