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Thursday, May 13, 2010

Another Horror Story From AT&T; They Billed Me $4,000 For A Data Card

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I escaped ATT DSL hell!
By Patrick on Wed, May 12th, 2010 at 5:23 pm | 867 views | 11 comments | add comment | email this
Hate for ATT is permanently etched in my brain after dealing with them for many years for my DSL service. They forced me to also pay for a local landline though I didn’t want one, they kept raising the fee for DSL without telling me, and no two bills were ever the same price! Each bill was an amazing list of constantly changing obscure fees, lately about $52. And of course it’s not easy to get a human at ATT on the phone if you value your time. Oh, and the service sucked! The speed was OK when it worked, but ATT DSL stalled very frequently, and I’m sure the problem was not with our computers because the stalls happend no matter which computer we used.

So I switched to sonic.net 3 mbps “naked” DSL for $40/month and I’m very happy with it so far. It’s definitely far faster than ATT DSL and doesn’t stall like ATT used to. Here’s the list of standalone (no landline dialtone) DSL plans from sonic.net:

http://sonic.net/solutions/home/internet/fusion/

We cancelled our local line and will just get a Skype phone. I have a Skype app on my iPhone so I can call anywhere pretty much for free already. My iPhone is unlocked so I can use it with TMobile for regular cell service because TMobile is way cheaper than ATT’s iPhone plans.

One hazard in cancelling: ATT lied to me or was mistaken about several things when I asked them to cancel my service.

* ATT claimed that DSL would be shut off Monday at 5pm, but they did it overnight on Sunday, leaving us without DSL for a bit.
* ATT claimed that we’d get 60 days of free dial tone service, but they cut that off too. It’s too painful to navigate their voice jail system to complain.

Sonic.net did not pay me anything or give me any discount for this post. I really am thrilled to have escaped ATT entirely, perhaps for the first time in my life!

11 comments on “I escaped ATT DSL hell!”
seaside
Joined: December 19th, 2009
Posts: 6
Comments: 241

May 12th, 2010 at 6:40 pm | top | quote | email this
Two kind of people you don’t want to deal with over the phone are those foreign service representatives that don’t know what they are talking about, and those domestic assholes full of lie and attitude. With AT&T, you’re usually getting both. Congratulation to you for getting outta that.

elliemae


Joined: August 24th, 2007
Posts: 150
Comments: 2242

May 12th, 2010 at 7:45 pm | top | quote | email this
Congrats!

I was raring for a fight with Verizon - my son was gonna write a song & produce a video that would have let them know how much I care… but they gave me what I wanted. Sorta. They didn’t apply my second to last payment - so it’s another letter off to the CEO.

Huge corps don’t care about people. Good for you, Patrick.

Leigh


Joined: May 22nd, 2009
Posts: 11
Comments: 392
Portland, OR

May 12th, 2010 at 7:49 pm | top | quote | email this
FYI to all those who have gotten rid of their land line service: you still have 911 service, well, most of the country, anyway. Some rural areas are still without.

So keep a phone plugged in to the jack just in case.

elliemae


Joined: August 24th, 2007
Posts: 150
Comments: 2242

May 12th, 2010 at 7:54 pm | top | quote | email this
How do you test it without calling 911? Just curious.

Leigh


Joined: May 22nd, 2009
Posts: 11
Comments: 392
Portland, OR

May 12th, 2010 at 8:47 pm | top | quote | email this
elliemae says

How do you test it without calling 911? Just curious.

You gotta a smart dog…just blame the dog when they answer:O)

jvolstad


Joined: May 4th, 2009
Posts: 141
Comments: 122

May 12th, 2010 at 9:00 pm | top | quote | email this
I checked my address here in Millbrae and am qualified, but I like my Comcast connection for the speed. I use a VPN at home and it likes speedy lines.

I will however, tell my landlord about this service. He would like to dump ATT DSL and phone service. Their entire family have cell phones.

Patrick


Joined: April 3rd, 2005
Posts: 412
Comments: 1086
Menlo Park, CA

May 12th, 2010 at 9:26 pm | top | quote | email this
How fast is the Comcast connection? Sonic.net has much faster speeds than the 3mbps I got if you want to pay a bit more.

But I don’t have cable TV at all and maybe that’s one reason you want Comcast. We just watch stuff on the internet, or DVDs.

Vain


Joined: March 13th, 2010
Posts: 12
Comments: 132
Daly City, CA

May 12th, 2010 at 10:02 pm | top | quote | email this
Patrick, I do not have cable TV at all either. But I jumped in on a Comcast special of 19.99/month for 1 year of cable internet. I do not know the speed but I think it was advertised at 12mb/s. Keep in mind I did not hack their modem or anything (which can easily be done. As a matter of fact, I have an uncapped cable modem that is not in use right now). According to Speedtest.net at the Palo Alto location, my download speed is 68.82mb/s, and upload is 3.27mb/s.

Of course this can slow down during peak times. But I’m always able to download at a 300kbyte (not bit) per second rate. When using bit torrent, speeds are in the megabytes per second; not kilobyte.

If not for the special promotion I got in on, it’s about $50/month + $5 dollars/month for the modem rental which you can always just buy yourself for $70.

Bichon


Joined: May 13th, 2010
Posts: 0
Comments: 1

May 12th, 2010 at 11:24 pm | top | quote | email this
Two things: I had DSL in Spain - awful. When it went down nobody could figure out how to fix it. You simply had to sign up with another company- No prorating of fees already paid either. Try negotiating all that in a beauracracy. Believe it or not, the USA is a marvel of efficiency compared to most of the world, even to most of Europe. I am happy with Time Warner: we do a pkg deal for phone, security, TV and internet. It is not cheap; however, they are wonderful at both phone service and house calls to fix a variety of problems.

If you dial 911 in many locales, the police must, by law, show up at your door. They will check that everyone is alright. Ask me how I know. In our case my daughter was dialing Europe - a long convoluted dial-around. The police said this happens a lot. I felt so guilty to waste my and other tax payers money, but I understand why they do it.

investor90


Joined: September 8th, 2009
Posts: 3
Comments: 28
Beverly Hills, CA

May 12th, 2010 at 11:30 pm | top | quote | email this
Good job Patrick! I did the same and am a satisfied SONIC.NET customer at 40/mo for 5 mb/s. YOU MUST ASK for the first years introductory rate! Excellent and knowledgeable tech support they don’t lie or pretend to understand things they don’t. Whoosh I wish most tech support people stopped making up stuff. Its a tough job and I wouldn’t want it—and don’t have the patience for it, but why lie?

AT&T—When I had them I would call tech support 5-6 times to listen to the many different answers, so I had a clue what was REALLY going on. Our “last mile of copper” on the AT&T fiberoptic has been terrible for 5 years. They finally decided to fix it—and still are—its been three months of ripped up streets and jack hammers. I think they forgot the real reason they are out there?

MarkInSF
Joined: February 7th, 2008
Posts: 5
Comments: 262

May 13th, 2010 at 1:35 am | top | quote | email this
I don’t get it. DSL I assume travels though phone wires. How is sonic providing DSL over wires owned by ATT? Browsing their site amazingly they don’t even bother to explain.

I’ve never had a problem with sbs/yahoo/att whatever they are. Had a technical problem with the wiring a few years ago. Guy came out withing a few days, fixed it withing 1/2 hour no charge.

Looked into ditching the landline, but the the way they price it, you don’t really save much.

Did not know that about 911, Leigh. Will have to look into that. Still have a land line but haven’t used it in 3 years. Just have an answering machine that says don’t even bother leaving a message.

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1 comment:

AT&T Manager said...

Hi this is Johnathon with ATTCustomerCare. Please email me: ATTJohnathon@att.com with your contact information. Please include your name in the subject line. I will try to help you with your issue.