phone / DSL (Atlanta, Decatur: house, live in, price)

[ckws]

Does anyone use someone besides At&T / bellsouth for their home phone /DSL service?
My sister lives in Decatur and they use Vonage....and it's "down" at least 20%of the time. Completely frustrating. They live in an older house...could that be partially to blame? Or is this standard w/ vonage?

We closed on our house and have the essentials....gas, power....but I'm trying to find the right fit on phone / internet service before we move in.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

TIA!!
K

[wxjay]

Do you not want to go with the Triple Play from Comcast?

[atlantagreg30127]

Unfortunately, right now AT&T is about the best bet in town for phone/DSL.

I was using Earthlink DSL for year which was still piggybacked on Bellsouth (now AT&T) lines. The service was horrible in the last year so I finally had to jump ship and switch to AT&T. So far (knock on wood) I've not had any problems worth mentioning and my download speed is 6420 with upload speeds at 432.

Everyone I know who has used Comcast broadband has eventually cancelled due to very poor customer service and frequent outages.

Other than that, you're limited to cellular broadband which is more expensive and slower, or dish broadband which again is slower, and has some lag issues.

[George Chong]

I too have AT&T and was with them when it was BellSouth. My service has been just fine. I did have a dsl modem go out early on and there was a little drama involved in getting a new one but it is a rarity that the service goes out. I actually have more problems with my wireless router than my dsl modem.

I too have heard horror stories for Comcast customers involving customer service. If you have an issue with customer service with AT&T - you will probably will be speaking to someone in India. A friend of mine that works for AT&T said that should be changing as it was part of the merger deal with BellSouth and customer service will be brought back to the states.

There are also several choices of connection speed to chose from. I just surf the web and I rarely have anything to upload so I think I just get DSL Light/Lite.

So to answer your question, my experience has been positive and it has been very reliable.

[plessthanpointohfive]

I use Verizon wireless for internet. It's cellular internet so it's not as fast as conventional DSL but it's portable so you don't have to worry about finding wi-fi when you're on the road....we've even used it in the car to get directions and stuff.

The modem is a USB device with it's own phone number and it can only be used with a wireless data plan.

It's more expensive, too. But, I think it's the eventual future of the internet...

I think Cingular has a similar thing going but from what I hear Verizon has the largest network...

We gave up on Bellsouth (ATT now) after they screwed up moving our phone lines and DSL 3 times. Each time I called to have them turn the service off at house A on Date MM1/DD1/YY1 and turn it on at house B on Date MM2/DD2/YY2 they instead cut it off the day I called, leaving me without service for days or even weeks and claimed they could not turn it back on in a timely fashion...

[ckws]

Thanks for all the information!

I would consider the comcast thing....I've heard bad stories on every provider, it seems....but we are still under contract with DirecTV...which we love....so it wouldn't make sense.

I use Earthlink DSL right now....They have a home phone / DSL package....and I called to see about getting that...but you have to have a phone number...and the house doesn't have a phone connected right now....So that is a catch 22......

[neil0311]

I've got ATT for POTS and 6Mb DSL. I also have Comcast for digital cable. I could take advantage of the triple play deal with Comcast and get a better Internet connection with an increased up/download speed, along with their digital voice offering. The intro price from Comcast would be less, but when it goes back to normal price, the price difference is minimal if anything at all.

I had the triple play when I lived in New England and it was very good. ATT has actually had a couple of minor outages in the 6 months I've had DSL, but nothing major. My only issue now has to do more with my alarm, but I may switch to Comcast when the DOCSIS 3.0 speeds become reality next year.

[Go Blue 99]

I've had AT&T DSL for 2 years now and have had zero problems. I have Directv so using Comcast Cable Modem is cost-prohibitive.
Now if we could only get Verizon FIOS here in Atlanta That is a whole other league.

[plessthanpointohfive]

What is Verizon FIOS? Verizon has the EVDO network out here - that's what I use.

[BobKovacs]

We've got Windstream for phone and DSL, and we'ver been really impressed. I think we pay around $90/month including 3MBPS DSL (which is very fast), and unlimited local/long distance. They also bundle in the Dish Network service.