AT&T ISP Review & Reader Survey Results

[kewlguy239]

We asked readers to rate their Internet Service Provider based on price, performance, reliability and support. Here are the results for one of the country's oldest communications companies: AT&T.

AT&T ISP Review & Reader Survey Results : Read more

 

[jasonelmore]

I wish you guys would do ratings for the Other 3 DSL companies like Windstream and CenturyLink..

Those 2 companies are the absolute worst broadband companies in the world. All DSL plans in my area are restricted to 1 Mbps because of over selling, and no upgrades are planned to ever increase these speeds.

 

[Achoo22]

I don't understand why the article states that it's impossible to measure downtime. My modem is pinged a couple of times a minute from multiple locations, all located on major backbones. This data, compiled, gives an excellent real-world representation of overall connection uptime and performance.

Of course, it's overkill when first-hop pings exceed 300ms with 3% or more packet loss every night from 6PM to midnight or whenever demand goes up. The Windstream DSL service simply isn't engineered to support its users simultaneously.

 

[cohetedor]

Your pricing unbundled is way off on 6mbps DSL. I'm in MI and have to pay $57 a month. And Uverse starts as slow as 768k, I know because they tried to cut my regular DSL off last January and 768k was the fastest they could offer me.

 

[Kridian]

I'm in MI and have to pay $57 a month. And Uverse starts as slow as 768k, I know because they tried to cut my regular DSL off last January and 768k was the fastest they could offer me.

Dear lord! My condolences.

 

[dorsai]

There is no better argument for municipal broadband projects in my opinion...these survey's make one thing clear...unless they are pushed by competition ISP's will not improve their service. Any speed below 15mbps in this day and age does not even qualify to be called "broadband". States should be pushing all of the companies offering anything below 15mbps speeds to upgrade their networks since they are suffering negative economic impacts by allowing the status quo...

 

[10tacle]

I participated in this survey last month, so I'm glad to see the results. My two biggest complaints were outages (while relatively quick, still a PITA, especially when gaming online and recording on the DVR) and lower than what my speed should be that I'm paying for. The good news is that my city is one of the markets that will get ATT's gigabit fiber. I had Comcast in my previous home and while it was more expensive and the customer service was horrid, it was also faster for the same price tier and there were next to zero outages.

 

[dstarr3]

It's strange how this varies so wildly from my experience. I have had ZERO downtime in the past two years, I'm paying for 12mbps and I'm getting 15, and customer service has always been friendly and helpful. My bill went up after a year, and literally all I had to do was call and ask "Can you give me a discount?" and then my price went back down to normal. I'm very satisfied with U-Verse.

 

[Achoo22]

All DSL plans in my area are restricted to 1 Mbps because of over selling, and no upgrades are planned to ever increase these speeds.

It's worse here. My neighbor, further from the DSLAM than I am, pays less for 6mb/s than I pay for 1mb/s and because his CO pin is hooked up to a less congested set of tspans than mine, his service is better. Meanwhile, I can't even get them to make a QOS filter setup so that my low-bandwidth, latency sensitive functions (eg, ssh and telnet to work) can function.

I won't even be able to load bandwidth-heavy webpages (like Amazon, which is about 3MB/24mb per load and will give 404 blank pages if any of the connections stall) to shop from home during Black Friday/Cyber Monday until after midnight.

 

[Teamchaos]

I had AT&T DSL 18Mb/s for a few years. I never got more than 10-12Mb/s. Eventually I switched to Charter and now I enjoy 100Mb/s bandwidth that consistently exceeds what I'm paying for (typically 102Mb/s). AT&T may be reliable, but it's sloooow. My house is near the end of their line in my neighborhood and I'm sure that was a factor, but still shouldn't have had to pay for more than I received.

 

[ummduh]

I had the 45Mbps plan here in Napa, CA. I was usually able to get the rated speeds, but VERY often I could not stream anything more than 240 in youtube, and often Netflix wouldn't load in HD. Also, the pings were pretty bad, in the 60-90MS range. (speedtest.net tests) I'm talking literally every weekday after 3pm, and every weekend you couldn't use youtube. Netflix was more hit and miss.

We ditched cable/tv service all together and switched to comcast 150Mbps service against my own will. Pings in the 10-16MS range (plus speedtests out to 18xMbps regularly), and haven't had any problems with youtube/netflix bufferings or loading in their highest resolutions and bitrates.

 

[firefoxx04]

I hate ATT. Glad I have comcast even tho they suck just as bad. At least they offer actual speeds that are worth having.

All ISPs suck. They know it too.

 

[JacFlasche]

I would rather watch the entire Ring Cycle by Wagner than deal with ATT support, and I hate opera and especially Wagner.
I used them for years, then they changed from unlimited downloads to 50Gb per month. ATT is the worst, plus everything you do on their network is mirrored to the NSA, who they have kindly provided with facilities in their own offices in SF.

They will be no help if you have a tech problem and will cycle you endlessly from one useless support person to another, everyone denying that it is their role to help you. Finally they may get you in contact with someone who understands something, but will want a premium for support.

The very thought of dealing with ATT brings to mind images of banging my head against a wall.
I use Cruzio, it is local and unlimited and free phone in USA and Canada, for $60 a month with a fiber network in the future.

Screw ATT and the horse they rode in on -- fascists.

 

[Red Reddington]

I am totally shocked by how high these ratings are. Shocked!

I had one instance where they were having DNS issues and there were some sites I just couldn't load but loaded fine on my phone using LTE. I called them and they ended up suggesting I pay $29.95 for a tech support department. Outrageous!

 

[jouster]

I been using uverse awhile. I'm on a 5down 0.5up plan. Ping is usually 8-10. Lately my up has been .8 & about 7 down with a 40 ping. Honestly don't like uverse. On average I get 5-7 crashes a day at least. And i'm stuck with their crappy modem that pretty much allows zero customization(ports for games etc)

 

[LordConrad]

I have AT&T U-verse at 24 Mbps, but consistently get 28 Mbps. I stay with AT&T for one important reason: stability. My internet speeds are stable, and I can stream Netflix and Amazon at 1080p whenever I wish. Comcast internet drops out in the late afternoon and evening, but my U-verse is rock-solid.

 

[dennphill]

DSL? I have Cox Communications as an ISP (cable) with a "preferred package'' that includes a maximum download speed of 50 Mbps (and with 'powerboost' up to 63 Mbps). Speedtest.net with Ookla shows generally 56 Mbps download and 6.8 Mbps upload, if that's any good info. And I'm in the panhandle of Florida as to location. I am in a fight with Cox because of their failing to honor a deal last Summer by one of their reps (after a year or two of about $140 per month, which then they wanted to up to regular prices of nearly $250 per month). Their rep offered 2-year contract with $180 or so a month (dropping free HBO and other minor changes) then a month or two later the price jumped up to the $250, and they told me the agent had no business in making me that offer. I took the issue up - could NOT get to anyone in charge, just kids on the customer service lines and customer retention department - so I wrote the FCC and the Florida Department of Agriculture (oversees telecommunication in this state). Bottom line is that they (Cox) took away the 2-year contract, and essentially are billing me at about $184 (don't know for how long!). Cox HQ finally wrote me (I got a copy of their response to the FL Dept of Agriculture from that organization (not Cox) at the end of last month, saying (in a lot of words) that i am getting $343.78 of monthly service and they are now billing me the $184.27 with some of the promotional rates expiring in the coming year on various dates. Besides the high speed internet preferred, I was forced a year or so ago to bundle a telephone service - which I don't need, want or use! - and the various cable TV packages are a lousy selection with many, many stations I have no intereset in, and beyond the 'essential' *including hte HD essential) package, I end up with the advanced package (includes music choice), and the bonus package (to watch Science, Nat Geo Wild and American Heroes channels), and the sports & info package (to watch the occasional Florida colleges football games. Probably over a hundred channels of which I watch about a dozen or so. One of my main complaints is that if they want to nickle-and-dime the customer base to death with these broad packages (that have so many stations of little interest), they should allow an a-la-carte station selection. Poor local HD over the airwaves programming, so options only include cable or direct TV and Century Link. Hoping for changes in the future. Would like to retain just cable internet - don't know what actual charges would be for Cox - can only find their "promo new customer) (read: sucker-in) rates online. Maybe Tom's will look at cable ISPs later. My sympathies for those of you with at or under 1 Mbps. (768k - really?) I know cable is significantly faster than DSL, and hope my comments are not out of place.I wish other would complain to their cable companies and urge them to get away from bundling unneeded services and go to television channels with a-la-carte options. I'd really love to see fiber-optics in my neighborhood!

 

[Chris_31]

This article is terrible. It doesn't show real test results and AT&T is a terrible company. Even their cell service is overpriced. In any case DSL is so ancient is just pointless.

This article should compare different ISP providers and their price and performance. Even reviewing providers overseas to see the difference in price and networks globally. Now that would be something.

As for myself I have cavlevision also known as optimum and for $40 a month I get a guaranteed 50mbps down and 25mbps upload. I usually do between 70-75 down and 30-40 up but I have never done less than the advertised. My ping is also phenomenal. Cavlevision is one of the companies that truly cares about their customers and gets things done. They also don't interfere with anything you may be watching/downloading.

I had a buddy who has Verizon FiOS and was watching something on showbox that was I guess you could say not exactly legal do watch. It was a a new movie that just came out and FiOS sent him a letter showing the time and date and exactly what he was watching... Kind of scary. They told him if he did it again they would slow his internet to crippling speeds.

I download torrents nonstop and cavlevision has never once in over 15 years now sent me a letter. They protect your privacy, they don't violate it like so many other providers I've heard of.

I feel sorry for all who cannot have optimum.

 

[Achoo22]

Your forgot about the price of installation.... ATT residential installation isn't free.

They also charge you significantly increased rates if you wish to opt out of their highly invasive data collection. The author's attempt to find package rates is fruitless anyway, since the advertised prices don't include the sundry below-the-line fees masquerading as taxes (read the fine print and you see that they are NOT taxes).

Also, did anyone else find it kind of offensive that the author alluded to user error and problem configurations as though it were a common reason for discontent? That is the one thing that the generally worthless technical support can actually troubleshoot and fix, so I think it's highly unlikely to be a significant cause of service disruptions.

 

[Chris_31]

I can't believe companies want data collections on their customers. This is something a company like cavlevision doesn't even allow. I know Verizon monitors all their customers.

Honestly, what business is it of the ISP to even monitor anything you do what so ever? Its absolute bullshit.... I think they need to make a review of all ISP including service, price, reliability, and especially the invasion of privacy!

 

[kyle382]

I wish you guys would do ratings for the Other 3 DSL companies like Windstream and CenturyLink..

Those 2 companies are the absolute worst broadband companies in the world. All DSL plans in my area are restricted to 1 Mbps because of over selling, and no upgrades are planned to ever increase these speeds.

I had to get century link DSL in 2009 because cable wasn't available in my area at the time. It was $90/month for 3 Mbps solely because there was no other provider in the area. 20 minutes away in a larger town you could get 30 Mbps cable internet for $30/month....

 

[REALRabidHamster]

AT&T in MY area is complete GARBAGE ... they wanted $51 per month for 6mb DSL ... I have Charter 30mb fiber optic for $59 per month ... and no data cap ... AT&T charged $10 extra for over 150Gb ... I'll NEVER go back to AT&T !!!

 

[jimmysmitty]

Your pricing unbundled is way off on 6mbps DSL. I'm in MI and have to pay $57 a month. And Uverse starts as slow as 768k, I know because they tried to cut my regular DSL off last January and 768k was the fastest they could offer me.

I used to work for Verizons call center and while we didn't have their service where I lived (none in AZ) I used to hear stories like this for AT&T. While Verizon had a DSL option they were trying to push their FiOS into every area they had service. Some were hard though as they would get blocked by companies like AT&T or Time Warner as they managed to not allow them to lay their fiber lines down.

It is funny to see how easy it is for a company to halt technological progress. Considering the internet started in the US and most of the computer technology comes out of here we should have the best network infrastructure available. Instead we have companies like AT&T price gouging their customers for internet speeds that are not even capable of loading basic web pages in a decent amount of time anymore.

 

[wysir]

The only issue I've had with ATT is 2 faulty modems, other than that, I've only had 2-3 outages over 3 years. I'm kind of curious on how the age of the neighborhood/apartments relates to speeds and outages.

 

[waikano]

My only other option is Mediacom...and the last time I had them they were out for like 6 weeks because of Ivan and my Phone (landline) never went out. That's when I made the switch to DSL and it was solid until they started pinging me with 150GB Data Caps. 1st year of U-Verse was pretty good at 12mbps. Now I'm at 18mpbs and it's so inconsistent. (Also paying $57 for it not the $45 you got listed above) That being said their Customer Service has been great. Wish I could go to Cable ISP and have ludicrous speeds (compared to U-Verse anyway), but sadly Mediacom just isn't worth the risk and their Customer Support in the past has been terrible even worse than AT&T by this poll.