AT&T Southwest → Is there any way that I can get out of my contract

I am writing this on a dialup connection.

For about the past month and a half, my service here in Joplin MO has been nightmarish; lost sync, unexplained connection drops, ticket numbers that they say "we have no record of that". My contract runs into mid-October and we are wondering: Do we have any recourse other than to put up with this so-called "service"?

My sync light has gone off no less than 5 times today, a couple of times just long enough for me to see it and go, "All right!" and attempt to fire up Connection Manager, only to go out immediately.

The sync light just came on again. I wish I could trust it...

Did you try seeking help here? There are several official techs posting here... they can help you out.

Don't despair! SBC Techs are lurking in this forum and they are very helpful. I know I sound like a broken record with all my praise for their service... what can I say, I have been with their DSL a little less than a full week and they helped me very quickly with a couple minor issues I had.

Just IM DSL_Guy or BeachBoy(he is based in MO BTW). BeachBoy helped me.

Sounds like the local Telco is doing something with your lines (IMO.) Otherwise you may be having other gremlins such as modem/software/power problems. Take a look at the FAQs »/faq and you might just figure out the cause on your own.

If not, don't worry plenty of us (and especially the SBC Techs) are more than willing to help you sort out these problems

You have gotten some good advice here. IM the techs and if they find line problems that can not be fixed they will be able to cancel your service effectivly ending your contract.

But if it can be fixed these guys will make it work!

As the others have said, IM the techs.... it's possible that they need to cap you to bring you into a solid connection...also it could be just line issues from the telco like the other person said.... it's hard to tell just by the description of it is in sync then it drops then comes back again and then off, etc...

All these guys are right. Try this at a last ditch effort. I had some of the same problems you did, then I hooked up with beach boy, one of our techs here.

He took me from 192/128 connection, that was losing sync with the wind. To a stable 768/256!! and this was after being quoted at 19.7k feet from the CO. All my problem was was the alarm system was wired for back up at my NID.

If I can offer you one word of advice is this, IM a tech here before you give up, if they cant help then have them cancel and dont look back.

Read your first post, that will tell you 8) »Sync problems in Joplin MO AGAIN

take your modem outside to NID (the place where all your phones wires are running from). open the customer's side and you will see a jack. unplug the line that is in that jack and plug your modem in. now see if you are still losing sync. this bypasses the inside wiring and will eliminate that problem if you still lose sync.

The techs on this board have been extremely helpful, especially beachboy.

What really tore it for me was that when I was out at work, Dad started losing sync. Dad knows nothing about this forum so he called SBC to try and get it fixed. They gave him a case # and told him to wait there for a call back. Four hours later when I got home from work, he is still waiting there so I call SBC and they say, rather snippily, "We have no record of that ticket number." If the phone line had been a little wider I would have reached in and grabbed the guy by his neck.

Like I said, there was hardly a problem until about mid-May. Did SBC do something to the Joplin CO, or did something happen that anybody knows about?

It appears (never announced) that there are some network "improvements" occurring these days. My own latencies are still in a state of flux and there are reports all over of connection problems that come and go. Most people only have a few days of problems then everything magically gets better. However a month or more of problems is certainly not something to let slide by. I hope BB can get you set back up.

Like Jlhugh says a NID test will be a good bet on how things are on the inside. And can test to see if its on your side or theres. Its a little grey box outside that either says SouthwesternBell on it, or has some other Company name on it. Its about the size of a PC video game box. All you need to do is take your modem out there, open up the customer side plug it in, and have one of our board techs take a look at your line quality. Make sure its powered up, and that you set up a time previous to test with the forum techs.

Member post the before an after results 8)