Was OK--until I moved
Written: Oct 09 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Very reliable service in SOME areas
Cons: Philadelphia is not one of them
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| Tholian's Full Review: AT&T WorldNet |
I used to live in Baltimore, and I had AT&T Worldnet Service. I was pleased with the 6 email IDs and the fact that Web space could be amalgamated into a 60MB site, more than enough for my modest ambitions. I connected on the first try with no problem, always at a speed of at least 49.9k. All in all, little to complain about. Every now and then I would get disconnected abruptly, but a quick call to the help desk would get me a prompt solution...invariably consisting of cleaning up corrupted files on my end, after which my connection would go back to working perfectly well.
I was so pleased with AT&T that I never considered changing ISPs when I moved to Philadelphia two months ago.
Week 1:
The first time I dialed in, I was disconnected after about five minutes, and when I tried to dial in again, their end didn't answer. I tried the other two Philadelphia numbers and got "no answer" there either. Thinking this was just a freak occurrence, I went about my business and returned to the computer later that day. This time I held a connection for about an hour and a half before being booted. I could get back on again, but only at 28.8k and only for a few minutes. This went on all afternoon--very annoying when you're trying to get work done and you're being constantly interrupted by a bad Internet connection.
Things went on in this vein for about a week...I'd be able to get on early in the morning and hold a connection for quite a while, but as 9 AM rolled around and traffic began to build up, I would start getting kicked off--about every 12 minutes at first, then every 5, then every 3, then their computer wouldn't answer. I checked the phenomenon with my laptop, which experienced exactly the same problem...so I figured the issue was on their end. I mean, this exact same desktop with all the same software and hardware had never given me this problem in Baltimore, neither had the laptop, and all of a sudden both of them were doing the same thing? What are the chances of two computers breaking exactly the same way at the same time?
Week 2:
Well, apparently AT&T's level 1 help-desk techs thought it was pretty likely that I had two broken computers, and not likely at all that they had one broken Internet service. We did everything. We played with the DNS server names. We removed and reinstalled TCP/IP countless times. We updated the modem drivers. We disabled V.90, enabled it again, re-disabled, re-enabled. We put in all sorts of initialization strings. It seemed that on every call to the help desk, I was put through the same pointless procedures that hadn't worked before. Was no one talking to each other or taking any notes on this?
Week 3:
I could hardly poll my mail, let alone browse the Web or God forbid, have a conversation on ICQ or IRC. I was getting disconnected every 90 seconds on the desktop and every 5 minutes on the laptop. Calls to the help desk brought the same tired litany despite my repeated attempts to communicate that I had two different machines behaving the same way with their service, and that I was able to dial long distance calls to other AT&T access numbers around the country, getting on and staying on with no problems at all--however, I did not want to be paying long distance charges for service I should be getting right here in Philly! My long distance company? You guessed it, AT&T.
Check the server name...Check the TCP/IP settings...Disable WINS resolution...nothing ever changed. Finally, the help desk decided that I needed a new modem, which duly arrived from Gateway in only two days. (Thankfully, my machine is still under warranty.) This produced, as I'd expected, no change in the connectivity--it was still lousy and getting worse. Now I was lucky if I could connect on the third or fourth try and stay on for two whole minutes.
At this point it was decided by the help desk that the problem must be in my phone line, since they had "no record of any issues" with servers in Philadelphia. Well, I was having a weird problem with the sound on one of my phones anyway, so I had Verizon out the following day. The phone improved tremendously. The Internet service, however, did not.
My next call to AT&T's help desk resulted in a trouble ticket. This was after more than 150 minutes of cell phone time spent talking to the help desk while desperately trying to connect to the Internet. (My cell company? That's right, AT&T. Someone is making out like a bandit here.) They swore up and down that a level 2 tech would call me back within 48 hours with an explanation of the problem and an estimated resolution time.
Week 4:
I received no phone calls from AT&T, so I called back and was put through to another level 1 tech who stated that my trouble ticket had been marked "Closed, Not Fixed." At this point I was livid. I had already upset a close associate by appearing to go off in a huff during an ICQ exchange, and was beginning to get phone calls from other colleagues saying, "What's going on with you? You're not returning email or pages!" I wasn't getting them, that's why. I needed to get this problem resolved now.
Thus ensued the following dialogue:
Tech: Well, if you need the service for your business then you should get a business account, and this problem would be taken care of.
Tholian: Wait a minute...are you saying that this problem is solvable, but that you are refusing to solve it for me? That it is not going to be fixed because I'm not paying as much as a business customer?
Tech: Um, not exactly...but if you had a business account, well...of course we realize this is inconvenient and we will solve it eventually...but um, our business accounts have different servers which are not as crowded, and I really think this is a capacity issue, so you wouldn't have it, you see....
Tholian (furious): Oh, I see. Well, do you think I should have to pay for Internet service that I am not getting?
Tech: I'm not authorized to adjust your billing, ma'am, I'm sorry.
Tholian: Well, who is? Can you put me in touch with them? I really consider this failure to provide service, and refusal to do anything about it!
Tech: I'm sorry about that, ma'am, here is the phone number you can call.
Instead of calling that number I called Verizon and ordered DSL, which is happily humming along even as I write this review. Hopefully it will continue to do so.
To AT&T's credit, when I called to close my account they did agree to take the last month off my bill. I hadn't been in communication with them for two weeks, but as of account closing day the trouble still had not been fixed, according to the person I talked with. In fairness, I also must say that the Worldnet help desk is the only aspect of my relationship with AT&T where I have ever run into surliness, people talking down to me, refusals to help or indeed, anything the least bit unhelpful. All other AT&T personnel I've ever spoken to have been unfailingly pleasant.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
Tholian
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Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 2 members
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