Apparently this is turning into a rant blog this week. I am trying to get my parents set up with DSL service within the Chicago metropolitan area and AT&T came back with the message that the service is not available in the area. How nuts is that? ATT sends us a million direct mail offers for DSL and then tell us it’s not available in our area? Its a suburb with 50,000 people and a subdivision with 250 homes and they say DSL is not available in the area. Ugh. It’s like they don’t even want our money.
So, after that first call from some guy saying it just isn’t available in the area I called the 800 number and got someone who also said it is not available in our area (big suprise) and I asked who I had to talk to about finding out why. She had to call 3 other people before anyone knew anything other than what their computer screen told them to say, and then finally we found the denial of service was because of a “shortage of facilities” meaning that we were the last ones to sign up and the bandwith was all taken. So, we put in an engineering ticket to see if they can fix this or if it still gets denied. Then I will have to call back again and get someone to submit more tickets to see if they can get this resolved. It would be ridiculous to have dial up when you want DSL and we can’t get cable because the line was cut accidentally during some yard work many years ago.
You would think that if service wasn’t available because of a shortage of facilities they wouldn’t deny it, they would put it on hold until they could build out the system to accommodate it. I don’t mind waiting a few weeks for them to add more capacity I just don’t believe that no is the appropriate answer when customers are there with money in hand ready to buy. And when I have to work this hard to get something this basic, why is their customer service system so inept at getting orders complete? It’s turning away revenue. Why is this an ok business practice when it pisses off the company and the customer?
The Protagonist 
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Update: They looked into it and I requested that the expand the number of homes they can accomodate several times to 3 different people and the answers all came up as No. So, ATT does not want our money. And they won’t get it either. They just cancelled our order and we get nothing.
Unfortunately for ATT DSL you need to be within a certain distance from the facility (switcher). I went through this with them 6 years ago. When I signed up the computer said service was available . Only to discover the service sucked-SLOW because I was at the “end of the line” and I’m in the Chicago. It was slower than dial-up. The good part is there is a dial-up included with DSL so I let others use it if they want.
Sapere Aude,
AT&T just sucks sompletely. I would like to shove some of their “more bars” up some of their “more places.”
I’ve had AT&T DSL for some time now and I agree that it sucks! Unfortunately the options in the area where I live are limited. I was just on the phone with them today and I didn’t candy coat it. I told them in no uncertain terms what I think of them and their so called “high speed” internet. The specific problem that I have is that the signal is constantly ( and by that I mean all day and all night every day) not connecting to the internet. That screen that says at&t gateway alert notification The Broadband Link is Currently Not Available DSL failed to connect…Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah…. I’d began to think this was my desk top back ground I’ve seen it so much. On top of the unbelievable frustration of this happening right in the middle of something important I’m paying thes assholes for that.
DSL Failed to Connect
I’ve been with road runner for more than 5 years, last week got a call from AT&T stating how much money they could save me by switching to their DSL. Tech came out last tuesday to install and had to have help from second tech before installation was complete. Not his fault, AT&T recently bought local service here so they haven’t sent them to school yet. Next three mornings unable to connect to internet without unplugging the motum and rebooting the system. Then discovered could not access any of the online video services.Spoke with rep on phone and lo and behold I don’t have access to their premium high speed service, would have been nice if they had told me prior to buying the thing. Had it disconnected today and fortunately did not have my road runner disconnected so now I’m back on line with them. Moral of story is you get what you pay for, sure the cable service is a little more but it least IT WORKS………..
I’m sitting here waiting for my high-speed connection to activate…and still nothing! I’ve called them a half dozen times already and each of these times I’ve been given a different set of excuses as to why…makes me wonder what kind of excuse(s) I’ll get next time I call!!
It boils my xxx to think I gave up Earthlink dialup for this!!
Say what you want about Earthlink or their dialup service, but it works and is reliable and has been there for me since I went with them in June 2003…
I’m giving this another few hours, and I will call them and tell them to put the service up that place where the sun never shines!!
I echo the comments of others here who think ATT high-speed sucks!! It sucks!!
I completely agree with you all. There service is going down hill. Customer service is really bad. Sometimes they cann’t access the customer record. I had to wait a month to get it connected. At first they took the order incorrectly and then they lost the record. After making many phone calls and getting two technician visit, finally I got my DSL connection. I forgot all those trouble and was happy with it. But my happiness didn’t last more than 4 days. It got disconnected again without giving me any notice. I had to call back again and had to place the order. When I called again to find out my order status they couldn’t find it. How frustrating! Then an agent said they placed my order in a wrong place. After a long wait I spoke to the supervisor but she couldn’t give any satisfying answer but she said that it would be done in a timely manner. But still no sign of connection. It has been month and half since I placed my first order.
Only AT&T serves this area where I live. I have been using DSL for last six years and never had this type of porblem. Does any one know where to go for help or if my voice is ever going to be heard?
Read this http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20173869-Question-about-ATT-DSL-thanks
The same exact thing is happening to me only I haven’t resolved it yet, what a rip-off!
Qwest DSL sucks too. You get what you paid for! Go CABLE! (when I could afford it)
I have AT&T business DSL, so that I can do minor webhosting to pay for my books in school and keep up my industry skills. For over 9 months, I have been getting DoS’d w/ ICMP and UDP frags. Their damned Netopia router sends it to syslogd on one of my servers. EVERY time I call support, they tell me that I need to invest in virus protection software for my [Solaris] server. They have sent me to repairs, to webhosting support, an online form to submit security concerns, and tier 2 support. Those douchebags in tier 2 don’t even know what I am talking about. I asked them to look it up on Wikipedia, and they said, “Well, it’s not in our job description to know about that”.
This is ISP Technical Support, and they don’t have to have any technical expertise?!? WTF?!?
I concur with what the guy above said about Qwest. I use Qwest and this service is getting terrible. Right now, I can’t even stay connected to the internet for more than a few minutes at a time. The internet connection will work for a brief while, then drop and be unable to retrain for sometimes up to half-an-hour or longer.
I know that some cities are starting to offer broadband internet service to their residents using WiFi (or WiMax or whatever it is called). I wish mine would. I would love to have something reliable for a change!
There are really only two competitors offering broadband internet in my market: Qwest and Comcast. When you have only two competitors, that isn’t enough competition to force them to offer good service or make prices lower.
From time I first started writing this post to when I was able to post it Qwest DSL was down repeatedly!
I Had AT&T DSL installed in a vacation home. It was disconnected for a late bill, which I paid on the final day it was due – they disconnected anyway without telling me. I continued to pay bills. My account is current, my phone works.
I went to said vacation home – and discovered the DSL was turned off. I called to get it turned on. I have the line & DSL modem, I am paid up. How hard should that be?
Getting it restored was a joke. I was told I needed to start up NEW service, (though I debated with them as to why, I couldn’t win). “This is AT&T, this is how we do it”
So I placed that order for new service and was told it would take 4 days. WHY? just because this is AT&T. 4 days later, no service. I called back and eventually was told “It will be on in 6 hours.” Never came on.
I call & escalate. I am assured (“we’re so solly” East Indians, I heard it a hundred times.) it will be on the next day. Next day it never came on. I am SO pissed now.
Next morning I called again, new salesman/billing rep. He says,
“this is ridicilous, you should have been back on in a day, here is a new order, you will be on first thing tomorrow.”
Tomorrow comes. No DSL. I call tech support (India) , “we never got an order” But I have already placed TWO. They say, it is a billing issue, there is no active account. I ask to speak to a supervisor AGAIN. Get this, the same guy comes back (I am 100% sure) trying to disguise his voice. His voice is an East Indian version of Norm from Cheers, unmistakable.
He is pretending to be his supervisor. He tells me – “sorry, we have no order, I talk to sales and they say the best they can do is five days from now”
I am livid and hang up. I call Billing and ask to talk to highest manager there. This has now been six days of looking at a blinking red light on my modem. I tell him the whole story, he says “all your bills are paid, you are in our top credit category, you placed two orders, this makes no sense.” Him, doing his best job, finally says he can get it turned on, but it will be three more days. I won’t be here anymore by then, I’m going back home.
Ash Moles, Bucking Fastturds, Idjits!!!!
It isn’t just this, it is calling at least a dozen times, sitting on hold for 20 minutes between each call, people who ask you a dozen questions to verify who you are just to say “I can’t help you.” People who do not escalate EVER, they just transfer you to a different department, who in turn transfer you to a different department. I was transferred 30 times, 20 minutes on hold each time. At least three times I was just hung up on.
So far I have placed THREE DIFFERENT ORDERS and I still have no DSL. I work online, I need my Internet access. Each days is costing me money.
Do NOT deal with AT&T. They are faceless bureacratic dickheads who don’t care about customer service, and even when they do, they are as powerless as we are to get anything done. Keep your sanity, go with a local highspeed service provider.
AT&T is a PURE JOKE as a provider. Welcome to India.
AT&T internet sucks too bad. They billed me one month in advance. I refuse to pay for it, but then they said, that is how it works. I always get just the same bill eveery month and pay my bill on time, and all of a sudden AT&T bill me double. It is not fair. Is that how they rip off people? Aren’t they a big company? I cannot stand them anymore and ditch them.
Also if you have a story about AT&T sucking please check out consumerist.com. They are a blog where you can send them your story and they can investigate it and write about it so the world will see what schmucks the ATT people really are.
i work for at&t broadband service. i actually have not had any service issues since i came on board. however, i will say this; customer service is awful, reason being — the tools they give us fail. they work fine when not on a call, then when on a call they don’t work.
i have complained to my managers several times; the management in my department, COMPLETE jokes; they think they are above, and beyond the CA’s (customer assistances) truth of the matter is, they are about worthless as dog shit.
the sales department will tell you, the customer ANYTHING to make the sale. for instance, JUST the other week i had this woman call saying she could hookup her XBOX 360, and have internet service; that she did not need a computer to install the service.
if you know anything about this service, you know you must have a modem, and a computer to install. once that is done, you have the ability to use 3rd party hardware, like xbox, and whatever else you may have.
i really truly want to help people who call. more like all the stories i have read here, about all the phone calls you had to make to get anything done. that’s bullshit. i just had a meeting with a manager last week about my hold times, meaning holding for the customer while i contact ASI (Which is our line maintaince department) how we are unable to hold beyond 2 minutes. to me, if the customer is wanting to leave; i want to do what i can to get the internet working. otherwise, i do not blame the customer from wanting to leave.
so, trust me — i am right there with you ALL when you said AT&T is a joke. but at the time, it pays my bills.
good luck.
ps: cable internet is much more stable, and faster then dsl even thinks about being. not just from at&t that’s from any dsl provider.
I got internet with AT&T and it’s been a billing nightmare! First they REQUIRE a credit card and you have to be on auto-pay.
Because it’s kind of a pain to load money to my credit card, I asked them if I could have the money drawn from my bank account. They assured me they could do it and would send me the paper work to change it ove..
well, I get no paperwork and, even though I’m paying the bill every month, my service gets shut off because I’m not on auto pay.. and apparently, it’s required even though the bill was current. I try 10 times.. I”m not even lyin’ 10 f#$% times to get through their “automated” system and when I would finally get an agent, they’d put me on hold for so long that I would just hang up and try again.
Finally, on the 10 call, I reached someone who said I can’t use my bank account as my auto pay source. This after 3 or 4 other agents told me I could.. I had to put it back on the credit card to get my service back.
I really wish I didn’t have to use at&t but everyone else wants huge deposits!
so for now, I’m stuck with them..
By FAR the absolute worst tech support and customer service I’ve ever encountered.. these people don’t even know their own policies!!
I got pissed at comcast for raising the prices on their services every 3 months, for over billing me several times and for the idiot customer service personnel. I switched my tv and phone service to ATT and kept the Comcast internet service. I am very pleased with the ATT dish network….off the hook….I don’t really use an ancient technology like the home phone but it was required for service, I can call 911. Serves its purpose. So 6 months later I get my comcast bill and it’s doubled per month. I was paying a “non promotional” $33.00 a month that went to $65.00 a month. So after talking with friends that have ATT DSL I went ahead and switched. Hey, my dish tv kicks ass so why shouldn’t the internet service? My friends have no problems with their DSL. From day 1 I have had shabby ass service. Having to reboot my modem at LEAST 10 times within 2 hours worth of internet time. (Takes 5 min or more to reboot). I’ve gone back and forth with the “finely – American – slang – educated, born with an operator headset fused to his ear “Joe” from Dallas India who answers to Ramesh.” (Who actually sounds like Beaker from the muppets on riddlen). Anyway all of the things that I have read on this thread about ATT DSL are true….DON’T DO IT! Comcast internet is WAAAAAY better. About 7x faster than the fastest ATT DSL speeds. (the actual speeds, not the advertised ones). That is of course you can afford a 1 Terabite per second +$3000.00 a month internet bill….like Bill Gates can….then go DSL.
ATT DSL has become too big too fast and does not, and will not in the near future, have the technological infrastructure to meet 50% of what it promises. That’s why the farther you are from the servers, the shittier your service. The reason why you have to reboot the modem constantly is because you are getting blacked out because there is not enough room for all of the customers to be online. When you reboot the modem it pings the server and the server will re-initialize your connection to try and make you happy. But it will soon intentionaly kick you off the net again. Think of when cell phones were just getting affordable for everyone to buy, remember the service? Same thing here. If you want streaming video, are an online gamer, or download anything over 35mb,
FUCK AT&T. I said it!
I have never had that problem with Comcast. If I’m gonna put up with shitty customer service, ignorant tech support and Ramesh from the telemarketer spawning land of India, I would rather do it with a service provider that is way more stable, way faster and way more expensive….COMCAST!
wow I need this! 🙂
first experience with DSL was in Chicago as well. About 5 years ago when I was in college there in Chicago I had DSL through SBC yahoo/att. I had a contract with them and when I graduated and moved I had to pay out the **** to canel the service. I paid – moved and didnt’ think about it until a year later when I got a call from a collection agency asking for the money for the contract cancellation! I told them I’d already paid and after a while on the phone got them to believe me. Then a year after that, and AGAIN a year later, after I’d moved to Indianapolis I had this happen AGAIN!!! THREE TIMES TOTAL I had collection agencies calling me about the ATT DSL money that I’d paid the first time around!!! (finally after the third year doing this they got the message and never called again…)
I should have known NEVER to go back with them…
Well my husband and I just bought a house and comcast isn’t available and we actually wanted to try dish network and go ahead with DSL again (hoping it’d be better…)
Well the tech for Dish couldn’t find a “line of sight” and couldn’t install so we had to call Brighthouse Cable and got our cable TV through them…we kept the DSL though because it WAS working no problem…yeah for a week – until 2 days ago when it went out and after talking to someone they said they’d fix it. I got home last night and NOTHING…called them back and they said they’d have to send someone out but couldn’t come out til SATURDAY (last night being Tuesday).
Finally after being bounced around to three different departments, being disconnected a few times and calling back, I FINALLY got ahold of someone and I pretty much told them where to shove it and cancelled the DSL. The cable company is coming out to install cable internet saturday.
moral of the story…
ATT SUCKS!!!!
After reading ALL these AT&T DSL stories I have to concur they have been over whelmed with subscribers but have sold to over capacity. I got DSL 2 years ago andf was quite happy UNTIL the modem started to keep resetting itself and I was at a crawl on the service even though it was suppose to be 1500/384.
I check DSLreports and my numbers were like 384/384…lol!
dload the same as upload!!! I went with Road Runner and cancelled DSL. What a difference even at wireless speeds!
Some of this stuff is enough to give you an ulcer!
I have AT&T dsl internet and it works. But I want to move to next door apartment but when I called them to see if I can change the DSL service to next door, they said the service is not available there. Its next door!!!! I have to pay early termination fee which is 200 dollars! or keep the service. I feel stupid for signing the contract for one year….I advise people not to buy any of AT&T services…
absolutely agree…At&t DSL sucks…they make over 3 billion in revenue and dey cant even get internet to work in well populated cities…they just tell u dat DSL is not available in your area…den make it work dammit…i had their dsl and there service was really crap…they cant even get my internet working properly…and above dat they cap your speed and you have to call to tell dem to uncap it…omfg…US is at the bottom of da Internet world…Japan is in its own category….i should juss move there…
Yeah,they definatley suck (for lack of better words). I live in an area where dial up is all I can get (cable isn’t even offered here) and Dish Network doesn’t offer internet. So ATT tells me that I am within their coverage area (which mind you is 2 miles from where I once had reliable DSL through ATT). So I get the package from UPS,hook it all up and *blink blink blink* the little red DSL signal light telling me…no signal. So I call ATT, the operator puts down his Guitar Hero controller long enough to say “We cancelled your internet service account because you’re not within our coverage area”.
Which is 2 miles, not even 2 miles,probably 1 3/4 miles from where I lived before…where are the more bars in more places? Oh wait,that only applies to their wireless phone service..which I also cancelled months ago due to an even bigger headache thanks to ATT. Good thing their slogan still isn’t “Reach out and touch someone” I was ready to that day.
Funny you mentioned “no service in your area” – I rec’d the same reply while looking for DSL customer service. I was a customer on DSL for 9+ years and it’s not available in my area???
If ANYONE wants to air their “dis-gruntlements” to AT&T – here’s the guy – Andy Green of AT&T corporate, NJ -1.800.848.4158 x 3033 (he’s the top dog of customer relations)
ATT -what a joke_service claims 6Mbps=lucky to get 1Mbps
after 3-4 + service calls , a tech finally fessed up “you’re at the end of the line” user quote Bxxx Sxxx “we can downgrade your service to 1.5Mbps and things will be stable” yeah right -horse before carriage- ATT can suck there own line …
ATT & DSL sucks
1)broadband should be always connected, always on. DSL can’t do that
because your physical connection between your DSL modem to the ATT’s
digital equipment routers is kinda far!!! So the channel noise in those
copper lines make your connection dropped all the time. Hehehe it’s
kinda in the old days when you get dropped from your 28.8kbaud Modem while
playing quake.
2) DSL runs on top of a really bad connection, PHONE LINE, that was
designed for a low data rate tranmission. The phone uses only 4KHz
bandwidth, or you can think of it like 4kbs. But people are so smart to
encode the data such that we can carry 6Mbs on a copper line that is
designed for 4kbs. That is 3 order magnitude of improvement. Did you
remember we use to heard that the bandwidth barrier on the phone like
was 33.6kbaud. Then the new 56kbaud came out; it was the magic device
that broke the bandwidth barrier! In other words, we’re trying to use speed
bullet train 500M/hr on adirt gravel trail with pot holes.
3) Given the physical limitations of the phone line and DSL, it’s
amazing that we can the bandwidth as advertised by those DSL ISP like
ATT. Most DSL ISP will probably cheat your *advertised* speed with or
without intention. Most people are really dumb about computers, so by
cheating you make money! ATT default’s setting is the lowest speed you
get. Like 384 or 786 (if you lucky); doesn’t matter what you ordered.
At least 95% people won’t even know unless you are a kid using the
computer more than just checking email and buying stuff from ebay. How
to solve this? Call up ATT and speak DIRECTLY that you know your
“networking stuff” and you “tested/diagnosised” your network and found
out it’s under the advertised speed. Besides, most of the technical
supports are clueless!!! They have a script that the repeat every single
time you make a connection with them. I wonder why they don’t even use
automatic help desk speaking machine. Script is like this: “can you
reboot your DSL; check the filters; do you have a router; reboot the
machine (like 10 times); reboot computer; reboot router.” blah blah. I
mean they try every single combination. if you have four objects:
computer, router, dsl modem, filters: this mean they will ask you try
all permutations 4*3*2*1 = 24 ways. It’s a good way to get your
irritate, but a great way to make good money in India. I guess the
longer you on the phone the more money the make or something
4)Bad software. Bad tools. I wonder where they got the programmers to do
the installation software. It’s stupid! They must have hired a bunch of
web development programmers to do system programming. The stupid
software won’t run without IE6SP2 or better. I mean if you have firefox,
or running linux you are royally screwed. You can’t update your browser
to meet the system check because you don’t have internet to begin with!
I think the cause for this is bad stupid UPPER MANAGERS who had no clue
about technology. Heck, I believe they probably don’t even know about
computers. They just got moved up because of other things. I just hope
these guys will drive ATT DSL business down the toilet.
5)PPPoE. What the f.? Keep it simple if you want more audience to use
your products. Where do you do the authetication? There are three ways, on
the computer, on the router, on the DSL modem itself, or on all/some of them.
How many permutation is that? 3*2*1 =6 . Oh.. each time it takes like
5 minutes to reboot. So it will cost at least 30 minutes of trial and
error. My point here is to make it simple so there are less number of way
it could go wrong or doing trial and error. This is specially crucial
for most new users or even an installation application software that
was written for this purpose.
DIE ATT DSL!!!
ps, if you call in and threat them that you’re moving to a different
service, you can get a deal of $13.99/mn. It’s a good deal for those
don’t need a reliable ISP or enjoy bugging Indian helpdesk.
ATT wireless internet is the biggest scam in the planet. They are billing me $16,400 dollars for the first and only month of use for my internet card wich i cancelled immediately. When i got it they never informed me about billing cycles and since i got it 3 days before the billing cycle i was over the limit immediately after starting to use it… wich ran the bill up to a $1,000 in just a week, i was not aware of this untill i got the first bill and I called to question the bill and they never gave me a straight answer and just said that they will solve the problem and that it must be a mistake so I kept using it only to find out two weeks later aht now my bill is $16,400, that is fª•∞∞6 ridiculous they should be taken out of the business and we should all file a lawsuit against att for their deceitfull practicesss…. never doing busines with them again and now I have taken this to consumer affairs… and am willing to go till the end with it… dont fal for the trap stay away from these criminals.
You should be grateful AT&T does not offer dsl in your area. I have it and it SUCKS. I just signed up with Speakeasy and I can’t wait to stop giving AT&T my money. I have not had a working connection in 3 days and the AT&T reps (from India) keep saying that it’s the fault of my modem so there is nothing they can do.
linh @ comment @ 25:
Thanks so much! That was a very informative post. It doesn’t really fix AT&T’s problem, but gives me a little peace at least to know wtf things are the way they are. I wish I could throw this company to the curve, but it would mean going with dial-up.
And to the OP, trust me, you’re better off without AT&T DSL. They don’t suck because they don’t cover your area, rather they suck for a multitude of other reasons, which include those linh spoke of, but also include AT&T spying on phone, email, and internet info for the NSA! (This is not some whackjob conspiracy theory, look on AT&T’s wiki even.)
ATT used be bellsouth they suck now bad…
They really do suck bad. ever since ATT took over.
OMG I HATE AT&T, no wait, I DESPISE AT&T…and with good reason.
10 years ago, I had an AT&T Credit/Phone card. While out of town I used it and charge approx. $600. Then, due to a job loss was slow on making monthly payments. They of course reported to credit agency. A year and a half later, I paid it off, in FULL.
6 years after that, I went to refinance my home to a lower interest rate and discovered AT&T still had the $600 bill on my credit report. I could not refinance without having that removed. I called AT&T and got no where. After multiple calls with multiple people and literally several hours of being on hold…was finally told to “fax us a copy of the cancelled check and we will take care of it”.
I called the bank, located the $600 cancelled check and faxed it to them with a cover letter. No results.
I faxed it again the next day to a different supervisor. No results.
To make a really long story short, I kept track of every person I spoke with for 5 weeks and had a notebook with 42 filled pages, literally HOURS & HOURS and WEEKS worth of time spent trying to get this resolved.
Finally, I was down to the wire on the loan, I had to PAY the AT&T bill a SECOND F*****ing time in order to get my home refinanced. I WAS LIVID! I was nearly out of my mind by then…truly as you can imagine. There was nothing I could do. not a Damn thing.
DO NOT USE AT&T for anything. DO NOT! I REPEAT DO NOT!!!
AT&T does not care about customer service. You will get the run around each and everytime you call. Your issue will NEVER get resolved. You can not get out of their contracts for any reason…even if it doesn’t work. They simply don’t care.
2nd AT&T story…
I recently signed up with Yahoo advertising for a small home based business. Lo’ and behold, it’s owned by none other than AT&T…dummy me, didn’t realize that at the time or would have drank some poison to avoid dealing with AT&T in any way…or at the very least, driven a large spike through my head.
Anyway, I signed up with a “voice contract” for $53/month for AT&T yellow pages on-line advertising. I called back within a week to cancel…and SURPRISE SURPRISE….NO RECORD OF THE CALL. Of course not!
Anyway, they would not allow me to cancel the contract. They also will not send you a copy of the “voice contact” either in written or taped form…you have to get a COURT ORDER to obtain a copy of your contract. Can you believe that???????
If anyone else has problems with AT&T advertising…please contact me, I have a call in to an attorney to see about a Class Action Law Suit. This could be fun!
Contact me at: Hot4Tees_bg@yahoo.com
DSL in Chicago is a sham. It’s slower than any dial up I ever had. How they can get away with advertising that it is better and faster than cable or Dish is beyond me. Isn’t there something called “truth in advertising!”
My recommendation: DON’T GET AT&T DSL!!
Lately my ATT DSL has been running really slowly and my modem restarts periodically. I called tech support just yesterday and, of course, got an Indian. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I found myself saying “what?” a lot and he was getting so aggravated that he put me on hold for 30 minutes just to come back and ask if my house number was a good callback number. “We will send in a ticket.” “Your line looks beautiful and we can see no problem with it” “We will send someone out to look at it but you may be charged if there is nothing wrong with the line” I pay for the Elite servce- 6mbps. As of now I’m getting less that 1.0 Mbps- still “there’s nothing wrong with it” We have a brand new router and modem and it was working fine till about last week sometime. That’s all I get out of them.
Phone Service- So obviously I owed about $800 for not paying 2 months worth of bills. I have every receipt from every month that I payed. I wasn’t missing one payment. “Well we don’t see any record of you paying that bill so we cut you off and you owe for next months too” I tell them i have the receipt and they ask for the receipt number. “Nope not coming up in our records” The lady gets rude and gets an angry tone and tells me I’m making all of this up. What the hell is this? Not being prejudice but get someone I can understand on the phone. This is America last time I checked. And for god sakes hire some people with knowledge of networking, this is ridiculous.
AT&T is useless at helping anybody. No matter what we are always wrong, and they are right. Don’t even try.
Hmmm, I am with AT&T Southeast myself. I have dealt with their tech support once last year when my mom’s AT&T DSL was malfunctioning. The interesting thing about the call was that it was good that was the tech telling them WTF! was going on. I am a CIS major and have had extensive experience with network troubleshooting as well as installation of Bellsouth DSL equipment in the past. Well, anyway, I actually and AMAZINGLY got a tech on the line who knew something of what he was doing (though I still knew more than he did). Anyway, that actually went surprising well. The problem was solved. However, all these other stories are probably the norm.
I will say that I did have some billing problems at one time and that was a bit to straighten out. My only other choice where I live is Charter and I know they are pretty bad. Their tech support is a little better than AT&T’s but their Cable HSI service SUCKS big time. So I am not sure which is better. In the mean time, I actually have a very reliable 1.5mpbs DSL Line. I had 6mpbs for a while and it was very stable and reliable. I cut it back because I needed to save some money. I’ve been happy with my internet service. However, I dread when I have to move to another city (greensboro, NC) later this summer or if I ever need tech support. I think that a lot of these companies have taken for granted good customer service. Moving tech support to india has not necessarily been a good idea.
I actually traveled to india last year and even to Bangalore where a lot of outsourcing goes on. They do quite a bit of good software development and some business process redesign work that is pretty good. But I question the practice of putting call centers and tech support over there. Some people have a hard time understanding the indian accent and sometimes the standard of service is not what it should be. In this case cheap is exactly what you get… cheap.. and shitty service.
What is the income/housing prices in your area? NOTE: AT&T only provides high speed DSL service to areas having incomes & Housing prices of over $100,000. If you border one of these areas you may get DSL but at .20 megs up & down if you’re are lucky. That’s where I’m at. Also you may have to call for service ten or twenty times just to get it to work. Their customer service sucks as you have to call several times to get someone that speaks understandable English. Also AT&T keeps dropping services, like usernet, photo storage and they are talking about charging by the megabite of download.
Urg all I can say is I hate AT&T. Okay so we had ATT internet since last year and it worked fine until we changed our phone service, thus having a new number. So I had to call in to customer service to change my phone number so I can continue getting DSL internet service from them. And guess what? They said that I had to cancel my current service and call in later to open a new one! So I had to call in several times, repeatedly telling them my phone number, my new phone number, my address, my name. I got so frustrated. I was like, WTF, can’t you just change the phone number with all of my info instead of having me calling in multiple times and talking with a million people?
And [not] surprisingly, I discovered that they were Indians just like the people that I hate so much from Netzero, the internet service that’s still taking my money every month even though I canceled it since last year!
okay so back to the ATT story, since they had my bank account number, I thought, I can’t let this continue, having them taking my money without me authorizing them. So I asked them when I called in to restart my service with a new phone number whether they could make paper bills. And guess what? They said, “Oh no Ma’am, you have to have a phone service with us in order to have paper bills.” I was like, “that’s lame! every other service has paper bills. Why not you?” And I thought, F*** you!
Then they told me I had to pay 200 dollars since I “canceled” their internet service (because they told me to!!!) even though I would call in again and start a new service with them. And they said, “Oh ma’am we would not take your money since you called in under 14 days.” But it turned out that they took it anyway without telling me anything because they had my bank account number. So i called in and told them everything, and they said don’t worry, on the day of your bill cycle everything will be taken cared of.
And the day that they promised to give me back my money came, I checked my bank account, nothing happened. Three days… nothing happened.
So I called in to ask them why, relieving because I met the guy that I talked to one or twice who seemed to know what he was doing, aside from the other stupid people who didn’t even know what they were doing. But to my disappointment, the guy was like, “ma’am we did not do that! You have to call a different number to speak with a different person to do this!” Then I called the different number but it was only for texting, and I was like, I’m not gonna waste my text for this bullsh**, and I called them again, telling them that it was because it was a different number, that was why you couldn’t access my account. And he was like, “oh okay, I see.” And I was like, OMG can’t you even work? I told you the whole story and you didn’t even work things out?! I was the customer and I knew better than you did! And you were supposed to be the one that knew best from all the ones that I talked to! (So yeah, I had to talk to a bunch of people to do what they told me to do just to get my damn internet!) Finally, a few days later, my money came back, but only 200 dollars. Where the hell did the 6 dollars go? Are they that cheap? but at least I got my 200 dollars back and I did NOT want to listen to them talking on and on and making me wait on the line for a million years anymore.
Besides that, this is another thing that happened: The lady that i called in to set up my account told me to make another email address. And I was like, “Hey why? Can’t I just use my old one?” And she was like, “No ma’am you have to make a new one.” So I said, “Alright, that’s fine, it doesn’t matter.”
Then I found out that I had to pay extra money, 6 dollars or something like that, for some reason I didn’t even know. And I only figured that out at the time I talked to the guy who were supposed-to-know-everything, he told me it was because I had an additional email address. So I said, “hey the lady told me to take it. Please delete it. i don’t need it, thank you.”
Another thing, so after i called in to have them connect my internet service for two weeks, the modem they promised to send to me never arrived. So I called in, and here’s what they said, “Sorry ma’am we can’t establish your line because your phone service is not compatible with DSL.” I was mad, “Then why didn’t you call us? You asked for my phone number. you asked for my cell phone. you asked for my emails. and yet when problems occurred you never told us anything. Then why bother asking in the first place?!!!” Grrr. And so they told me to call in to my phone provider service (which was Qwest) to upgrade my phone service so it could be used for DSL. And I did that, called in to tell them hey I upgraded it, send me my freaking modem. And they were like, oh no we’re sorry, we can’t do tthat ma’am. now your order is terminated, you have to call in to cancel your order, then call in to another representative on another line to reorder your order.” And here’s what I thought: Fk you, if not because of my damn 200 dollars, then I would immediately get rid of you annoying ppl.
And so I did that, and a few days later, got my internet.
Heh!
But the problems didn’t stop there yet. Not surprising.
For some reason, their DSL service this time did not work as well as before my phone calls. Like they could control my service! Well, the internet was disconnected several times, I have to reset the modem several times. It’s regularly slow, waaay slower than their advertised speed.
ERGGG I’m so mad. Fortunately, i’m gonna move in two weeks, so I’ll just as well cancel them and give them my damn 200 dollars. But hey they should not take it for all the pain they gave me. And besides, with the old phone number and the new one combined, i should not pay because it’s already one year!
URG, I’m gonna change my bank account number so they can stop taking my money, damn liars. And that includes Netzero who are so cheap they take my 6 dollars every month (Although the amount I used to have to pay for their internet was higher than that, and they knew I canceled their service. But I called in and they said they had no record of that and that on the day that I called in to cancel my account, they “upgraded” my internet service to “high speed” (which I tried once and it was even slower than the old speed I used to have), and they are still taking my money, cheapo!!!)
But I might have to wait 15 days after I canceled ATT cuz they might be taking my 200 dollars and I have to let them do that. Otherwise they might call the credit company and tell them that I lied!!!
URG no other people have angered my so much like ATT and NETZERO. And ironically they’re both from India.
And not that the country as a whole is stupid, they’ll hella smart. I just don’t know what happened to the ppl that run those internet companies.
And they take my time too. A lot.
GRRR hope something bad will happen to you liars!!!
to ATT&Netzero Hater
to get real results from AT&T instead of the run around report what you said here to your states attorney general every state has a on line report form.
You will find you will get an English speaking person (Mine had a Texas accent) You will get some right answers and if you don’t you can still tell your attorney general that you are sill not satisfied .
Note: Netzero is like Earthlink, next to impossible to cancel unless you go through their idiotic cancellation procedures Also it is very important to keep copies all your communications as I had to just stop paying Earthlink and they sent a collection agency at me but I sent a copy of my communications record’s back and never heard a peep since.
I live in Lincoln Park, in the heart of Chicago. AT&T DSL has crashed just about everytime I really need it. After they took over Cingular, my cell went to shit as well.
There is NO customer service. They could give a fuck. Hello Comcast.
I have att elite pckage and im able to browse at over 6mbps!! it rocks! ill tell you one thing, i havnt had internet or phone outages like i did with cable.
OMG this is terrible! I just moved in with my girl friend, and she has AT&T DSL….ITS SO SO SO SLOW! WTF!!! In my house I had Comcast….WOW what a difference! I’m about to have a little talk with her…and we are going to make the switch to Comcast!
I live in Sherman Oaks, CA (Los Angeles) and I’m barely in their range for DSL speed. I was told that downgrading to their Basic DSL was the best for me. WTF? I live in the second largest city in the US and I feel like I took a step back six years in internet speed. Anything that is a video streaming takes a long time just to watch. That said, I think I’m going to be forced to move to Time Warner.
I have a friend that lives in Woodland Hills (about 10 miles away) and their AT & T is super fast. I bring my computer over there and it works amazingly. But not in my own home. AT & T….very disappointing.
I am a former at&t employee and a former comcast employee, and I have found that it is impossible to satisfy all the residents of California, you would think everything is state of the art, but I find that facilities and equipment in Cal are sometimes 30 years behind the rest of the country, and Ive had the most absurd calls, like whos trying to kill me, or why are my long distance charges so high when the cust had long distance providers such as sprint or mci, but they call a company that dosent provide the service they are asking about. I have even tried to save people money on their bills by changing their plans to a cheaper rate with bundles, and I would hear no, I think I will just stay where I’m at. (And pay $100 per month more). Ive even had complaints from people that their bill was too low!!! It’s not the service providers, its the state, California, put down the pipes and return to reality.
I hear ya guys. I’ve had AT&T for about a year and a half, and it’s slower than when I had dial-up. They’ve done everything, changed the modem, fixed the wirings, adjusted the signal. Shoot, my folks even bought a brand new Toshiba laptop, and it still has the same problems. Never had a problem with my computer locking up or freezing up until I got AT&T. Switching back over to Comcast ASAP.
I recently moved to Birmingham from California, where I had Comcast broadband service. It was largely reliable there. Here in the largest metro area of Alabama it isn’t available. Guess what? Neither is AT&T DSL, although my neighbors have it. I’ve called about ten times to receive DSL, and was finally told there is a port cap in this apartment complex. Port Cap? I am in the city limits with no access to broadband or DSL. I’m stuck using Verizon’s 5GB wireless access. This is almost 2010 for heaven’s sake! Where’s the service??!!??
ALL of this hell with the internet is the misbegotten spawn of a deregulated telecom industry. No longer was phone service regarded as a public service that must meet certain reliability, robustness, and performance standards.
“Get the government off the backs of industry!” “Let the marketplace do its magic!” “Greed is Good!” Deregulation has been the biggest FAIL in American history!
Well, the public is now the prey of the giant corporations and their contempt for you is reflected in the sneaky slimy feel to every contract you sign with them. Even ideas of producer, consumer, commodity, and service are deliberately convoluted and the telecommunications industry goes overboard doing the ropa-dope on you.
In the end, you’re stuck with a contract with lots of hidden adhesion language, crappy customer service, and a smarmy condescending attitude of, “Where else are you going to go? The competition is even slimier than we are!”
Only by putting the whole damn industry back under the thumb of the New Deal regulatory chaperons, will any sense of public service return to telecommunications, including ISP’s.
My mom is SO SELFISH and she won’t switch from our crappy ATT DSL to Roadrunner, or some other CABLE internet service. Today, I’ve had at least 58 different crashes (no joke.) WTF?! Since when should an internet connection do that? Regular internet should crash MAYBE once or twice a week, but 50+ times a DAY? It is IMPOSSIBLE to keep a Skype call going with this connection.
Not only that, but their “pro” connection is terrible. 50KB/s upload speed? 300KB/s download speed? They’re insane….
I agree with all of you guys. DSL blows. I was playing online today and i disconnected atleast 20 times (serious). DON’T GET DSL.!
i dont know what att problem is maybe they have done made enough money and dont want any more but i ask for service and i get denided everytime the people down the street has it and even around the corner but they tell me no that i can get dial up for get that dial up should be free just for haveing to pay for there crapy service of a phone. all i know is att better get it together before somebody else beets them to the draw
At&t is one of the worst services I ever had my dsl has been out for almost a week and they said they will send someone over in 2 weeks WTF! We wanted comcast but some idiot said we still owed 300 bucks from years ago and it was too late before we cleared it up and were then cursed with at&t’s shitty connection
I never though I will miss comcast after I made the stupid decision to change my internet service to Att. The reason where one, I used to have their DSL Elite service 4 years ago and was usually reliable, likewise, I though it will still be same( I know, now it sucks balls! ) and two, my Comcast bill was getting to high so Att was a good relief for me to escape with their cheaper prices! But, oh good! I regret going back to this horrible company! My nightmare begin with their unreliable DSL Service! I mean in the night hours my download speed goes down from 4-5mbps ( Usually midnight and morning hours is where the speed remains constant ) to 1mbps! Was going Att! I this somehow a way to make us DSL costumers switch to your Uverse service? If so, then screw you, I rather go back to comcast, thank you!
Sincerely, an unhappy DSL Constumer of yours!
ATT DSL SUCKS…………. And their customer service does too! i tried to talk to them on the phone and they could not help. I tried going to an ATT store and they acted like they wanted to help and said come back in an hour and everything would be corrected. Returned in an hour only to get the same run-a-round. And finally did the on-line chat. What a joke! After a series of questions. I get a message that ATT is experiencing technical difficulties and would have to call me on the phone at a later time. I closed our chat by saying ” Experiencing technical difficulties is a very lame excuse coming from a communications network.” I mean REALLY, could they have said we cannot process your request with the information provided and feel a senior representative needs to contact you by phone to resolve the issues at hand? Dang, if the support team is always experiencing TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, NO WONDERS WHY MY DSL EXPERIENCES DIFFICULTIES TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh well, ATT has sentenced me for a two year contract sentence. Might as well stop bitchin’ about it and do my time.
It does suck. We’ve had it for a year and keep having issues with it. They keep wanting to send someone to our house and test our lines and equipment but our equipment is running right, it’s there lousy DSL service period. They have told us five times already that uverse is available but everytime we call and request it, it’s not. ATT/Bellsouth have never been good at anything but taking your hard earned money away that’s why we cancelled our land lines years ago the DSL service is next. Any suggestions on rural internet satellite services?