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Review by skip0327 
member for 3.2 years, 16 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
lodged 2.9 years ago
 Charlotte,Mecklenburg,NC
 $58 per month about 2 days "None" "Terrible connection speed, terrible customer service" "Unless your residence is next door to a CO, don't bother with AT&T."
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AT&T (Bellsouth) DSL service is awful. I considered Time Warner Road Runner, but those guys are worse. I have the "Extreme" DSL service - supposedly 6M download, I'm lucky to get 2.5M. The ordering process was straight forward, the DSL modem (Motorola) was received timely and the setup routine. I tested the connection from multiple sites and could never get a decent connection. I contacted AT&T tech support and after troubleshooting, the support tech informed me DSL was a non-guaranteed, best effort service!
To top everything off. The DSL service was down in my area, for at least three days, starting May 24, 2010. AT&T tech support offered no assistance, nothing was posted on their website, no explanation, nothing. Finally the local news reported the service was down but the reporters couldn't get an answer either. Finally the reporter was referred to Louisiana, I'm in Charlotte, NC. and the explanation was "it was probably software related".
I wouldn't advise anyone to utilize this service.
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 Review by jimk
member for 7.1 years, 2811 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 3 years ago
- Raleigh,Wake,NC
- $42 per month
- about 3 days
 BellSouth- "No home phone service required"
- "Annoying registration process, Some billing and information glitches at first, poor support, decreasing reliability and speed."
- "Not good... not good."
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Service canceled due to loss of features, slow speed, outages, and absolutely terrible customer support (on the rare instances where I actually reached a human rather than infinite hold music, busy signals, or disconnected calls).
The local techs tried to fix my problems but were hampered by AT&T's policies and lack of communication between departments. I could tell they were as frustrated as I was.
Avoid this service unless your only alternative is dialup or satellite... then it might be better, but be prepared for outages.
Further, the registration process is annoying and loads your computer with crap. If you can't find a way around it, I recommend setting it up in a virtual machine or system you are about to re-format anyways.
I was a DSL Direct customer - no home phone service. That was the one good thing about the service.
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 Review by HKM
member for 4.4 years, 169 visits, last login: 2.2 years ago
updated 3 years ago
- Fort Lauderdale,Broward,FL
- $42 per month
- AT&T
- "Stable dependable connection."
- "Unacceptable 512Kbps maximum upstream by today's standards."
- "Inferior infrastructure unable to support the need of current consumers. Thus slowing down development for future innovation."
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UPDATE-2 (May 2010): Well, can't say much as we all know where the U-Verse development stands today aka no where as we all predicated. So almost a year has passed and I am same place where I was for few years with BellSouth and now with AT&T, the only difference is now that AT&T can't actually beat Comcast on anything as Comcast offers 12mbps/2mbps for $58 while AT&T still offering 6mbps/512kbps for $42. Don't forget AT&T's customer retention plan which is a $10 discount previous from $20 discount. Which don't actually make sense but hey AT&T is big they won't lose me as a customer if I cancel as they don't give a fuck about anyone at this point even if 50k people cancel they will just raise a dollar to everyone else and recover from it. So much for breaking up AT&T's monopoly.
UPDATE-1 (July 2009): So where am I? same place where I was when I wrote this. So much for useless U-Verse maybe by 2019 ill see it when everyone is rocking true fiber and Death Star is still trying to patch the chicken wire copper to milk it for everything its worth.
Other than reliable connection for service uptime AT&T/BellSouth offers nothing special for the price the tier being advertised. Don't forget AT&T's low priority in developing and deploying fiber based transit to meet the need of current consumers as their static modem stuck in 2000.
If AT&T does establish CAP in residential ADSL circuit then ill just totally drop all my service with them and move on another company most likely Comcast. Now I have had ADSL service from late 2002 with BellSouth and now AT&T and so far they done nothing to improve or upgrade the upstream other than increase useless downstream.
Now I have 6/month's promotional offer from AT&T which gives me 2 x ($10.00) discount on my current bill. Which brings it to $22/month for 6 months from $42. When the promotional offer is over I am most likely to cancel my ADSL-HSI and move on Comcast-HSI as even they offer 1-3mbps upstream.
PS: Don't even bring U-verse BS here as its useless and won't see it till 2012. Also it doesn't even come close to Verizon's FiOS or Comcast's DOCSIS. AT&T's will soon find itself in deep water as more and more user just switch to their competitors as they refuse to upgrade to their POS U-verse which is doomed to begin with.
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 Review by DoctorDave
member for 3.2 years, 117 visits, last login: 1.7 years ago
updated 3 years ago
- Denham Springs,Livingston,LA
- $42 per month
- about 12 days
- BellSouth
- "Quick install, reasonably fast turn-up"
- "Use"
- "Good, stable service faster than advertised, but not friendly to advanced equipment configurations"
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I have the 6.0 "Ultra" DSL standalone (no home phone service) bundled with my wireless, since that allows me a corporate discount.
Everything has gone pretty well, all things considered. However, I run a Cisco 2621 router with WIC-1ADSL card installed, and the idiots on the support line would NOT provide me with my username-password combination unless I used their 2 wire modem / router. So, I hooked up their equipment and got my service started. Within 2 weeks, I had given up. Constant loss of connection, although when connected, speeds were fine. However, once I switched over to my Cisco equipment, everything is as solid as a rock, and speeds are exactly the same.... download runs 6.6 give or take a couple hundred kbps... very stable, no disconnects, good latency low jitter, all in all good service. Of course, I can hit a pitching wedge from my back yard to the CO, it's a block away and nothing between here and there; I'm sure that's why its both fast and stable, to some extent, anyway.
I returned the 2wire piece of garbage, and they cheerfully credited my account (did it within 30 days so it was no problem at all.) Getting the DSL added to my existing wireless account with corporate discounts (saves 5 bucks a month on the DSL) was a hassle, and I still haven't gotten my first combined bill 60 days later -- should be there for me tomorrow, according to the website and the billing department folks on the phone.
This is MUCH preferable to the cable competition in my book. They were nothing less than usurious in my opinion, Cable and Internet were running 300 a month and all the advertised discounts were for only new customers, I was just hosed with the Cable option, so back to DSL I went, despite a slightly slower speed. Now, Uverse would be great, but I'm not holding my breathl
UPDATE:
Latency and jitter have become a problem, and my upload speeds are consistently half of what I'm paying for. Uverse apparently is ages away in this little 'hood. I've ordered Cox again. I will keep DSL and have it turned back to minimum speed just to keep my options open. There just are no good choices. Sort of like voting. Hold your nose and pull the lever.
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Review by Tory57
member for 11.4 years, 131 visits, last login: 3.1 years ago
updated 3.1 years ago
- Crenshaw,Panola,MS
- $39 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 14 days
- "Get full 3.2 meg download speed"
- "When it works!"
- "Usually OK, sometimes really slow response."
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Rural Mississippi but live close enough to the CO to get DSL service.
Seems my Westell WireSpeed has "lost" it's "Expert Mode" buttons!
I can access the "Expert" screen but the buttons are gone!
-update 3.25.2010 - WireSpeed died, went through Customer Service Hell to
get a replacement... Now using the 3rd "Netopia" modem.
I also added a NetGear router but I'm fixing to have to pull teeth to get my
latest Netopia modem replaced, currently getting 2.30 Megs out of my
advertised 3.0 Meg download speed. A full Meg download speed lost!
Oh, BTW, The disappearing buttons problem on the WireSpeed modem was
an Internet Explorer issue, FireFox showed buttons without trouble.
One more item, if you spend the additional +/- $5.00 a month for the
"Inside Wire Maintenance Plan", you can get your modem replaced with
MUCH less hassle... and time on the phone!
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Review by RedKnight
member for 5.1 years, 10 visits, last login: 3.2 years ago
updated 3.2 years ago
- Snellville,Gwinnett,GA
- $21 per month
- BellSouth
- "Low price and very willing tech support (which always drags on forever)"
- "It's 1.5+ Mbps mostly - but keeps sinking to 0.2-0.8 in the evening (7-10 pm)"
- "Service goes way south in the evening... They always miss the point or say they've fixed it"
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We're gamers here and unfortunately have an IFITL (fiber) connection which means AT&T/BellSouth here in Atlanta CAN'T give us more than 1.5 Mbps (until they decide on a city-wide fiber rollout strategy). In theory 1.5 Mbps is ok since we have a good price ($21/mo). While the majority of the time it does 1.5 or even 2.0 download (www.speedtest.net), it keeps slowing to a crawl in the evenings (7-10 pm) half the time. We have worked with them endlessly on this problem to no avail - we long ago replaced our router and have learned to tell them, "No, I will not do anything on my end, you tell me if you see a problem" - which they either don't (and offer to roll yet another truck to check our local connection) or they say some network guy fixed something from afar. This has been going on for 6 months now. Basically they are unable to realize they have a serious problem, perhaps at a level close to our neighborhood. I wouldn't care if it happened once a month, but even the wife (who knows nothing about computers) keeps telling me "my computer is so slow!" She doesn't get it - that it's BellSouth DSL creeping to a halt in early evenings, when we want to surf. We are trying to see if they'll deeply discount our price... or else we'll have to go with the much higher priced ComCast.
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Review by Dinger
member for 12 years, 182 visits, last login: 351 days ago
updated 3.2 years ago
- Birmingham,Jefferson,AL
- $148 per month
- AT&T
- "usually responsive"
- "taking over a month to solve issue that three on site techs say is their problem"
- "may consider change after nearly 10 years w/att"
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Service for three houses served by same pole took a dive in sync and speed. This happened suddenly within the last month. Three on-site techs say it's on their end but it will take two weeks for another truck to roll. One of the techs had made calls to each of the affected lines. My dl was as low as 2kbps with 300+ up. It seems to have settled at 200-300kbps for a 3MB provisioned line.
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Review by hope729
member for 3.3 years, 12 visits, last login: 2.1 years ago
updated 3.3 years ago
- Killen,Lauderdale,AL
- $47 per month
- "Right now I can't think of any"
- "charging for 6.0 DSL but lines won't handle it, occasional rude CSRs, give customers the runaround or even outright lie"
- "I am about to go with Comcast"
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I have complained and tried without success to get my 6.0 DSL I'm paying for to work right & am about to throw in the towel & give up. According to one CSR I talked to today. the line in my area will not support 6.0. So why then have I been paying for it for years now? And if the line is inadequate, why isn't it replaced?
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Review by beech30144
member for 8.8 years, 7 visits, last login: 2.9 years ago
updated 3.3 years ago
- Kennesaw,Cobb,GA
- $48 per month
- about 3 days
- AT&T
- "Reliable speed, Static IP"
- "Pricey due to phone services. Shopping for cheaper options..... Know what I mean?"
- "AT&T adverises my extreme service at 6.0 MBPS download but only seem to get 2.2 at best though"
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10 years of service with AT&T now and still with them (previously Bell-south). Most of my neighborhood is using Comcast cable modem service. My neighbors complain of variable speed results to almost dial up speeds when kids are home from school. Also comcast service seems to be constantly down in this neighborhood. I have TV with them and its always down for some reason or another and when my TV is down I understand internet service for comcast subscribers are down during that time as well.
My ADSL connection with AT&T is rock solid and never down and has constant speed of 2.2 MBPS at best but this up time reliability comes with a very expensive monthly price tag ($110.00pr mth) due to required phone services attached. 1 drop in 6 years. Not bad right? But due to tough times here I will be shopping for cheaper options in Jan 2010 but must have 1 static IP address for small business hosting.
I have since shopped and stopped shopping for seeking faster, better for less. ADSL in my neighborhood still wins. Can't wait for the fiber optic lines being run as I write. I hear 50GB lines for same cost. Pessimistic but edging toward Optimistic now.
Comcast just got fired as my TV source. Now just watching TV via HD Antenna for local and streaming HD for all other. Comcast just doesn't have it going on here in the NW ATL.
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Review by Nalnik
member for 3.2 years, 9 visits, last login: 2.6 years ago
updated 3.3 years ago
- Miami,Miami-Dade,FL
- $33 per month
- (12 month contract)
- AT&T
- "Service between 1am and 8am"
- "All other service, including customer service."
- "Overall, if you can get any other service, even dial up, try that before you sign up with ATT."
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Before they were bought out, Bellsouth had excellent service in my area. In
fact, we switched to them from ATT because the service was better for less
money.
Now, we are stuck with ATT in my area until either another company comes in,
or the other companies stop trying to charge $150/month.
The costumer service would have to improve greatly to be called lacking.
Every other week, we have to get another technician out here to inspect the
service. And every time, they check everything and conclude that we, and the
others who complained, are not the problem, but rather ATTs service is. The
phone service is a waste of time. They always assume that it is our system
and not theirs; that magically, our computers have developed a problem since
the last 30 times that they sent techs out.
I kid you not, it would be about 100x faster if we were on Dial Up internet
from the '90s instead of this piece of junk we have. What we suspect is that
someone who works for ATT, or has access to the hardware, is siphoning off
bandwidth from the actual paying customers.
Overall, if you can get any other service, even dial up, try that before you
sign up with ATT.
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