Finally. Finally I have an answer about why my “high speed” DSL service is anything but. But first, a bit of background. For those so inclined, the past article in this series, which, I fervently hope, will be soon ending:
AT&T Customer Service: The Horror
AT&T Customer Service: The Horror, Part 2
AT&T Customer Service, The Horror, Part 3: A New Hope?
AT&T Customer Service: The Horror, Part 4: It’s Fixed…Part Of It Anyway…Maybe…Sort Of…
AT&T Customer Service: The Horror, Part 5: Back To The Drawing Board?
Here is what has happened since the last article posted on 01-10-15:
01-15-15: Kevin Smith from the AT&T President’s office and I finally connected by phone, and his solution? To send a technician to verify what I’ve been telling him in multiple e-mails.
Of course, I knew that would accomplish nothing. A very competent technician has been here twice and I’ve chatted with him a third time as he worked at my neighbor’s home where the same trouble plagues them, and once more by phone. I’ve even called his direct supervisor. But, at least Smith was acknowledging–or potentially beginning to acknowledge–the problem.
01-16-15: Smith called back with interesting news. He cancelled the visit from a technician because he discovered what’s wrong: AT&T’s equipment is so outmoded, when too many people are simultaneously using DSL in my area, the speed drops dramatically. And the really bad news? There is no fix. It’s not going to get better.
So AT&T has been charging me–and everyone else in my area using the same equipment–for years, for service they knew I could never have. This is, of course, not Smith’s fault, and he is working to ensure I pay, from now on, what he called a “promotional” rate. Someone was supposed to call me about that during the week of 01-19/23-15, and Smith himself promised to call me during that week to sort things out as well.
Would it surprise any of you that have read this series to learn that no one called me, nor did Smith?
Would it further surprise anyone to learn that I have no other Internet alternatives where I live? I’m stuck with AT&T low speed DSL. Smith did mention that he would arrange to call me when AT&T’s “U-Verse,” which is apparently some sort of hyper high-speed Internet service, becomes available in my area, but of course, he had no idea when that might be.
This is somewhat surprising, gentle readers. I live only about six miles south of Ft. Worth. While some of the area surrounding my community is farm and ranch land, driving to and from Ft. Worth and surrounding areas one sees very little open land, and thousands upon thousands of homes and businesses. Why, we have four to six-lane highways, electricity, and indoor, running water! We even have toilet paper. It’s not as thought I live 100 miles in the middle of the Mojave Desert. I live on a quiet, suburban street, surrounded by new, modern homes. No picket fences, but green lawns, trees, dog poop, not a horse-drawn carriage to be seen. One would think we might have the infrastructure for the kind of low speed Internet service AT&T advertises as high speed Internet service. As John Belushi used to say: “but noooooooooooo!”
NEXT STEPS:
While this debacle has provided fodder for a series of articles I had not, in my wildest dreams, ever hoped or wanted to write, I really want this to be done as soon as possible. I had hoped to have actual high speed Internet service, but it now appears that’s not going to be possible, perhaps not in my lifetime.
Still, the other day I needed to send several photos to a colleague. They weren’t huge; they didn’t comprise gigabytes of data, but even sending a few, small, JPEG images was impossible. I had to send them via snail mail on a flash drive. Sigh.
So while I appreciate Smith’s offer to reduce my monthly bill for Internet service to an appropriately low level–and I hope to actually hear from AT&T and Smith about that issue some day–there is more that must be addressed.
For more than a decade, if memory serves, AT&T has been selling me high-speed Internet service that never was. Because I had nothing with which to compare it, with the exception of dial-up service that was much, much slower, I just thought it was a particularly buggy product. Over the years, I experienced frequent outages, long periods of slow service and other glitches, but I didn’t know enough to know this was because the equipment AT&T was using to provide the service was fundamentally inadequate to the task.
In recent months, the problem has become acute, because AT&T, knowing it was selling a product it didn’t have, kept selling it and kept collecting money. As my community grew–as it continues to rapidly grow–the problem got worse and worse. The more people that used the service, the slower and more troubled it became.
If I were a cynical sort–wait a minute: I am a cynical sort!–I might consider this to be fraud and file a formal complaint with the Public Utilities Commission. But “fraud” is a harsh word, and for the moment, I’m going to e-mail Mr. Kevin Smith of the office of the President of AT&T and ask, nicely, that AT&T reimburse me in full for the service for which I have, for many years, paid but never received. Since AT&T sold me that service knowing it could never live up to its promise–what’s that business word…contract? Yes, contract; that’s it–that seems only reasonable and fair.
I don’t think anyone was malicious about this. Surely, Kevin Smith and the helpful and earnest technicians with whom I’ve dealt have not knowingly defrauded me or anyone. They work for a huge corporation and didn’t know what was happening until they were motivated to dig into the problem. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been paying, and a considerable amount over many years, for a service I’ve never received.
And as long as AT&T actually does lower my future monthly bills to reflect Internet service only somewhat better than dial up, I’ll have to be satisfied, having no other alternatives.
What do you think, gentle readers? I’ll keep you informed.
Phil said:
Mike, if you haven’t already, please consider Internet service from one of the cellular providers, such as Verizon. Good luck.
Mike McDaniel said:
Dear Phil:
Unfortunately, the other providers use the same equipment as AT&T. They don’t have separate lines.
Barney said:
I live about 20 miles west of Ft Worth. For about 10 years my internet connection was what they called a broadband. You got a transmitter and put it on your roof and pointed it at one of their antennas. Usually on one of the local watertowers. It was a local company and the service was good. Don’t know if that’s an option for you or not….
Mike McDaniel said:
Dear Barney:
Thanks for the advice. I looked into just that a few years back, but they had nothing for me. Too many trees in the way. I don’t suppose they got any shorter. Perhaps I ought to try again.
Glenn Leger said:
If it’s heavy usage is bogging down the outdated system, then can we expect more articles from you posted around the 2 am time? lol, Its really a shame, this is one of the best crafted and informative blogs around today. Good luck in the future, it looks like your gonna need it.
Raycheetah said:
I’d say you and your neighbors need to file a class-action suit against AT&T. ='[.]’=
Jspurr01 said:
There’s no cable tv / Internet out there? Surely there must be some cable service not too far away. I had to fight to get my local cable provider to run a line to my house. At one point, they said they would extend their lines to me for about $1700 – – I didn’t like that much, but I was getting desperate – then they reversed that, and refused even if I paid. Then, I called my Township offices, and learned the cable company had been awarded exclusive rights to the area – – and in return, they had to commit to provide service to any house in an area with more than 6 houses per sq mile density. After fighting for almost a year, and finally even deciding to choke down the $1700 fee, I got it installed for free.
If that isn’t an option for you – what about satellite. (HughesNet)?
Mike McDaniel said:
Dear jspurr01:
I tried Direct TV, with whom I have satellite service. They’re aligned with HughesNet, and they have nothing for me. I’ll check into cable, but I’m not optimistic.
Thanks for your suggestions.
DNS said:
I have friends in the middle of nowhere that use HughesNet sat service. It’s expensive and slow compared to wired broadband but it works. Our area has multiple providers and competition is the only thing that keeps the prices low and quality high. I have business class service through the cable company. Multiple static IP address class that started as guaranteed 5 down 5 up. The price has stayed the same for the past 10 years but actual speed has gone to 12-15 down over 5 up. Its the only good thing about living in a large metro area.
What’s funny is right now I’m sitting in truly the middle of nowhere. My home this weekend is in the middle of the Juniper Wilderness area of Ocala National Forest. I’m sitting by the fire drinking coffee. I just ran a speed test and am getting 15mbps down 8mbps up. It’s better than I get in the city. 5 years ago you couldn’t get a signal out here!
everlastingphelps said:
I normally abide the tone set by the blog author, but in this case I’ll be frank. This is how AT&T still does business —
“Fuck you, we’re the phone company.”
Mike McDaniel said:
Dear everlastingphelps:
Actually, Mr. Smith is being pretty decent about things, if not immediately responsive. We’ll see how AT&T does with my request for a refund.
DNS said:
Nice of them to say they will give you a promotional rate for a service you will never receive. I would demand a refund for all the years you haven’t received what you contracted for. Maybe not all of the money but at least the difference between dial up and broadband.
What they have done is over sell capacity. They need to either put in a larger pipe IE more lines and equipment or drop the newest customers to allow the first customers to receive what they paid for. Otherwise they will continue to sell a service they know they can’t provide to more and more people and the problem will only get worse.
Mike McDaniel said:
Dear DNS:
Thanks for the advice. That’s precisely what I’m doing.
navyvet said:
Mike:
Phil’s earlier comment — I believe — was referring to Verizon’s wireless internet. No phone lines, just a wireless device that uses the same service as cellular phones. It might be on the expensive side (not sure), but would definitely be faster.
Jim Battistoni said:
Benbrook, TX resident. I signed up for “HSI Elite” service with AT&T in 2008 (at the time the fastest I could get). This also had Yahoo mail. Well the mail service is yuck. My lady with her Mac just is beyond herself with AT&T. I feel that they are trying to push U verse. Take care. I go to your site everyday.
Phil said:
Mike, If you can get cable TV service, you almost certainly can get cable based broadband internet using a cable modem. Currently, that’s the fastest out there. DSL is not even close these days.
Casey Tompkins said:
I’m surprised. About a dozen years ago I used Cincinnati Bell’s DSL service, and it was my understanding at the time that any DSL link was direct to that customer, as opposed to cable’s “group” link to the local loop. It was a selling point back then.
I eventually went to Time/Warner’s broadband cable because Cincy Bell required a gateway to the internet wherein you logged in, which was frequently down. T/W was always on, and was much faster.
everlastingphelps said:
That’s true, in a sense. The cable modems have everyone coming into the big network at about the same place, in network topology (or rather, that was the case 10 years ago, less so now.) Cable was a big pipe front to back, but everyone shared the same huge pipe.
DSL was a smaller pipe, but the selling point was that it all gathered at once place in the neighborhood where there was a huge pipe to feed into. What AT&T has done here is not put a huge enough pipe in at the collection point, and then connected way more smaller pipes to it than it could take.
I’m trying to come up with a good analogy, and roads is the best I can do (better for most people than pipes.) Cable is a town with a huge beltway and everyone living on the beltway. Your modem is an onramp for that beltway.
As soon as you get on the road, you’re right at your onramp and you go straight to highway speeds. Thing is, if the highway is jammed, it’s jammed. Nothing you can do about it.
DSL was more of a side-streets and arteries situation. You can still get to your place pretty fast if there’s normal traffic, and if the arteries are good, you make better time than the congested beltway. The problem is, what AT&T has done here is put one congested artery in with no passing lane, so everyone gets congested on the artery.
Kim Davis said:
I can not believe AT&T lack of customer service……I have spent countless number of hours in the phone trying to get our issue solved and have gotten no where.
I have personally placed numerous calls to Kevin myself and he has not bothered calling me back nor having anyone in his office call me back for that matter…
So all I got to say is soooooo long AT&T……you have lost a valuable customer here.