I'm an internet gaming junkie. I love to play online games such as QUAKE III: ARENA, Unreal Tournament, Counterstrike, and TFC. For multiplayer games like this, ping is a very important factor. Ping is your calculated time to send and recieve packets from the server. So if you pull your rail gun with a ping of 300, it will take 300 miliseconds to fire at the aimed target. I know it sounds weird, but that's what it is now. On DSL, Cable, and T1 lines, you can get pings of 70, almost impossible to tell. So you pull the trigger, and the person has already been shot. Very cool. After convincing myself to get it and ditch earthlink, I decided to get AT&T@home as they serviced my area, and were offering free installation and a free month. I planned on using 3 ethernet cards and a network hub to create a 3 computer online lan with my comp being the base. Now to the Installation. I don't know how this is for other's, but this is my own experience, and it seems to coincidental to not be related:

THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

After calling in early November, I decided to set up the appointment in early December, as they said you have to wait one month at least. I got a date, December 16, between 10-12. At 12:45 on the 16th, a man from PRINCE TELECOM showed up, the contracters to put in the line. I had to give them a signed memorandum from the community president to run a line outside the house as it is a Home Owners area I live in. After getting him that, a couple of his buddies dropped by. Another Prince Telecom guy just to relax, and a technician. After various choices, they drilled a hole, and ran the cable up into the modem. Get ready for superfast int---- oh wait, it isn't working. After 2 hours of fiddling with software and codes, the man named "Rusty" said he was sorry it wasn't working. He would call back and give me the proper codes, for he thought he had improper network codes. One week later, no call. I call up AT&T after being on hold for an hour. After explaining the story, they say they will send someone over to check out the area, then call me to confirm it's been fixed. One week later, still no call. I call in, explain the longer story, and the technician sets up an appointment 1 week away. The guy is half an hour late again for a 10-12 appointment. He goes outside, runs some test, and says that he will have a cable guy come fix the problem. He says he is getting low readings and thinks the area has weak cable. Still isn't working a week later. I call in and tell the story again to a Tech Support guy who says he will leave his manager a detailed note about it, and the manager will call me tomorrow. 4 days later still no call. I'M NOT EVEN JOKING ABOUT TIMES AND THINGS HERE. IM DEAD SERIOUS. THIS IS FOR YOUR OWN WARNING. I call back, tell the longer story to another techie, who sets up an appointment to fix the "STREET" Cable on a day. I tell him no one will be home, and he says he will leave detailed info with the Technician stopping by and tell them I don't need to be home. I write a short note on the door saying the problem is on the door, no one home. I get home the day of the appointment. A note on the door says "No one home." After punching a wall, I get really angry, I call up, and get a free month of service for the cable that doesn't work. I call up again, after 2 hours of Hold, and give another long lecture, set up the fix date with 2 guys, a TCI guy and an AT&T guy. They come by on time for a 10-12 appointment, fix the problem in 2 hours. Except now pages won't load. Seems they entered the wrong codes. I call tech support, hold for 1 hour, talk for 30 minutes, get transferred to "Advanced" Tech Support, where the guy hangs up on me. After screaming every obscenity possible, I call again. Finally, I meet a great technician called Shane Green. He goes through everything on DNS and Server Codes, and within 1 hour it works. The next day I find a new problem. I can't get or send email. I decide to call up again. After getting through the one hour hold, a really stupid female techie does nothing for 30 minutes, then transfers me to the "Advanced" group. This guy knows what he is doing, we are done in 30 minutes. Turns out AT&T forgot my password because my service had been inactive for so long that they thought it was canceled. When actually they hand't had it working for 8 weeks. Finally, today, February 7, the service finally works. Is it worth it? If you've come this far, I owe you a summary.

PROS:

Super Fast, never seen anything like it. Ten 100kbps downloads on mp3s, blazing page loading, superfast for ICQ and Email. Great bandwith so I get under 150 ping always, and at $40 bucks a month very reasonable. I even got free $150 installation and 3 free months.

CONS:

Worst Tech support ever. I mean 2 hour holds just to get to the first person, then they hold you again cause they don't know jack and want to get smart people to do it. Also, a lot of idiotic technicians, phone support knows S***, horrible setup dates, pointless waste of time. I don't know if it will go this bad for everyone else, but it did for me. If you feel secure, and might be able to kill a few hours on speakerphone waiting for them to answer, this might be for you.

OVERALL

DSL is great though more expensive, T1 is unlikely, so this is the Consumer's fast internet. Though I recieved the worst treatment ever, I still love the DL rate, Speed, and Ping I recieve. It gets a 2, but still a reccomendation.



Recommended: Yes