WatchHate 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 use 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!
Follow
Befriend (3)
34 threads
696 comments
Alexandria, VA
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.
Follow
Befriend (25)
413 threads
6,983 comments
Saint George, UT
elliemae's website
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.
Follow
Befriend
17 threads
466 comments
Portland, OR
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.
Follow
Befriend (25)
413 threads
6,983 comments
Saint George, UT
elliemae's website
How do you test it without calling 911? Just curious.
Follow
Befriend
17 threads
466 comments
Portland, OR
elliemae says
You gotta a smart dog...just blame the dog when they answer:O)
Follow
Befriend (4)
996 threads
1,128 comments
San Antonio, TX
jvolstad's website
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.
Follow
Befriend (54)
5,191 threads
6,158 comments
46 male
Menlo Park, CA
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.
Follow
Befriend (2)
68 threads
876 comments
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.
Follow
Befriend
1 comments
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.
Follow
Befriend (3)
14 threads
232 comments
Beverly Hills, CA
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?
Follow
Befriend
14 threads
1,118 comments
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.
Follow
Befriend (3)
1 threads
102 comments
Shawnee Mission, KS
I'm paying about $35 a month for AT&T and so far they're much better than TWC or Surewest. Of course when they crash interesting things happen. Latest crash caused me to lose any email address with ATT, SBCGlobal or Yahoo as provider. When I pointed this out to AT&T, the rep said, "Let's concentrate on getting you up again." Yeahhhhh, let's do that.
Follow
Befriend (2)
68 threads
876 comments
repo4sale says
MetroPCS failed me years ago. But these people were referring to home internet. Not cell phone service :)
Follow
Befriend (2)
68 threads
876 comments
MarkInSF says
Actually, the lines are leased by Sonic. Regardless of which DSL company you go for, ultimately it is AT&T that really provides the service.
Follow
Befriend (54)
5,191 threads
6,158 comments
46 male
Menlo Park, CA
The way I understand it, AT&T is required to lease the copper lines from their local central office (CO, which is the middle three digits of your phone number) to any DSL provider.
So Sonic must be paying AT&T to connect to the copper, but Sonic is the one actually providing the internet service to me now.
It's kind of nice that an anti-competitive monopoly was recognized in spite of lobbyists, and that a little free market competition was introduced. Gives me more faith in our system.
I think something like that should be done with trains too. The owner of the tracks should be required to let other companies run passenger rail cars over them for reasonable compensation. A little competition would make rail service much more pleasant.
Follow
Befriend (4)
996 threads
1,128 comments
San Antonio, TX
jvolstad's website
Patrick says
I'm running the 12mb/s connection. Works pretty good and only one time was it not working when I needed it the most. (middle of the night page and I could not log on remotely)
I was using DSL when I was working in London. Very fast. Why is it that we are behind the times here in the US?
I don't need the TV part of the cable (I get free Dish TV from my landlord), but I got basic TV as having TV and Internet as a package is cheaper then just Internet alone. Go figure. It's a little over $60 a month after all the taxes and fees.
Follow
Befriend (8)
28 threads
1,342 comments
Redwood City, CA
We have fewer problems with DSL because there are so few people "involved". Essentially there is AT&T providing copper wire, covad providing DSL, and then in this case Sonic providing Internet. Usually Covad is the one you want, because it's almost never Sonic, and almost never AT&T, and if it is, Covad will get AT&T out there. I've had a bad line though at work for about a year, I was going to cancel it but it's backup line and it's 3x faster than our other lines. So even though it flakes out, I keep it because it's a true backup. But I had Covad out here multiple times and finally they all wore me down with "Is it fixed yet?" just mailing that out every day, without ever doing anything. :D
So to answer the question about "it's all AT&T" it isn't. AT&T provides the physical wires. Covad provides the DSL equipment which puts the internet on the phone lines. When it gets back to the central hub, that is where Sonic/AT&T/Etc take over. Sonic then connects you into their Internet backbone. *THIS* is where it makes a difference. Some hubs are over loaded - eg you get 50 people really into full time bit torrents and the internet provider only provides a limited amount of bandwidth. So you get 100000000mbs to your house, but you get 1mbs throughput because it's stuck at their hub. Usually it's not a problem, but the "zippy speed" improvements Patrick is seeing, are likely due to better backbone usage on Sonic.net's and a better sharing policy and/or usage policy.
My rants. I had Cingular for a few years, and eventually had to get rid of them. They didn't have bill pay, they didn't send out disconnect notices, they didn't do anything other than cut your phone off! And without any way to reconnect it, without finding another phone! It was my only non-autopay bill, and I missed it a few times, but it was like $30/month or something! After one month they were doing disconnects! argh. They cut me off a couple of times, and eventually I said bye to them. I never had this problem anywhere else, and never missed any bills but they had no way to check bills online, no way to pay bills online, it all had to be done through their little mailing envelopes. I bitched and said to them "It's not like you don't know how to contact me! You could phone me, send me a text message, or at least let me call YOU after you disconnect me!" AT&T has pissed me off way too many times. I won't even try verizon. I ended up on t-mobile and they worked out pretty well for a long time. I switched to prepaid because I had such odd calling patterns, and now it costs me a fraction of their simplest plan! Of course I don't text anyone, or use it for internet or anything else. I'm starting to lean towards erudite behavior. :)
Follow
Befriend (54)
5,191 threads
6,158 comments
46 male
Menlo Park, CA
pkennedy says
But I can't keep my cellphone number or keep my iPhone if I switch to prepaid cellular, right?
Follow
Befriend (54)
5,191 threads
6,158 comments
46 male
Menlo Park, CA
jvolstad says
I'm pretty sure the US is behind the times because corporations have figured out that it's more profitable to limit competition through lobbying Congress than it is to provide good cheap services. It's corruption, caused by inbreeding between the business and government worlds.
Great list of all the ways corporations prevent the free market from working, often with the blessing of Congress:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive
Follow
Befriend (8)
204 threads
4,416 comments
Davis, CA
I've been a happy Sonic.net customer for 5 years now. Welcome! I love it when my neighbors tell me they get AT&T or (retch) ComCast but are always grumbling about the service. I have the the most expensive Elite-S package from Sonic.net and love it. I share it with one neighbor by a wire buried shallow run to their house, and another by WiFi. Neighbors pitch in everyone wins.