Review of AT&T DSL ServiceAll reviews of |  about |
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 at least that was reliable. Followup comments:
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I am having a problem with AT&T DSL services. I started my DSL services in Dec of 2002. In May or June of 2003 I was looking at an apartment to purchase and move my phone number and DSL service. At that time AT&T moved my phone number, even though I never bought the apartment. In order to get the DSL service reinstated, the AT&T people decided to restart my service. I ended my service in May of 2003. Three days short of my "one year commitment." However I actually started my service 6 months earlier. Well in excess of my one year commitment. I called the AT&T DSL billing center, and spoke with "Monica" on 07/06/2004 around 8PM. She stated that my service started in June 2003. She could not find any records of my prior DSL service. I don't think that she could access all of the records and she would not allow me to talk to any other representitive. I asked for her name and employee number, I understood her name, but could not understand the english she was using to give me her employee number. I asked for her to say it in a different manner, she said she could not. I asked her to call me back, and she could not. I asked to speak to someone whose first language was english just to get her employee number. She once again refused. I have been trying to get records to show that I had trouble installing the DSL line in December of 2002. I have not been able to. Do you know how i may get billing and technical records from AT&T to show that I had DSL service in excess of 1 year? Thank you, Steve Rubinstein 521 Shore Acres Drive Mamaroneck, NY 10543 914-656-0595 eyeguy2020ataol.com Followup comments:
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Verizon won't service my address, even though I am in NYC and about a mile from the CO. So we gave AT&T a try, and at first they were not bad. We could reach tech support if necessary, the wait times were not long and the support people knew their stuff. An early red flag was that their DSL installation CD overwrote my IE with their own branded IE, and installed several other programs on my computer such as advertising bots (marketing spyware), unasked. This pissed me off and I uninstalled it all, reinstalled my own stuff and configured my own network and router. The problems started about a year ago when AT&T switched over to PPPOE and we lost our static IP. They sent out a new CD which we were supposed to run blindly, which was unacceptable. We tried to contact tech support to find out what was on the CD exactly, and how to configure PPPoE manually. Tech support is now well nigh unreachable: after three attempts we got through to a tech who admitted being in India. (This is why DSL prices are so low: companies downsize and outsource.) He had no idea how to manually configure a computer, and there was no supervisor to whom he could transfer me. We also can't send mail via AT&T's SMTP server, and they block port 25 so we can't set up our own server! So the only way we can send mail is to use a web-based service like Yahoo... Finally got through to tech support after almost an hour on hold, got somebody else in India who was actually unfriendly and said, "no run CD, no support." So I figured it out myself. After the PPPoE changeover, speeds were slower at peak times, and things slow to a crawl. I was actually getting web page timeouts. This improved when I changed to DNS servers in the ORSC root zone rather than AT&T's overused DNS servers. These days DSL internet access can go for ten minutes and stop for ten minutes. Much of the time I use a dial-up from work which can be faster, and at least it is always on, no waiting! AT&T tech support is almost impossible to reach, and even after getting a call through to India, the technician simply says that there are no known network outages. As to the slowness and off-again on-again aspect of their "service", they say stuff like "sorry for the inconvenience, please try again later". In my opinion, AT&T have oversubscribed their service and make customers wait. They have downsized and outsourced their tech support and make customers wait. Best to find a company that's more competitive! Cheers, Rob in NYC Followup comments:
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On April 23 I get a e-mail from ATT saying that the work needed to be done on my phone line had been completed and my self-installation kit should arrive within 3-5 business days. Well, on April 27 I finally receive my installation kit via UPS (who else?) and set up everything within 10 minutes or less. I used to play games on dial-up (terribly), so any kind of broadband would be a major improvement. Well guess what?? Instead of getting pings like 284 or 359, I was getting pings between 50-100. I was so happy. Downloading files about 2MB took seemingly all day on dial-up, now download in seconds. Oh and talking about pings, I play Return To Castle Wolfenstein a lot, and a lot of the time, I have the lowest pings there. Sometimes even in the 20's. Woohoo. Now that was the good part, here comes the not so good part. Although it's vastly superior to dial-up, ATT dsl is not very consistent. When I run a test, sometimes I get 504/104 or 600/105, but other times I get 350/98 or 450/99. I know I won't get exactly 768/128, but how about being in the same ballpark?? I live in Queens, NYC so I'm not too far away from the office. The other major flaw is that when you click on the ATT dsl service icon, it takes so long to connect. Sometimes it say's "Not Responding". In fact, most of the times it says "Not Responding. What happened to instand access and always on? Oh well. I usually have to click on that icon over and over to get it work. It's really annoying. It's May 9 today and in a couple of days I will be (sadly) cancelling my ATT dsl service. I'll get 3.0MB/384 cable instead. My overall experience has been both good and bad, but for the most part, good. My suggestion is if your a gamer and want DSL, then get this, you will not regret it. But if you surf a lot and download a lot, then your better off somewhere else. I do both, but I want to surf faster and download fast, so thats the main reason I'm going to cancel it. Who knows, maybe in the future I may get ATT back again. :-D. Followup comments:
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The order process was smooth. I was impressed by the followup emails detailing every step of the process. I got an email saying line was active and the next day I got the modem kit. I followed the instructions to the letter and did not get any light on the dsl modem which would show connectivity. I checked the lines and made sure everything was correct BEFORE calling tech support. I finally called. I was on hold for 45 minutes and was then disconnected. I called again and was on for about 40 minutes when I got a technician. Needless to say this company outsources to India and I had a hard time understanding everything initially although I must admit the guy was patient. He took me through some basic troubleshooting steps while he ran a test on the line. After all my efforts no luck. he then said that the line was not active yet and that it would be up to Bellsouth to do so. Said should be online in two days but I would have to call them again. there would not be any followup. Today I get an email from Covad saying order cancelled as I was too far from the loopback. I have to wonder why I got this far before someone at that end figured this out. I am glad I did not cancel my account with Comcast. I had gotten a 30 day money back guarantee and after some problems with DSL in past I decided to play it cautious. Anyway if you can get the line working on your own and cost is a factor this might be a good option. However tech support will be lacking and you will need to have time to spend waiting! Followup comments:
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Over the past year, everything has worked pretty good. My speed was consistant at about 1.1/100 and I was pretty happy. I had some disconnects every once in a while, but that was fine. Then at the end of Feb., my DSL started having major problems. When I did a speed test, it showed 128/100 - only about twice the speed of my previous 56k modem!! So I called tech support, but things were different now - I think that AT&T DSL support moved off shore to India. A rather rude gentleman that was hard to understand tried to assist me. When I finally understood him, he was telling me that there must be an internal wiring problem. I accepted that and told him I would check on my wiring. So the next day I checked all my wiring and could not find anything wrong. I disconnected the whole house except the line that feeds to my computer. I connected only my DSL modem to the line and my speed was still stuck at about 128. So I called back into tech support. Another Indian gentleman had me disconnect the modem and drag it outside, run and extension cable for power, and connect directly to the box from the phone company, disconnecting everything that went into the house. So I did and he ran a speed test - 128 again!! So he said that it looked like a problem on their end and he was going to send out a technician with a warning that if the tech found a problem with the internal wiring (IW) that they would charge me a $200 fee. Since we both agreed that it couldn't be the IW I agreed to the tech visit. When the tech arrived the next day he was extremely nice. I had a nice conversation with him and shadowed him the whole time to see how he troubleshot the problem. First thing he did was to connect his modem (better than mine) to the box with the house disconnected. His modem speed - 128!! "Oh yea, something is wrong here" was his comment. He then called his office and had a tech do some tests on the line. Then he had them "reapportion" (?) the line - the speed jumped up to 1.2/100 again - YEA, or so I thought. He then said he wanted to test inside with my modem throught my wiring. While he reconnected the house, I went inside and got the modem in a location where he could access it. When he connected his laptop to the modem, the speed was 300/100. OK, now what. He connected his modem - 300/100. Something was wrong. He grabbed a line tester and we went back out to the box. When we got there I realized that he had connected an extra line that I had no idea where it went (and had not had it connected before). When we disconnected this line, the speed of my modem inside went to 1.1/100. He tested this extra line and said it that there was something connected to it, like an older modem or analog telephone (huge drop on the line). So he was nice and tried to help me determine what was wrong. He spent maybe 20 minutes looking into it and we could not determine where the problem was. I told him not to worry about this "phantom" device since I didn't use the line anyhow. He packed up and went on his way and I was happy with my restored DSL. All was great with the world. Then, this past week, I get my credit card bill and I have an extra $200 charge from AT&T. So I call the billing department. They say that the technician visit was a charged visit because the tech ticket said the problem was with the IW. I complain and say that it wasn't and am told that they have to bill me for it because the notes say it was IW. They transfer me to tech support for clarification on the notes and another Indian gentleman explains that they cannot credit the $200 because the notes say it was IW. So I ask who can change the notes - they say the billing department. So I go back to the billing department and am told that only tech support can change the notes. Back to tech support I go and am told again that they cannot change the notes. I ask who can, they say NO ONE CAN. They tell me the notes mention something about a "phantom device" on the IW. I try to explain what happened and they tell me again that they cannot change the notes. I give up that night. The next day (after calming down) I call the billing department again - the rep starts telling me I have to talk to tech support, and I stop him and ask for a supervisor. No supervisor around "I can't find any supervisors right now". Granted this was on a Sunday. So on Monday I call back, ask for a supervisor and finally talk to one. He tells me that they cannot change the notes and that according to tech support, the problem was with the IW. When I ask what can I do to contest the charge, he tells me I can't. When I mention that I could call my credit company and reverse the charge he lets me know that if I did, they would disconnect my service and then file a collections claim against me. "Sir, just pay the bill" is what the supervisor tells me. OK, fine, you just lost a customer long time customer (over 6 years with AT&T). So basically, as long as nothing goes wrong with your service, it may work great for you, but if something does - your not going to like it... Followup comments:
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Anyhow, I finally signed up in March for AT&T DSL without their local phone service, DSL being more important. The phone representatives I spoke with were pleasant and knowledgeable. The only delay was that they did not want to start until the beginning of my Worldnet monthly billing cycle. After that, the order went in, the line was tested and enabled, and my kit arrived inside of a week. I did not use the self-install kit, however. I had signed up for professional installation because of my alarm system. The Covad installer showed up on schedule (a couple of days after the kit), put in a splitter at the box and routed the DSL signal over an unused pair in the cable leading up to the phone jack in my computer room/office. It was a very quick and clean install and avoided the annoyance of adding filters on all my phones and other equipment. I think having your splitter at the box is really the way to go. Signal quality was excellent -- installer measured it at something like 31 dB, which he said was as good as you get right in the CO. Service has been reliable and measures out quite close to the 768/128 that I purchased. Connection is PPPoE. The tech, using his laptop, tested only as far as the DSL modem. He said he was not permitted to configure my computer -- that was up to me. The hassle was with the installation software that came on a CD with my kit -- it simply did not work on my XP Pro system. I phoned AT&T tech support and had no trouble getting instructions on how to configure the broadband connection manually. It was quick and easy, and phoning them was a fine experience -- free call, no long waits on hold, and no problem getting the answer. Once I was browsing online, I found the XP configuration problem was well known (even though the CD claimed to work with XP), and the same answer was on their DSL tech support Web site. But it turned out, the phone guy forgot to tell me how to get my e-mail to work -- the CD had given a configuration, but the POP3 and SMTP server names it listed were incorrect. The correct server names were there on the Web site, along with the necessary SSL configuration, so I didn't need to make another phone call. But someone not comfortable in the options menu of his e-mail client might have ended up less a happy camper than I did. Cost is actually $10/month less than the $40 official rate for the entire first year, tied to having AT&T long distance service. DSL modem is "free" as a result of a full rebate for the installation kit, but you do have to mail in the rebate form! Professional installation was $200. Followup comments:
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If you wan to avoid this confusion, avoid ATT/Covad. Once Verizon fixes the lines, I will be switching my service, phone and DSL, over to them. Followup comments:
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Friday. The special was no signup fee, free TA and $19.99 for the first six months. I got an e-mail confirmation a few minutes later with my new number, which was already active when I called it. The e-mail said I should get my equipment in 4 or 5 business days. On the following Monday I called to see if there was an orderstatus or tracking number, the rep. Said no tracking but I do show the order is being processed. I called back on Wednesday and got someone who did not know her head from my head. She just kept saying no tracking available, you should get it between today and Friday. She came up with the answers after putting me on hold about 10 times. She also said I would get an e-mail when the TA shipped, which to this day I still have not gotten. She told me all of this with out ever asking the phone number I was calling about, she was only going by my name. I hung up and called right back and explained the situation that the previous rep. Was no help what so ever. I had a tracking number and ship date (the previous day) with in two minutes of talking to the second rep. She said I should get it the next day which would be Thursday, hmmm the first rep was right I should get it between Wednesday and Friday. She had the info the whole time she just would not give it to me. I had the TA on my front porch when I got home, it came early since it was only coming from Dallas. I hooked up and activated the TA on the website and was making phone calls. There has been some issues with the service and the fact that the TA must go directly behind the modem and in front of any routers you might have, which is not a good thing. My internet traffic slowed to a crawl while I would be on the phone, this is an issue I found out today that AT&T has known about all along. I have worked around my issues and all in all the service seems to be pretty good. I am satisfied with the quality of the calls and have not had any problems with incoming or outgoing calls. Followup comments:
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AT&T DSL Service
(47)
(43)
(56)
(17)
Cleveland,Cuyahoga,OH
$30 per month
"its pretty fast when it actually goes"
"IF it actually goes"
"not what it's cracked up to be"
Verizon
about 10 days
