Posted on 09/08/2010 8:32:04 AM PDT by Dacula
I am tired of fighting with MA Bell and I am activly looking for a new Internet Service Provider. Currently I have a bundled DSL and a land line (which I do not use). My cost each month is about $60 when I get a valid bill. My service is currently disconnected and is slated to be turned back on in 3 to 4 days. I have already waited one day.
When my service is working, I have two 'hard wired' PCs and two WiFi devices. Does anyone have any good suggestions on who to turn to for better service?
If it will work in your area, try ClearWire. It is wireless with a little box on your desk. And it is reasonable.
verizon seems to work for me
Funny that you mention it, I have the same package and last week got the impression that AT&T had surreptitiously throttled my connection (and I don’t download much).
Get rid of your landline ,if you do not use it..
I am with AT&T and they closed my landline but gave me a dry loop for $10 a month..
I asked about any offers,now i have high speed DSL for $19.95 a month for a year trial, then i can cancel..
Originally i was paying $60....
It's going to depend on what is available where you are.
They also have a complete package: Digital TV, High Speed Internet & Home Phone
$60 bucks for phone and DSL? Wow, that’s steep. Are you out in the sticks? In most metro areas, you can get phone and 10mbps for WAY less than $60 monthly.
I am not out in the sticks. Just north of Atlanta. I can not stand to use the ATT service anymore.
They do throttle their connections and I have signed up for the class action lawsuit against them as well.
Yes, AT&T is horrible. I live on SoFlo and use Comcast, which also doesn't have a very good reputation, but I get great service. My connection is RARELY ever down, and speeds are excellent. My marina uses AT&T and the service is horrific.
I have a friend who lives in Dunwoody, and I know he can't stand AT&T, but it's either that or DSL in his area too.
Do you have access to cable?
I have Cox Cable and Internet. It is generally stable. Whenever I do have a problem, they are quick to respond.
For my area, they have a basic Internet at $22, HS at $30, Better HS at $48, Faster at $60 and Ultimate at $99. You probably have to add at least their basic cable service, too. From what I can tell, they do not restrict downloading unless it consistently exceeds about 5gb per day.
DSL is significantly higher priced in my area — about $20 more for comparable service to my Better HS at $48.
Mobile phone is becoming available, but their prices are similar to DSL and they restrict monthly usage to 5gb.
Look here
http://www.dslreports.com/search
I forgot about DSL REPORTS. Thanks
try slash dot net. /s
Sorry. I use ATT and have not had any problems.
DSL sucks totally, only go broadband.
In June, we got tired fighting AT&T’s poor service re quality that decreased each day as their prices increased.
My wife has an unlisted phone and I had a regular phone with the DSL connection.
The phone line connections got so bad, my wife would dial my number and there was about a 50% chance it wouldn’t work or had a bad connection. One of the lines would not work for a couple of days each week. The DSL limped through more on that below. If it rained hard, one or both phone lines went out.
Then AT&T, twice in 6 months said that my credit card refused to accept their monthly bill. Of course they wanted charge me extra for that. My credit card company said that was bs. Apparently the bottom line number guys @ AT&T didn’t want to pay the credit card cost. They wanted an automatic check deduction each month.
So we went with Comcast for the complete package for basically just AT&T’s cost to us for phones that didn’t work and a very slow DSL. Their outrageous cost was over $105/month for two phones that might work and a slow and unreliable DSL.
The phone quality with Comcast is the best we have had since we moved in 30 years ago. Our phones are an old Princess and a 12 year old two liner in our kitchen.
Comcast’s broadband is very fast and reliable.
We dropped Dish because of their poor choices re packages and how their costs had doubled for the basic package in 10 years. Our system was old and the price kept going up.
Dish is a bad company when you drop their services. We disconnected in early June and notified them. They kept on billing us inspite of being disconnected. We have received over 30 demanding phonecalls from them since June. We recognize their various numbers on our tv and don’t answer the phone. We have received numerous emails which I respond, “You are committing fraud and elder abuse as we disconnected and told you so in early June.” They ignore those replies and continue to bill us for months of no use. Fortunately, I had an early warning on this and dced our credit card a couple of weeks before we disconnected.
Back to AT&T. Apparently, DSL and other services like their new poor tv addition have totally overloaded their decades old land line system. Their repair people are polite know nothings and are incapable of seeing a frayed 20 year old line connecting our house to their 30 year old lines in the poles outside.
Last but not least, when AOL used PacBell/ATT as their DSL provider, PBAT&T installed governors/limiters at the phone box connection. Also, when the college kids returned home for holidays and the summer, the service moved like the turtle ads on tv with these installed governors.
A couple of years ago, one of our neighbors had the PBAT&T guy out to fix his DSL. This guy had closed down his office in town and was trying work out of his home. We had two more people start working at home, and that really impacted our AT&T DSL’s in a negative manner re speed and reliability.
Fortunately for him and us, one of neighbor’s younger relatives was a specop guy back from Afghanistan and heading back in combat camos. He stopped by to visit his older relative. I got a call from our neighbor telling me that he had the answer to our slow DSL, and I should come up to his house now if I wanted a faster DSL
I went up and got introduced to the young specop. They had the so called repair guy standing at the kitchen counter staring at a little device, he had removed from their phone box as per the SpecOps orders
The device slowed down our DSL and when we and others on the block were on line. The guy was shaking, and the young relative walked him down the hill as he removed 6 more of the devices from the other PBAT&T customers on our cul de sac.
Immediately our DSL’s worked better and faster.
We know that Comcast will raise its prices after two years, but hopefully someone else will can step in competitive wise.
Some of our younger relatives are going to Sprint’s wireless 3g net and seem to be happy with it.
Hopefully, Hughes or who ever owns the satellite system for computers will give us a price break and free us from land lines.
What is a “dry loop?”
I’ll echo all the bad things said about ATT. We signed up for unlimited data usage and now they limit us to 5 gigs a month. We use the internet a lot and can’t get by on 5 gigs. We are also currently looking to replace these crooks as our provider.
We had basically the same experience with AT&T (which in our area was bought by Comcast and then by Time Warner). Slow speeds, old landlines that would go down in the rain, and service calls that accomplished nothing.
Then Verizon installed a fiber optic (FIOS) network in our neighborhood. I paid extra for 20 mb service, and regularly clock speeds of 25 mb or higher. I got a good rate on an TV/Phone/Internet package. Fantastic service. I laugh now when AT&T/Comcast/Time Warner advertises Internet on TV. No way I'm ever going back.
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