Electronics

[Mindy D]

I hate my DSL. It is constantly going down and we’ve had service out afterward. Currently, it’s going down as soon as the outside temperature drops from our mini cold fronts or when it hits 12:00 P.M. We had the exact same thing happen exactly one year ago and after two months of talking to them I had a tech come and he found that there was no service to every home on my part coming from their hub. I had to wait over a week for them to fix that? How is your experience with it? 

I’d switch but I might be moving so I don’t want to change my plan right now.

[Nonametoday]

I switched from AT&T after 20 years, to Spectrum, and it is as bad or worse.  I asked someone in the business why and was told there are many reasons and as he began to give me all the reasons from the need to reset my modem, scanning for viruses, to rewiring my house and after all that is done, call the provider and tell them all that you have done and ask if they have suggestions.

I was so tired I had to take a nap after thinking of what all I had to do before complaining to the provider that I am paying this high monthy fee.

[deedledeedeedle]

@Mindy D ,

I've had AT&T DSL for over ten years and have rarely had a problem. That being said, ever so often AT&T will take my email offline. When I call in, of course they deny it, but they then try to convince me to switch to U-Verse. I will never have U-Verse because of their ridiculous pricing. I always tell them to get my email back online or I'll go to another provider. When they threaten me with the future "end of DSL" technology, I call BS on them, and ask what will rural areas use then, if not DSL? They have some extreme sales tactics, even convincing me once that I had a bad router, but it suddenly "healed" itself a few days later. For the most part they leave me alone now. 

dee

[Still Raining]

If you have to rely on DSL, I assume you live rural where cable does not reach.

You can get full-service cable satellite or, for less money, find a local satellite for just WiFi.  

Both work.

[Miss Pepsi]

I have had AT&T for years have very seldom have a problem, I hate to say anything to Jinx it but it is true.  in the past if years I can count the times on 1 hand I might have had a problem that was not Hurricane related and even during a hurricane, as soon as we had power again we had no problems.

[hckynut]

@Mindy D 

Don't have AT&T, but I did retire from the company. DSL itself, more than likely is not the problem. It usually is the IP and/or service to your particular location. 

We have CenturyLink DSL and phone service, and they work independently. Our phone service can be a problem but it does not effect our DSL service. I had the tech install a "stand alone" wired connection for our DSL. Our phone service has been a problem multiple times while our DSL has rarely has been an issue. Had times where I have had to reboot the modem, but I really don't consider that an issue.

My only wish is we had higher speed available in our semi rural area. Started with 1.5mbps for years, then increased to 5mbps, and now we do have 20mbps. The reason is our home still has copper wire I may have made during my 30+ years of making telephone wires and cables.

Until I see Fiber Optic, I won't be expecting a 1g speed anytime soon. Had cable in our townhome years ago and it was a much bigger pain in the patooti than our DSL. What was our worst internet issue? Before we moved into our home here, I was told my US West(now called CenturyLink), that DSL was available.

Spent hours on end with their techs, while opening my computer umpteen times changing different PCI cards, all to no avail. Was stuck with dialup for years, which then became 1 way satellite and dialup. The satellite required me to dial a phone number to connect to their "download only" satellite for higher speed. Talk about problems! Not only service, but paying $60 a month for satellite, and also $19.95 for the dialup.

Interesting story? Probably not, but try going from "unlimited" broadband speed with cable, back to dialup. Like going from your cell phone back to the old crank wall phones, not a fun trip even when problem free.

hckynut

[chickenbutt]

I did have it for a number of years - until it just got intolerable.    I had Spectrum (fka Charter) for cable tv for decades and switched my internet and landline to Spectrum, so I have them for all three services.

It's been 4 years or so and I am still very pleased.  With Spectrum the internet and wireless has been outstanding in every way - with all my other devices and for speed (well over 100mbps consistently).   

For cable tv it's also been excellent and outages are few and far between.  If there is a cable outage they email me right away and are always working on it immediately.  The last outage lasted between 8 and 9 minutes.  Yeah, minutes!   It's always fixed even before I get the 'it's fixed' email.  Can't beat that.

[Nightowlz]

Yes we had that & it was always going down plus their router/modem was krap so we bought our own. Eventually we switched to the cable company. So far so good.