|
Home | Reviews | Speed Test | Tools | News | Forums | Info | About | Join |
Moved from dial up about 10 yrs ago, and was happy with it up till about 6mo. ago, then started getting connection resets. Guess I need to upgrade to the new technology to get the performance I used to get. I've ordered U-verse and am waiting for the install. Will review that after it happens. member for 11 years, 4 visits, last login: 9.7 years ago lodged 11 years ago
Original review 2006: Initially I applied for DSL and cable both, and each was unavailable. The first that became available was Cable from ATTBI. It was good. I felt that the fact that it shared a cable was an advantage in that any outage would affect a lot of people, and so get fixed faster. It had 1500 MTU. In those days, for DSL you had to run an application on your computer to do PPPoE. While cable was more expensive, I felt it was probably better. It did have packet loss at times, which I learned was due to upstream frequency ingress. ATTBI was bought by Comcast. I had come to expect that less than 0.5% packet loss was OK, and that 1% was tolerable. I wrote my own logging program that would ping my Comcast gateway, and I later ran Ping Plotter continually (I still do, but not because of any problem). Near the end I was getting >5% loss frequently, and two service calls did not fix it, I decided to try DSL. My expectations were that the DSL would have some packet loss, and that the Usenet and Email of the DSL would be inferior. DSL very much exceeded my expectations. Packet loss was non-existent. Theoretically slower (3 MB vs 4 MB, it felt as least as fast. And while the Usenet and Email were not quite as good as for Comcast, they very much exceeded my expectations. Personal web space of Geocities with ads was a step down, but that was not important. The free dialup for contingency or travel and even some free 802.11 hotspots is a plus. Newer DSL modems do the protocol stuff for you, and the 1492 MTU is not significant. I upgraded DSL to 6MB. That felt similar for browsing, but it gave faster downloads. Latencies are low. SN margin dropped about 8 dB, but packet loss is only about 0.01% -- less that 1 lost ping per day pinging every 10 seconds, but up from zero. I have friends with problem-free Comcast and DSL. The better choice will vary at different locations. The Ameritech/SBC/ATT folks are much more forthcoming and proactive with information about problems or outages, especially at DSL Reports. I just read of outages. They have not affected me so far. Update 2008 September 29 Still doing well, enjoying the reliability. Usenet servers do fine with me, altho high-volume users might think otherwise. Email has improved, but the main thing is connectivity. And that is really nice. Incoming email is very good, and I make good use of AddressGuard. There was a problem with SMTP, but that has improved to where I seldom need to use a workaround. Having customer support available via DSLR is really nice too. Update 2013: I have moved to ATT U-verse 18 Mb internet going to a higher speed. This review is for the 6 Mb (actual about 5 due to overhead) regular DSL I dropped. Over my 6 or so years with DSL, it was very reliable. The Yahoo email servers were a little problematic for the first couple years, but they have been behaving well. So I raised my services mark. Pings on my fastpath DSL were about 10 ms. On U-verse they are higher because there is always some interleaving. From a normal web browsing, the regular DSL felt peppy as peppy as the U-verse, but the U-verse is better for watching video etc. member for 22 years, 6493 visits, last login: 90 days ago updated 11.1 years ago
I've had DSL service through AT&T for over 10 years and couldn't be happier. I currently have the DSL HSI Express package and called today to ask what they could do to entice me to stay with AT&T instead of switching to a Charter bundle like I'd been thinking about. They bent over backwards to keep me as a customer by offering me their highest speed internet connection, 6Mps, at $19.99 for a year with no contract to start 5-26-13, and also modified my phone service to include extra features like Call Waiting at a lower cost than what I was currently paying per month. The end result being a faster internet speed and reduction in my total monthly bill. They advised me when the year was up on 5-26-13 I could call again and work out another deal to keep me as a customer. member for 19.5 years, 241 visits, last login: 9.6 years ago updated 11.2 years ago
Update 11/5/2012: 4 years have passed, stepped up the the 6meg/628 plan years ago. Using an Netopia in bridge mode for the model, and a pc running Smoothwall express as a router solution. All rock solid, price is $19.99 for the speed is awesome. I run webserver at house, and would like a more ballanced dl/upl plan, but what they have is great. Charter still has not offered any internet services in our area, and I still have Charter cable. Ordered Uverse (3rd try) we will see how it installs, tech says pair bonding will allow me to get service now, after the 2 failed attempts prior to pair bonding. Good service. Call in tech support is still flawed, but support here in the direct forum is outstanding. Update: 5/29/08 Another year has past, and the service is still rock solid. Run a few web servers from the house and there have been no loss of connections. Same with Charter, still say next year I will have cable internet, they are a complete joke. Still using the 2wire, no problems no issues. Update: 7/31/07: Another year, switched to a used 2wire 1000HG router, still going strong, great service, great price. Charter Cable, who I have a cable TV customer for 10 years, still do not offer the internet service to my residence, after 6 years of saying they would next year. I would not switch if they did. Update: 11/2006: Another year and still no issues, Great Service and price has dropped over the year. Update: 6/2005 stepped up to the 3000/512 plan consistent 2300/425 price is down to $24.95 for this service level. Absolutely no issues... went over 12 weeks without a disconnect, rock solid, well done, very satisfied. 9/2004 Update - No issues still running strong! 5/03 Upgraded to the 1256/128 plan for same cost, deal is getting even better! Still no service issues since last review. Original Review: I ordered and went live about 5 months ago. The self install kit was easy to do, and software wasn't too bad, considering I was running NT4 at the time. I am now using XP and the install is much better. In the first few months when there was connection issues, or little bumps and blips, I (being a newbie) would pick up the phone and dial tech support ASAP, big mistake! Phone tech support (Tier 1) is pretty much useless for anyone that the intelligence to find this site, and read it. Every time I called, there was a small Network issue, and I would end up with a tech telling me to rip the tcp/ip stack out of NT4, and then when the system wouldn't boot, he told me it was a computer problem, and I needed to call the manufacture. With the tech support here that entire BS has gone away. If there is a blip, I can do a post, and with in 10-15 mins, another user will usually confirm if it is an Ameritech issue or mine, and the support guys are on the job quick. The online support here is the best! If it was not for the support here I most likely would have been a Charter Cable customer by now, at least to try. But the online support here has spoiled me, and I don't have a reason to even look for the alternatives. Plan 768/128 dynamic, efficient dsl modem, Ethernet card in computer. member for 22 years, 4632 visits, last login: 245 days ago updated 11.3 years ago
Overall, ATT DSL is pretty reliable. I had it through BellSouth, SBC and Ameritech over the years since 2002. But I don't even bother to call support. Mr. Conversational Phone Robot answers and I get thrown into infinite hold. And when I do get someone, member for 11.8 years, 1 visits, last login: 11.8 years ago updated 11.6 years ago
Update 07.03.12 Over 12 years, wow. Managed to beat them down to $19.95 at home and $34.99 at work for 6016/768 (at some point they tacked on another 160 kbps upload on the office account). Life is still good. Update 11.18.08 The mystery edits and deletions continue. AT&T DSL is its same old reliable self. Update 05.23.07 6016/768 $27.99/mo at home as well. Life is good. Update 09.19.06 Still pluggin along with my 6016/608 $45/mo grandfathered deal but alas since this is at a commercial address I am not eligible for the 6016/768 upgrade unless I want to pay $10 more. Not gonna happen. As an aside, portions of this review have been deleted by certain site moderators. Does that seem honest to you? Update 12.04.05 Everything's still peachy DSL-wise, but this site has gone to hell. Update 2005-06-10: One year came and went in an pleasantly uneventful way. Same speeds, same price, as promised, without having to do anything. There. Now maybe this annoying website will leave me alone for another six months. Update 2004-12-08: Six megs for $45 a month and all is still well, waiting for my upload to increase from 608 to 768 kbps. Update 2004-03-23: Upgraded to 6016/608 for an extra $5 a month in February and haven't looked back. Six megs for $45 a month and all is well. Update 2003-12-05: Switched to Lineshared in September, which took five days from order to surf and I just moved the router to the new line after installing a POTS splitter, and was just upgraded (free!) to 1536/384 for the same price. Things are still running smooth as silk. Connectivity can't get much better than this...no outages in over 24 months, zero downtime. Life online is good. Update 2003-05-28: Well, three years have come and gone and the service keeps getting better and better. I recently went over four months without so much as a PPPoE logoff (same IP address the whole time) and the problems from before are nothing but a bad memory. Usenet services are still mediocre if you are addicted to binaries but I don't use them anyway. Mail has become pretty much bulletproof and the last DNS server issue was over a year ago. Plus, the 1-year contract pricing these days is great ($40/mo for 1500/256 dynamic). SBC-Yahoo 'added value services' quite frankly, suck. Update 2002-12-04: The SBC Borg are circling the Ameritech region and are preparing to 'transition' us to SBC Yahoo!DSL. Ya-hoo. Just what we all needed...a chance for multiple simultaneous account hosings. Those of us who still have unbundled loops have been told in no uncertain terms that our days are limited and if we make any changes at all we lose the line. That's really customer-friendly! I wonder which Harvard MBA came up with the idea to piss off the most loyal (and cash-cow) customers by threatening them with disconnection if they dare call in and volunteer to spend more money. But I digress... The service itself continues to be better than average, and the Chicago network at least has been flawless. No persistent latency issues, proactive rather than reactive re-routing and "re-peering" when necessary, and generally stable service. Tech support has improved greatly, and the addition of official sanctioned SBC support in the forums here is brilliant. There may be hope afterall. If I had it to do all over again, I'd do it all over again especially at this price point. Now, about that 4000/384 package I can't get because of an arbitrary distance limit... Update 2002-03-26: Almost another year of Ameritech DSL service, and much progress has been made towards network stability, reliability and general usefulness of the service. New pricing brought a dynamic IP 1500/256 package for $59.95 and 1500/256 w/5 static IPs for $79.95, which Ameritech allowed existing customers to upgrade to (which I did). Not the greatest pricing but headed in the right direction. Previously it cost $180/mo to get above 768/128 speeds. I now routinely get 1300/245 usable payload "speed". Latency is stable and low, 40 ms to DSLReports NJ servers, 35 ms to the line monitor server in NYC. UU.net was dumped in favor of Sprintlink for most of the backbone connectivity this month, which has knocked off a couple of hops and 10 ms. News servers are still essentially useless, and capped at 128 kbps to boot. Mail is getting better but has a way to go before I would consider relying on it, and tech support was consolidated at the beginning of the year and is starting to improve. New regional DNS servers have pretty much eliminated the DNS problems we had, although they continue to push incorrect addresses via PPPoE at times. Bottom line, still not the greatest but definitely worth the $60/mo. Update 2001-04-21: It's been an interesting almost-year with the service. We had major problems in Chicago with authentication, peering and generally unstable service. However, some serious upgrading of the network and servers was done in February 2001 and the service has been very good since then. No random disconnects, latency in the mid-50's and consistent speeds. My 1-year contract is up next month, but I plan to continue on with the service month-to-month. Overall it was worth the early annoyances. Original review: Ordered Speedpath 768/128 (basic, PPPoE, $39.95/mo for first year, free equipment and installation) 4/27/00 with a scheduled install on 5/25 from 1-3 PM. Ameritech.net was the only company willing to install ADSL to my commercial office address without charging over $100/mo. Order was confirmed by fax within an hour of phoning it in. Dialup access, besides being slow, was costing over $30/mo in local charges (Ameritech charges business lines per minute). So, this was a wash cost-wise. We use internet access for email, web browsing, FTP, etc., with no on-site servers. Ameritech got the physical line to the outside NI May 8. Telamon tech called May 22 wanting to test the line. It tested at 9300 feet, capable of 6.6 mb down and 600 kb up, ready for final install. Another Telamon tech calls May 25 around 11 AM asking if he can come early. I already had wired from the NI to the computer location, so all he did was install a jack and connect the Westell Wirespeed modem to the jack and the NIC already in the computer. Loaded up Enternet 300, called his support people to set up the account, surfed around a bit, checked speed (720 kb down, 130 kb up), had me sign the papers and was out the door at 11:35 AM. My time so far: less than an hour total. Five minutes after he left, I bagged Enternet and installed my Linksys router. Around June 1, 2000 the bottom fell out. Ameritech.net's upstream provider, UUNet, had major congestion problems at Ameritech.net's Chicago connection and throughput became unusable between 3 PM and midnight on weekdays, dropping below 56 kb on many occasions. Calls and emails to tech support were variably met with a polite "thank you for calling" and no information to a refreshing acknowledgment of exactly what was going on, what was being done about it, and when it might be fixed. After two weeks, it became obvious that they wanted it fixed as much as I did but were at the mercy of UUNet and upper management at Ameritech.net. You could hear it in their voices. June 21, speeds shot back up to normal, ping times fell below 100 ms to most sites, and best of all remained stable. The fix was implemented about a week later than I was originally told but they did get it done, and three days before my 30-day bailout period expired. Through all this I have never had a connection drop nor had line problems. My installation experience was flawless. The throughput problem, though avoidable through better planning, was fixed. Tech support hold times were around 15-20 minutes (weekday mornings). FTP speeds now routinely exceed 750 kb, and I am satisfied overall. I hope Ameritech.net learned a thing or two about providing ADSL internet service and can keep it up. member for 23.8 years, 4475 visits, last login: 32 days ago updated 11.7 years ago
upgraded a few months ago to PRO. good speed and solid. Thinking of going another step to elite. I do not use ATT email address, however. member for 18.2 years, 1774 visits, last login: 2.1 years ago updated 11.7 years ago
Over the years I've used dialup (once upon a time that was the best available), WOW, Comcast, and now AT&T DSL. I'd still be using WOW for both internet and TV if they provided service in my current location. At my current location I can get Comcast, AT&T DSL, and perhaps U-Verse (effective this month per a letter I just got). I'm out of range for Clear. While I started with Comcast, I downgraded to AT&T DSL as the economy when south in 2008. Service was OK at 3.0Mbps (closer to 2.4Mbps actual) as I don't stream videos and can wait for the occasional multi-gigabyte Microsoft betas to download. However, when the service goes south, dealing with tech support is a exercise in futility. The most recent two outages, which occurred two days in a row, where due to facilities issues between my area and the local (Elmhurst) PPP servers. Both times the India-based support people, limited by the scripts they are required to follow, ran me around changing DSL passwords (twice each time) which didn't change the fact that my DSLAM wasn't connecting to the PPP server (as clearly indicated in the modem's tech readouts). The first tech finally gave up and wrote a ticket which was later attached to the facilities outage ticket. The second tech, apparently more sure of herself, insisted the problem was confined to my line but eventually wrote a ticket. I finally got connected to a U.S. based facilities management group after the second outage and they were able to confirm that both outages where in fact "group" (I call them area) outages - which was no surprise to me as the other IT guy in town and I were both buried both days by customers without DSL service. Even those customers with business class service got the same runaround. At the moment I'd very reluctant to recommend AT&T DSL to the small businesses I support, especially if they don't have any backup alternate. Any notion I might have had of trying U-Verse for CATV is right out the window and I'm left with the sorry "choice" of returning to Comcast for internet and going to DirecTv for video. member for 12.8 years, 373 visits, last login: 2.4 years ago updated 11.8 years ago
Upgraded to "Elite" 6016/768 back in December 2011. Things have been remarkably smooth ever since. Pings are consistent around 35ms and speeds around 5mbps/700kbps. Attenuation 39, SNR fluctuates between 11-15. No complaints there. Still running my 6 year old Speedstream 4100 with no issues. Back last November before I upgraded, we had a decent storm that knocked out my dial tone for two days...ever since that was fixed my line has no static and my modem has not lost sync. I would like to see AT&T display some interest in deploying Uverse. Uverse "Internet" is available, but not TV & Phone. My 1 year was in December and up until that point, I qualified for "Max" 12mbps. However, when going to order, all of the sudden I only qualified for "Elite" 6mbps $24.95/mo, plus I was to buy a specific modem/router for $100. I could get good ol' ADSL and keep my current modem and Linksys and only pay $19.99/mo for one year...only real benefit was a higher cap, so it was a no brainer. They initially weren't going to offer me that rate, so I threatened to switch to Time Warner, immediately I was offered the promo rate to stay so I bit. AT&T's website absolutely sucks for ordering. I can't tell you how many times I get redirected to a page I was already at. If I can't get Max at my next renewal, I'll switch. I'm doing more and more online streaming with my Roku box, gaming, I download music from TM Studios on a weekly basis (I'm a DJ and yes I pay for it) instead of waiting for my weekly disc. This is around 1GB a week and takes about 45 minutes. Time Warner has some sexier deals with 10mbps bundled with TV & phone. All and all, I've given AT&T a lot of heat over the years. When I lived in Coitsville, service sucked, mostly because of my distance. Now it's nice to live 1 mile from the Central Office in Niles and the overall performance shows. ***Resurrected due to move*** Moved to Niles, OH in January, wanted to have a couple months of service before reviewing. Signed up for Pro, getting full pro sync rate: 3008kbps/512kbps. It was between this and Time Warner, chose AT&T for cost. I have 2 modems, cat5 cabling from NID split and NID Splitter. Installed splitter and rock and roll. A whole 5 feet from wall jack to NID, since jack is on floor panel and NID is directly on the outside wall. Stats are OK. ATTN: 38.5, SNR fluctuates between 10dB and 20dB, this disturbs me a bit. I'm around 6,500 from CO, I think these stats should be a little better...I'm suspecting bridge tap somewhere. Also have steadily climbing CRC errors, up to a few hundred daily. Lost sync twice, suspect either modem overheat or DSLAM maintenance, but my SNR did drop to around 9dB and CRC errors shot up each time according to a little program I'm monitoring with: »www.vwlowen.co.uk/intern ··· iles.htm. I have this monitoring my SNR, sync rate, and CRC errors. I have the option to go Elite but I think my stats are a bit marginal plus I see no reason to desire better Netflix quality with the recently imposed caps. Running a Speedstream 4100, plus have one for backup. Network controlled by Linksys WRT54G running Tomato firmware, which will aid in keeping tabs on my consumption since we'd rather give the customer less. I'll stick with it for a while. If I start flirting with the 150GB cap or if Time Warner starts looking sexier, I might switch. Would like to see U-Verse but it hasn't hit this area at all yet. ***FINAL UPDATE*** Well it's been a nice ride since April of 2004 but the time has now come for me to move on. Saturday, Armstrong Cable will be here installing FTTH which connects to an omnibox on the side of my house and runs coax in. First, to clear things up, I don't completely hate AT&T. The PPPoE stability was fantastic, the support I've gotten from AT&T Direct (Especially [user=david]) and tier 2 "ASI maintenance" was always second to none, and of course you can't beat anything "free" such as the modem provided with service. There are many speculations about how "far" I am from the central office. You can follow the pairs straight down to the central office, street by street, with no bridge taps (or so I'm told these were cut when I first got service), and it'll come up to 2.6 miles on any given mileage counter. So, by my calculations, that should be around 13,728 feet, probably give it a few additional hundred feet to compensate for the cross box. But even with that, it shouldn't be much more than 14,000 feet. With the way ADSL technology works, that should still be within an acceptable distance and probably could go another 3 or 4,000 feet. So what exactly is the problem? Well, I don't believe I'm "too far from the central office" like many techs thought when they came out here over the years. When they saw were I was located, they immediately assumed this and wrote the trouble ticket off as no trouble found, even when ASI techs would detect ground shorts clear as day on my line. There would be weeks at a time where I wouldn't lose sync but then there were times I've lost it several times a day. The biggest mystery is why would thunderstorms, within roughly 20 miles or so, have such a profound effect on my connection, and why just thunderstorms? When I started the service in April of 2004, we were of course signed up for the basic package of, at the time, 384/256. It was the noticed by my line stats that my line could support upwards of about 4000-5000/800. So at that point between me and what was SBC Direct were figuring I could go to express 1536/256 (at the time, now 1536/384), or Pro 3008/512. We even tried both of those packages for a period over the years, the higher the sync rate, the more pronounced the thunderstorm problem became, for example I recall one particular time in summer of 2005 when a tornado warning was issued for Erie, PA, which is 60 miles northeast of here. A super cell thunderstorm blew off Lake Erie, yet it was perfectly clear here, I then realized my modem losing sync. And hence once the storm moved well away, the sync loss went away. So with all that said and with the need for stability with my internet radio station, I decided I can go all the way down to 384/384, just for stability purposes. And even to this day I still lose sync. While I probably owe it to AT&T for having broadband, something better has come along and the time has come to switch. I don’t know of too many areas that have a service that provides fiber optic cable straight to the premise, so I feel kind of blessed with that. AT&T has failed to see the potential up here and has no intentions of any remote terminals nor do I see any signs of U-Verse. I know U-Verse is likely a long way away but to be honest what this township now has from Armstrong would be strong competition against it. A “racino” as they’re calling it now (racetrack/casino) is due to be under construction soon just across the PA border on US 422, which 422 runs through our township and the construction site is about 4 miles across the PA border. When all the hotels, restaurants, strip malls, water park (I here that’s one of the first things going in), gas stations, and more start to develop, maybe then AT&T will realize that if they would’ve built the infrastructure in 2008, like Armstrong did, they could’ve cashed, let alone right now when people in this township really haven’t been exposed to broadband. They’ll realize someday, and it’ll be too late, Armstrong will have the hold. This is my last review for AT&T, expect my first review of Armstrong sometime next week. member for 21.2 years, 7695 visits, last login: 1 day ago updated 11.8 years ago
I have enjoyed my AT&T DSL since I first subscribed. Early 2009 I upgraded to the highest speed tier and I have had great service. Even thought I am near the end of the line for my area I get a great signal and never lose connection. We recently converted this line to a dry loop and dropped the home phone that we never use. Since then we have been very happy with the service and everything with the conversion went smooth as silk... UPDATE 10-2011 We've run into some sluggish performance in the evening hours. AT&T is investigating. member for 19.8 years, 3226 visits, last login: 2.3 years ago updated 11.8 years ago |