Is it just me or does the new AT&T broadband network suck?

[therealchewbacca]

Since excite@home went down, and service was picked up by AT&T, I get about 3kbps in downloads and am lucky to get half of the webpages I try to view. I think that they dumped the couple of hundread thousand members of the old excite@home network onto an inferior network just so that they could resume billing. I am in Sacramento and everybody that I know that has the service is in the same boat as me. Basically, I am paying $50 a month for the equivalent of a 33.6k dialup account. (I can hear pacbell dsl just licking their chops)

 

[chrisfrog]

dumping 850,000 users into a network that previosly had none is gonna have some problems

 

[Zwingle]

Same problem on Charter Pipeline.....they say they are working the kinks out of the new network and plan on having us back to @Home speeds soon.
BTW: I hear ATT and the other cable internet providers will be introducing tier pricing early next year....meaning....the more you pay, the faster you upload and download speeds will be. This may not be bad for some.......

 

[chrisfrog]

yeah i heard that too, suppose to be like dsl

IMO that is just plain stupid, that was one of things why some people went with cable because it was just one price for service, i think they'll lose some new customers that way

 

[Noirish]

yup.
they not only cap your up/downstream, they also introduce this "looping" problem.
it's when you try to go online and they keep bring you to this how to reconfigure your system to use att broadband page.
it happens every couple days.
today it just wouldn't go away.
they suck!!!

 

[chrisfrog]

one of my friends was telling me they're doing the different pricing because 1% of the users (power users) uses like 16% of the bandwidth..

HEHEHEHEHEHE

 

[nccr]

I live in Sacramento also and expected the new AT&T network to be pretty shabby. Due to the 1.5mbps cap, my maximum download speed is now somewhere around 160kilobytes/sec, as opposed to 300+ with @home. My pings are generally very stable, ~13-18ms to yahoo.

 

[thomsbrain]

The new AT&T network will be capped at 1.5 Mb/s until they start going to tiered plans. So 160 KB/s is just about right. Sounds like you're getting all the bandwidth they plan on giving you.

 

[Hamburgerpimp]

Cox@Work is going strong. 2817(down)/325(up)kbps. I still bitched and got this month's service free.

 

[Pr0Hawk]

im getting a fast 20 kb/sec downloads and getting dns errors like crazy....Im sure it will be fixed in a matter of weeks.

 

[Hamburgerpimp]

I advise everybody who is having problems to call up and DEMAND a credit. I've done it the last three months. Saved $300 already. My service has been fair at best.

 

[reitz]

<< yeah i heard that too, suppose to be like dsl

IMO that is just plain stupid, that was one of things why some people went with cable because it was just one price for service, i think they'll lose some new customers that way >>

No, it's actually a smart business move. The people who really want/need it will pay for the extra bandwidth, while the people who really don't need it or are still spoiled by how cheaply technology could be purchased a year ago will cancel their service. Broadband providers are now losing (or barely making money) by selling it so cheaply, so they'll do better with the pricing plans.

Average prices for Internet services are going up, but it's the best way for the companies to profit during (or for some to even survive) the slowdown. Most ISP's and broadband companies expanded way too quickly, with the focus shifting from developing a solid business model and product line to selling new technology like greedy crack dealers. Too many companies are bloated, over-expanded, making far less money (either the real kind or the "projected" money).


The companies that avoided investments in infrastructure and new products without first studying the real demand, and had business models that focused on a little more than just an IPO are the strongest companies today. The smart ones are raising prices on un- or semi-profitable product lines, and cutting those that are simply not going to be successful.

IMO it's going to take a lot longer for us to see "broadband in every home" than most people expected. The closed markets (only having a choice between cable through AT&T and DSL through a handful of providers over one companies lines) and a lack of standardization (cable versus dsl, adsl/sdsl, Copper Rocket or Westell modems) is inhibiting open competition, and companies are finding it more expensive (and sometimes unprofitable) to expand and offer service in smaller and less populated markets. It wouldn't surprise me if in a few years the government jumps in with some new regulations and a program similar to the REA of 1936, though.