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 Review by FutureX2001 
UPDATED: 1.8 years ago
member for 9.1 years, 336 visits, last login: 53 days ago
 Montebello,Los Angeles,CA
 $24 per month
 about 30 days
 AT&T
 "Fast, Good Techs, Great Customer Support"
 "None, speeds vary by distance."
 "Very happy, speed is great, issues resolved."
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To Everyone,
First of all let me state my current location. I live in
Montebello, CA. I am about 1.1miles from my CO. I ordered Pacific Bell
DSL (SBC) 384k/128k package with no installation charge at $39 a month.
My current download speed is about 315down/105up. I am happy with this
speed. However the installation did not go as smoothly. (Multi-Processor PC didn't work correctly with enternet software) *removed lots of old text....*
***Update***
4th of July 2001
1 Year Later:
I am still with PacificBell, and my contract has ended and the modem is now mine, recently, PacificBell was kind of enough to send out some techs to check my lines, they found some bad wiring outside. My speeds have gone from 315/105 to 1207/108
***Update***
3 years later
9th of July 2003
As you can see, I am still a PacBell (Now SBC) customer, I am now extremely satisfied with the service. I don't recall any downtime during the last year+. My speed is at about 1228/134. Very smooth, Techs seem to know their stuff. I'm upgrading the scores to reflect my experiences during these last years.
***Update***
3 1/2 years later
January 20th, 2004
Still with SBC, price is now around ~$29 (signed up for another year, my contract had expired). Speed is now around 1310kbps downstream / 218kbps upstream (Upload speeds were upgraded from 128 to 256 at no charge)
**Update***
7 1/2 years later
My old posts seem quite funny now as I look back on them. Obviously not the same computer anymore, in fact multiple PCs/laptops now...running on a WRT54GL router now and custom firmware. Still the original (almost 8 year old) Alcatel SpeedTouch Home DSL modem. Paying $25/month at the moment, speeds are about 2100kbps down / 484kbps up. (Pro package). Holds up pretty well considering some of the techs ponder how I was even offered this pro package (due to the noise margin on the line). Works perfectly 98% of the time. Company is now at&t. While I'm quite happy with the service, I do plan to switch to uverse as it becomes available, the speeds fiber can provide along with the bundled VoIP and Television services look appealing.
The DSL line has served me well...
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Review by bigrez
UPDATED: 1.8 years ago
member for 5 years, 52 visits, last login: 12 days ago
Palmdale,Los Angeles,CA
$26 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
SBC
"Very easy to install - Nice initial value - good speeds"
"Reliability could be better"
"Pleased with the service overall"
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Ordered the up to 1.5mb/128kb service a year ago at 26.95/mo for 1 year. Super easy to install within my existing wireless network. I have several PCs running WinXP and 2K. The service uses dynamic.
For quite some time I've been happy with the service. Recently, about a month ago, we lost the service for almost 24 hours. Our voice service was also out. After it came back up, I had much more noise on the voice line. This noise got progressively worse over the following weeks.
SBC came out and installed a splitter (at no cost) which fixed the noise problem, but couldn't determine the source of the noise.
In all, I'm happy with the support I've been given. We'll see when I get my upgraded speed this week - if it's not at least 2mb, I'll complain about the increased cost and we'll see what they do.
1/29/2008: Service over the last couple years has gone out five times for more than one hour. Was watching a netflix movie last Sun night and it went out in the middle of it. In all though, service has been fine. Speeds remain a constant 2500 or so.
Will switch to Uverse with 3.0mb internet next week. A little scared by reading some of the forums, but we'll see how it goes and will update the review after that.
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Review by dickbal
UPDATED: 1.8 years ago
member for 8.3 years, 2614 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Danville,Contra Costa,CA
$27 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
SBC
"Price, reliability, speed"
"Tech support (telephone)"
"Great service, now at a great price"
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Have been on Pacbell (SBC) since July 2001. We have moved twice since then and always got the service back up and running in less than a week. Very little downtime, I can't remember the last time it went out. I'm around 9000 ft. from CO and get around 1300 down and 215 up. Telephone support is not the greatest but I have had little need for it.
After almost 4 years with Pacbell (SBC) still a happy camper. Price was even lower at last renewal and service is never down. Love it!!!
Almost 7 years on AT&T DSL. Still very happy. It's never down!!!!
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Review by tiny41
UPDATED: 1.8 years ago
member for 9.1 years, 318 visits, last login: 199 days ago
Sacramento,Sacramento,CA
$24 per month
about 42 days
SBC
"Cheap"
"Phone tech support is not too bright....."
"excellent speed for the price"
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let's see....
Pacbell is pretty good in my area...
Ordered Self-Install on October 1, 2000
Install Date set for the 31st
got the hardware in a week
No sync on the 31st
tech support on the phone were no help...
my install date was pushed back because my line had "problems"
couldn't get sync till the middle of November
since i got sync the connection has been rock solid
had minor authentication problems but i think i'm pretty sure it was caused by my Linksys router which messes up once in a while...
was capped at 384 and couldn't raise it since their computer said that my DSL connection wasn't even installed yet....
called back a month later to raise my cap and the guy on Tech Support gave me the runaround....
I then emailed pacbell and got my cap removed the next day!
now i'm surfing happily at 1.5 Mb/ 128 Kb!
I'M TOTALLY SATISFIED WITH PACBELL AND DSL!
*Update*
I have since upgraded my speed to Pro (unable to get elite) and have been rocking the internet without any major problems or outages since I first got DSL.
The DSL service has been real reliable and is currently a great deal compared to cable internet's price.
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 Review by Winerin
UPDATED: 1.9 years ago
member for 7.6 years, 2276 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Woodland Hills,Los Angeles,CA
$29 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
SBC
"Very reliable connection"
"Can't think of any"
"Cable? Blah!!"
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Earlier in the year I moved into another part of town which did not have cable internet. I was a cable internet subcriber for nearly 4 years and liked the speeds. Once I moved I found my only option was DSL, after doing some searching around I found I would be borderline to the CO for DSL and would get slow speeds.
Upon signing up online, my dsl was up and running in a week. And yes, I was only getting 192kbps max. Sad for broadband but better than dialup. For some month my connection was rock solid though. Yes, I had some issues here and there but that is to be expected. I have yet to hear of a broadband issuer that is flawless.
After some months, someone moved into the same house and I heard he was getting over 1MBps. I was wondering how? I heard they added a RT nearby. I tried calling a couple places and then came back to this site and made a post regarding this new RT. I was referred to Toaster2k.
In less than a week he got me transferred to the RT and walked me through in getting reactived and I am now getting over 1.2MBps.
I am not only happy about my new speeds, but very impressed at the service I was provided. PacBell has retained a customers for a long time to come.
[Update: November 21, 2003] Renewed my contract for another 12 months for $29.95 per month. Loving the service and price!
[Update: February 19, 2004] My service is still doing great! No complaints.
[Update: March 9, 2005] What can I say? I've had this service now for about three years and I'm loving it. Recently Adelphia installed internet cable in my area, but with how my experience is with their cable TV, I will be damned to switch over. I am currently on my third renewed contract as I know I will continue to enjoy the reliable service at a great low price.
As with any ISP there have been some issues. But these issues have continually been corrected in a fast manner. I must admit that my main source for technical support has been through here, Broadband Reports, as phone support is mostly a runaround with script reading support (yes, script support is the norm these days, but it's frustrating to have to go through certain steps that I've already done so before I called~).
[Update: January 6, 2008] I have discontinued my subscription to ATT DSL. I moved to a new area, and I no longer had a need for landline phone. I felt I didn't want to pay for something I no longer used. And with it I had to get rid of DSL. I have since switched to Time Warner Roadrunner. I had some bad experiences in the past with Roadrunner, but, for the last few months, everything has been working fine.
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Review by tcstone
UPDATED: 1.9 years ago
member for 7.7 years, 465 visits, last login: 3 days ago
Glendale,Los Angeles,CA
$25 per month (12 month contract)
about 11 days
SBC
"Fastest service I've had yet! Yahoo tie-in has some virtues. Very rare outages."
"dynamic IP, PPPoE, no FTP access to large online storage space, ads on Yahoo! portal page"
"Fabulous for $25/mo!"
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I was a transition from Directv to SBC/Yahoo (local phone company). I'm very close to the remote CO so I get great performance from ADSL (I wish upload cap was still more generous). I get a peak download rate of almost 1,300 kbps and upload peak around 300 kbps. The line is rated at 1500 down 256 up. My previous service with Directv was 128k down, so this doubling is a nice improvement (makes my Retrospect FTP backups much faster). Even though the sync rate is probably the same, my downloads are better now with the SBC service. Previously, although the peak rate was the same, the Directv speed fluctuated a lot -- a download speed graph looked like mountains. Perhaps routing problems.. I'm not sure. Now I get a solid block of full speed download on my graph. That translates into faster overall downloads. Even web pages seem "snappier." I'm very pleased with the SBC network performance.
I wish SBC could have done some sort of hot swap (since they were the Telco party for the Directv line anyway), but they had to take several days to "turn off" my Directv service, clear the line, then install their service. That said, 11 calendar days isn't too bad, and they provided dialup service free during that time.
Some of the SBC/Yahoo perks are nice, such as the 260MB "briefcase" storage etc. Too bad I can't use an FTP client to use that space, it's a web-based upload tool only with per-upload limit at 5MB.
I don't really mind the PPPoE since my Airport handles that. My line has been up for about a week now and the PPPoE connect time is at 130 hours. My IP address has changed since my initial connection, but probably not in that 130 hours.
I haven't gotten my first bill yet, but I assume it will be correctly billed on my phone bill (no equip. or install charges). The billing goes up to 59.99 after the first year "promotion."
Keep up the good work SBC.
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Update 3-6-04
Actually, after a year the price went down not up! The renewal offer was, I think, $36.95 for this "deluxe" package with the 256k upload speed. I'm still very happy with this service, though I wish even higher upload speeds were available.
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Update 5-28-07
A few years ago we moved to a new location farther from CO (~9000') and now the package offered is up to 3Mbit down, up to 512Kbit up. I get about 2.5Mb down, 420Kbit up. Have still had excellent reliability, good ping times, good speeds. Wish I had more upload speed though. For the money, it's a great deal.
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Update 12-23-07
Well, the system, in a very cute way, asked me to update my review. Actually, I'd have to say that nothing has changed since the previous update of 5-28-07. No complaints. Some rare packet loss issues.
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Review by eckather
Posted: 1.9 years ago
member for 3.8 years, 53 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Sunnyvale,Santa Clara,CA
$19 per month
about 10 days
AT&T
"Very Reliable"
"Slow"
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They keep sending me upgrade offers in the snail-mail and then tell I can't get higher speeds! What a wast of postage and comment upon the archaic infrastucture in my area - i'm close to dumping at&t for everything
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 Review by Roykirk
UPDATED: 1.9 years ago
member for 9.3 years, 946 visits, last login: 351 days ago
Eureka,Humboldt,CA
$37 per month (12 month contract)
about 22 days
SBC
"Good speed and connection reliability, for the most part. Easy to set up"
"Since switch to SBC/Yahoo, connection problems increased. Tech support drones useless except to take trouble ticket reports."
"Very reliable and good for nearly 3 years, but has started to deteriorate."
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Ordered my service way back in April 2000. Ordered the basic package: PPPoE, dynamic IP, 1.5Mbps down/128Kbps up, $39.95 for a year and then $49.95, and at the time they were offering free home install, so I took advantage of that.
After a few weeks waiting, they missed the install date and had to reschedule for a few days later. The tech finally arrived that afternoon and performed the install: Kingston Ethernet card, Westell Wirespeed modem and Enternet300 software on my then Windows98 box. Smooth installation with no problems.
Over the years, the connection was always up to spec (good, considering I'm about 150 yards from the CO), and only the occasional outage on their part. I also had a few times when I had to power cycle the modem, but those were only about 1 a month.
In September 2002 I built a new WinXP Pro box from the ground up and installed a Belkin gateway router to connect both machines to the DSL and each other. Uninstalled the Enternet300 software from the Win98 box (unnecessary with the new network) and never had to power cycle the modem again. Well, at least until recently.
Early in the morning of February 27, 2003 the new SBC/Yahoo made some "upgrades" to the network, claiming improvement would result. The following Thursday, just after 10PM, the connection went bye bye for nearly 4 hours. Sync was fine, as was everything else on my end. I just couldn't connect to anything past the modem. Tech support had no explanation and at 1:30 Friday morning the connection just came back up.
The very next Thursday, just after 10PM (notice a pattern), the connection went down again. Once again, no reasonable explanation from tech support (another computer on the same rback is sucking away all my bandwidth? I don't think so). This time the outage did not last so long—only about 1/2 hour. I eagerly await the results from this Thursday night's activities.
Overall my experience with PacBell has been good. I just worry that with this flurry of "upgrades" their service will deteriorate. At the moment, I give them a hesitant recommendation. And whatever you do, get a real news service if you go for SBC/Pacbell DSL: their newsgroup service is a joke.
UPDATE 12/8/07: Over 7 years on now, and the only outages I've had in my service have been due to natural disaster that cut telecommunications trunks for all providers, not just AT&T. A few times a year I need to reboot my Westell Wirespeed modem, but otherwise the connection is smoorth with speeds close to advertised.
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Review by sappersix
UPDATED: 1.9 years ago
member for 1.9 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.9 years ago
Berkeley,Alameda,CA
$34 per month
about 12 days
SBC
"Works, fast, good customer service"
"Too many automated customer feedback/follow-up calls... :-)"
"I'm a little surprised to be saying this, but this order process was painless and the service itself is great."
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DSL was really the only choice for me. I don't need cable since I don't watch much TV, OTA DTV is good enough. Of the DSL providers, I thought about Earthlink (been a customer for years), SpeakEasy (I've heard great things), and my local phone company PacBell (I mean SBC, I mean AT&T).
I previously had Earthlink for home phone and DSL. I decided to leave them because of their complete inability to move me. Contact me if you want the gory details.
SpeakEasy was really attractive. I talked to their sales people on the phone. They were really knowledgeable. In the end, they were too expensive.
So, I went with AT&T.
I ordered the Elite DSL speed (up to 6.0 Mbps) at $34.99 a month. I ordered it (along with a new home phone) on 11/12/2007 for an installation date of 11/26/2007. Obviously, with that kind of lead time they had no trouble making the installation date. Around 8-9am I had dial tone and by 4-5pm I had a DSL connection. Frankly, really uneventful from a service turn-up perspective.
The only issue I had was that the power supply on the Motorola DSL modem they sent me was defective. I did not discover this until my installation date. Luckily, I had my old DSL modem around, which is why I know I had DSL by 4-5pm. I called AT&T and let them know they sent me defective customer prem equipment and they overnighted a new modem to me.
Having worked in the telco industry for many years, I was frankly surprised at the great customer service I received, especially how well they handled the power supply problem.
I haven't had to use tech support, so I can't really comment on that at this point.
The most annoying thing so far has been all the automated following calls asking for my feedback about the sales process, the customer service, the service itself, etc.
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 Review by prestonlewis
UPDATED: 2 years ago
member for 6.6 years, 1796 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Sacramento,Sacramento,CA
$12 per month
AT&T
"None that I can see"
"Only one central office in all of northern Sacramento County. No RT's."
"They can only serve a very small number of people where I live."
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Northern Sacramento County has one CO in North Highlands. RTs were promised a few years back but never materialized. Recently, AT&T stopped providing service to anyone too far from the CO so very few people can get DSL where I live (densely populated metropolitan city). I do have a landline and the sound quality is pretty bad. Vonage is better. In short, their wiring and equipment in my area is old, antiquated, and outdated. They talk about U-Verse and all their new technology but fail to upgrade their entire system to an acceptable level. Seems to me that SBC and now AT&T buy companies like PacBell and then just milk them for money without improving or maintaining infrastructure.
DSLExtreme.com is a better alternative than AT&T.
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Pacific Bell - SBC
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Glendale and close to the CO, thats all you had to say..
Usual ATT Behavior.