T J M
join:2008-07-01
united state
|  AT&T Elite Service Severely Capped? (1.3 M)
I've had an issue with my service with AT&T.
We’ve had the 6MB Elite service for a few years now—along with upgrading our old 2Wire to the 2700HG-B. Service was great for a very long time—and prior to upgrading from the 1.5MB service (back when they were SBC) was great too. I’m a frequent online gamer (Xbox Live); I haven’t noticed any severe lag or anything, so that’s fine. The problem lies with download speeds.
I’ve tested my connection before, and I’m completely aware that 6MB isn’t realistic because of the logistics of DSL. However, I remember getting well over 5MB down all of the time. About two months ago, I starting noticing things like podcasts were taking much longer than usual. I noticed how the typical download rates were low; 500MB+ HD videos/podcasts used to take no more than a half hour. Now it can take anywhere from and hour to and hour and a half. Testing my connection recently, I’ve noticed I can only get 1.3MB download—like I said, I realize 6MB isn’t what I’ll get, but I’m not even getting half (3MB Pro speeds)… let alone the usual 5MB+.
I’ve contacted AT&T reps through online chat twice; both lead me to talking to a phone rep. instead. The one rep. that I talked to a few weeks ago helped me with nothing. He told me to look at the gateway’s homepage (»home) to see what it said. It of course says… Connection Speed: Incoming: 6016 kbps, Outgoing: 768 kbps. The first chat rep. I talked to said that the 1.3MB was too low for Elite service when I told him that’s what I got from testing it myself. He then gave me the site, »helpme.att.net/dsl/speedtest/ I guess AT&T’s own bandwidth tester—it gave me identical results. He then said he’d test it himself, and got the same low speeds, that’s when he pointed me to an AT&T phone number with a reference number (which the phone rep had no clue of…?).
Like I said before, the phone rep.’s advice in the end was to call Microsoft about some software I may have installed. I told him, I’ve installed nothing since this happened or even since building this PC. I’ve built this comp. myself, and I have no third party firewall/virus protection on here at all. He insisted that I was getting the right connection speeds—and maybe I am—but it’s not reflecting. I’m capped at almost exactly 1.3MB down for some reason.
What do I do? I’ve thought about their U-Verse with 10MB down, but I’m very reluctant about dropping DirecTV and going with them for TV too. My parents would probably never go with Charter again (for cable instead of DSL). Am I really getting capped by AT&T, or is it definitely because of something on my comp.? |
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d_l
Barsoom
Premium,MVM
join:2002-12-08
Reno, NV | It sounds like your aggregation router (redback or BRAS) is misconfigured. If you were posting from the West region (CA or NV), I would say that it was a certainty because misconfiguration errors happen frequently there for unexplained reasons. |
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T J M
join:2008-07-01
united state
| I see this in at least one other thread--and honestly have no idea what that means.
Could my problem possibly be the same as outlined in the "att elite, but downloadalways below 3mbs, upload over 600kbs" thread? |
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d_l
Barsoom
Premium,MVM
join:2002-12-08
Reno, NV
| reply to T J M
Well if you are in CA, then yes, that is likely your problem.
You would have to talk to Tier 2 to get your profile ripped and rebuilt.
If you are somewhere else you could have some other problem because those router screw ups rarely happen outside of CA. |
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T J M
join:2008-07-01
united state | reply to T J M
No, I'm in St. Louis, MO. So am i just SOL until i switch companies... cause AT&T couldn't seem to help me, and I have no clue what causes this. |
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jimkyle
Btrieve Guy
Premium
join:2002-10-20
Oklahoma City, OK
 ·AT&T Southwest
| Not quite SOL. Post a message in the AT&T Direct forum and reference this thread. Be sure to read the rules for that forum since it's not like most of the others; it's a private area where only you and the AT&T techs can read your thread. Some of them are Tier 2 and those who aren't have ready access to whatever they need.
Be patient once you post there; they do this on their own time and usually have a backlog that ranges from 3 days to a week. Since we have a holiday weekend coming up it's likely to be a bit longer than usual. Don't even read your thread once you have posted; they use the "unread" status to detect new threads so if you read or reply they may never see it. I think you'll find them quite helpful!
--
Jim Kyle |
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d_l
Barsoom
Premium,MVM
join:2002-12-08
Reno, NV
| reply to T J M
You may have the same problem, but it just isn't very common in the Southwest region. I think I've seen maybe one report of it here in this forum compared to several dozens in the West forum.
If your modem says your download sync is at 6016, you could try calling and asking for Tier 2. If you can get to Tier 2, then ask them to check your profile as you think your line has been set to the 1500 profile for the Express plan. If you were in the West region, you could be reasonably sure that this was your problem.
Instead of phoning in, you could post a Trouble thread in AT&T Direct: »/forum/sbcdirect. The techs there can check you profile and change it if it is messed up. The techs are backlogged and it will take several days before they reply to your thread. |
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T J M
join:2008-07-01
united state
| reply to T J M
The Direct forum seems to be my only other option--i'll give it a try. It's been a couple of months since this has happened--another week wouldn't hurt--as long as i can get it fixed somehow.
Thanks for all your quick replies.  |
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