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Review by OldNerdGuy 
member for 8.4 years, 42 visits, last login: 8.2 years ago
updated 8.2 years ago
 Saint Peters,Saint Charles,MO
 $21 per month- (12 month contract)
 about 19 days Southwestern Bell- CLEC party: Southwestern Bell
 "Lies, Damn Lies, and SBC" "Lies, Damn Lies, and SBC" "Lies, Damn Lies, and SBC"
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Lies, Damn Lies, and SBC...
Nothing but lies from the people I've dealt with. First, there is the Tech support person who informed me that "nobody can change it" when I asked about why I did not get a higher speed setting. After the 3rd "Supervisor", who wanted to know what technician I spoke who said I could, it finally got settled and I am at the 1.5 MBit rate. So much for "nobody can change it". Made them out to be a liar.
Now... when I signed up for the service, I specifically asked if I qualified for the $50.00 rebate. The answer was an unequivocal YES I DO!. Now, when I question them as to why I have not received said rebate, the rebate center call person says I do not qualify, and "nobody can change it".
The Mantra from SBC seems to be "we've screwed you, and there is nothing you can do about it". Cannot wait for the Naked DSL to come to our area. SBC Voice Line, your days are numbered. That, or hope that Charter finally gets their act together and realizes people do run their own mail servers, web servers, and firewalls, without killing the ISP.
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Review by lengel
member for 9 years, 3 visits, last login: 8.3 years ago
lodged 8.3 years ago
- Troy,Oakland,MI
 Business customer- Contract price not specified.
- (12 month contract)
- about 14 days
- Ameritech
- CLEC party: Ameritech
- "Lost our IP address"
- "Worst upgrade ever"
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Our business has had DSL from Ameritech for about 2 years. We received a call two weeks ago that we could change our service to twice as fast download (3.0 instead of 1.5) and lower monthly cost. We went ahead and signed up for this. For two weeks we check the speed meters and find no change and when they are called they keep pushing it out. Finally it is set for Jan.31 and again nothing. We call on Feb. 1 and the salesperson claims the order is shown as complete and we should see a difference. I decide to reboot the DSL modem to see if this makes a difference and what a shock. WE COMPLETELY LOSE CONTACT TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD!!!! I start digging in the modem configuration and notice a suspicious IP address. After messing around for close to an hour thinking the problem was on my end I call "tech support". I ask what our IP address is shown to be and she tells me the 5 static we have been assigned. HELLOOOOO?????? These are not our IP addresses we have had since signing up. How stupid can a company be? We paid for static IP addresses for a reason back when we signed up two years ago. Now we get this upgrade and they don't think there will be consequences if they change our static IP addresses? I start grilling the person about this and she keeps claiming she has no way to know what our old IP addresses were so she cannot confirm that our static addresses were changed.
Realizing this is getting me nowhere, I hang up and spend close to two hours totally reworking our internal LAN configuration to understand the new IP addresses and calling various network service suppliers on the phone so they can reconfigure their services to start communicating to our new IP addresses.
I am totally shellshocked at the stupidity of changing a customers static IP addresses with an upgrade and not thinking this would create complete chaos on our end. Now the kicker..... I still have exactly the same download speed as before the upgrade. I have not seen the slightest increase in speed. What a nightmare.
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain PacificLife.com)
lodged 8.4 years ago
- Lake Forest,Orange,CA
- $40 per month
- (12 month contract)
- Southwestern Bell
- CLEC party: Southwestern Bell
- "Its bad!!"
- "SBC clueless"
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I have finally received confirmation from SBC that they do in fact have a
Major DSL and voice phone outage in Lake Forest, California.
DSL tech support and the entire DSL side of SBC are totally 100% clueless of
any outage.
The voice phone side of SBC and the DSL side of SBC do not talk to each
other and relay outage information.
There is no communication whatsoever.
I spent numerous hours on the phone trying to get any information from SBC
DSL tech support on January 5th, 6th, and 7th.
On the 7th at 6pm I finally got confirmation that there was a major outage,
but only after I made the DSL tech support contact the voice support area
and confirm what I already knew - that there was an outage.
A major cable in Lake Forest, California on El Toro Blvd was severed (street
widening).
The technician who came to my house estimates 7000+ people are without phone
and DSL service.
Aside from the current outage - I have had no problem with SBC.
Now of course I am rethinking my decision of having phone and DSL service
with such a poorly managed company.
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 Review by toddbs98
member for 12.9 years, 3925 visits, last login: 1.6 years ago
updated 8.4 years ago
- North Little Rock,Pulaski,AR
- $45 per month
- about 7 days
- Southwestern Bell
- "It works"
- "Phone support, The Techs in the Forums are great!"
- "If you are within distance for the 6000/608 package,its a great value!"
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The service and support are ok. The billing can be a real nightmare but the Techs here in the forums are great go to them before you try to call in.
2-24-04
The customer service is just non-existant with SBC. Ordered their new 6000/608 tier and due date was 2-19-04. Still havent gotten speeds or any explaination as to what is happening. The tier one support is in India and the people are hard to understand and down right rude. The support on here is ok but over burdened, sometimes takes days for them to repond to questions. If SBC acted at all like they cared about your business this could be a great service.
2-26-04
Finally got speed upgrade today thanks to the hard work of one of the online techs,Only Me. If all of SBC's techs were this good, SBC could rule the world of broadband.
10-5-04
Had the 6000/608 service for 6 months now and love it. I average 5100/521 which i think is pretty good being 8000 feet from the CO. Once you get past getting any of the SBC services started its rock soild not had one minute of downtime in 6 months.
1-5-05 Well the stable connection is a thing of the past. For the past two months have had nothing but problems with frequent disconnects and slow speeds. My speed for a week never made it about dial-up speeds. But SBC never acknowledged a problem. If you take a look over at the SBC Direct forum you will see these problems are spread all over the SBC network.
As has been a problem with SBC for years tech support is non-existent. If you call in you get a script reader in India. Even the support here is poor anymore with waits of a week or more to get any help at all.
Can't recommend SBC DSL to anyone anymore.
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Review by agent0range
member for 8.5 years, 30 visits, last login: 8.3 years ago
lodged 8.5 years ago
- Crystal Lake,Mchenry,IL
- $26 per month
- "Cheap."
- "Horrible tech support and connection reliability."
- "Waste of a phone company."
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My 1500/384 connection never works at even half that speed.
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Review by lwaster
member for 12.3 years, 515 visits, last login: 4 days ago
updated 8.5 years ago
- Jonesboro,Craighead,AR
- $34 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 3 days
- Southwestern Bell
- "easy installation, better then cable in this area, good support"
- "that i wasnt close enough to get this service 2 years ago"
- "better then cable in my area, cheaper,faster,cleaner lines"
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21 mar 2003
just switched from cox highspeed to dsl and all i have to say is wow, but on a side note, i watched cox like a hawk, i intend to watch scbglobal the same way
i do all my work and play online, if there is a problem i ussally see it right away and start asking questions, if your service is great ill tell the whole world its great,,if it sucks ill tell the whole world it sucks
10 nov 2003
to thsi date i have found not one thing wrong with sbc's service, its still lightning fast,although the upload speed is a bit slow all in all the service is well worth the money,, great job guys
12 dec 2004
about 1 year ago i had to drop my dsl service from this company due to financal reasons, now im back and have to say many things have changed with SBC, and not for the better, ive had the dsl service back for about 1 1/2 months now and it started out rock solid, but in the last 2 weeks the system has slowly degraded
my download speeds have droped to dial up access speeds and it not only effects me it has effected numerous users in a very wide area, at first SBC blamed the problems on malware and virus's,now they are seeing a complete system failure in what seems to be about 3 to 4 states
tech suppport seems to have been cut back, and the only online tech's in the SBC forums seem to have had their wings cliped, like some kind of power struggle between them and the techs who are stationed at the company level and the people who are suffering are the paying ones
you might want to pass on getting service from SBC if you live in the southern regions of the USA, stay with your current provider untill SBC irons these problems out
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Review by DJboutit9
member for 8.8 years, 21 visits, last login: 5.2 years ago
lodged 8.6 years ago
- Houston,Harris,TX
- $39 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 7 days
- "Hardly any down time"
- "speed too slow"
- "speed is too slow is you are more than 2miles away same pirce as road runner"
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I got dsl in 99 speed was like 40k to 44k that was great then. About to 2 to 3 years later others in my area were getting like 100k to 125k or faster. So I called them out to make it faster. On the phone they said it might be need a new phone line or might be just a new modem. Thech came out and just gave us a new modem speed only jumped to about 80k a sec. I was think the would was replace to phone line did not so that sucked. I knew of two other swbell subscribers one was a 1/2 mile or less and other was about 1 1/2 mile away they both got full 150k a sec speed. If I got full speed I might not have droped them and switched to road runner which is the exact same price as swbell was $40 month weird. Swbell say for new subscriber they get it for $29.95 a month why the hell was I pay $40 when it was $30. I live like close to 3 miles away from the swithing station and never got full speed and like I said before other about the same distance away did get full speed.
In the Houston are the said 4 or more time they would be upgrading the service not once have they done anything mybe just a few more swithcing station. I guess all the talk in the newspaper was just garbage. The only good thing about the service was that hardly ever drop out if it did only for like 4hrs or less and the most recent 48hrs for no reasion and swbell users droped out too that is another reasion I switched to rr.
Botton line is if you live more that 2 miles away from the nearest swithcing station did get swbell you might not be able to full speeds ever. Also check how much the will charge you each moth if you will pay $40 go with road runner it might be the same price or only $5 more the speed is like 2 times faster if you go that way. I would reccommond every one to stay away from swbell and go with rr you will be much happier.
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 Review by eightyone x
member for 11 years, 3240 visits, last login: 13 days ago
updated 8.7 years ago
- undisclosed location
- $99999 per month
- (99999 month contract)
- about 999 days
- "He was a great musician"
- "too many damn cheeseburgers"
- "he's dead... get over it"
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The autopsy suggested that Elvis had overdosed on "significant amounts" of codeine, methaqualone, ethinamate, and miscellaneous barbiturates. There were also traces of morphine, Valium, Demerol, Meperidine, Placidyl, and chloropheniramine. The coroner also reported that Elvis' last meal had consisted of four scoops of ice cream and six chocolate chip cookies.
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Review by lazyazz3
member for 8.8 years, 1 visits, last login: 8.7 years ago
lodged 8.7 years ago
- Houston,Harris,TX
- Contract price not specified.
- Southwestern Bell
- CLEC party: Southwestern Bell
- "No longer with them"
- "Just about everything"
- "Get a cablemodem"
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Monthly Cost:
DSL 49.95
Discount -20.00
Basic Phone Service (I would not have it if I did not have DSL, so I consider it part of the DSL cost): around 22.00
TOTAL: 51.95
I pay 39.95 for Road Runner (plus $10 discounts for 6 months).
I had been a SWBell DSL customer (or slave - they do not know the difference) since 2000, when it was first available in my area. At first everything went well, no outages, good tech support, okay customer service, but the longer I had service, the more their services started to decline.
About a month and a half ago, my DSL Bridge (modem) went out so I called them up and requested a new one. They advised me that it would be a $79 charge. Well I insisted that I should not be charged for this equipment and told them if they wanted me as a customer, they should supply me with one. The CS rep said they could do that if I wanted to agree to a 12 month contract (I thought at that time that I was still under a contract and I would have to extend it). I laughed, said NO and hung up. I thought that I had an existing contract with about 4 months left on it, so I figured I would let it run out and also discontinue telephone service at that time. At that time I got Road Runner Cable service (I was going to as soon as the DSL service ran out anyway). BTW, it is so much better than DSL (in my experience anyway).
I called today to see exactly when my contract expired. Well 30 minutes and 5 CSR's later I found out that I am not under contract. So I disconnected all SBC services. JOY, JOY, JOY.
So if you’re indentured under a renewed SBC contract and want out, I would advise you to check and make sure that they have record of it. Hopefully it will work out for you like it did me.
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Review by luciji
member for 8.9 years, 7 visits, last login: 8.9 years ago
updated 8.9 years ago
- Allen,Collin,TX
- $36 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 14 days
- Southwestern Bell
- "At least my old Modem works with it"
- "Shabby customer service, less than high speed"
- "Great for second class citizens (like me I guess)"
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Being a longtime SWB DSL customer, I finally bit and decided to upgrade from the basic package (1.5MB/128KB) to the PRO package (3MB/356KB). Since my original install was wired directly to the CO, and my upgrade had to be wired to the RT (Remote Terminal), I was told that my DSL would be down for a week while the order processed. Reluctantly I agreed. My new package supposedly comes with a new modem and an install kit. I turned down the offer to buy their "two wire home portal" and asked for just the regular modem.
After the week passed we called to find out where our modem was, and was told we weren't getting one. "You have been disconnected". You do not have dsl service, and will not be getting a modem. Hmm. After placing our order again, we were told it would be another week. We again turned down the offer of the "two wire home portal" and asked for the regular modem. BTW, don't think this was a one phone call kind of thing. This was a several call kind of thing, the kind of thing where you hold for a long time and then get dropped at quitting time.
Our new service was turned up exactly 14 days after "upgrading". No sign of any package in the mail. When called, we were told that we didn't need a new modem. Then we were offered the "two wire home portal again". When we told them we wanted the regular modem, we were then told that we turned that down already. Huh? When we called again, We were told that it had shipped out, and that we had already signed for it. Huh? They kindly transferred us to their shipping department so that the person there could tell us who signed for it. That kind person admitted that they never shipped us anything, and offered to put us back in touch with the order folks. Still don't have that modem. I'll get it though. You can bet on it. But as bad as that was, that wasn't the worst part.
Prior to "upgrading" to the high speed dis-service, I was getting 1.45 MB download speeds. Anxious to test my new connection, I hooked up my old dsl modem and was shocked to see that I graduated up to 1.1 MB. Huh? Paying more,getting less. After calling tech support (somewhere in India) I get some yahoo that tells me that this is normal, that I should leave my modem on for the next ten days, and they will run tests and "equalize the line". Righhhtttttt. I understand this is BS. I am connected to an RT. This step is not needed.
After talking with an ex-employee of the company he gives me the scoop. Seems they don't like to allocate the bandwidth, even after you pay for it. They make you call them several times and complain before they actually change your profile on the Redback to the higher capacity 3MB. Incredible. The trick is, you have to ask your Indian first tier support person to connect you with 2 tier support. After you get the 2nd tier support person, you tell them the problem, and suggest that they change your profile on the Redback server. Don't get off the phone with them until they say it is complete (1-2 minutes) and you verify with a speed test. My speed increased to 2.3MB. It isn't 3 but it is better. It falls in the "acceptable" category for SWB, and they will not undertake any effort to improve it once it does. It is up to you to determine if the extra speed is worth the extra cash.
All in all, a pretty horrible experience. I have apologized to my family numerous time for the disruption. If I had to do it again (God forbid) I wouldn't. I'd rather poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick. Less painful. The saddest thing about this is that it is all true.
UPDATE!!!
COULD IT GET ANY WORSE? Stay tuned...
I promised I would get my modem, and I did. After being told again how I had turned it down several times already, I was put through to the equipment order department where they read my records and apologized for all the trouble and promised to get it out to me right away. A very pleasant experience.
It arrived, I installed it, and was satisfied with my 2.5MB d/l and 356KB u/l speed. For about one week. That's when SWB struck again. Apparently my call to ask for my modem triggered some phone answerer to put in another order that capped my speed back to 1.5 MB. Can you believe it? It gets better. When the speed change kicks in, not only does it drop my speed down, it makes my connection totally unreliable. I start getting speeds in the low KBs (15KB to 60KB d/l). Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the speed jumps as high as 1MB for short durations. My d/l will hang waiting to be spurred on. Web pages time out, dns servers not found, etc.
So, I call the business office. A very nice person tells me we need to put in a change/modify order. Fine. He gives no estimate on when it will be back up. He recommends I contact Tech Support to make sure their end is set up right (huh, isn't that HIS job?). Wanting my internet back, I do. After being routed through India, 20 minutes later I'm speaking with another pleasant person who checks my profile, see's where I was screwed up by the biz office, and explains there is nothing he can do. He runs a test or two to determine why my line went flaky as soon as they capped my speed. He suggests I contact the ASI Folks and see if they can help me. Ha! So, I do. This nice person explains how I got screwed by the biz office, and that they can't do much until the order from same makes it to them. Then THEY send an email to another group that writes marching orders for the folks at the NOC. He suggested I call back in the morning, and it should be fixed by then. It wasn't. It isn't now either. After 4 calls to the ASI folks, getting a different story every time, I now have a firm commitment that I will be called by 10 in the morning to be told when to expect it to be fixed. Lovely.Still thinking about ordering from SWB? Re-read this message!!! The last guy suggested I may be being unreasonable. Do you think so?
FINAL UPDATE
Did they call before 10 the next morning? No. They finally called late in the afternoon and spoke with my wife. By the time I returned home from work, the service was restored, mostly. The top speed dropped slightly from what it was before they "accidentally" bumped me down. Also, now I have a stutter during downloads. Although I have emailed a tech support person with these complaints, I don't hold much hope of anything being done about them. In fact, I am now scared to call them for any type of service or assistance, which I am sure was the point.
So my service is restored. It only ate up a few hours of my finite existence on this planet. Am I happy? Nope. I am the customer that is scared of my supplier. I know what they can do when angered (or even mildly annoyed). If you have alternatives, select them. Don't think "this can't happen to me".
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