SBC!!!(with disgust!!!!)

Uh, why did you wait so long? After they dicked me around for 30 days I called Cox and they had me up with a 10 Mb/sec line 3 days later.

Well, thanks for the experiences. I have had Covad for 3 years, and pay a fortune for it, but I need static IP and the permission to run servers. I run my own mini-ISP here, with email, web servers, ftp, etc. I own my own domain name registration, so I can move to another ISP if I get mad at them, and my web and email addresses don't have to change. I finally had to give up on Covad's news server and pay someone else for a service Covad is charging me for, but at least the third-party news service actually works.

I have at times considered moving to a different ISP to save money. Well, at least SBC certainly won't be on my list!

Jon

Interesting. I've been on SBC DSL for about 3 years now. I pay $16.95 per month for a 1.3 meg upstream and 340k downstream connection (BTW - the speed I quote is the ACTUAL speed I get as measured by the dslreports.com line speed test, not some quoted theoretical maximum. And, this bandwidth is ALL MINE - no sharing with others on the same cable pool node). I started out paying $29.95 then $26.95 then $19.95 and now $16.95. Every time SBC ran a promotion I simply called them and they switched me over to the lower rate - no questions asked.

In that 3 years I have not had one single outage. None. Period. I'd call that pretty good service! Of course, I'm only about 100 yards from the SLIC so maybe that's why I have it so good.

Bottom line is that I'm not sure if I am the exception or if Richard is but I'd hate to see anyone choose to not even look at SBC DSL without at least hearing the opposing experience.

Robert

Don't pay the $200.00 fee. You signed up for SERVICE, if they didn't provide it, you don't owe them squat.

I went thru a similiar deal with SBC when they first started offering DSL service in SoCal a few years ago.

I should have known I was in trouble when the technician told me that I was his first installation job since completing his rushed training. In short, the service never worked properly, I never got any email service as promised. I finally called them in disgust and told them to discontinue my service, they tried to bring up the $200.00 early cancellation fee and I told them that I wouldn't pay it as they hadn't fulfilled their end of the agreement per the contract. Lots of blustering and posturing on their part but in the end I didn't pay them a dime.

They never came back and got their equipment either.

If they don't perform, don't pay.

John E.

You are. Rates depend on states, mine starts at $29.95, in a years time it would go up to $49.95. Hardly worth it at the lower rate, idiocy at the higher.

My download speed has never exceeded 156K at peak, usually much lower. The service, or actually the lack of service is what's pissed me off. SBC has a monopoly here, and they act like they have one everywhere. The lack of service, first the number they gave me to call doesn't work, their screw up. the area code is wrong. Brilliance at the corporate level.

Then when you do get a working number, what you get is a damned computer generated voice that can't answer a simple question. "Does this matter concern my previous connection or this one?" One answer that should have taken ten seconds with a human, if they bothered to hire any, ended up taking the better part of two hours and was offered as a consolation prize.

When the person talking to you has a voice that's flat, dead flat, even and cold, after you've cancelled what he's just told you to, it takes the brain of a rotifer to offer a sales pitch for a calling plan, "That will save you money", even though you know it's a damn lie, and so does the now irate customer. They can add services I don't want and give me a better rate? Pigs can fly?

Yeah, we've got road runner, but time warner is even more screwed in the head than sbc, and between the two of them you have a total of a halfwit or just a little less.

Rich (AKA Lennie)

I'm surprised! SBC have been my heroes! One live-in health-care worker that was with us for a couple of months charged her daughter's AOL to one of my numbers, lied about it was fired for a number of reasons. AOL said I couldn't cancel without the login and PW...someone in India. After weeks of trying to deal with AOL I called SBC and this sweet little girl called AOL with me on the line, she told me to be quiet. This sweetie cut through the red tape and got to somebody up the ladder. She started getting a run-around and turned into an "Uber Bitch"!!! she threatened legal action, negative publicity and, I swear, she actually threatened to cut the guy's balls off.! He capitulated and charged back all funds. Then she turned back into a sweetie and asked if I was pleased with SBC, I was laughing my ass off. She said she enjoyed it too. I've changed my service plan and DSL around for home and shop a number of times and they have always been sharp and made suggestions to save money. I've never been on hold for more than a minute. Next time you call them, don't tell them you are you...you might be on the "List"...can you blame them?

BTW, I think the battery is dead on the Kowa and the auto-winder hangs-up...It survived the dishwasher just fine!

I rent a Linux virtual server, 1 GB system with 50 GB/mo data with a gigabit connection off a backbone. $20/month. You can't even pay for the power to run your own server for that. No floorspace, no noise, no hardware maintenance.

Way, way cool! That, too, would be my attitude.

Harold

??? You're able to transmit faster than you can receive?

So? I get 10 down and 2 up on cable, measured by clocking transfers--dslreports isn't fast enough to test my line. As for sharing, well, my connection, shared or otherwise, is still almost ten times faster than yours.

You get what you pay for.

Lucky you. I had outages every time it rained, and finally one that was clearly their fault (and they finally admitted as much--at least the repair guy did) that they couldn't fix. If they had been up front about it and told me that it would take a month and a half to get it fixed I'd have dumped their service but I wouldn't be this angry with them--instead they told me "two weeks", two weeks rolled around and nothing, so call and they say "wednesday", nope, "next tuesday", nope, you get the picture? Cox had me up from a cold start (there wasn't even a cable in place) in 3 days.

Yes, you're lucky.

You seem to be the exception.

I use covad as well... also relatively expensive though it has been trouble free and the static ip is helpful. The big win was going with a smaller local ISP. They're not big enough to have huge phone menus- choose sales/support/marketing by pushing a button and then you're talking to a person, and all their tech support is local instead of some Bangalore sweatshop. It makes a BIG difference.

We first got DSL via Earthlink and they were awful- unresponsive, spam direct from them that you couldn't stop, etc... This new local ISP has been the exact opposite.

Gregm

Then there was the SBC person who tells me (on my next to the last call to them, the one in which they told me for the third time in three days "we have no idea if your DSL account is even _supposed_ to be active and even if it is you won't be able to register because our database is down") "I don't like your tone, this is your first warning", to which I replied "Warning about _what_? What are you going to do about it, cut off my DSL?"

Osama, if you're listening, I have three letters for you, S-B-C.

The widely advertised Yahoo DSL seems attractive -- but every time I've had to call SBC it has been a joke, as you describe. SBC has apparently retrained all their operators to be robotic sales machines rather than rational and potentially helpful human beings.

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 23:47:48 -0600, with neither quill nor qualm, Richard J Kinch quickly quoth:

Damn hard price to beat. Who caliber persuasion do you use?

-- Vidi, Vici, Veni ---

I think all their support is off shore. I have had problems and the next problem will result in canceling SBC service and switching to cable for phone service.

I wasn't on hold, it was just an endless succession of "For _ _ _ _ press 1,,,,,,," ad nauseum, seeming to go around in a circle. Their website is a little less than useful, unless you want to buy something, but no link to get any answers. Click on their "contact us" link and you start through another succession of pages that will eventually get you nowhere.

New batteries are available from Kenworth or Peterbuilt. Autowinder motor might need maintaining, or replacement from Mack.

It's a beast, but pretty easy to use. Enough weight that it doesn't jiggle much when hand held.

Rich.

Then forget the SBC interface and use a smaller company for the service. I wanted DSL but the only provider around here is SBC. But I backed away from the Yahoo (I don't want any of that thank you kindly or not so kindly). Some searching turned up my current ISP of DSL Extreme. They're leasing the DSL line from SBC but being a smaller supplier they're much more responsive on the phone and best of all I don't have to put up with the Yahoo c**p.

I get 10 e-mail accounts, 10ea 25MB web page accounts, a news feed from Supernews, good spam, virus, firewall, etc. blockers. Overall I'm very pleased with them.

I admit to having some trouble with my DSL line on occasion. But I expected it from the beginning considering that I'm 2 miles from the central office with some rather old phone lines between us. I did have a round of trouble earlier this year but it was finally solved by them sending me a new modem free of charge.

Wayne Cook Shamrock, TX

Not sure where you are located, but the best way to get their attention is to keep detailed records of all their screw ups and then when you are talking to them, indicate that you are going to send those detailed records to your state utility regulators.

Pete C.

Now that's funny. I had a hotel manager in Holland tell me that thru a series of emails, his hotel charged my VISA card 3 separate times for a one time charge, which put me over my spending limit while I was still in Europe. It took over 3 months to get them to fix it during which he sent me a message saying he didn't appreciate my tone...

They charged me almost $1000.00 incorrectly, took months to fix the problem which was entirely their fault as they finally admitted, and they don't like my "tone"?

John E.

Wisconsin, where the PSC is a rubber stamp for anything the utilities want. I think if I'd kept records, someone would have died by now.

Seven miles from here, I could have TDS, smaller, but far more responsive. SBC won't allow them access to our phone lines, here in town they don't have any real competition except Road Runner, which is not a viable option as long as TW has their fingers in it. Road Runner gave me a user name that was the same as someone in Milwaukee, were advised of their screw up the next day. There answer was I would have to go on line to straighten it out, but without a password, and the one I had given didn't work, I couldn't get on line. More brilliance from our corporations. They were told where to stick it that same afternoon. The last option for high speed connections, the wireless, my house is blocked from their antenna by a school. Living in a small town that wants to be a big city can be nothing but frustration. Strange how a "franchise" is legal and a "monopoly" isn't. Both mean the same things, no competition.

Rich