dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
1589

stinger6
join:2001-03-22
Florissant, MO

stinger6

Member

[Rant] Pay for 6 lucky to get 3

I've been paying for your DSL service since it's introduction and upgraded to each highest speed as it became available.

The last upgrade was to your DSL Elite service less than a week after it became available. During the first 8 months the download speeds were between 5.5 and 6 Mbps. However, over time those speeds have gradually decreased to speeds as low as 1 mbps with upload speeds following the same pattern.

When things get really bad, a call to SBC always results in a series of tests revealing no problems at my end, but download and upload speeds mysteriously return to normal within 24 hours.

A customer shouldn't have to call with a complaint every 6-8 months to get what they are paying you (by mutual agreement) to provide.

If you can't reliably provide 6 megabit service, (or speeds close to it), then don't offer it and for pete's sake don't charge your customers for something you can't or won't provide.

In today's economic climate, everyone is taking a long hard look at their own personal "value realized/received vs. dollar spent" equation and making adjustments accordingly.

Quite frankly, continuing to pay for 6-megabit DSL , but only receiving "throttled down" 1-megabit DSL service just doesn't make good economic sense.

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium Member
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

dvd536

Premium Member

throttled down? no. oversubscribed yes.
moes
Premium Member
join:2009-11-15
Cedar City, UT

moes to stinger6

Premium Member

to stinger6
Dsl Overhead, Yes. never going to obtain the full 6mbit, 4.5 to like 5.3 would be about the closest.

I am on the pro package and I hit 2.2 to 2.5 reg. Sometimes it flucuates and dips below 2 and that is when I just restart the modem and it comes back to normal.

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County
·Metronet

CylonRed to stinger6

MVM

to stinger6
Problem is - they offer 6 mb across a wide area. Some will get it others won't (the farther away from the CO the less chance) and a LOT depends on the wires. They can't know who can or can't get that speed till they try - that is why they do the 'up to' - if you are not getting the moneys worth - then fall back top the 3 mb plan. They should do this - imho - because it can be shown they can't reliably provide it to you.

MikeTest
Non-Believer
join:2010-10-19
Moribund

1 edit

MikeTest to moes

Member

to moes
In my neck of the woods I usually get full speed from my 5 Mb connection. Actually getting closer to 6 Mb. I'm very close to the DSLAM though.

However, and IDK when it first began happening but as Netflix has taken off and more of my neighbors have gotten in on some of the good deals on DSL from the Telco. At peak use times I noticed severe degradation. I haven't noticed it recently, but I'm guessing summer and kids out of school may see a return of this degradation.

Tech support flat out told me they were over sold. So, I just hope it stays as good as it's been lately. YMMV.

batterup
I Can Not Tell A Lie.
Premium Member
join:2003-02-06
Netcong, NJ

batterup to stinger6

Premium Member

to stinger6
In my area it is the nose picking children that suck up the residential bandwidth. During school hours I get 10 Mbs download; when school is out I get 1.5 Mbs.
ender7074
join:2006-11-21
Saint Louis, MO

ender7074 to stinger6

Member

to stinger6
I pay for 6 and get about 3.5. Im hoping that cable will be available eventually. Ill drop DSL immediately if that ever happens.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984 to stinger6

Premium Member

to stinger6
ATT offered 6meg for $19.99 a month (with or without phone service) with 1 yr contract if you pay more than $19.99 you are overpaying.
No one can beat ATT at that price for unlimited unthrottled internet.
I have had ATT in 3 different states in suburb/town areas and it has always been rock solid.
ATT really has done well with their DSL.
Those that work in the DSL division at ATT have done a great job over the years.

Minimum 12.5% is the overhead.
6meg = 5.2 meg
3 meg = 2.6 meg
1.5 meg = 1.3 meg
768K = 672K
If you reach those speeds you are getting 100% of your speed.

You should go into your modem and see what speed you are actually synced at. If you are synced for 6 meg and not getting around 5 meg then something could be wrong.
It could be your computer, router, modem, filters on your other phones, missing filters, a filter could have gone bad, bad wiring in your house, some appliance you have on in your house, or the wiring to your house to the CO.

If you have an older house then it would be best to have a new run of cat5 straight from your nid to your modem. You should install a nid splitter to isolate the DSL from your phones.

It really make no sense that you would go 6 to 8 months at full speed and then have a slowdown that only corrects 24 hours after you call ATT.

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium Member
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

dvd536

Premium Member

said by r81984:

Minimum 12.5% is the overhead.

Some companies add in overhead when setting sync rate. T however isn't one.

stinger6
join:2001-03-22
Florissant, MO

stinger6 to r81984

Member

to r81984
We've done the "splitters, filters, your wires, maybe it's your hardware/software, gee we don't know why" 2-step for years.

The result is always the same: Speeds gradually drop to ridiculously low level (1-2mbps), I complain and within 24 hrs. all is mysteriously returned to normal.

In one instance, a tech actually suggested that I reinstall the operating system! After recovering from a hysterical laughing fit, I assured her that it wasn't going to happen and requested escalation. Getting satisfaction required 2 days of calling and a service cancellation request. In the course of resolving this issue, I learned that a misconfiguration (on their end) had not only locked me out of my email account, but also assigned me as a Basic DSL Customer.

I've been around long enough to know when someone is "blowing smoke up my kilt."

batterup
I Can Not Tell A Lie.
Premium Member
join:2003-02-06
Netcong, NJ

batterup

Premium Member

said by stinger6:

In the course of resolving this issue, I learned that a misconfiguration (on their end) had not only locked me out of my email account, but also assigned me as a Basic DSL Customer.

I've been around long enough to know when someone is "blowing smoke up my kilt."

The modem has a diagnostic utility that would have shown you were provisioned at a lower speed than you were supposed to be.

stinger6
join:2001-03-22
Florissant, MO

stinger6

Member

said by batterup:

said by stinger6:

The modem has a diagnostic utility that would have shown you were provisioned at a lower speed than you were supposed to be.

I suppose that's accurate if you're still using a 2Wire.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984

Premium Member

You can log into any DSL modem to see what you are synced at.
You can also see if lots of packets are dropping and the signal strength. If the modem is showing a good connection to the CO then I would say it is most likely in your home wiring.

The free filters are built like crap and home wiring could be poor that is why it is best to use a nid splitter and isolate the dsl from your phone line at the nid. Use twisted pair cabling like cat5 from the nid to your modem.

batterup
I Can Not Tell A Lie.
Premium Member
join:2003-02-06
Netcong, NJ

batterup to stinger6

Premium Member

to stinger6
said by stinger6:

said by batterup:

said by stinger6:

The modem has a diagnostic utility that would have shown you were provisioned at a lower speed than you were supposed to be.

I suppose that's accurate if you're still using a 2Wire.

I learned that a misconfiguration (on their end) had not only locked me out of my email account, but also assigned me as a Basic DSL Customer.

All DSL is two wires. If you are paying for 4 to 7 Mbps and your modem to DSLAM down speed is 768 kbps to 1Mbps and it doesn't change and the other readings are good it would have told you you were provisioned incorrectly.

thedragonmas
Premium Member
join:2007-12-28
Albany, GA
Netgear R6300 v2
ARRIS SB6180

thedragonmas

Premium Member

said by batterup:

All DSL is two wires. If you are paying for 4 to 7 Mbps and your modem to DSLAM down speed is 768 kbps to 1Mbps and it doesn't change and the other readings are good it would have told you you were provisioned incorrectly.

2wire is a brand, like westell..

when i had dsl with bellsouth before the ATT take over, theyd over sync the lines. so when i paid for 1.5 i GOT 1.5, when i paid for 3.0 i GOT 3.0 the average consumer doesnt give a darn about over head. all they care about is "im paying for A but im only ever getting B i want a credit!!" if we had a connection that maxed out the NIC speed i could see the whole "we cant over provision" line. but since no one has that luxury theres really no reason for it. and if att quit over syncing here in former bellsouth teritory, thats nice to know (ill stick to cable because of that, thanks.)

as for the diagnostics. USE THEM. get very familure with them. do your research, check YOUR lines, test test and test some more! when they tryd to upgrade me at one point it never quight "took" it showed it was provisioned at the correct rate. but it would constantly drop out every few minutes. they had insisted it was on my end, and even suggested reinstalling the O/S (i LMAO' so hard on that one) so i dug out the troubleshooting pages here on this site. compared numbers. even grabed a run of cat5 and ran directly to the NID from the modem just to make DARN sure it wasnt on my end (they had recently started charging i think $80 to come out) had a tech come out, showd him every single thing i done. showed him the numbers, and guess what? the line was saturated. so even though it syncd correctly there was absolutly no room what so ever for any give or take so the second i started to use the line, BAM drop outs.
said by batterup:

said by stinger6:

In the course of resolving this issue, I learned that a misconfiguration (on their end) had not only locked me out of my email account, but also assigned me as a Basic DSL Customer.

I've been around long enough to know when someone is "blowing smoke up my kilt."

The modem has a diagnostic utility that would have shown you were provisioned at a lower speed than you were supposed to be.

now in the case of the misconfiguration, logging in to the diagnostic page and looking at the sync rate would have clearly shown the DS and US rate not provisiond correctly, that said good luck getting a tier 1 CSR to break script and go by the information you give them.

EDIT: fixed one NIC to NID, and added a quote i forgot.

Mospaw
My socks don't match.

join:2001-01-08
New Braunfels, TX

Mospaw

(topic move) [Rant] Pay for 6 lucky to get 3

Moderator Action
The post that was here (and all 3 followups to it), has been moved to a new topic .. »[Rant] Pay for 6 lucky to get 3

FlorNan
@swbell.net

FlorNan to stinger6

Anon

to stinger6

Re: [Rant] Pay for 6 lucky to get 3

In late January after the 12 inch snowstorm and following 3" sleet and 5" more of snow in Old Town Florissant, our AT&T dsl download speed became 400 kbps instead of the fast" 1.5 mbps that was supposed to be our slowest (upload didn't even show .3 mbps). I thought it was a cable line problem until I read online that AT&T was sued and settled for over $100,000,000 with a class action lawsuit in Kansas, although there are others pending for "rationing" the regular dsl to its customers after Uverse came out. Apparently that may be the reason they can "fix" the problem without even coming out to our home in Florissant. I have some additional evidence that is too complicated to explain here that there are some shenanigans going on with AT&T dsl speed ups and downs. How can we get together to press for getting what we're paying for? I would go with Charter or someone else but it is problematic right now to give up my sbcglobal.net email address.
By the way, the lawyers for that dsl case got 100s of thousands to share, but the poor blokes like us getting cheated got their yearly charges ranging from chump change to $800 average from the payout.
Perhaps the city of Florissant could do something about its citizens getting shortchanged here. We were the first area to get wired up from what I remember, so now we are not considered high-end users?

batterup
I Can Not Tell A Lie.
Premium Member
join:2003-02-06
Netcong, NJ

batterup

Premium Member

said by FlorNan :

I thought it was a cable line problem until I read online that AT&T was sued and settled for over $100,000,000 with a class action lawsuit in Kansas, although there are others pending for "rationing" the regular dsl to its customers after Uverse came out.

One hundred million sounded high so I looked it up. at&t said they did nothing wrong but settled to avoid the cost of a trial. at&t donated $3,750,000 to charity, paid the lawyers $11,000,000 they also have to give ether $2 or $2.90 cents for every month a subscriber had slow DSL service from April 1994 until November 2009 after they fill out a six page claim form.

A subscriber who had his DSL provisioned below his advertised speed will get $2.90 for every month at&t had their line provisioned below their assigned speed.

A subscriber who was provisioned correctly will get $2 for every month his advertised speed fell below a minimum 67% of the time. The minimums are; for 768 Kbps, below 200 Kbps, 1.5 Mbps below 384 Kbps or 769 Kbps depending on which month. For 3.0 Mbps below 1.5 Mbps, 6.0 Mbps speed below 3.0 Mbps.

at&t also has to pay all cost involved with implementing the terms of the agreement. The records were presented in court but the court gave at&t the sole responsibility of determining who gets how much; no small task.

The subscriber who initiated the suit got $10,000 but must issue at&t a W-9 form. That $10,000 is to come out of the $11,000,000 the lawyers got.

So take $11,000,000 lawyers, $3,750,000 charity, $1,000,000 to implement the refunds for a total of $15,750,000. To get to $100,000,000 at&t would have to refund $84,250,000. That comes to 34,387,755 months of slow service. This was ruled on in Ohio and covers all at&t customers nation wide;
quote:
AT&T for the purposes of this Settlement Agreement means (unless otherwise specified) all AT&T entities, subsidiaries, and affiliates, including their predecessor and successor entities, and related entities, that provided, marketed, sold, or billed for DSL Service in the United States including without limitation, any state or territory thereof during the Settlement Class Period, including but not limited to: SBC Internet Services, Inc., d/b/a AT&T Internet Services; BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc; Pacific Bell Internet Services; Southwestern Bell Internet Services, Inc.; Ameritech Interactive Media Services, Inc.; SNET Diversified Group,Inc.; Prodigy Communications Corporation; and Oklahoma Internet Online.
Here are some whereases;
quote:
WHEREAS, AT&T, without admitting any liability, fault, or wrongdoing,
desires to settle the Action and the claims asserted in the action, on the terms and conditions set
forth herein, for the purpose of avoiding the burden, expense, and uncertainty of continuing
litigation, for itself and its customers, and for the purpose of putting to rest the controversies
engendered by the litigation;

flornan
@swbell.net

flornan

Anon

Re: "$100,000,000.00" settlement for fraudulent dsl se

The main idea is they were culpable, not that I made a mistake in how many millions it cost AT&T. I put one too many zeros in my figure. I thought I wrote ten million ($10,000,000.00) Sorry about that but your info amount was even higher than that. Apparently the lawsuit you looked up was not filed in Kansas, but in Ohio. This suit was last year (2010) and it was aimed at similar fraud by AT&T. AT&T paid because they are GUILTY and thought they'd save money, not because they were wanting to avoid a lengthy trial. I wish it had gone to court. Their backroom sneakiness would have certainly been duly noted.

As a footnote, this settlement can be used in several other states also, including Oklahoma, Texas, and Missouri

batterup
I Can Not Tell A Lie.
Premium Member
join:2003-02-06
Netcong, NJ

batterup

Premium Member

said by flornan :

The main idea is they were culpable,

Well let me say this about that; at&t and the lawyers got a sweet heart of a deal.

This is a two part situation; one I agree with one that makes me want to puke. Let us look at part one. AT&T provisioning subscribers below their advertised speed is the equivalent of a butcher weighting his thumb along with your meat. This is an intentional, with malice of forethought, breaking of the law. Why werent the AT&T people that implemented this hustle not criminally prosecuted and now making big rocks into little rocks? I smell a rat.

The second part is nebulous. If a subscriber is provisioned at their advertised speed it may not be an intentional act with malice of forethought if they encounter sticky tubes. Granted the court was lenient only requiring ½ the advertised speed 33% of the time. This is the new phone company; hustle a buck selling ring tones to 14 year olds. The people demanded it and now they have it.

This type of thing is the future of the US of A. Ma Bell is dead; pucker your sphincter it gets worse. Ivan the last of the old guard is gone in the spring. I got that from a totally unreliable copy and paste source.

NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
TP-Link TD-8616
Asus RT-AC66U B1
Netgear FR114P

NormanS to batterup

MVM

to batterup

Re: [Rant] Pay for 6 lucky to get 3

said by batterup:

All DSL is two wires.

"2Wire" is a modem brand, not a technical description of the infrastructure.

batterup
I Can Not Tell A Lie.
Premium Member
join:2003-02-06
Netcong, NJ

batterup

Premium Member

said by NormanS:

said by batterup:

All DSL is two wires.

"2Wire" is a modem brand, not a technical description of the infrastructure.

I read that some ware.
said by thedragonmas:

2wire is a brand, like westell.


NormanS
I gave her time to steal my mind away
MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA

NormanS to flornan

MVM

to flornan

Re: "$100,000,000.00" settlement for fraudulent dsl se

said by flornan :

AT&T paid because they are GUILTY and thought they'd save money ...

"Guilt" is a criminal matter, not a civil matter.

batterup
I Can Not Tell A Lie.
Premium Member
join:2003-02-06
Netcong, NJ

batterup

Premium Member

said by NormanS:

said by flornan :

AT&T paid because they are GUILTY and thought they'd save money ...

"Guilt" is a criminal matter, not a civil matter.

I agree but it was shown that at&t intentionally provisioned subscribers below their advertised speed. As subscribers are not charged by the byte I don't know if this is criminal as would be having a gas pump deliver less gas then was reported. BUT it is an intentional act unlike sticky tubes past the DSLAM.

It would take a prosecutor with courage to take on at&t in such a complex and technical matter. The court did make a distinction between the subscribers who had this done to them by awarding them 90 cents a month more than the sticky tube subscribers.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984

Premium Member

Re: [Rant] Pay for 6 lucky to get 3

said by r81984:

ATT offered 6meg for $19.99 a month (with or without phone service) with 1 yr contract if you pay more than $19.99 you are overpaying.
No one can beat ATT at that price for unlimited unthrottled internet.
I have had ATT in 3 different states in suburb/town areas and it has always been rock solid.
ATT really has done well with their DSL.
Those that work in the DSL division at ATT have done a great job over the years.

I retract this statement ATT is now a horrible ISP.
My contract ends sept and I will cancel then. If they break my contract and impose the caps on my anyways then I will cancel now.
I feel sorry for those that work at ATT. They now work for an anti-internet company.