said by kira023:in the past 2 years, i've been through about 4-5 different modems. ATT usually blame the modem and use that as the fix. They had me buy/replace the damn things so often now, i can't believe that is the problem.
same thing with filters...bought/replace it so many times now, i can't believe filters can failed so often.
They don't, and they most likely didn't...
I had AT&T dsl for over 10 years and
never had a filter fail...the first modem that I had, still works to this day, although they have had a dud modem/gateway model or two.
It is entirely possible that you have issues either somewhere through the line, or at the CO itself.
A couple of years ago I had similar sounding issues to what you have (after having years of rock-solid connectivity). Even when a tech came out they tried to sell me that there was "great signal" and no problems on their end.
After basically telling them that it just was not so, and that I would need to explore a better alternative, lo and behold they escalated the case and discovered a bad connection at the CO was to blame...fixed it and had no further problems (though I've since gone to cable).