AT&T DSL

[JcMack]

I received an e mail from them this a.m.. It says they're changing DSL service. They supply a link to a Q&A page that addresses increased charges. From what I can get out of the gobble d gook, there won't be an increase. Anybody else use ATT and get this info?

 

[ditrina]

Mornin' sir..
I have been on ATT Bellsouth DSL ( Super Ultimate Extra High Speed or some such ) forever, but have not gotten an email yet..
I wonder what they are changing? Keep us posted.. Maybe it's a local thing??
THX
Sal

 

[rags]

Mornin' sir..
I have been on ATT Bellsouth DSL ( Super Ultimate Extra High Speed or some such ) forever, but have not gotten an email yet..
I wonder what they are changing? Keep us posted.. Maybe it's a local thing??
THX
Sal

I was wondering how you can get here so fast.

rags

 

[diamonback68]

Gosh, you're up early Sal, go back to bed.

 

[JcMack]

I do not wish to mis inform, so I won't elaborate. Part of it sounds like depending on tier of service you will be limited to uploads / downloads per month. My tier includes 150 gig a month. Attached is my usage so far. I am on this machine a lot and view Netflix movies (online) quite a bit. www.myusage.att.com got me the info. The only reason I give any attention to this stuff is I'm on a utility war. I worked for ATT and I know they like to throw up a BS screen before they attack.

 

[sipowicz]

I just dumped ATT phone/internet for Time Warner Cable. Got tired of their constant increases and finding new "fees" on my bill. I'm super happy with cable....much faster and 4 bucks cheaper. And for the same basic phone price, I can call all over the US. With ATT I had to use my cell phone since they were too cheap to throw that in free long distance. I also got charged for toll calls outside my 7 mile radius...Good riddance to AT&T!

 

[JcMack]

ATT is trying to run this Uverse baloney over existing 2 wire. Analog/digital signals transmitted over wire travels "over" the wire not through it. Cable installations are newer in a lot of instances and the center conductor represents a much larger surface area than the old 2 wire that is more than likley surface corroded. Hence impedance on corroded wire plus the overall effect of uverse TV and DSL over ATT 2 wire is likely bogging down. Tough cookies for ATT. Around here ATT is still much cheaper than cable. Speed on ADSL is noT the fastest, but neither am I.

Opinions expressed here by me are not necessarily fact (except for the wire info stuff ((basic E))) so think what you will. I'm old.

Jim

 

[41 fan]

JcMack
Very seldom are the cable pairs corroded. The cable prs are "conditioned" before Uverse is offered and any splices that have corrosion are repaired. When Uverse was first offered the only downside I heard of was your dialtone would go to VOIP. Without exception, every customer I asked about their experience with Uverse replied positively. But I have heard of a couple of retired telephone men who did have a problem with VOIP. Dean

 

[JcMack]

Is "conditioning" still higher voltage sent over pairs to burn off corrosion?

Thanks, Jim

 

[NCTexan]

I just dumped ATT phone/internet for Time Warner Cable. Got tired of their constant increases and finding new "fees" on my bill. I'm super happy with cable....much faster and 4 bucks cheaper. And for the same basic phone price, I can call all over the US. With ATT I had to use my cell phone since they were too cheap to throw that in free long distance. I also got charged for toll calls outside my 7 mile radius...Good riddance to AT&T!

My actions (of about eight months ago) and feeling exactly.

The AT&T would run OK sometimes but would have extended periods of running at 20% of their advertised speed. Now the TWC Roadrunner is consistantly much faster than the best that I ever got from DSL. I have two phone lines with them as well. Ain't cheap but what is now days?

 

[MK]

I'm cable here, internet, phone, and tee vee..
There is a limit here on the cable, but I never even
come close to reaching it.. I think one would need to be
downloading loads of movies every day to reach the limit.
I dumped the phone company 3-4 years ago. They were
getting ridiculous. The cable phone is cheaper, and no
long distance charges. The only downside is it can go kaput
if the cable drops out, but I have cell phones too so no worries.
The cable phone quality is fine here. You would never notice
the difference from a regular land line phone.

One trick I pull.. I have one of the bundles that had a discount
for the first year. When the discount expires, I call them up and
say I need to trim it down to save costs.. They always give me a
new discounted 12 months to try to entice me to keep the bundle.
So I'm probably saving 20-30 bucks a month over the regular price
and this is probably the third year I'm on a discounted rate.
I'll pull the same trick again when this 12 months runs out.. :/
I'm such a piker.. chortle..

 

[Rugskipper]

My local cable (Cox) was 30% faster and 60% more expensive than ATT DSL. When I called to tell them bye-bye, they "found" several promos and deals that they had somehow neglected to tell me about. If I was that important to them, they would have taken better care of me when I was a paying customer. So I went with ATT. I'm not a gamer and don't really miss the speed. Picture quality with DirecTV is far superior than the HDTV service I was paying extra for with Cox. Just checked my email and have no such notice of any increases, but that discount Viagra from Pakistan looks interesting........

 

[41 fan]

JcMack
No, applying high voltage has never been used to burn off corrosion. What I believe you are refeering to is what we called "breaking on a pair". When a cable or splice was damp we would use a breakdown set to put 600 volts dc across a pair. The pair would weld itself into a hard short. A measurement could be made to the short or a tone could be put across the pair and listened for with an amplifier. When you got to the short, the tone would stop. Conditioning was nothing more than cutting cable pairs dead to the field. The same thing was done many years ago and at that time it was refered to as dedicated plant.
I am a retired Bellsouth Cable Repairman. I worked for AT&T for about two and a half years on the Uverse program. Dean

 

[DOEBOY1]

ATT sent us a notice that our discounted rate would no longer be availible if we did anything to our account like raising our speed at an extra price already. One thing I found out from the cable company is that 4G is just around the corner when they wanted me to sign a 2 year locked in contract to use a cable connection. Its supposed to take over the cable, internet, and phone systems. I can't wait! The only reason I have been with att is the time to research and change to something better. Come on 4G! My sony vaio is ready for you! Doeboy

 

[JcMack]

I'm a retired NCR tech. National Cash Register founded 1885. 35 years service for me. In 1991 ATT did a hostile takeover of NCR. They drained all the money from NCR, injected their worthless management and "spun us off along with Lucent" after their failed attempts at most new projects directed by their new to us management. ATT "parachuted" NCR's mgmt. in the domestic market. They did however introduce relaxed dress codes. 25 years of white shirt n tie. ATT came in with blue jeans n polos. It took only 5 yrs of ATT brilliance to destroy a viable company.

 

[41 fan]

JcMack,
Southwestern Bell bought the remains of AT&T and now uses the name. San Antionio is now in control. Now, it was my understanding that Bellsouth always outperformed Southwestern Bell. IRC, in years past, financial types were curious why Southern Bell did not buy AT&T or any of the other telecommunication companies. It would appear that Duane Ackerman (Bellsouth CEO) and Ed Whitaker (AT&T CEO) determined that AT&T buying Bellsouth was an excellent idea. It would also appear that Bellsouth was kept small enough for that to happen. And that did happen. Both left the company shortly thereafter and took quite a bit of money with them. If the idea was so good, why did they leave? Beats me.
As a Cable Splicer and then Cable Repairman, I went from Levis and t shirts to Bellsouth/AT&T uniforms. As I have told retirees older than myself, if you think things were crazy when Bellsouth ran the show, you would not belive how things are now. I have never spoke with a non management employee that is not disgusted with the situation as it is now. Dean

 

[ancient-one]

I have AT&T fastest speed that I also got on a 12 mo. promo. At the end of the 12 mos. they went to regular price and I called them and told them to cancel me and i would go to a Cox package. I was put back on the promo price and told to call back at the end of 12 mos. and they would adjust it again.

 

[Snapping Twig]

For the last year, ATT has given me spotty service where my line would randomly disconnect or slow to a crawl.

Prior to that they sold me on the highest speed internet, but after a couple years of questionable results I had a tech out here and they informed me that there was no way in heck I could get that speed at my location. I had been swindled.

I had them check out all of my lines and house and then set me up at the fastest possibly I could realistically get.

I also got a refund for the overcharge.

6 months of good service, then disconnects and super slow speed at random times.

I'd had enough, so I contacted them for a repair w/o the kabuki theater of them coming back out to my house to try to blame my house and therefore charge me for the repairs. The problem is with the optical card that is my server. This is a fact, not guesswork.

2 months of constant fighting with a bureaucracy that knows no customer service and believes we are a crop to be harvested, I got satisfaction - sort of. They agreed to switch my optical connection, but lo and behold, after a week of good service, we were back to disconnects and slow speed until a few days ago when it went to 0.06 mbps for a day. Apparently the optical card totally failed and the following day repairs were made and at this time it's working. 3 days in so far - we'll see.

If there was any other service that didn't cost an arm and a leg, I'd fire these miscreants.

What made them condescend to my request was that I informed them that if they insisted on 1/2 quality service, I insisted on 1/2 payments. No full payment for less then contracted results. My money didn't disconnect, my money wasn't discounted. My money was 100% reliable and in order to get it from me, they would provide 100% service to me.

 

[JcMack]

The information that I received described in my OP reads like a very convoluted legal document. In reality, I guess it is. The opening page contains stipulations, and links to other pages with yet more stipulations. I called ATT about 4 mos. ago to tell them I was gonna have my phone service discontinued and use their "dry loop" to maintain DSL. They immediately found a way to cut my landline/DSL bill $30 a month for the same service. I called the cable company after they raised the bill and cut back service to the tune of $22 a month. As result I lost about 5 channels I never watch. Same with cell phone. Cut back minutes and saved $20 a month. Since I've retired I've developed the patience to sit on the phone for hours with reps from various service companys.

 

[oldman45]

I recently got a letter from ATT about my DSL service that did not make sense. They said my upgrade was going to add to the monthly cost. I did not order any upgrade.