SBC Yahoo DSL

[Skrying]

Does anyone have any experience with their service? I recently moved and this is what I decided to try out for the time being, so far its been kinda a pain.

I first signed up for their Pro package, which would give me 3.0/768. When I did this I asked if their would be any issues with this speed, since I know that my town is not very large and some technical things take awhile to get here, I was told it would be fine.

So, when I sit the DSL up and went to download a file I was getting a very slow 40kbps. Not what I wanted. So I called SBC up and asked what was going on here, and what was the issue. Well, the lady at SBC told me that I live to fair away from the central distro center and could not have the Pro package. Well, being unhappy with this, the standard version was still okay with me, as its listed as 1.5/384, which is still faster than my old cable connection.

Well, its not even up to that yet. Its been about 3 days now, and its still at the 40kbps, and the included gateway (modem/router) reports me at 384/384. So I'm getting full upload but not near full download.

When I was on the phone, the lady said after activation there is a 10 day "optimization" period, and that I should wait for these days, and said that the connection would increase. Well, I'm gonna give it those days and see what happens, but so far I'm not to impressed.

 

[Althornin]

Does anyone have any experience with their service? I recently moved and this is what I decided to try out for the time being, so far its been kinda a pain.

I first signed up for their Pro package, which would give me 3.0/768. When I did this I asked if their would be any issues with this speed, since I know that my town is not very large and some technical things take awhile to get here, I was told it would be fine.

So, when I sit the DSL up and went to download a file I was getting a very slow 40kbps. Not what I wanted. So I called SBC up and asked what was going on here, and what was the issue. Well, the lady at SBC told me that I live to fair away from the central distro center and could not have the Pro package. Well, being unhappy with this, the standard version was still okay with me, as its listed as 1.5/384, which is still faster than my old cable connection.

Well, its not even up to that yet. Its been about 3 days now, and its still at the 40kbps, and the included gateway (modem/router) reports me at 384/384. So I'm getting full upload but not near full download.

When I was on the phone, the lady said after activation there is a 10 day "optimization" period, and that I should wait for these days, and said that the connection would increase. Well, I'm gonna give it those days and see what happens, but so far I'm not to impressed.

Bah bullshit on their "optimization" period. It never does anything, in my experience.
I have the pro package and get the listed speeds, at least.
But then again, I live in Houston.

I think SBC support is terrible.
Allow me to explain why:
1) They are, for the most part, clueless. They must run through a script, so when, for example, their mail server appears to be down, and you call to make sure, they have you spend 20 minutes checking settings (hello, I did not change anything, and I am a sysadmin, I do have a clue here, I've checked all that shit) (only support outlook, not thunderbird, so just fake it) and THEN they bother to check. "Oh, it is down". This has happened to me twice.

2) They are, for the most part, clueless. At my old place, we got DSL right when it came out. We we not using PPPOE, we were just using regular old DHCP/ethernet. None of the new techs has ANY clue about this, so anytime there was a line problem (5 or 6 times in 3 years), they will insist that you are using PPPOE and just are a moron so you don't know that you are using it.


I've found the best solution (IF you know what you are talking about!) is to simply lie to them to get past the bullshit, so they will sovle your problems. This works well. In case (2) above, I just memorized the PPPOE connection error (not invalid user/pass, but connection error) number, and would give them that. Then they'd runa line check and tell me "oh, the line is down, we will send someone out", rather than spending 2 hours trying to convince them of something that they don't even understand. That is just an example, one of many. It pisses me off because I am generally a very honest person who prefers not to do that.

Anyways, I am currently happy with my connection EXCEPT when I have to call the help desk, who are clueless jackasses.

 

[ecliptic]

I can count on one hand the number of times the service has been down for all the years I have had them. Most of the times were during the first month or so. I also get listed speeds.

 

[Skrying]

Well, this doesnt seem to bad now, my speed doubled today. Upload stayed the same, but download got a since speed boost. Still only half way there, but we'll see. I have hope, this is much better though.

 

[Althornin]

Well, this doesnt seem to bad now, my speed doubled today. Upload stayed the same, but download got a since speed boost. Still only half way there, but we'll see. I have hope, this is much better though.

Huh, first time for everything, I guess.
I've never had, with myself or any of the people I've done home installs for, any speedup over this period.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Count yourself lucky Skyring, I got SBC's dsl pro plan too and I only get 384/384 with it.

Fortunately I also got Comcast cable and it's about 6Mb/420, so I let the family share the DSL and keep the cable to meself.

 

[Crusher]

optimization period = there's finally a customer in this area so we have to take a week to actually install some hardware now to support our advertised service

If their infrastructure was in place, you would have gotten advertised speeds to begin with (or you actually would have been too far from the C/O and likely not gotten any signal, and certainly not an increase after a short while).

 

[Skrying]

Lol, well, I live in the dead center of Missouri basically, in a town of about 8,000. Oddly enough we have a casino... go figure.

Anyway, I'm hoping it increases, I dont have much options here, its either SBC or Cebridge Cable, which is only 1.0/128.

The SBC is still at 768/384 right now, hopefully it'll increase a bit more.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Anyway, I'm hoping it increases, I dont have much options here, its either SBC or Cebridge Cable, which is only 1.0/128.

Mind if I ask how much? I got raped on my DSL at $29.99/mos, but I'm stuck in a contract for a bit longer. I had to pick up the cable 'cause it was so much faster and $20/mos!

I'll cancel the dsl in April when I can without penalty, then share the cable.

 

[Skrying]

The SBC is $14.95 a month at 1.5/384, and $24.95 I believe for the 3.0/768. Cebridge is $35 a month right now, though they have been discussing on lowering this price a bit to hopefully stay competitive with SBC if they ever make a market push here. Cebridge has a local office here, which is nice, its what I had before I moved, but the "promised" speeds of the SBC looked to good to pass up when I moved and had the opportunity.

 

[Azrael]

I get listed speeds. The service has been down 2 times in 3 years. Their privacy policy is the best in the industry.

 

[Crusher]

The SBC is $14.95 a month at 1.5/384, and $24.95 I believe for the 3.0/768.

I pay $40 for 3M/256k cable with Charter, and that's with the discount for having cable tv too

Did you have to sign up for a land-line phone package to get that price?

 

[hey69]

Well, this doesnt seem to bad now, my speed doubled today. Upload stayed the same, but download got a since speed boost. Still only half way there, but we'll see. I have hope, this is much better though.

when they decrease your syncronisation profile , your attainable speed will go up
like you mentioned, you only had like 384 down (when your line was trying to sync at 3mbit)

you life to far i supose, nothing can help

 

[Skrying]

I pay $40 for 3M/256k cable with Charter, and that's with the discount for having cable tv too

Did you have to sign up for a land-line phone package to get that price?

Well, I get both my land line and cell phone service through SBC, the cell phone thing is kinda weird, wife handles that, so no clue, but I'm part of the cingular network but pay to SBC.

Anyway, speed didnt move today. I'm really annoyed by this, I just wish I could get even halfway decent broadband here.....

 

[Skrying]

Well, the speed certainly moved today, but it went in the wrong direction. Back at 384/384 again.

This is driving me nuts. Funny enough, web browsing is better on this DSL 384/384 than my old cables 1/128. Gaming is smooth, though my ping went up a little.