How good is AT&T internet? (home, subdivision)

[dolot]

Just moved to the area and got setup with Comcast/Xfinity cable modem - 25mbps. So far it has been very unreliable in my area. The only other provider out where I am is AT&T offering 6mbps. However, if it's more reliable, it might be worth getting. I don't think I've ever gotten 25mbps from Comcast, and lots of times I get nothing. I had to call tech support twice today to get service back on.

[Coogan]

Long-time AT&T DSL user and current Comcast customer here. If you don't do a lot of video streaming or twitchy online gaming, AT&T is adequate. We had 6Mbps service for years and were fine with it - we could easily do two Netflix standard-def streams at the same time, although I wouldn't push it much further. We had it for almost 10 years and I can count on one hand the number of outages we had - two of them when our modem up and died (AT&T had new ones to us in less than 48 hours). Overall, the DSL service was great as long as you don't need a ton of speed. The bandwidth cap is also lower than Comcast's.

Earlier this year we switched over the Comcast. While our service has been fine for the last 3 months, the first 6 months were nightmares. I signed up for a special package that came via mailer and wasn't one of their standard promos. Our first bill had a small error that I called to have corrected, and that triggered an incorrect change order that kicked us out of our promo price. I spent the next 4 months constantly calling them to get my bill changed to the correct package at the promo price - they screwed it up every single month. Finally I found an email address for "executive level support" (it's not advertised, but it's easily found on the Comcast forums) and got in contact with a nice lady who was able to go back thru all my past bills, lock in the correct package at the correct price, calculate all the overcharges I'd ended up paying, and permanently fix my bill. Haven't had a billing problem since then.

However, we'd been having similar connections ever since we'd signed up, even when using the Comcast modem. We'd go weeks without an issue, then have 10+ disconnects over a single weekend. Apparently everybody in the subdivision was having problems but (naturally) it didn't boil over until people starting missing Alabama football games because of it. Our neighbors were ready to march down Max Luther and burn down the local office. Eventually we settled on filing a complaint with the FCC about the constant issues, and some wheels finally got in motion. I started getting calls from Comcast upper-level support, as well as techs and engineers saying they were looking into the problem, then what they'd found, and their plans for fixing it. They ended up doubling the connection capacity to our local Comcast node. For us, that fixed the problem - we haven't had a disconnect since then. I believe some in the subdivision are still having some problems, but the hate has quieted down. So if you're having connection issues, document when they happen, what Comcast has done to "fix" them, and file an FCC complaint.

Coog

[JakeWilliams]

AT&T 6 MB DSL user here. I agree with what Coogan says - it's reliable and you have fairly consistent speed, it just isn't that much. We can watch two Netflix SD streams, but sometimes one will pixelate. We don't have cable or home phone, and it's not worth it for us to pay a lot more for WOW data-only service than we do for DSL, and I have never been happy with WOW service, so I'm sticking with AT&T as long as I can.

[dolot]

Thanks, guys - I've gone ahead and called AT&T and scheduled them to come install. Hope they aren't just as bad or worse, but from what I've heard they should be pretty good.