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 Review by McSummation 
UPDATED: 341 days ago
member for 6.2 years, 3038 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Round Rock,Williamson,TX
 $30 per month
 Southwestern Bell
 "I've got a rock solid connection, now that I've added a NID splitter and home-run."
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I'm running on the Speedstream 5100b modem into a AirLink101 AR430W router. I'm now on the 3 mbps plan. It works great, even when I'm running 200K CRC errors/24 hours (thunderbumpers).
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 Review by ehansman
UPDATED: 343 days ago
member for 7.8 years, 2069 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Fulton,Callaway,MO
$44 per month (12 month contract)
 about 7 days
Southwestern Bell
"Can't beat the speed - and the wireless rocks!"
 "Tech Support is iffy at times, but you probably won't need to call."
 "Still works for me."
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Updated 12/19/08:
Nothing new to report. Still no issues; would still recommend the Direct forum before calling anyone.
Updated 5/19/08:
Still enjoying the service. Would definitely recommend using the Direct forum before calling in.
Updated 9/10/07:
Just got off the phone with technical support - it was the most painless call I've made to AT&T so far. The off-shore technician was very polite and escalated my issue immediately to the maintenance department after running some line tests. The truck roll is scheduled for tomorrow.
Updated 1/9/05:
Still running well - had a problem with my (grandfathered) settings dropping off for about 2 weeks - one post to the forums here solved my problem. Kudos to the SBC Direct forum for their consistently good (and speedy!) performance.
Recently added the XBox to the network...it's plugged directly into the HomePortal and shows no perceptible lag on XBox Live (Halo 2).
Updated 3/14/04:
All problems resolved...service is wonderful. As my husband says, "It's like you expect the Internet to be." I have been getting about 4100/535 consistently for about a week. Can't beat it.
Thanks SBC for 2+ years of great connectivity! Keep it up!
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I have had DSL through Southwestern Bell for two years and was one of the first to install in this part of Missouri. I work for a university in the IT department, so I have not needed to contact support...until our recent move.
I took the plunge and upgraded to Expert Plus, as I am online for school, work, etc. virtually all of the time when I am home. When we moved, we chose to upgrade all of the internal wiring to the phones - something I would recommend to anyone looking to make their life easier in the long run! There was an initial mix-up on the line speed, and when I called to find out what was going on I found out there was also a problem with a splice on the line. The technician - who I had called on a Sunday morning! - called that afternoon to let me know they had contacted the local CO to have someone come out and fix the line. By noon on Monday, I was running at about 4000 down/500 up.
I have told so many people in the area about the service, and have succeeded in getting 5 people to make the switch over the past year to SBC. I love it. Would never go back to dial-up.
If you can get SBC, get them...the speeds are great, I don't have any major problems, and the wireless is almost too easy to set up. Forget cable - go DSL!
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 Review by NAK
UPDATED: 361 days ago
member for 8.9 years, 2719 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Fort Worth,Tarrant,TX
$15 per month
about 4 days
Southwestern Bell
"Painless sign up and connection . . .online a day earlier than promised."
"Sent me a MAC install kit, I had to have my house fumigated."
"Should have done it months ago."
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Upgrade to U-verse internet and TV service on 11/2008 see that review
1500/128 package, dynamic IP, PPPoE, Self-Install, $20/month discount for the 1st 3 months.
Absolutely painless sign up and setup. They gave me a turn-on date 5 days away. The self instal kit they sent was for a MAC, even though I specified PC; this did not cause any problems, since all I needed was the modem & jack filters. I plugged the modem in the day before the turn-on date and the "DSL" light came on immediately. The on-line setup was a breeze.
I was a victim of the @home die-off and have been unhappily surviving on Charter Pipeline since November. I should have made the change months ago. My speeds are rock solid at 1175/135 with great pings.
News Server access is MUCH BETTER than Charter. Minimum sustained news download speed is around 450 kbps with peaks over 1000 kpbs.
7/16/2003 - Changed over to $29.95 for the next year. Still rock solid service.
4/23/2005 - Best provider I have ever used!!! Upload speed has increased twice since I signed up, price has dropped.
I have only needed to call support once and it turned out to be a line problem.
11/06/2007 - Maybe updating my review will stop those annoying system messages for a while. Move about 4 months ago...but only about 1/2 a mile. My DSL was active as soon as the phone line was live.
Still the best ISP I have used and a good value for the money.
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Review by bobojay
UPDATED: 363 days ago
member for 7.4 years, 1060 visits, last login: 71 days ago
Lansing,Leavenworth,KS
$30 per month
about 8 days
Southwestern Bell
"Excellent Speed & Service so far...."
"none so far, except software a little quirky..."
"Would do it again in a second!"
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Express Pkg. Ordered. Dynamic IP $14.99 per mo. for 1 yr. then goes to $29.99 per mo.
Order and install process went flawlessly. Works better than expected so far, no problems at all! Speedstream 4100 Modem. Now I'm going to work on making a dedicated DSL line to the modem instead of using the included filters..........
Update:Upgraded to PRO a few weeks back. We are about 13,500' from the CO on 50 year old copper. Working perfectly, and has been with only one short 12hr glitch in the 2.5yrs. we had this service.....
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Review by fgb59h
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 7.1 years, 2366 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Hurst,Tarrant,TX
$25 per month
about 7 days
Southwestern Bell
"Speed, setup, reliability"
"Ordering, setup (Yahoo)"
"Good so far, but 5100 got hot and had to be replaced"
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Update 11/2008: Still with SBC (now AT&T) DSL. Has been rock solid. I have the DSL-express package - 1500 down / 385 up and have consistently received approx. 1200 down and 320-340 up.
One complaint - I started in 2003 @ $35/mo which gradually went down to $15/mo (with contract) and has crept back to $25/mo without contract. 2 rate increases in less than a year. Not sure which way things are headed but cable internet is beginning to come into play again!as always. I don't need any higher speeds!
2003 Review:
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I had Charter Pipeline 768/128 "Silver" package @ $30 / mo. with my cable bundle. I usually got 750-800 but the service disconnected once every 2-3 days and required the modem to be rebooted. This plus the poor reception quality of their analog channels was why I decided to drop them. I opted for Dish Network for my TV service.
SBC DSL Order process took over 25 mins while the rep. went through numerous screens and put me on hold several times. Received package after 4 working days. Did not include the ethernet card although I had requested one. I had read the emails about the Yahoo! junk but decided to follow their instrcutions and use the installation CD on my old AMD K6-2/400 Win 98 SE with an ethernet-to-usb adapter. The installation took a l-o-n-g 20 mins but was otherwise uneventful. DSL worked exactly as advertised although the speed was 450-500 kbps. Compared to my first cable internet setup, this was a breeze. Called SBC to confirm that I indeed had the right package and told me to wait 10 days for the speed to improve.
No change in speed even after 3 days but the connection had been rock steady. Went ahead and changed the settings on the router attached to my main P4/Win-XP computer and attached the DSL modem. Internet connection established immediately and the speed was 1200/130.
Service has stayed at the same speed with only one exception. After a week, I had come home in the evening to check my email and realized it was very slow. Speed checks showed a download speed of only 50 kbps. Rebooted dsl modem and everything was fine. My wife reported the same problem the following morning except that the service would simply not reconnect. It did reconnect after nearly 3 hours but has been steady during the last 48 hours. Any one know why this happens and why a modem reboot fixes things?
Update (5/14/03) - Thanks to BeachBoy, an SBC tech visited my house about a week back. Signal strength and download speeds were ok when he came but the 5100 modem felt warm/hot to the touch and so he replaced it with a Speedstream 5260. We haven't had any slowdowns since then. Have others reported issues with the 5100?
Thanks Beachboy.
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 Review by txspike
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 7.6 years, 536 visits, last login: 279 days ago
Fort Worth,Tarrant,TX
$39 per month (24 month contract)
about 2 days
Southwestern Bell
"Service is getting better. fast service"
"none so far"
"OK service"
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11-2008
came back to dsl after charter was doing bad service n price.
att is lot cheap by 20.00 n about same speed, n better connection
..............
Was a fast install from order to install, to online. Had trouble when installing and was sent the wrong version for my system had a replacement sent out with outme having to send back the wrong modem. Lady was very friendly when fixing this.
The bad part of this was when they had an upgrade sept-Oct for the SBC/yahoo browser,blocker,etc, IT WAS BAD! had to go back to what i had before.
**********
Update 4-2004
Well just an update , there speed is ok. The Tech Support/Call Center is not the best, as there outside of the USA, hard to here and understand.
There STATUS page is rarly update ontime MANY hours or days etc.
EMAIL , OMG is lets say so so. Bulf Mail is ok, but needs some work on many isssues in it.
Oh and when you email support, you get an auto responce to your question, no matter what you ask.
But over all it is ok as of 2004.
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 Review by Hugh Janus
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 7.3 years, 2191 visits, last login: 11 days ago
Frisco,Collin,TX
$35 per month (12 month contract)
about 15 days
Southwestern Bell
"Elite service is awesome"
"None"
"Very satified SBC customer"
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I have been very satisfied with SBC DSL. I ordered because of the promotion that SBC had. Free modem and $29.99 for 6 months. I just could not pass it up. I have had one interuption that lasted 30 minutes but all was fixed.
2/14/2003 - Still very satisfied with the package from SBC. Its been rock solid for months now with no outages and the speed is the same as was advertised.
04-01-2003 - Well after moving I find out that SBC only services the leasing offices and not the tennants. Thank you SBC for the great service. I will continue to refer people that live in the service area to you.
11/08/2007 - Currently on the Elite package. No complaints here.
11/12/2008 - Now a Uverse customer and have no complaints. Still satisfied. Wish the box was closer so I could get two HD streams.
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 Review by boheeber
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 9 years, 2681 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Spring,Harris,TX
$29 per month (12 month contract)
about 14 days
AT&T
"Fast"
"Robotic tech support"
"Worth it if you have patience"
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I've had SBC DSL since July of 99 (I am still a DHCP customer as of this writing), and everything has been smooth with two exceptions: (1) Every now and then, SBC thinks I am a PPPoE customer and makes a change where I can suddenly not access the net or email or anything else. I have to call SBCIS and try to explain my situation and have to play "power off your modem, reboot, blah blah blah", until I finally get them to escalate my ticket. Once ASI gets ahold of it, they immediately see what's happening and restore me and all is well--for about 6 months or so. Then the same cycle occurs again. I guess SBC will be forcing all us early adopters to go to PPPoE at some point, and that's not a huge problem, but I would appreciate a heads up before they just randomly change me. (2) The migration to Yahoo was a nightmare. I had 6 different tickets open before my email problems were resolved. I have been an swbell.net client since my dialup days (1995). When I went to DSL, I kept my user@swbell.net email address that I always had, UNTIL the Yahoo nightmare. Now I receive email on a Yahoo server but send it on a Prodigy server. As long as it works, I'm happy, but it took FOREVER to get it configured.
Update 2/23/04: I signed up for the Expert Plus package, which required me to disconnect my DSL for 2 weeks (I was too far from the CO). I was reconnected on an RT and my speeds are FAST! I am now a PPPoE customer, which is painless since I use a router, and I did have to rewire the POTS splitter in my house because the Alcaltel 1000 modem and the Speedstream 5100 modem I received use different wiring configurations, but at least I didn't have to use the line filters. It was difficult having only dialup service for 2 weeks, but the end result was worth it. The one call I had to make to tech support was unsatisfactory because I was forced to change my email address which I had for 9 years, and I don't think the tech (offshore?) understood my request. All in all, the speed increase more than makes up for that inconvenience.
Update 4/30/2006: I called and asked to be re-rated from Expert Plus (44.99 per month) to the new Elite Plan (29.99 per month for a 12-month contract). I was told that this will be done on 5/2/2006 with very little interruption to my service. Same download speeds as before, with a slight increase in the upload. I'll post back with any thoughts or problems once I go "live".
Update 5/02/2006: Looks like a lot of us are having a problem with the upgrade to Elite. My modem stats show 6018/768, but every speed test I run shows my download speed to be about 2500, which is 1/2 of what it was yesterday, or for the past 2 years for that matter. I have requested assistance from SBC Direct, but the forum looks awfully busy with others having similar issues. I'll give them another day to respond before I start dealing with the frustration of calling tech support and being asked to reboot my PC and power off my modem.
Update 5/03/2006: No response from SBC Direct (in their defense the forum is loaded with "Upgrade failed" posts), so I called SBCIS and talked with "Kevin" (and if that is his real name I'm the king of England). "Kevin" insisted the problem was on my end (my inside wiring, my router, etc.) until he tried to get me to "maintenance" and the guy who answered (David) told him that he needed to get me corrected on the redback. "Kevin" agreed to send my ticket to Tier 2, and David was nice enough to check later and make sure the download speed was correct, even calling my wife and having her run a speed test to confirm all was as it should be.
Why AT&T couldn't have educated the frontline reps that people calling about a loss in speed after an "upgrade" needed to automatically go to Tier 2 is a mystery to me. But so is the fact that so many users had the same issue I did and AT&T did nothing proactive to get the download speeds correct.
Bottom line--I love the new lower price and I am guessing that all will be OK going forward. It didn't need to be this difficult, but I guess AT&T didn't expect the demand they got for this offering.
Update 11/09/2008: I have transitioned to U-Verse service, with the 10/1.5 DSL speeds and U-400 television. VOIP is not yet available here, but I prefer having POTS service anyway. The total install took almost an entire day, but there was a lot of work to be done, including running a coax cable from the back of my home to the front, where the PC is located. All in all, I am pleased with the service. Every now and then the TV will show a glitch or two, although less than those that occurred with DISH service. DSL speeds are consistently about 8.5 down and 1.4 up. On the whole though, I am pleased with the service thus far.
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Review by Txtazzi
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 7.8 years, 969 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Brenham,Washington,TX
$24 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
AT&T
"Very fast, more than reliable than not..."
"Tech's that aren't helpful on 1st call..."
"Worth the price!"
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I bought a house here in Brenham, only bad thing is I'm at the end of the line for DSL they say. I get 1.3/325 on a regular basis, it's fast enough for me, but would like faster. Until they install the fiberoptic that a local who works for AT&T says that they intend to do sometime in 09', plus I would probaly run butt naked in the snow if Uvers were to come my way...LOL Haven't had hardly any problem's since I moved here, very few outtages and if there were any they were short, tech support is better now that they actually speak english, and the price is reasonable...
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Review by josephr
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 1.9 years, 22 visits, last login: 310 days ago
Birmingham,Jefferson,AL
$20 per month (24 month contract)
about 2 days
AT&T
"customer service"
"actual service"
"not much choices in dsl providers"
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I've had bellsouth/at&t DSL service 5 years now and the customer service has always been good in terms in being friendly, helpful, and getting folks out to check out problems where they've been.
However, ACTUAL DSL service has really sucked...I mean, subscribed to DSL lite which is 756/128k service but my dload speed I don't think has even been above 600 and actually averages around 350bkps. My upload speed has consistently averaged 107kbps. I'm 6000 feet from the DSLAM, and everytime I call, the "technicians make adjustments in the system" but heck if I've ever seen it at home. I've even bought a new modem, ran new wires from my home box to my modem, and even had a friend bring over his gaming computer to run the speed tests and ain't nothing happening, baby. I've had a couple of outages lately, but when we tech does come out, he always checks the box and checks back at the DSLAM and says it must be somthing at the central office....he calls it in to the CO and he invariably says some wires got crossed, I have to beleive 'em because the service comes back, but then the snail's pace DSL service is still ungodly slow for what I should be.
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AT&T Southwest
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