Back and Forth | The Incoherent Ramblings of Designer and Musician Justin Winslow

For one, you CAN get AT&T uverse alone. It’s not required to be bundled and the price doesn’t go up.

And, yea they’re phasing out dsl, that’s only natural. That’s like saying why would they phase out dialup? The prices aren’t really that different and it’s generally worth it.

Yes, ATT is still acting like it is the only phone company (and internet company?) in town. You will take what they offer, pay what they ask, and like it.

I was happy with my ATT DSL for several years. I had their ATT landline at my residence, and their DSL service which came to around $60 or $65 a month, the 1.5 mbs speed.

I had to move, my new home was a very short distance away. I called ATT to schedule to change over my landline and DSL on the upcoming moving date which was about a week away at the time.

Switching over my landline POTS service was no problem. Then I was told that DSL would not be available at my new address. When I asked why I was told that DSL is becoming obsolete and is being phased out. I told them regardless, I have DSL right now, and I know it IS available, as myself and several friends within a few blocks radius currently have their DSL. DSL is what I have and I simply want it moved to my new address, period.

Nothing doing with ATT, they wouldn’t budge, no matter who I talked to, including numerous ‘supervisors’. ATT DSL is being phased out, moving consitutes a ‘change’ in my service, and according to their policy they cannot and will not give me DSL at my new location. Period. So, that was that, or so I thought.

Of course, almost immediately at the beginning of our conversations they tried pushing me into Uverse, they hyped it up real good, bragging about it’s speed, fiber optics latest technology, it’s the future, blah blah blah. They offered me several bundle options ranging from $80 to over $100 with TV and what not, which I was not interested in. Then they offered me Uverse ‘internet only’ for $14.95 a month for a year (then it goes up to $43 a month). I would have to purchase (lease?) their ‘special modem’ for $100 but they could break that down into four $25 payments.

I still kept going back to DSL, I wanted my DSL just like I have had it all this time, but they had put up a brick wall, DSL was not an option, despite the fact I must have told them 50 times I did not want Uverse!!! Then the ATT slickster told me, “Tell you what I can do, I can sell you our fiber optic DSL at a really good price, but you’ll have to upgrade to our “fiber optic DSL modem”, but the speed will be faster, $14.95 a month, $100 for the “fiber optic DSL modem” and that could be broken down into four $25 payments.

Yeah, I can hear you laughing and I said okay and signed up thinking well this doesn’t sound so bad. While I was on the phone with the guy I asked if I would recieve a confirmation email about the order, he said there should be one right now, so while I had him on the line I checked my email and lo and behold was an email welcoming me to ATT Uverse!!! I said hold on, how many times have I told you I do not want ATT Uverse and yet you just signed me up for it. He explained “that’s what fiber optic DSL is” and we went round and round for a while, thinking it was probably the best, and only deal, I decided to go ahead and go with it and give it a try and we ended the call.

I thought about it for a few minutes after the call and decided I would not allow myself to be bamboozled this way, after many phone calls I managed to cancel Uverse in about 2 hours – after being transferred to many hang ups.

For the next several weeks I concentrated on my moving and other life problems, and I had my ATT landline at the new place and signed up with a dialup servie for $5.41 a month.

I looked at alternatives, the only real affordable game in town was cable, and even that would end up being $60 a month after all the promotional stuff was over and it went to regular pricing.

Then a friend suggested a local company that provided DSL, so I called them, it isn’t very well advertised or well known but I thought what the heck I have nothing to lose by investigating.

Indeed they did offer DSL, and they offered my same speed 1.5 mbs DSL for $24.95 a month, on a month to month basis, no contracts or promotional hype, I could lease a modem for $40 or use the one I had, which was my Speedstream model 5100 which is what I decided to go ahead and try.

So I agreed to the $24.95 monthly charge and was told it takes ’5 to 10 days’ for the DSL to be up. But off the record, it’s sometimes actually turned on by day 2.

So, excitedly I hooked up my old DSL filters onto all my phones and hooked up my trusty old Speedstream 5100 onto my main machine which runs Slackware Linux, I’d turn the DSL modem on every few hours to check, and on the morning of the second day about 9:30 in the morning my flashing red LED indicator DSL went green on me !!!!!! Cool !!!!!!

I then opened up a browser and logged into the modem at 192.168.0.1 and changed my old ATT user/pass to the new user/pass and I was up and running with my DSL.

Now for the kicker, this company actually resells ATT DSL. I still have the same SBC DNS servers, and my IP is in the range of SBC/ATT servers. They are simply selling me what ATT will not – using ATT’s and SBC’s infrastructure!!!!

Now for the happy ending part where I get the last laugh. After I was up and running ATT called me up, asked for me by name, it even said ATT on the caller ID, and I was told something like, “We’ve noticed you have DSL service scheduled to start in 5 days, we value you as a customer and I would be happy to expidite the order so you can have your DSL service sooner.”

Un-frigging-believable!!!!!!!

I played along with it for a few seconds and asked if there would be a charge for ‘expiditing’ my DSL ? She said no there would not be.

Rather than go any further, (I felt a phone slam coming on) because I didn’t like the smell of this I informed her that my DSL was already up and running, thank you very much, and I did not need them to expidite anything, or make any changes to my service, and do not bill me for anything, everything is fine as it is, have a nice day.

I really wish I would have been a little quicker on my feet and asked, ‘how is it that ATT can now offer to expidite my DSL service – after having been told a gazillion times that DSL was no longer available to me, it’s being phased out, and it’s obsolete.

HA !!!!!!

That would be a question I would have loved to ask and better yet to have a recording of her response.

Apparently, since the service is actually still being provided on the SBC/ATT backbone, when they get wind of a reseller setting up a new DSL account the information apparently ends up in a call center where they apparently try to steal the deal away from the reseller.

At least that’s what it smells like to me!!!!!!!

I am very much now enjoying my ‘obsolete’ DSL for $24.95 a month!!!!!

ATT – YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE!!!!!!