They did not deliver critical e-mail, have a very unreliable e-mail website (which I made the mistake of counting on) -- and now their modems are mute. Buyer beware.

First, my main problems with AT&T. Then, what I like about AT&T. Finally, some context to my experience with AT&T.

***My main problems with AT&T:

:--( 1. Lost e-mail

Most ISP shoppers don't think about an ISP's e-mail quota. A quota is a limitation on the amount of e-mail the ISP will hold for you, and all ISPs have them.

But AT&T's quota is easy to run afoul of and, strangely, will result in lost e-mail messages.

Because at AT&T, there is no way for the customer to tell if he is close to the quota. And AT&T does not alert a customer who exceeds the quota. When the quota is reached, incoming e-mail messages are blocked -- but the owner of the e-mail account is not notified. This is important to any user who receives faxes (via efax, for instance), attachments (like Microsoft Word documents) or encapsulated documents (Adobe PDF files).

In my case, on two separate occasions, I lost absolutely critical business documents. Each time, a normal-sized (~300KB) Adobe PDF file bounced back, once to a source and once to my boss at the newspaper I was working for (see background below). I did not know this until the sender asked why a key file he had sent me was returned to him.

I tried asking AT&T's customer support how to avoid this problem in the future. I filled out a special form for e-mail based customer support. Within 48 hours, I received a canned reply that told me what a quota was. I knew this, and followed the somewhat complicated "escalation" procedure, which basically means sending AT&T a second, followup e-mail. Within 24 hours, I received a message telling me that, as a matter of practice, AT&T provides absolutely no information related to the quota: how much e-mail has piled up in an account, if the account is close to reaching quota, or even if any messages have been turned away.

I do not fault AT&T for imposing an e-mail quota. Nor do I think the quota is insufficient (!0MB is plenty). What bothers me is losing important e-mail messages. AT&T should warn its customers each time they exceed quota and should treat their e-mail as sacred. They should not delete incoming e-mail unless absolutely neccesary, and even then should not do so without notifying the customer.

Microsoft's free web-based "Hotmail" e-mail service handles quotas well, much better than AT&T. When the quota is exceeded, Microsoft does not block incoming e-mails. Rather, it sends the user an e-mail message and gives him the chance to delete old messages. Failing that, the system will delete some of the user's oldest messages. Under no circumstances (that I know of) does it block incoming mail.

:--( 2. Poor web-based e-mail

AT&T provides a web interface for checking e-mail. This was a big plus for me when I joined AT&T, because I like (and sometimes need) to check my personal e-mail from work or while traveling.

Unfortunately, the AT&T e-mail website, netmail.att.net, has been excruciatingly slow during my six-month experience with AT&T. In many cases, the website would not respond when I tried to log in, or would go down as I was using it. This occurred from multiple locations (usually offices with hard-wired Internet access) and, in every case, I was able to log in to Hotmail.

When it was possible to log in, the site was very sluggish. Clicking on a message meant waiting at least 15 seconds to read it.

When I called AT&T to complain, there was a recording acknowledging poor e-mail performance in general, so I hung up without speaking to an agent.

:--( 3. Slow POP e-mail (using Eudora)

Checking my e-mail with Eudora was also very slow about 33% of the time. A simple, small text message would take 30 seconds to download. By comparison, such messages would transfer in less than one second from my university Internet service.

Again, AT&T had acknowledged that its e-mail performance was bad, so I did not bother calling to complain.

:--( 4. Unreliable dial-up connection service

During six months with AT&T, I only got a busy signal once while trying to log on to the Internet.

But almost daily now, the San Francisco, California -based modems I use will answer my call -- and stay silent. My modem will squawk and squeal to no avail, cycling through its tones several times before giving up outright.

At other times, I will connect successfully and be disconnected at some point during my Internet session, usually within the first ten minutes. These disconnects do not occur because the connection remains "idle" -- in fact, they occur, frustratingly, while I am in the middle of checking e-mail or downloading a web page.

As for modem performance, I routinely connect, during dial-in, at about 44kbps. However, the connection is spotty, surging and stalling during downloads, reaching this peak speed (44kbps) occasionally or never. I'd say I end up averaging 28kbps at best. (My modem is 56kbps, and the modems I dial into support 56kbps connections. Of course, the telephone wires have a theoretical maximum of 53kpbs.)

Early on, around May and June, the modem performance was better, close to my dial-in connection speed. Recently, it has been terrible, never matching the speed my modem connects at and stalling completely for several minutes. Then it will surge back to life, only to die again.

(The performance problems are not related to the websites and e-mail servers I am trying to connect to. I only blame AT&T's modems when I have problems with all sites and when it fits the stall/surge pattern.)

To be fair, I have not called AT&T to resolve my modem concerns. I fear they would ask me to reinstall the software, which hogs up quite a bit of hard drive space and gives me programs I don't use.

:-( 5. Early-bird telephone support hours

This gripe might not be important to some people. But I am a night owl, and would prefer 24 hour-per-day, 7 day-per-week telephone support. Telephone support ends at 9 p.m. if you live on the west coast.

***What I like about AT&T

:--) 1. Friendly, effective telephone support

When I do call AT&T during their business hours, the wait is never very long. And the support representatives, on the two occasions when I've called, have been friendly and helpful. Nor did they talk to me like a six-year old.

:--) 2. Premium services

With my account, I got a free subscription to WSJ.com, The Wall Street Journal's website, and several free additional e-mail accounts. The amount of space allowed for a personal website is fairly generous, too. (I don't think the WSJ.com promotion is still in effect.)

:--) 3. Easy installation

I don't know how AT&T compares to AOL on this count, but compared with my experiences helping other people set up Internet service accounts, AT&T's software was straightforward and headache free. Then again, I'm not exactly a novice computer user.

***Background:

A student at UC Berkeley, I switched to AT&T from the campus' Internet dial-up services in May 1999, when I began taking freelance writing assignments for a national newspaper. I needed a solid, reliable ISP -- no busy signals, no lost e-mail, reasonably speedy web access.

This was absolutely crucial to the work I would be doing. Lost information or lost time could mean a missed deadline, which in turn could sour my relationship with my editor and mean no more assignments.

Four months later, I am more than a little disappointed in AT&T. Although I am still a paying customer, I am eager to switch to another ISP when I get a DSL line or cable Internet service installed. In the meantime, I'd rather put up with the complaints listed above than switch to the likes of AOL or roll the dice with a less established national ISP. (Plus, many people still use my AT&T e-mail address!)

(Tip to ISP shoppers: no matter which ISP you choose, consider acquiring a free, "permanent" e-mail address like those provided by bigfoot, at http://bigfoot.com . This "permanent address" will forward mail to your "real" ISP address, and if you decide to switch to a different ISP, you don't have to send all of your colleagues a new e-mail address--you just change the settings for your "permanent" address.)

I have lost e-mail messages critical to my work due to mysterious and unresolved "quota" problems, have had to wait up to 15 minutes simply to connect to the Internet due to silent or very-slow modems on AT&T's end (as I was rushing around trying desperately to check various websites for work) and cursed myself for counting on AT&T web-based e-mail to get at a critical PDF file while in another city. (Since May, I have had about 20 stories published for said publication. But AT&T WorldNet got in my way far too often!)

I harbor no general spite toward AT&T, although I am disappointed. WorldNet has won at least one major computer magazine award for general ISP excellence, so my expectations were high. I continue to love the company's Personal Network long distance package. But on the Internet count, I was frustrated with the lack of reliability and, even worse, the fumbling of important e-mail.



Recommended: No