how-to block ads
|
»next review in page
 Review by GreenJello 
UPDATED: 1 days ago
member for 8.9 years, 3290 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Maryville,Blount,TN
 $32 per month
 BellSouth
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
DSLreports was helpful in my decision to subscribe to DSL service. I
found their website through an article I was reading on DSL and found
the reviews to be most informative. My provider is BellSouth. I had
known they offered DSL, but at the time, it was when you still had to
have the second line to the house. It wasn't splitterless yet. I
happened across a review that said BLS was offering the modem and
activation free. I had a second line I was paying BLS for and a dial-up
account with AOL. Total bill was around $85. I jumped at the
opportunity to cancel AOL, reduce my telecom bill, and increase the
value of service I was getting.
July 10th - Called BLS to order Fastaccess. Was on hold for maybe 5-10
minutes. Rep answered and was helpful, but not real knowledgeable about
the service other than quoting specs about the service that were on the
website promoting it. Most specifically I wanted to know what type of
ADSL modem I would be receiving. She couldn't answer but gave me the
number to ADSL group to ask. The whole process of placing the order
took about 30 minutes. I was told to expect the modem in about 14 days.
July 11th - Called ADSL group, didn't have to wait long to talk to
someone, called in the morning around 9-10 am and found out they were
sending the Speedstream 4060 USB modem. I don't have USB, so I ordered
the 3060 PCI model.
July 18th - Called to check on status of order. The rep informed me
they had checked my line and the modem was released for shipment.
Should arrive by next week. I wasn't anticipating any problems with my
line as I know I am within 5000 to 7000 ft of the central office and I
already had the correct NID box on the outside of the house.
July 26th - I arrive home to find 2 BLS Fastaccess packages waiting for
me. I thought that was quite alot of material and when I opened up the
boxes I discovered why. BLS had never canceled the shipment of the USB
modem. I had gotten one of each modem. I read the informative booklet
carefully. Most of the reviews complained of problems with
installation. I was surprised that no problems were encountered.
Within 2 hours I was up and running. I connected at 1.472K. I
immediately went to the speed test on DSL reports and got a speed of
890/180. I tweaked windows, ran another test and got 1235/225. I was
pleased.
I waited this long to post my review because I wanted to check
reliability of the service and also to receive my bill. Reliability is
good. In the months time, I have never not been able to connect. there
have been occasions when I couldn't get the 1.472K connection. One
occurrence was attributed to the fact my daughter had removed one of the
filters off the lines. It cut the connection speed in half. I didn't
realize she had done this and called tech support at 9 pm. Rep answered
in about 20 minutes. He gave me some ideas to look at like emptying my
cache, asking if there were any cordless phones nearby or if I had an
alarm system. I got the impression he was reading from a script. And I
knew he was getting at the fact the line had noise on it from somewhere
to reduce my speed. He was reluctant to open a ticket because I was
connecting at 672K. I questioned when would it be acceptable to open a
ticket if I felt my connection speed was subperforming. His reply was
if it dropped down to the 200 K range. I was satisfied with that as I'll
explain later in this review.
My billing arrived with everything charged as it should be. The date my
service was turned on and dates that my second phone line were
disconnected were correct. The most difficult part as of yet is getting
the USB modem returned. I did my part and called to inform them, the rep
said a slip would be sent out allowing me to ship it back. This was
about 10 days ago and no slip. As long as I don't get billed for it,
makes no difference to me when they get their modem back.
Improvements that could be made to the setup for the service are
procedures on setting up your e-mail. The advantage the big ISPs have
is that e-mail is part of their software program. It's just a one step
process. With Fastaccess, there are more steps that need to be taken,
addresses must be known and inputted properly. And if you are paying
attention during your installation, those addresses are given to you.
In closing, I would like to say that for money, the value far surpasses
what I was paying before. When you consider most of us probably pay
$21.95 for unlimited access to internet with a 56K connection, even if
you get speeds 3 times as great, if the providers charged 3 times the
$21.95 cost that would be $66. And here I get 20 times the
connection,feasibly, I could be paying 20 times $21.95 or $440. But
instead I pay $45, I get enhanced service on my phone, and a superior
connection to the internet. I've got my telecom bill by $10. Also, if
you order the service and are not happy with it, cancel it. I see lots
of reviews that complain of months of dissatisfaction. Would you keep
going to a restaraunt that had lousy food and service? I don't think
so, but I guess there are those that just can't be happy unless they are
complaining.
Ordered: Bellsouth ASDL Fast Access
Modem type: Internal Speedstream 3060 PCI
Wire Distance from CO: 5000-7000 ft
Operating System: Windows 98SE
UPDATE- I've had Fast Access for almost a year now and have had no outages that inconvenienced me. I'm very happy with my service. I only hope if I have to move, I can get the same level of quality I am getting now.
UPDATE Nov. 21, 2009 - I am no longer a Bellsouth customer. After many years of reliable service, I've had to cancel my service for a more competitive value. I would still recommend FastAccess service to anyone in the area. But I will say it is not the most competitive.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of AT&T Southeast |
 | »next review in page (previous review)
 Review by NetFixer
UPDATED: 3 days ago
member for 5.4 years, 3065 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Murfreesboro,Rutherford,TN
$43 per month
 about 8 days
BellSouth
 "Seems to be a solid connection (and my VOIP works great with it)."
 "No problems, but being able to get 6 mbps service would be nice."
 "It just works, what more can I say?"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
|
This is a Stand Alone FastAccess Xtreme 3.0 circuit (no POTS line required).
I had some initial problems primarily because the SAFA service is new and the circuit was initially setup as if it were a line share DSL on a preexisting POTS line. It took a couple of days and numerous phone calls and emails to get that fixed.
My primary uses for this circuit are for hosting my VOIP lines, and as load balancing for web browsing, ftp site mirroring, etc to take some of the non-commercial load from my Covad circuit. So far it is performing in that function much better than the Comcast HSI connection that it replaced.
Update 11/25/2008:
Last week I had a second AT&T Direct DSL circuit installed to replace my Covad circuit. The primary reason for the switch was that Covad could not provide a connection faster than 1536 kbps downstream to my location, and AT&T can provide a 35xx kbps downstream connection. The initial installation went as scheduled with no major problems. I initially had some intermittent sync problems, but the AT&T tech provided a new modem after checking the circuit, and that seemed to fix the sync problems.
I have updated my ratings to 100% for all categories because AT&T now knows what a "dry DSL" line is, and knows how to install/support it. Also, the minor sync problems I had with this new circuit and the only problem I have had with my older circuit were all fixed in a timely manner by techs who actually seemed to know what they were doing.
Another update is that my original $5.00 per month discount for also being an AT&T wireless customer disappeared (this happened when the name of the service changed from "BellSouth StandAlone FastAccess" to "AT&T DSL Direct"). It seems that you now have to actually "bundle" wireless with DSL service to get that discount. I declined that offer as I have had unpleasant experiences with AT&T/BellSouth bundled billing in the past.
Update 11/25/2009:
Nothing new to report, but the DSLR reminder service wants an update anyway.
Both of my DSL Direct 3.0 circuits are still working well. I just wish that AT&T would get on the ball and install an RT or VRAD to service my location so that I could upgrade to either DSL Direct 6.0 or U-verse.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of AT&T Southeast |
| »next review in page (previous review)
 Review by GvilleDSL
Posted: 5 days ago
member for 16 days, 20 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Greenville,Greenville,SC
$48 per month
"Normally rock solid speed and latency. Always on and no drops"
"Gone downhill in last 2 months. Slower speeds compared to cable"
"Usually very reliable but as of late hasnt been so much..."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Initially i had Bellsouth DSL several years ago at my 1st apartment and was thrilled with the stability and overall connection. Fast forward about 5 years and a couple apartment moves later with terrible cable connections....now living in my 1st house with AT&T DSL(formally Bellsouth).
At 1st i only qualified for their 3 meg service due to distance but after about a month i noticed my modem was syncing up around 8 meg which is pretty much the cap for their service. I called and asked to be bumped up to 6 meg. Once i was bumped up i started noticing my modem losing sync(red light). After doing some research on the issue i learned that adding more bandwidth on the line lowers the signal quality of the line. My signal was already low to begin with due to the distance issue. So i called and had a tech come out who was very helpful. He checked my line at my PC, wall and NID then went to the CO and swapped out "cards" and everything he could think of to improve my signal strength which worked. My signal was strong enough to continue with the 6 meg service even with the distance i was from the CO. My connection was stable and i was more then happy.
Fast forward about 2 years of wonderful service. Starting in late September of 2009 my ping times began to become almost 3-4x normal and speeds became very erratic in the evening hours between 7-11pm EST. This has been on going now for more then 2 months(now nearing the end of November 09). Ive trouble shot everything in my house to no avail and once again began doing online research on the matter which of course brought me here to DSLR.com. Only to find out many people in the South East are having the same issues i am. I have a funny feeling it has something to do with AT&Ts entire infrastructure or perhaps mishandling of bandwidth in this region with their new U Verse service. The problems in my area began cropping up the same time U Verse went active in my area....and only happen in prime time evening hours when most people are view TV and surfing the web.
Im not so much concerned with DL/UL speeds more then latency and stability. I dont run torrents or DL much material. I use this connection mostly for gaming, surfing, and daily communications. As of right now the latency just isnt what it should be and the speeds are all over the place during evening hours. Because ive been such a fan of the service ive had in the past with BS/AT&T ill give them until Jan 1 2010 to sort out their issues or im going to give Cable another shot....which is not something im looking forward to. : (
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of AT&T Southeast |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by blksentra2
Posted: 7 days ago
Fair warning: reviewer joined this month
Woodstock,Cherokee,GA
$100 per month
AT&T
"Used to be smooth sailing, fast connection internet"
"Constantly drops internet connection every 15-20 mins most of the time"
"What was once a recommendation is now a "Stay away" warning."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I've had this service for 3 years now ever since it was Bellsouth. Once it merged to AT&T, the serviced slowly went from great, to good, and to now terrible. My internet connection constantly drops and comes back on every 15-20mins. These drops interrupt downloading, surfing, and playing games online. Technical support does nothing and is convinced that every computer in my house is causing it to happen and seem powerless to do anything about it.
As much as I pay per month for this service this is absolutely unacceptable. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of AT&T Southeast |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by dbslayer
UPDATED: 8 days ago
member for 103 days, 136 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Covington,Saint Tammany,LA
$42 per month
BellSouth
"Reliable connection, Great 2nd level support"
"Combo Billing Dept Misleads, Poor Package Choice"
"I suspect the package bad points are because of AT&T's takeover."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Update Nov 20th, 2009:
I am no longer a customer of AT&T (formerly Bellsouth). See my review of my new ISP at: »Review of Charter Pipeline by dbslayer
Original Review Follows:
I have been a loyal Bellsouth / AT&T customer for Home Phone since 1989 and DSL since 2000.
- This is true even though I could have had faster download speeds with Cable for at least the last 5 or 6 years.
But, where is U-Verse at !? I read about it all the time ... if I could get another Higher speed internet, I probably would do it now. Tried with Charter, but no luck and a VERY bad experience with Charter ... long story but I think I know now why they went thru bankruptcy earlier this year.
Anyway, DSL is very reliable connection ... always there even during power outages.
- DSL line stays up and available and my connection worked using a home battery backup for the computer.
- I think cable internet is not available during a power outage.
I had a REALLY bad experience with "combo billing" ... TWICE in the last 9 years.
- I have no problem with combo of home phone and DSL Internet.
- But combo with wireless or "aircard - internet anywhere" was a VERY bad experience in BOTH cases.
I HAD a not so good experience of inconsistent speeds (this year for a month or 2) but when I did finally get around to calling ATT tech support, they fixed this ... over the phone and it is great speeds and consistent again. ATT tech did something to my "profile" and now my speeds have been consistently good all day and night. I only wish I had called them sooner .
I also wish ATT could provide a faster internet speed (NOW) that is close to the "feeble" competition (Charter cable).
I have always had the fastest speed available and it appears the only way to get faster than 6meg is to go to U-Verse which is not available where I live.
I have AT&T for wireless and it bothers me a lot to have AT&T "the monopoly" coming back ... buying out Bellsouth and Cingular.
- It bugs me that AT&T (the ONLY wireless provider where I can get the iPhone) is the ONLY ISP globally to NOT offer the multi-media messaging for the latest iPhone. The news I read is this is because their network can't handle it but they expect to have fixed by end of August (which has come and gone now - no fix).
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of AT&T Southeast |
| »next review in page (previous review)
 Review by RenderXP
UPDATED: 8 days ago
member for 8.7 years, 1177 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Georgetown,Scott,KY
$54 per month (12 month contract)
about 40 days
BellSouth
"Not many left"
"Tech support outsourced to foreign country"
"ATT has dropped the ball further than Bellsouth did"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
Sorry, about the only thing I can say anymore about my service is if you have a choice amongst providers, go with someone else.
-I now have no tech support due to the fact that you can barely hear/understand whatever the heck some Habib on the other end is saying.
-If I make any changes to my account I lose my Static IP or pay 14.95 more for it a month.
-Nightly disconnects.
i thought Bellsouth was bad, ATT flat out sucks.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of AT&T Southeast |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by buddamonkey
UPDATED: 8 days ago
Fair warning: reviewer joined this month
Lawrenceville,Gwinnett,GA
$39 per month
AT&T
"Not sure there are any"
"DSL speed is constantly dropping to below 50 kbps."
"I would change right now if I could keep my email addresses"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I have had DSL with AT&T since it was bellsouth. Since AT&T took over I constantly have my DSL speed drops to numbers like 34 kbps. They guarantee 700 kbps. I call and get the line troubleshot and my computer temp files cleaned and nothing happens. A day or two later...boom...speeds back where it should be. A couple of weeks or months later and we are crawling again. The support people do seem to try to get it resolved, but I think the problem is in the equipment. I would change to cable internet if I wouldn't lose my email addresses....there ya go
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of AT&T Southeast |
| »next review in page (previous review)
 Review by mikes60
UPDATED: 9 days ago
member for 8.3 years, 2935 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Boynton Beach,Palm Beach,FL
$38 per month
about 5 days
BellSouth
"Reliability and new increased speeds, no disconnects"
"Email is not dependable"
"Great preformance and value: rock solid"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
|
I have been using Fast Access for about 3 1/2 years.
I started out with 1.5 and am now at 6.0.
Aside from unreliable email, FastAccess has been rock solid. My down time can probably be measured in minutes per year. Even during two years of hurricanes and power outages, thanks to my generator, my FastAccess never went down.
Adelphia (now Comcast) offers me faster speed, but it's reliability leaves a lot to be desired. I tried it about 6 months ago, and dropped it after about 1 week. It was faster, but only when it worked.
Update 12/14/07:
Well another year has passed and my FastAccess is still rock solid. My speed has actually increased. I now average around 6.4/435.
Update 11/19/2009:
Well another year has passed and my FastAccess is still rock solid. My speed has diminished to just under 6.0, but this seems to be a system wide change.
I'd like to get back over 6.0, but in the real world it doesn't impact me very much. The reliability and consistency is much more important.
Mike
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of AT&T Southeast |
| »next review in page (previous review)
 Review by dandeman
UPDATED: 9 days ago
member for 7.9 years, 3158 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Chapel Hill,Orange,NC
$32 per month
about 10 days
BellSouth
"Connection Reliability improved since 05/29/09"
"Email Service now unreliable with conversion toYahoo Email"
"Ups and Downs - Overall AT&T impact to old BellSouth reliability"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Connection is now rock solid since long term problem referenced below was fixed.
Only 3 line drops (in the normal range) since 5/29. No drops since 07/01/09 and counting.. 8MB download/512KB upload sync rate.. (capped in 1.5mb as that's the service I pay for.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After quite a long period of problematic disconnects, my DSL has gone back to rock solid since 5/29/09. Only 2 disconnects have occurred since then. Can't say for sure that is what fixed it, but I did see techs spending a good part of a day working out at my DSLAM 1/2 mile away.
My modem and local loop (at the house and down our private road) were not touched.. The local loop connections inside the telco cab/DSLAM which may have been worked on..
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Local DSL Loop work just fine, but very frequent disconnects.
AT&T BellSouth is no longer in the rock solid category... There are periods that it is rock solid and then there will be periods (mostly weekends) that reoccuring PADT commands are sent to knock down connection....
Since my DSL modem is set up to automatically reconnect, it does so.. but sometimes it continually cycles through connects/disconnect sequences.. and then it will run rock solid other times..
I have IP address monitoring software so I have date and time stamps every time they knock down the dynamic IP connection.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of AT&T Southeast |
| »next page (previous review)
Review by jimk
UPDATED: 17 days ago
member for 3.6 years, 1586 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Raleigh,Wake,NC
$42 per month
about 3 days
BellSouth
"No home phone service required"
"Annoying registration process, Some billing and information glitches at first, poor support, decreasing reliability and speed."
"Not working too well right now"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
AT&T is finally offering DSL without home phone service, so I went ahead and signed up. This was heavily influenced by what Time Warner Cable is doing with bandwidth caps in other markets and the complete discontinuation of news group service.
I signed up on a Monday night and they gave me the account information during the same call. Took about 10 minutes to order including hold time.
Thursday, there was a note from UPS telling me where to pick up the modem and another from AT&T saying the service is active, along with a direct line for the tech that hooked up the service, just in case there were any problems.
I hooked up the modem that night and it instantly acquired DSL sync. Rather than giving me the PPPoE account info, they now require that the customer creates the information. This is where it gets annoying, since their installer tries to force the annoying Motive software on the computer to "help" configure the modem with the account information. There is no uninstall procedure for the Motive software, either.
The only problems so far was that parts of the order didn't automatically complete, which caused problems when ordering the static IP. However, the billing department was able to resolve this without too much hassle. It appears that there are some minor glitches possibly related to the BellSouth/AT&T merger.
I have no problems getting advertised speeds (3.0 Mbps down / 384 Kbps up) and the connection has not dropped once. Signals look very good. The modem is a Motorola 2210.
UPDATE 10/20/09:
Static IP no longer free
Newsgroups discontinued
Two outages since my last review (DSLAM issues)
Speeds are now slow at night and unstable during the day. There is some packet loss which is making VoIP and Video applications painful. Multiple technician visits haven't solved anything, and other people in the AT&T Southeast forum report similar problems.
Due to the outages and slow speeds, I have had many bad experiences with phone support. Long hold times, being routed to the wrong department, and repeating the same basic steps that I tried before I ever called in over and over again.
Update 11/11/09:
Problems continue, AT&T keeps sending techs out to check the same thing over and over, and won't tell me a thing about the status of the problem. Some techs won't call back, and phone support is beyond useless.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of AT&T Southeast |
|
|
AT&T Southeast
(58)
·
·
·
good