At & T Broadband

The DSL is not the fastest, but it is reliable. I replaced the modem/​router about 3 years ago (myself) and it worked without a hitch. I replaced it again today to get more speed, and the tech on the phone walked me through the installation even though it was not an ATT device. It was a little complicated but he was fantastic.
Everything connects perfectly to the Netgear Nighthawk. I hope it is as reliable as the ATT Motorola was.
The speed is acceptable but it is still just DSL. I don’t want Uverse.
I read these other reviews and feel lucky.

I have now used Comcast, RCN, MDU and AT&T. At not point in my life did I ever imagine I would say Comcast is great. But after having used AT&T for 1.5 years, RCN for one year and MDU… COMCAST IS GREAT (by default).
I paid for the 12 MBPS service. The average clock speed was about 750 kbps. That’s approximately 6% of advertised speed. Your contract specifies that the advertised speed is not guaranteed. We all get that. You can hide behind legality all day AT&T. But advertising 12 MBPS and proving a fraction of that speed is IMMORAL. You might be legally fine, but your business is crap.
AT&T forces you to buy the modem. This naturally makes sense because I am a gigantic telecommunications company and know what to do with leftover modems. Look up general reviews and prices for the modem AT&T forces you to buy. It will be about half the price and poorly reviewed. I estimate that AT&T made $ 50 on forcing me to purchase the modem.
This wonderful modem then broke after 1.5 years. The tech informed me that it’s out of warranty. Again, I get it. You sold me a garbage modem with a poor reputation, attached a meager one year warranty and that warranty has expired. You are legally safe. But you are still an immoral garbage company. I don’t spend $ 125 on a modem for it to break after 1.5 years. I will blame your company for forcing me to purchase the modem. I will blame your company when it breaks «out of warranty».
Our firm had AT&T for our internet. I’ve gone a small crusade for us to switch to Comcast. I’ve convinced many people to not use AT&T. They may have taken my money, but I feel I’ve taken more away from them in return.
On a light note, when I called and finally canceled, they asked me why I was canceling. I gave them every reason (some not included here for brevity). Then they asked if I wanted to switch to their cell phone service. After I stopped laughing, I told her if it was $ 0 per month, price locked in w/​o a contract, gave me a phone for free and that I would be provided permission to punch the CEO of AT&T once in the mouth, I would possibly consider it.
There’s some interesting literature on why U.S. internet is so expensive — google search for the BBC article. Primarily, we don’t treat the infrastructure as accessible to all parties and Comcast/AT&T are constructive monopolies. If the legislature finally fixed this problem, there will be competition and companies like AT&T will finally crawl into a hole and die.
The end.

I have been trying to get internet service for the last TEN days!!! Apparently the previous tenant never canceled their service which kept me from starting mine. My landlord had to call ATT to verify that I in fact live there which he did. The retarded CSR person didn’t put in the proper notation and I’m now back to square one. ATT refused to accept a copy of my damn lease as proof of residence (can you believe that shit??) In any case, I’m taking my business elsewhere to some other shity ISP. Comcast anyone?

Suffering through AT&T service has been one of the worst customer experiences I have had EVER. Simply getting rid of my landline telephone service and having AT&T provide only DSL service caused a two week DSL outage for us.
What’s most frustrating is that no one that I called at customer service knew what they were doing. After 15 calls and 15 different explanations, it was finally running. Two weeks without internet is completely unacceptable.
My parents have Comcast at their house and the technical support there is outstanding. The first person I got on the line knew what they were doing and solved the problem. At AT&T no one knows anything.
Buyer beware.

When I set up service for an apartment I was moving to, I received a phone that the service was active, and here is your setting for your modem. I thought great, someone actually did something on time here in Chicago. But then a couple of days after moving in I went to connect into the internet for the first time, and nothing. I was getting all these connection errors on the modem. So i called tech support, turns out they claim, that no one was home for the installer to check the installation, and they would need to come back out, and that I should have never received a call that my service was ready. Waited three days, was told ATT couldnt give me an accurate time for the installer, so someone would have to stay home the entire day. Funny the installer NEVER CAME, received an email (thank god for cell phones) That the service was finished, and ready to use. I reset the modem, and still all the same errors, called tech support again, and they said that they would have to send a repair person out. Sunday the gentleman comes, makes all kinds of repairs to the house phone wiring, and then there Switching office. I goto use the service and now i can connect but, no service. Call tech support again, and they said I was having authentication problems, they refered me to tier 2 repairs. Talk with that rude ladie, and she says I need another repair person to make more repairs at the switching office, and told me I had to corrdinate the repairs.
So today I called customer service, and they told me that there was nothing they could do, as I had to corrdinate the repairs. So I said fine you can’t handle this simple repair once and for all, with missed work, lost time, I want to cancel. THEY WOULDNT let me cancel!!! Because I havent received a bill yet. I pletted with the customer service rep, about why would I receive a bill IF YOU NEVER GAVE ME service… RUN AWAY FROM THEM. Their $ 20 a month internet IS NOT WORTH IT.

I don’t even know what to say. Like many others on here, I have been lied to, made to wait an unbelievable number of hours on the phone, and, yes, even reported to a collection agency for no reason. I think the worst of it is on the phone when I’m transferred from one department to the next to another and so and so forth; I’ve been thrown around like a hot potato! LOL! LOL! (More maniacal laughter.) Sorry, I still haven’t fully recovered… I have P (AT)TSD. LOL! LOL!

This is not a consumer facility, nor does it offer consumer services.
There’s probably a better address to list for AT&T (even if there’s a big AT&T sign outside 10 South Canal).

I was blatantly lied to when ordering internet service. I was told I would be getting fiber optic and a 24Mb/​s connection. Called later to confirm the activation and found that the 768kb/​s service is what I would be getting. Canceled. Luckily I wasn’t tied to them. Customer service was good. Sorry, but the one star «Eek! Methinks not.» fits in this situation.

Trying to get internet from AT&T has been one of the worst corporate experiences in my life.
In summary, their customer service (sometimes) tries to be helpful but their internal systems seems to have no idea where I am or what service I’m subscribing to and always sends me to the wrong person. And on more that one occasion, you’ll run across someone who just doesn’t know what they’re doing and either inadvertently or intentionally tries to make your life miserable. I will never purchase anything from AT&T again as long as I am alive.
For the long story:
We were debating between AT&T and Comcast. We thought AT&T would be cheaper and sufficient, so we opted for that. When we tried to get service online, we found out that our address (unit number) didn’t exist in AT&T’s system. That should have been our first red flag, but we persevered. That first day, my husband spent some time online with customer service and was told he could enter our address as it existed through a different URL and was able to enter an order that way. Everything seemed good. We were sent an email telling us we’d get further confirmation and an appointment time.
After waiting for about a week with no further communication from them, we called AT&T. We were told that there was no record of our order and that the service we had ordered wasn’t even possible at our address. That should have been another red flag, but the customer service rep seemed nice and we spent an hour on the phone with them as they tried to sort out our address and service availability. In the end, she got us a $ 20/​month deal for internet and just picked a different unit address that she and her manager thought corresponded to our address. We were going to be mailed a self-​install kit but told that a service person would come to our apartment to make sure everything was in order.
We received the install kit, and the Thursday after a week had passed from setting up the service, eagerly anticipated the technician to come make sure everything was working. The technician never showed. My husband called and was told that there was no record of an appointment, but that we could do self-​install that night. Fine. After waiting until 8 p.m. as instructed, we try to set it up. Nothing works. We call AT&T. My husband speaks with one person who realizes we have U-​Verse and says that he’s not the correct tech support and transfers us to someone else. She claims that, despite the initial emails and mail telling us that that day was our service activation date, we actually need to wait until tomorrow. Fine.
We wait until the next day, Friday, again after 8 p.m. as instructed, and again, nothing works. I call AT&T, get taken through the automatic system which (1) informs me that our service activation date was the previous day and (2) starts doing automating tests before seeming to start from scratch and ask me what I’m calling for. We finally get through to a tech support person who seems nice but doesn’t seem to know what she’s doing. She (thank god) has the kindness to transfer us to Tier 2 tech support. They put in a ticket with us to have another office run some tests and confirm our suspicion that just picking a different apartment number to give us service was not a good idea. The next morning, Saturday, we call and are informed that they’ll need to send a technician out. The earliest they can send someone is Monday.
While I’m on the phone with them, my husband calls Comcast. We’re told they can send someone on Tuesday. We decide to cancel AT&T.
You’d think that would be the end of my dissatisfaction, but AT&T still manages to waste my time.
When I call to cancel, I am polite but forthcoming about my belief in their incompetence and that fact that I do not have the patience to sit through their spiels trying to win me back. They cancel and let me know that I might receive a bill for service because billing may have already gone out, but to ignore it unless it says final bill. A couple of weeks later, I do receive a bill marked final bill. Not only have they charged me for the self-​install kit (which we mailed back immediately after canceling), they also have charged us taxes and a prorated fee for our two days of ‘service.’ I called customer service. I get through to someone who, when told I was a U-​Verse customer, transfers me to U-​Verse billing. That person, upon realizing my service is in Chicago despite a California cell phone (is this so uncommon??) needs to transfer me yet again. The third person I speak to is kind and helpful, explains that the modem fee was there because the modem was received on the day of billing and that he’ll take care of the service charge and taxes. Nice of him, but couldn’t they have taken care of this when I called to cancel? Do I really need to call a month later to explain (for the 10^th time) that their service never worked.
Go with Comcast. They’re prompt, efficient, and knowledgeable, and it’s worth the extra money.

If I could give them negative stars I would! That is because ordering Wireless internet service through ATT was a complete waste of my time. I ordered online and they «Verified» that service was «available» at my address. I live in Wicker Park and my on-​line order was soon canceled via email due to service not being available in my address. They provided me with a telephone number to follow up. When I called, an agent assured me that service IS IN FACT «available» at my address. I placed another order for installation to happen 2 weeks later. When that day finally came, Internet Wireless would not work. I called and they sent an agent to trouble shoot my set up. Agent said everything looked ok inside my residence but there was an external wiring problem for which he had to have tech support come the day after. Apparently, tech support came and decided there is a major wiring problem to the area. In other words, they are not wired to provide services to my area! They should have never told me they could provide me service!
Dealing with people on the phone was inefficient to say the last. No one has your information correct. Everyone has a hard time finding your account number or order number. There is no system keeping track of previous conversations or a chain of events on my order. I had to explain every single detail to each of almost 10 people I spoke with over 2 weeks.
In the end, they said the final repair for me to obtain services could go indefinitely and they can not give me an idea of when I could have the service I requested.
I canceled my order but wasted lots of time with AT&T

Do you have any idea how much time of mine and my wife’s you wasted? more than an entire week that is how long.
I tried to get our Internet service transferred over to our new place for a week. EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU GAVE ME A DIFFERENT EXCUSE. Here is what happened:
Prologue — We called on a Wednesday to let you know that we were going to be moving and we needed our service transferred starting on Saturday. You shut us down immediately. We made an appointment to get the service turned on Monday. You told us that you would not have to get inside to get service switched on and that we could keep our old number.
Monday — You leave a note on our door letting us know that you had to get in when you originally told us that you didn’t need to get in.
Friday — You come out and activate our line but now we have a new number even though you told us we could keep the same number. I notice later in the day that i could not connect to the Internet. I call you and you tell me that the line and new number is active but the Internet service won’t be able to be switched until Monday. You said thatt it should be up and running by 1:00 pm. You lied again
Monday — 1:00 PM came and went and still no Internet. I called again and they told me that they have until midnight to get things started and get the transfer work order closed. OK fine. I went to bed and tried it again in the morning
Tuesday — Hey guess what? No Internet. I tried calling tech support and they gave me an automated response saying that there was an open work order to switch service. I gave customer service a shot but I ran out of time holding.
Wednesday — Called again. Started with the tech support automated system before I talked to a live person to be sure that I had my information right. Once again they apologized and said they have this open work order to switch service that should have been closed days ago. They asked to give me until tomorrow to remedy this. I warned them that if by the end of the day tomorrow that this was not fixed I was going to be cancelling
Thursday — My wife Lara had to call as I was running late. I briefed her on what was going on with the situation. I have no idea what they were doing but they wasted so much of her time jumping through hoops and doing all kind of technical stuff and unfortunately she was not able to find the Ethernet cable and had to end the call.
Friday — Was going to check one last time before I called and cancelled. Miraculously it connected. I found out that before they wasted all my wife’s time she threatened to cancel too.
I guess I was at major fault here for giving them the opportunity to fix the problem rather than threatening to cancel right away.

Oline tech help is useless if you have anything beyond consumer-​grade network equipment. I ended up going to
to find configuration samples for a Cisco 26xx router using a WIC-​1DSL card.
I have the AT&T Pro DSL tier service. The theoretical speeds advertised of 3.0mbps down 512kbps up are only achievable if you’re next door to the central office. The speedtest results from
show I’m getting ²⁄₃ of the advertised possible speed. Compared to 56k dialup or dual-​channel ISDN, I guess this is okay.
My only other choice would be Comcast internet access, and I’d hate to give those guys any more money than I’m already giving them.

My U-​Verse is now up working. However, only after the technician incorrectly installed it.
After almost a month of supposed «engineering repairs» and after several failed attempts at installation due to no signal, the tech finally had my system up and running.
The picture, Internet speed and ease-​of-​use are superb, but the service only lasted two hours. Seems as if every time my landline rung it knocked out the broadband signal. Each phone ring emitted a small charge that eventually burned out my modem.
They returned at 5:00p the next day. That technician was great, and was amazed at the incompetence of the previous tech who appeared to be new on the job.
Once again, AT&T’s marketing is ahead of its actual manpower.
Comcast can suck, but wait until AT&T has all the bugs worked out until you switch. It’s not worth the headache.

I. hate. AT&T.
I missed 2 days of work, spent a total of 14 hours on the phone with customer «service,» and was finally lied to by a representative from the CEO’s office. My internet service is spotty at best. When I hear the word AT&T, I get all tense and crazy feeling. I’m biding my time for when RCN starts servicing my building.

Consider yourself warned. I ordered service on June 3, 2009 and still didn’t have it working on June 25^th. I would call every morning and get a different story each time.
They would basically do their best to get me off the phone so they wouldn’t have to deal with the problem. They would send me through transfer hell each time and I was always being passed on.
Several times they said I would receive a call back within 8 hours and they NEVER called me… NEVER!
They finally sent out a technician to survey my house (outside) and gave me a trouble ticket #. I was home when the technician came by my house, they called me with a pre-​recorded message saying a tech was coming over. I thought that was the end.
Then, I never heard anything from them. I called 2 days later and they had no record of a trouble ticket or service call. I was transferred to three different people and each had no idea what to do. The last person I talked to said that my service was working and that I didn’t know how to hook it up… this being said after I’d talked to over 5 different tech consultants and did everything they asked me to (which was basically, unplug the modem and count to ten, plug it back in). My service was never hooked up and nobody cared.
Absolutely the most horrible customer service I have ever dealt with in my life. Unbelieavable. Needless to say, I cancelled my order and sent them their modem back.

A billion dollar business and a low rating on Unilocal.
Oh boy tthis is the problem with the world.
AT and T I spent 3 hours on the phone with 4 people. None of you cared that I couldn’t get email– none of you!
A small business would handle this in such an opposite fashion.
A T and T who else can I use???

Ok, so after calling AT&T a ridiculous number of times, we finally got our service straightened out. I had to take a day off work so that they could come over — of course they don’t offer these services on weekends, that would be far too easy for customers, right? And now our internet service functions quite nicely.
Were this anyone else, I would probably bump them up to three stars, but AT&T? Seriously, dudes, you are one of the giantest mofo corporations I can think of offhand. Fix your customer service issues, they indicate a complete lack of respect for your customers. This was a ridiculous waste of time and effort.

Oh, AT&T. You have tried my patience this week.
5+ years and I have had no issues with you. It’s the best long term relationship I’ve ever had. But then… oh, then. Last Sunday you slowed to a crawl. Then while I was on the phone with tech support you just decided to kick back and give me the finger. Like a good hooker, you went down and weren’t coming back up no matter how many sweet nothings I whispered to you.
Your tech support people deserve gold stars and more vacation days. I might have freaked out on one of your people, but hey — at least I apologized and warned her before I did it. I was in a panic because I had homework to do, it wasn’t her fault… I was just stressed and the whole internet crashing thing wasn’t helping.
A super amazing «level two» tech guy got you working again. I wanted to propose marriage to him and have his little DSL babies, and as we hung up I was dreaming of a wedding dress made of ethernet cables when you crushed my fantasies of a modem-​shaped wedding cake and went down again, not 10 seconds after I hung up with my future husband. Bastard!
I called back. Another tech got you working again, but barely.
All week you toyed with my emotions. Each day I never knew if you were going to be there for me or not. I was not loving your fear of commitment, and sure enough — Saturday morning when a tech arrived at my apartment you were working perfectly fine. I could almost picture you sitting back, sipping on your whiskey, laughing manically at your genius plan to make me look like an idiot. The tech guy left (but not before he told me some cool mobster history on my apartment building), and even gave me his cell phone number in case you decided to go down again. I think he was on to your trickery.
And of COURSE you waited until this fine Sunday evening to start playing games again. The minute I sit down to do homework you crash. Are you trying to teach me a lesson on how not to procrastinate? Ok, it’s working, I get it. School is cool. Whatever.
But this time I wasn’t going to let you win. I am 11 g-​damn weeks away from graduating, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you ruin that for me.
I called your tech support people again. We discussed options (somehow drop kicking you off my roof wasn’t a popular choice), and the phone call ended with me sprinting down the street to Best Buy before they closed. Your modem? It’s been replaced. And now? YOU are MY bitch, because you are working just fine and if you know what is good for you, you will stay that way.
AT&T, I’m willing to overlook bumps in the road. After 5 years, this was our first major fight. But just remember who is boss around here — ME.
Let us never have this conversation again.

I’ve had AT&T/SBC/Yahoo DSL for about six or seven years. In general, my DSL reliability has been below average. I get an outage a few times a year. it usually happens like clockwork when we’ve had a couple of rainy days in a row.
I got an offer from them to upgrade from Express to Pro DSL. I was ecstatic and immediately did it. Well a week passes and I get a cryptic email from them saying my order has been cancelled. I called and was told that «while the distance is within range, the line won’t support the higher service». I guess its a common problem in the near west side (Wicker, UK, Bucktown) area. The area has become denser with a lot of new construction and people use more services such as fax lines from home and DSL. But AT&T has not kept up — they’re running DSL (and U-​verse eventually) over 50+ year old copper lines. I had a relative visit from out of the country for the first time and he was amused with the utility pole in the alley. It has a maze of wires hanging there. Something you expect to see in the third world, not in a rich industrialized country like the US.
Final complaint: when I call in to customer service for my DSL, DON“T TRY AND SELL ME DISH AND CELL PHONE SERVICE. I’m at your employee’s mercy to transfer me to the right department. As good sales people, they have been trained to ask questions, counter any objections and SELL, SELL SELL. I needed help for a problem from the customer rep but he went on and on trying to sell me added services.

Why did it have to end like this, AT&T?
I’ve had a land line and DSL through them for three years. I’d been extremely happy with the service. When they transferred from SBC to AT&T, my bill went up. I called them in March and asked if I could have it lowered. They said sure, and did so. And it was good.
Now I’m moving and need to cancel. I just spent a half hour on the phone being transferred from person to person to person, each of whom told me a different thing. Basically, when I called to get my price lowered, I «entered into a contract», even though I was definitely not told this, nor did I agree to it. And to get my DSL cancelled now will cost me $ 99 for an early cancellation fee.
I am going to take this modem and cram it up the figurative butthole of AT&T. I want to make them cry like a toddler with a broken Tonka truck.