US Telco Support > AT&T > AT&T Midwest > Gave up on AT&T DSL Switched to Comcast Business Class

Gave up on AT&T DSL Switched to Comcast Business Class

Were doing the same exact thing Friday with my mom's store. Have had AT&T DSL for as long as we've been in that location, (1 month shy of 9 years) and over that course of time it has NEVER been reliable, for about two years it was iffy at best, then finally with a 3rd new modem you could finally browse the web. Nowadays I only see about 2.0 MBps on a 3.0 MBps plan, only on a GOOD day. (not to mention signal dropouts/link retrains multiple times a day)
The phone lines have been about the same, 4 lines and one of them failing every month or so, especially when AT&T is out working on other peoples lines.
Got so bad at times that the employees had to be trained on how to file a trouble ticket. hahahaha.

AT&T line people have told us several times that the service is so bad because were at the end of the line, and when I look out in the alley that's very literal, as the next block over is served by a different central office and area code.

The last straw was AT&T raising their rates ridiculously and then seeing how little Comcast wants for so much more then AT&T
So come friday we will be set up with 12/2 internet and 3 of the four lines will be ported over to Comcast.

Did you move your phone over to them as well?

reply to edporch
GusHerb94, I hope you're getting Comcast Business Class.
They're supposedly a separate program from the residential and my research showed better service on average.

I also got the 12/2 speed with plans to upgrade if I liked it.
Let me say that I'm getting CONSIDERABLY faster speeds than 12/2 both up and down, and it's been rock solid.

I'm going to drop my phone lines and am thinking about going to one phone line on Comcast.

reply to edporch
Do you have to have a business to get business class service?

I do have a business in my house, and I actually have two Comcast Business Class modems coming in over one cable; one for me, and one for a client that's keeping a server here because they couldn't at the time get Comcast Business Class in their office. According to the Comcast tech, the incoming piece of coax could, at the time, support four 50/10 modems. Now that they offer 100/10 service, I don't know if it would still handle four or fewer.

Also liking the North American based tech support, comparable price to UVerse, bundling of 25 installs of Norton Internet Security for Mac OR Windows versus the 7 McAfee Windows-only you get with AT&T, free hosted Outlook accounts (number free based on your package) and more. Here's the details.

»business.comcast.com/smb/service···et/plans

The biggest downside I've had is when my area gets socked with a greater-than-10-hour power failure (I had four between mid-April and mid-June last year). Comcast went down hard after their batteries gave out. Uverse did too, but for the 53-hour one, AT&T did come and chain a generator to the VRAD. If you can supply your own power in an outage, and want the same from your internet provider, Comcast is not for you.

I do literally love the people who do our AT&T support on this site. but, outside of complaining about their local equipment being down during a power-related issue, I haven't had to call Comcast for my business class service since a squirrel-chewed line in the spring of 2010.

Your mileage may vary, but business service isn't the Comcast I loathed a decade back. They really treat businesses like businesses; something that might appeal to the prosumer users that have been on this site for ten to a dozen years.

reply to edporch
Out of curiosity, I went on at&t's business website to view all the services they offer. I saw many different things like Frame Relay, VPN, and a bunch of other sophisticated networking services. Comcast only offers "Ethernet" service. What exactly does this consist of?

Also, what does Comcast not have that at&t has? I would have to guess that since at&t has been in the business longer, that it would have many more services.

But it seems like Comcast just offers business phone, internet, TV, and Ethernet services - three of which are just the business versions of the residential services. Their Ethernet service looks interesting, and along the lines of what at&t offers.

Compare this site: »business.comcast.com/

To this site: »www.business.att.com/enterprise/···1PNpdsPS

Big difference in offerings!

reply to GusHerb94

reply to voipnpots
hows the speed if you are on the same nodes residential?

How does it work in long power outages?? comcast does not have the backup generators to cover all the nodes so even if you still have power the some where down the line from you to the head end does not have it you by have 8 hours or less of phone, internet, TV.

DSL is better as RT's and CO's have better power backup. Also the laws make them fix the phone lines faster then cable.

Also there TV can be better but for business this not a big issue inless you have a bar or restaurant.

Not in Ohio, since 2011 the 24 restoral requirement whent bye bye. So now your lucky to get a truck in 7 days, god forbid you get a lil bit of weather and its 10-14 days, something realy bad in another at&t state, forgetaboutit as at&t is pull techs from your state to go fix, and F the state they came from for all they care.

reply to edporch
voipnpots, I fought AT&T for YEARS trying to simply get reasonable DSL service.
Read my review here:
»Review of AT&T Midwest by edporch

When it got to the point AT&T began LYING, claiming there was nothing wrong with my phoneline when it was DEMONSTRATED there was, and therefore were going to do NOTHING, I realized I had no choice but to find an alternative.

What's the point of AT&T claiming to offer all their wonderful services if they aren't going to maintain the phone lines that deliver them?

ALL I need is Internet service for my email and web server.
I have personal and business cellphone numbers that fit my mobile situation and have little use for a land line.

I'm sure Comcast Business Class isn't perfect either, but it will take YEARS of outages to equal what I got from AT&T.

reply to edporch
Right regardless of what provider you choose, there are going to be outages and no provider is going to be perfect 100% of the time. Hence; why if uptime is a concern to you also look into a backup connection, wireless, something.

That said, I was just looking and it seems a little ridiculous too the amount SBC/AT&T charges for really a sub par residential service 6mb/768k DSL may have been good years ago, but that is simply not the case today. However, what I find far worse is all these data caps (I am not into games but recent a couple clients of ours have started doing things in virtual environments, something called second life or who knows- I really never got into these things, since I am not into games, but I had noticed that there were issues bandwidth issues when using these new virtual 3d environments. I am actually in the process of looking into Comcast and giving them a try, or even Ethernet or similar service depending on how things shake out. I did not think it would ever come to that... But 768k for large file uploads just isn't cutting it.

As for AT&T and the service, it starts at the TOP and flows down. I would hope in light of their recent hard hitting reports from the DOJ, PUCs and FCC in regards to their bid to merge with Tmobile should serve as a wake up call, though I HIGHLY doubt it will.

I'll leave you with this one example of a large enterprise customer of AT&T’s, which also advertises heavily in the Chicago market on TV/radio and is a proud supporter of the Chicago Black Hawks. Long story short, this is how screwed up the company was/is. The client's business relies on being able to take incoming calls to be able to dispatch service people, much in the way at&t would dispatch drivers to take service calls [accept this company knows what they are doing and has it down to a T]. So long story short, their connection goes down for whatever reason. So first you have an IT guy that is there 18hrs+ until the problem gets fixed, now ATT in their infinite wisdom won't allow me to expense $25 dollars worth of coffee and donuts to these poor guys that are stuck there waiting for ATT to fix the mess. But they would gladly expense and pay thousands of dollars for sporting event tickets, catered lunches, and other BS. Seems strange to you, well it did to me too. So long story short, finally the circuit gets back up and I was strong armed into bringing a team of 3-4 different sales reps out to meet with the client to sell him a bunch of junk that still would not solve the problem.. Of which, the other executive sales reps that I was required to bring out, new this too! All because you have a company that is quite frankly too damn large, not enough training for people in the right areas and ultimately no structure or organization within any part of the company. Congrats on switching to Comcast, I am quite sure you will not miss ATT or all their antics.

Have a great three day weekend & MLK day on Monday
~Joel