Saturday, February 16, 2013

Does AT&T uVerse suck canal water?

I have a screenshot from speedtest.net showing a 0.35 Mbps (!) download rate for Camp Borepatch.  With almost nobody watching TV and almost everybody doing downloads.

Hmmmm ... 350 kbps divided by  4 people [pauses to lick pencil, scratch on paper [DAMN IT TRY LONG DIVISION] means that each of us has cutting Internet technology from 1988 (64 kbps).  That was 25 years ago.

Just let me put that in perspective: 25 years before 1988 was 1963.  You know, when JFK was shot and computer dial up was rockin' at 300 baud.*

Anyone else having incredibly crummy AT&T uVerse service, or is it me (and their "fake DSL service called Broadband TV" that's the culprit)?

12 comments:

libertyman said...

Yes, your site loads more slowly than others -- is that a part of the service problem?

( I had a 300 Baud modem, by the way)

Anonymous said...

Ahem.
350/4=87.5 So you have cutting edge 1990 technology.
(Maybe Mom's visit wore you out more than you realize.)

My choices are Comcast--lousy service and always goes out in hurricane--or AT&T--not sure about the service, but I can get it only if I sign up for long distance phone or cable TV, and pay large monthly amounts. I use my cell phone for long distance on those odd times when I make calls, and my townhouse association includes Comcast cable in the monthly payment, so I don't need AT&T--and besides, about the only thing I watch with any regularity is the Weather Channel. So I'm still on Earthlink dial up, which alleges 49.3./sec and actually delivers between 2-20 per second. Feel better? (But not even Earthlink pretends I'm getting anything but canal water from them.)
BTW, I have read that download speeds are impacted by how much your neighbors use it, since you are all essentially using the same trunk line to get your service.

And while your main page loads relatively quick, your individual posts and any links you include do load very slowly. But that happens with several Blogger sites, so I assume it's a Blogger/Earthlink thing.

Old NFO said...

I think I STILL have a 300 baud modem somewhere... And yeah your 'service' sucks!

Rob K said...

How many downloads did you have going? The way I understand it, speedtest measures your speed by how much it can shove through your pipe, so if you have other things going, it's going to register lower. You have to shut down all other activity on your link to get an accurate measure.

Alan said...

I made my most recent choice of where to live because it was the closest place to work that has Verizon FIOS. (25mbps up and down)

I bet we'll see a lot more people starting to look at Internet access options like they look at school districts. Where is the good, fast Internet?

Tacitus said...

Just ditched ATT. Speed was mediocre, but probably sufficient for our use. But the service cut out regularly. About once a day towards the end. Rain, snow, direct sunlight...we never did quite figure out why. Even had an ATT service guy come and tidy up the wiring....no difference.

Using Charter Cable now. Seems ok.

Tacitus2

Chaplain Tim said...

You may also want to look at your router and network interface. My download speed dropped suddenly last week, but when I did a speed test on my wired box and compared it to my wife's wireless laptop, I found that she was getting 10x the speed. Replaced the NIC on my box and it's better now.
I hate intermittent and partial failures, they're a pain to troubleshoot.

Anonymous said...

That sucks, dude. I had AT&T DSL for a few years and it was pretty good. I really don't know where the hell they went wrong with that. Chasing the mad cable TV money, I guess.

Anonymous said...

That sucks, dude. I had AT&T DSL for a few years and it was pretty good. I really don't know where the hell they went wrong with that. Chasing the mad cable TV money, I guess.

SiGraybeard said...

Thanks for the warning. I have AT&T for my landline and wireless, so I get a uVerse offer roughly every 20 seconds. Or two/three times a week.

I'm pretty good with cable service, currently 22 MB/s down and 2.3 MB/s up, but if someone showed up with a fiber in hand (metaphorically) and could do better, I'm there.

Peter said...

Had AT&T quite a few years ago and dumped them before the 12 month contract expired (did have to pay the last 2 months, but that was a small price to pay for the education I received about AT&T). Not as fast as cable, but what did it was a modem failure. They insisted on scheduling a tech visit "within 3 days" and ignoring all the diagnostic info I already had (which included testing with a known good modem). Unfortunately, since I worked from home I didn't have the same three days they seemed to have, and there was no other way to get a replacement modem. One call to the cable company (NOT Comcast) and I had 15 mps within 12 business hours, and the ability to get a replacement modem immediately if I was willing to drive to get it.

AT&T seems to do OK with telephones, but as far as everything else is concerned, they make congenital idiots look like Einstein.

drjim said...

Got FiOS here and it's stupefyingly fast.
We have the 50/down 35/up service.
It's nice to download an entire Linux distribution in 10~15 minutes.