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 Review by ZeCanard 
UPDATED: 1.2 years ago
member for 7.1 years, 672 visits, last login: 48 days ago
 Austin,Travis,TX
 $35 per month (12 month contract)
 about 12 days
 AT&T
 "Fast, solid connection."
 "Sales and tech support reps are slimy."
 "Don't go with them."
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Called Friday 2/7 around 7pm to place my order. On Tuesday 2/11 (2 business days later) I received my SpeedStream modem and it synched when I plugged it in. I was only supposed to have my line provisioned on the 14th! That was quite amazing. I thought it was fast when Covad took only 3 days to provision my line, and 5 more days to have my modem delivered to me! Signing up was a breeze, although the signup site did hang at the end (it was working so no biggie).
Speed is slow right now at 164kbps, but I'll allow until the 24th for them to ramp up my speed to 384kbps. At that point I'll try to talk to some techs to test me at a higher speed if possible. 13k feet is a long way, but I used to get 1Mbps with Covad before (no clue why I switched to Hellink Cable) so I don't see any reason I should be stuck with up-to-384 now when the 384-1.5/128 is available for the same price with a year contract.
Setting up email and such was quite confusing at first, but was resolved easily by checking the support (maze) pages. Also knowing what login name and what login pages to use can be confusing at first as well, but no biggie.
News server is very subpar, with many missing groups, but I was not expecting much on that side, and I don't use Usenet all that much anyway.
I do enjoy the fact that we have local DNS servers, only 3 hops away (totally different from all other ISP's I've had), at 25ms (21ms gateway hop).
Only things I had a problem with: online order showed 768-1.5/256 was available at my location, but phone line does not belong to me (requires SSN) so I had to call them. The lady on the phone told me up to 384 was my only option at my distance (after telling me I was getting 384-1.5/128). Other thing: she did not even mention the speed until I asked her what speed it would be. She was going to sign me up for a service without even giving me any details, after only hearing "I would like to sign up for SBC DSL."
Also, she did not give me the choice of making month-to-month payments. I knew I wanted a year-long contract anyway, but not everyone who calls to sign up for service knows exactly what their options are, and they count on the SR to provide them with the information.
The only time when she asked me for my opinion was whether I wanted to get a $99 minus rebate router/DSL modem combo. But she didn't even give me any options at that point (getting a DSL modem for free).
But those things I'm not overly concerned with. I just hope I get what I need.
2/16/03 Update: Ramp up process going great, suddenly my download went up to 325kbps and upload 137kbps! Pings dropped a couple ms too, and are even better than they already were.
8/13/2003 update: I signed up with them again after a year with Road Runner. Lie after lie after lie. Better to talk to a wall. Once my contract is up, I'm cancelling for sure.
8/22/2008 update: I called to switch to DSL-Only (Yahoo High Speed Direct) to drop my monthly phone charge. I have now been without Internet for 12 days. After 4 hours (and counting) on the phone, no one has been able to tell me what the hold up is with my order.
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Review by kws7114
UPDATED: 1.3 years ago
member for 7.5 years, 128 visits, last login: 5 days ago
Newton,Harvey,KS
$59 per month (month by month)
about 3 days
AT&T
"Solid connectivity and excellent Tier 2 support"
"SBC was more personal than AT&T"
"AT&T maintains me as a happy customer"
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I have been on the same IP range for over 6 yrs now with the best service anyone could dream of for connectivity. Not many people have static accounts at home, but the experience is incredible. swbell was my carrier when I signed up for the service. I've been on broadband since I could afford it, but close to 10 yrs now, if not more. When Speedstream 6260 was king. I am still using my original modem. The package I have is 3mb/512. I presently get excellent speeds most always around 3Mb. I am consistently able to upload at 410Kb.
Best experience was working with the technicians when I was literally ripped from their servers with a different IP range to the one I have now. If anyone knows about IRC networks, the bots and their masters were withering in their attacks in early 2002. By the time I got help, the technician could see I was dropping packets and the stream was relentless. The technician saw to the switch from one router to another and I have had excellent connectivity ever since.
AT&T HSI Pro-S . Only time I am down is when I lose electricity at the modem.
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Review by rogun
UPDATED: 1.3 years ago
member for 8.6 years, 196 visits, last login: 1 year ago
Little Rock,Pulaski,AR
$35 per month (12 month contract)
about 45 days
Southwestern Bell
"More reliable, and with less content filtering, then Comcast"
"NSA spy scandal, pricing, high spam level"
"Not happy, but for the most part, better than Comcast"
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Updated on 8-4-2008:
I'm in my eighth year of service with AT&T and have seen both improvements, as well as digressions, during that time. My biggest complaint concerns the NSA spy scandal, which I won't go into here, other then to say that I REALLY don't like that AT&T broke the law and allowed Big Brother to spy on it's users.
Other then that, service has been acceptable -- not great -- during that time. I don't care for some of AT&T's other political motives either, but it's service is fairly reliable, even though it does seem to get worse all the time. In fact, I actually lost my connection while updating this review!
Due to my job, I had to switch to AT&T wireless a few months back and have a few criticisms to make about it, as well. The main, of which, is the pricing and the vague information given on pricing. Other then having to pay far too much for necessary services, I'm otherwise pretty happy with it, except that I don't like having to constantly watch my back to ensure that AT&T isn't trying to steal my wallet.
The bottom line is that while I'm far from a being a happy customer, and will likely switch services just as soon as I discover something better, AT&T is the best option available to me currently. Though I have my complaints with Comcast, also, I'd switch my internet, and probably phone, to Comcast in a minute, except that my past experience with Comcast resulted in me paying for services that were never provided and a followed by a just complaint to my LFA. So, I'm stuck with AT&T for now, but I'm ready to switch when other, better options are available, which I doubt will be long.
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I've been waiting for broadband access in my neighborhood for atleast 5 years now (since before @HOME even existed.) Needless to say I am estatic to finally be plugged in.
When I ordered the basic service package the person I spoke with promised to call me back with all the details (connection date, etc.) They never did call back, but I knew my order had been placed, so I decided to be patient and expected many delays, similiar to what I've been reading about on dslr. About 4 weeks after placing my order I finally received the software in the mail, but it took another couple of weeks to get the hardware. I doubt it would have done any good had I received it all earlier regardless, because I later found out they hadn't finished the upgrade (project pronto) in my neighborhood at the time of my order.
I had no problems whatsoever hooking everything up and installing the software and it all worked immediately w/o having to call, which I really appreciated considering I did this late at night. Right now I just have it connected to one computer using the supplied Enternet software because I wanted to make sure it was working properly before connecting it to my home network. So far the service has been pretty excellent, with download speeds at 1.2Mbps, but I'm only getting uploads at 80kbs (update: after some tweaking I'm now able to get closer to 1.4Mbps down and 136kbps up.) Also I find my self waiting for a response more than I'd like and am wondering if there's anything I can do about it (update: This was apparently a temporary problem as I haven't noticed it since.) Other than that everything has gone about as well as I'd hoped and I'm very pleased.
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Now that I've had service for a couple of months I thought I'd update my review. So far I can say that I've been extremely pleased with the service I've received. It's as good as I'd hoped and better than I'd expected to receive. I can't really comment much on the tech support because I've never called them. In fact, I haven't talked with anyone from Southwestern Bell since the day I ordered the service. I always expect to receive poor tech support for anything related to computers anyhow and I never expected Southwestern Bell to be any different, but since I don't rely on it this was never an issue for me.
I'm now using a dsl router/switch which keeps my connection live, so I don't have the problems with Enternet (although I never had any problems before I bought the router either.) Every now and then I'll lose my WAN connection for a minute or two, but I'm actually surprised it's been as reliable as it has. After reading all the bad stories about long outages I was expecting some, but so far it hasn't happened and I haven't been offline for more than a couple of minutes. Download rates have been pretty close to what was advertised and I only wish more servers would support my bandwidth now. Overall I'm very pleased with both the speed I'm getting and and the reliability of the connection. As long as everything stays the same I'll continue to be very satisfied, but if I had to I now have the opportunity to switch to cable service, since Comcast has begun to offer it's broadband services in my neighborhood. So far this has by far been the best experience I've ever had with any access provider, but I'm gonna shut up now before I jinx myself.
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DSLR requested that I update my review, so here it is:
It's hard to believe that it's been less than four years since I first received dsl service from SBC. I feel like I've had dsl forever and I wouldn't know what to do without some sort of broadband service. For the most part, SBC has provided a good service, that I've been fairly satisfied with using. However, it has had it's downfalls and I've recently learned of some things which put the service I receive from SBC in a different light.
To be exact, there are two things I've learned recently about SBC which greatly disappoint me. The first is that SBC doesn't seem committed to upgrading it's service to provide the best service possible. I'm aware of other providers that are doing much more and who's future plans far exceed those of SBC. If not for the second reason, I would expect to switch providers at some point in the near future, since other providers will likely be offering a better service soon. But because of the second reason, I'm looking at switching providers asap.
The second reason (the big one!) really, really makes me angry and dissatisfied with SBC. What could be so bad? Well, it's come to my attention (and this is easily verified) that SBC is not sincere about it's stated intention to block spam from it's network. Spammers love SBC because SBC loves them! SBC is one of the top networks when it comes to allowing spammers to use it's network for sending out unrequested spam email. Although SBC pretends to be doing all it can to block spam, and although it offers tools for you to fight spam on your own, it could probably cut the amount of spam it's customers receive in half if it were only slightly serious. Instead, SBC is greedy and refuses to block it's customers who are well-known and documented spammers, because SBC makes a lot of money from selling spammers the high-end services they need to send out bulkmail. Thus, SBC is a part of the spam problem; and not just for SBC customers, but for email users everywhere.
Obviously, this makes me very angry and I refuse to support a company that supports spamming. Because of it, I'll be switching to another broadband provider as soon as my contract is up. This disappoints me because I had been a pretty satisfied SBC customer from the beginning and have always considered SBC one of the better broadband providers, until finding out about it's support for spammers. Now I won't use or recommend SBC to anyone until SBC stops supporting spammers and I hope you will do the same, unless you will enjoy receiving more spam than you're receiving with your current isp.
Note: The spam problem isn't something that SBC is having trouble containing. It's a problem that SBC promotes because it makes money by selling services to well-known spammers. To those of you who have replied with skepticism about my claim, my reply to you is that SBC's spam problem is well-documented and widely known by every organization that monitors spam.
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 Review by BUGZILLA 57
UPDATED: 1.3 years ago
member for 5.4 years, 1744 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Pflugerville,Travis,TX
$30 per month (12 month contract)
AT&T
"meow (cats ass)"
"none yet"
"supoib deel!"
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Reliable service. Excellent customer support once you get past the first tier jokers.
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 Review by Billusa
UPDATED: 1.3 years ago
member for 9.7 years, 726 visits, last login: 10 days ago
Dallas,Dallas,TX
$19 per month (12 month contract)
about 8 days
Southwestern Bell
"Consistency of speed, BBR & ASI tech support, POP & web mail access"
"I moved a block away and lost RT access -- have to go to the CO now instead!"
"Fair value for money, still"
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I've been a customer since DSL was rolled out in Dallas in early 2000. I was DHCP on Win2K then. I got a new NID, 5660 router and home run installed free, plus the first 3 months free, for a 1 yr contract. They had great deals back then for new customers.
We were currently using the Pro package (3000/512) and then we moved 1 block away to our new home, which was all wired for cat-6 too. Then SBC said we would be dropping back to the Express package due to the fact we would be connected to the CO at ~10,500 feet away! They could not keep us hooked up to the same RT because it was in another service area quadrant (or whatever they actually call it)!
So, now we are capped at 768 down and 384 up after using 3000/512 for almost a year.
5/30/2006 -- well, they have been able to uncap me so I get full Express speeds, but still no Pro available here.
10/26/2006 -- 2 months after Beach Boy assisting me with continual speed degradation issues, I am solidly locked into 1270/330, give or take a few points. Very satisfied, but I hope to hell that the "new" at&t gets Lightspeed, or an RT here, so I can get off the CO!
07/22/08 -- still no RT and no way we are dumping DirecTV to get uVerse speed.with their TV.
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 Review by KPSlider
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 9.2 years, 897 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Hurst,Tarrant,TX
$24 per month
about 14 days
Southwestern Bell
"Works when the phone doesn't"
"It's been so long, I forgot if there were any."
" A great deal considering whats available."
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I've had SBC DSL service for quite awhile. It's been now 7+ yrs. I got it when it was 39.95 per month with a one yr contract. Speed 1.5/ 128. PPPoE software. I'm on my 3rd router I have a SpeedStream 5100 DSL modem. I'm listed 11,500 from the CO.
It was a little rough in the beginning. I placed my order over the phone. The woman I talked to answered all my questions thoroughly and she was pretty professional in all. On any question that I asked and she didn't have an answer for, instead of winging it she was quite up front to say she didn't really know. Which in my opinion is good.
I got my equipment 3 days after my call order but I missed my visit with the install techs on the 4th day because I wasn't home. I set-up a day to install it when I ordered the service but they arrived at my residence a day earlier than I expected. After calling back that afternoon I made sure that we were still on for my actual install date. It gave me time to replace all my inside phone lines with Cat5 cable and I was ready.
Well my install date came around "I took a vac day" and I got a call at 2pm that day saying they weren't going to make it. WELL, after getting irate with the caller and popping off an email to SWB saying *#$@*! and that, a guy came out about 5 pm and tested my line to see if all was well. He kept saying that they were going to come out but I didn't think they would. They did show up, at 8:45pm that night looking like they had been worked over. They were very professional and courteous. I had already set everything up and already installed the software so it only took them 20 min to have everything going. It would of probably taken less but the Head Tech was on his cell talking to another tech whom was stuck with a problem install. After giving them a couple of Dr. Peppers and many, many thanks for coming so late I was on my way.
In the whole time I've had SBC DSL service it has only been down one time and it was only for about 3-4 hrs. I've had a few problems with connectivity but after a quick call to ASI the problem was solved. Turned out that they were working on the lines! The ASI tech even called me back to see if all was well. Great guys!
My phone has been out of service in this time period at least 5 times for about 3 days at a time but I ALWAYS have had my DSL service. Really in all a good ride. Thanks for reading this.
Update: Upgraded to the 1.5 down / 256up package Jan-2003. The download is still the same but I believe that the faster upload has made a big difference. Ping times {not as many fluctuations} and latency is a lot better when playing online multiplayer games. I should of gotten this earlier! heh. NICE!
Update: Feb 2004: Its been almost 4 years and I can't say how great SBC DSL is. It's never been down since "God knows when". My On-line gaming is always consistent. Pings are always better than my Cable buddies. 8-) The newer packages are getting better and better. What more can I say. When its good....it's GREAT. Thank You SBC!
Update: March 2004: I've tried to update to a new speed tier "Expert+" Unfortunately that I don't qualify for the 6mb down, only the 3mb. Why pay more for a 1/3rd speed increase? 8-(
Update Nov. 2004: Still chugging long. Nothing much has changed. Still have the Deluxe package. Connection is always up, never down. Well, it was down only once and it was this month. And it was only for about 3 hrs due to a Red Back failure. My only complaint would be the latency with On-Line Gaming. Too many nights the lag is awful.
Update Dec 2007. Upgraded to Pro package (3m/512) sometime in '05. Until they install a R/T in my neighborhood or U-verse becomes available I'm at the top of my speed tier. I average 2485/435 on speed test. If one thing that has helped with our DSL experiance is that AT&T replaced the main cable on the pole early in mid 2006. Our service has been great ever since. Haven't had any issues in a good while other than a little laggy on games some nights but Net traffic can vary. I'm just greatful for DSLreports for their broadband info, tips and great forums from ISP help/info to Digital Imaging and local area forums.
Update July 2008:
We had U-verse installed on Sat June 28. We set it up for this day, 3 weeks after signing up. The Tech called 30 min ahead of the scheduled time. It was 7:30 am and they were here at 8am, for when they were scheduled. They did their work first at the cross-box and the v-rad then came up to the house and and checked the signal at the NID first before starting work. Well, they got their wires crossed somewhere and couldn't get a signal. This happened twice but they got it worked out. Something about the ports for my line weren't ID'd correctly.
I had ran a direct line (home run) some years back for my dsl with Cat5 so that sped things up. So they changed my single RJ-11 port in our office to a duel port and checked the u-verse signal and all was a go! They installed the 2wire modem first, which after some time turned out had an issue, they switched it with another and that one worked just fine. The 2wire 3800hgv's are quite large! So be aware about that. Configuring the wireless is quite painless, I have a netgear wgr614 that configures the same so I didn't have any issues. Just had to re-configure 2 laptops, 1 wireless Dell print server and 1 Sony PSP. Boom! done. The wired PC's weren't an issue, there are 3 of those. Plug and play for those.
Next was the DVR unit. That was kind of quirky also, because the unit kept giving an error code and after several re-boots of the modem, and restarting the DVR several times...nota. They even got 2 tier support to check it on their end. So they changed out the DVR with another and it worked just fine. They said that it wasn't typical for them to have 2 bad units at the same time, but it could happen. heh.
The DVR connects just like the wired PC's. They ran a patch cable from the modem to the DVR from our office. The wall that seperates the two is right behind where the TV entertainment center is. The hookups for DVR unit hooked right up to our Panasonic HD LCD just fine and the picture is great. 1080i never looked better on the HD channels. Really all the channels look great. We didn't have Cable or Direct Tv, just an OTA HD Antenna and we got all of the HD channels pretty good. Trying out the U400 package for 30days for free. Looks like we'll go with the U200 when it's over because the 400 pkg has way more than we'll need. The DSL side (still have the Pro tier still) is running around 2875/945. Faster than the PPPoE was. So with 3 PC's, 2 laptops and the TV running, the internet is just as fast as ever. And YES, the latency is up there, but it's running great.
So far the only issue we've had was we lost the sound and resetting the DVR fixed it. And it hasn't happen since.
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Review by chapstic25
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 1.9 years, 46 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Houston,Harris,TX
$19 per month
about 14 days
"Great customer service, cheap and decent speeds"
"Slow connection, use to get ~700kbps down until they messed it up several months ago"
"Decent for the price"
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-----UPDATE -----
I no longer get 700kbps down, now I'm around 300kbps. Everyone assures me it's my modem but I know otherwise. I got 700kbps until a ATT accidentally disconnected my line while hooking someone else up - I haven't gotten over 400kbps since.
I live in an APT complex and it seems at least 90% of the time Im offline it's due to a tech being on site doing some work for someone else. This has become very annoying and has probably happened at least four or five times. If I'm lucky I'll only be offline for an hour or so but the 'event' which dropped my speed by 300kbps required a tech to come out the -following- day to correct their mess up.
The only reason I've even bothered to update this is cause I'm here looking for a different ISP!
Customer service has been great, on site techs have been "so so" and the speeds have been much less than optimal.
-----ORIG. REVIEW-----
Note : I worked for SBC DSL for a few years before they became ATT so I know a thing or two about a thing or two. My DSL service has been great. I'm pretty far out from the CO. When the tech came out he used his laptop to calculate the distance and I'm *right on the edge* of DSL limits. This is a review for dry loop DSL, we have no telephone number.
Yet I still get decent speeds (~700kbps down and ~300 up). My ping times are good (I game online) and I almost never get disconnected. I say "almost never" because once in a blue moon my connection does drop. However this doesn't surprise me because :
a) old modem
b) way out from the co
c) live in an old apt complex
Moving on...
The customer service has been great, it's worlds better than when I worked for SBC. We've had DSL for about 5months and along the way we've had some minor issues :
1) initial speed was only 300kbps even though we bought the 700kbps package
2) line accidentally got disconnected via a field tech
3) billed on a day we didn't expect it (they said we'd always get billed on the 20th)
We've called and complained about each of these items and ATT wasted *no* time in giving us refunds. So far we've gotten 4 months or so worth of credits (I kid you not). It's great to have a company like this. Our old ISP would knock us offline (their fault) and we'd have to kick and scream to even get a $5 credit but with ATT we don't even ASK for credits and they give them to us. That's excellent customer service.
The only real downfall so far is that it took 14 days to get hooked up because the inital tech call failed to get all the right wires in place.
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 Review by TxKent
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 8.5 years, 2736 visits, last login: 12 days ago
Pflugerville,Travis,TX
$49 per month
about 14 days
Southwestern Bell
"Speed's pretty good"
"PPPoE, Enternet (to start with)"
"It works."
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Well, it works most of the time. I have the 2nd tier speed package - and it's satisfactory for what I do. (mostly surfing, not much downloading)
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 Review by morbo
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 7.8 years, 3296 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Saint Louis,Saint Louis City,MO
$29 per month
about 8 days
SBC
"inexpensive, reliable"
"AT&T helps the NSA spy on my communications."
"understand you are being watched by the NSA"
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service has been solid since the last update. price has increased $5/mo or $60 a year. considering the elite plan, but am not sold on it yet. wish there was more "competition" in this area, as download and upload speeds are piss poor with both cable and telco.
--old--
solid service for the last year or so. still reasonably cheap and now no contracts. i have serious issues with a company that hands over every detail of my internet traffic and phone call data to the NSA. if there were any reasonable alternatives (charter is not reasonable or reliable) then i would take it and drop AT&T for spitting on the u.s. constitution. i've already downgraded my phone service with AT&T and i want to give them even less of my money. other than spying on me 24/7, i don't have other complaints about AT&T.
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Review by dragger
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 7.4 years, 793 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Festus,Jefferson,MO
$37 per month
about 14 days
Southwestern Bell
"Steady superior performance"
"Resting on laurels - where are the speed upgrades?"
"The best in the biz"
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I have been waiting for DSL for a couple of years. It was available inside the city limits of my town but I lived about a mile outside. Numerous calls to customer service brought no info, nor any timetable.
Due to other reasons, I ended up moving less than 2 blocks away from the CO.
The first time I called for service, I got a really bad CSR. Not only did she get most of the details wrong, she evidently forgot to actually schedule the installation. Plus, she insisted that they had to UPS my equipment to my address of record (a PO Box) and that it would be no problem. I got disgusted and ended the call after getting a confirmation number.
The CSR I talked to the next day found no record of my service request. We did the whole thing over and I gave him the address that UPS could deliver to.
My equipment was due on a Friday but it didn't arrive. The installation was scheduled for the next Wednesday. I called customer service and they told me not to worry, the equipment would be there Monday or Tuesday. I don't think the rep even looked my case up as his answer was way too quick.
As of Tuesday, I had still not received anything. I called back and found out that the CSR that took my order got my street address one digit off -- 208 instead of 207. UPS had been holding the package since the previous Friday, which the other rep could have caught if he had simply pulled up my records. In this same contact, I found that my installation was now listed for Thursday, a day later.
I could not get the modem to synch, and called Tech Support. Since my installation was due for the next day, the rep more or less refused to help me and told me to call back later.
I called back the next day and got a very good tech person who had the modem synched in less than 5 minutes. I have been averaging 1158 ever since.
It was frustrating, but I'm happy now that it is up and running
Update:
The smooth, reliable SBC service I was so happy with seems to be sliding away. At home, it seems like I have to resynch my modem a least two or three times a month and it's usually on a Saturday morning. Never have figured that out.
At work, it's the Expert plus plan. When it works, it's killer as I consistently dl at 4500-4700. I am usually one of the fastest points in the db here for the STL area - which is NEVER as fast as Texas. Why is that, I wonder?
The worst thing at work is intermittent email problems in which the servers refuse my connection or time out. Numerous calls to CS might or might not have helped the problem since no one ever admits a problem nor a fix.
I rated the service high ONLY because of the great SBC support people on this site.
I'd love a choice of consistent speed and good newsgroup access. How hard can it be?
***UPDATE****
I have only compliments and no problems to report at this time. My previously highly coveted grandfathered 6K tier is now available to anyone and I switched to it a few months ago with no problems whatsoever. Even with switchover all went fine with both the upload and download switching to the new speeds with no need to contact tech support.
I can't remember the last time I've lost service.
06/21/08
OK, another update since the site keeps begging.
My service is absolutely stellar. I mentioned in the last update that I couldn't remember the last time my service was interrupted, and that still holds true. The only issue whatsoever is that my Netopia/Cayman gateway has a noise deterioration over time, but a simple reboot clears that up.
I haven't had any reason to contact tech support and that's compliment. My only complaint is that there doesn't seem to be any effort to increase the speed. I've been at 6016 for many years now but would pay a fair amount for an increase. Fiber is not available at my address the last time I checked, but honestly I wouldn't pay that prcie anyhow. It's more than a 50% increase for just a bit more speed and I'm happy with my Dish Network anyhow.
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AT&T Southwest
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