I have had some form of DSL service for the seven or so years and I have been through a lot of providers, from Flashcom, to Sprint Broadband Direct, and providers in between. Now I have SBC (AT&T) Yahoo Internet, and I can’t say that they are any better or any worse than my other providers have been, but they do provide reliable service at a reasonable price point.

SBC Yahoo Internet, now AT&T Yahoo Internet (the merge between SBC and AT&T is now complete and SBC has taken on the older company’s more universally accepted and respected name), offers residential, small business, and corporate Internet access, ranging in speeds from 384Kbps to 6.0Mbps, with both dynamic and static IP addresses. But the most popular plans offer 1.5 to 3.0Mbps. Prices range from $12.99 to $44.99 a month for residential service and $49.99 to 94.99 for small business plan offering (5) static IP addresses.

I recently upgraded my service to SBC (AT&T) Yahoo! High Speed Internet Elite Package, which offers 3.0 to 6.0Mbps downloads and 384 to 608Kbps upload speeds at a promotional cost of $29.99 a month. Only time will tell weather or not my actual download speeds will increase; more on that below.

Installation

Like most cost conscience mega corporations in today’s market, the installation of the service is foisted off on the end user. SBC (AT&T) will send you a standard DSL modem and easy to follow installation instructions for one computer. If you have multiple computers and a wireless router you can share your DSL a connection, but it will take some finesse.

Along with the service you will get (6) Yahoo email addresses, one of which acts as the master; this is the email address you use to log into the service with a password. Once logged into the DSL modem, you will be connected to the Internet; no other software is needed although SBC (AT&T) offers a raft of rather useless, but feel-good software applications including anti-spam and anti-virus, and a welcome Internet page; or portal if you will. Needless to say I skipped the software installation.

Use

SBC (AT&T) Internet service is very reliable; since “I” initially installed it more than six month’s there has been very little down-time; in fact I have only lost my connection one time. The download speed is of course less than advertised. Using SBC’s own line speed web site I average download speeds of 2.5Mbps, but downloading an actual file is considerable slower; averaging between 125Kbps.

I called technical support this issue and of course they ran the line test and reported that everything was fine, and that different file type down load at different speeds; duh! However, no matter what the file type, I have never reach 500Kbps, let alone the bottom advertised down load speed of 1.5Kbps. You can test your DSL line speed at the following popular websites; I tested my DSL connection and noted the results:

o http://www.dslreports.com/stest: 934Kbps down / 421Kbps up
o http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/: 2418Kbps down / 420Kbps up

But of course the principle function of high speed DSL is surfing the Internet at blazing speeds, and in this regard I have no complaints. Web sites load quickly and streaming video and audio load in a respectable amount of time. Apple’s new high definition (movie) video trailers and teasers take time to download (here is when the less than admirable actual download line speeds come into play; a typical 42MB high definition clip can take upward to 10 minutes to completely download), but once they arrive at the desktop the results are stunning.

Customer Service

SBC (AT&T) takes great pains to ensure their customer service representatives are friendly, and do everything they can to help you (once you actually manage to reach one, having to plow through grueling minutes of voice activated prompts), including a hard sales pitch at the end of the call that I do not appreciate. On average I have been satisfied with the level of customer support I have received from SBC (AT&T), very annoying sales pitches aside.

Conclusion

My opinion of SBC (AT&T) DSL as a high speed connection is mixed. On the one hand I certain love the semi-high speed connection; I could never see myself going back to dial-up, but I wish the true download speeds were closer to advertised download speeds. Perhaps there will come a day when high speed Internet connection speeds reach T1 territory, but that day is long in coming. Until then SBC (AT&T) offers a decent, reasonably priced semi-high speed Internet connection with six separate e-mail addresses, certainly enough for most families.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 29.99
Version Number or Year: 2006