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 Review by imakeholsinu 
Posted: 115 days ago
member for 315 days, 370 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Saint Louis,Saint Louis City,MO
 $35 per month (12 month contract)
 about 14 days
 "Fast Installation, better than advertised speeds, beats DSL for the price vs. speed"
 "Abysmal ordering, "one hand does not talk to the other" mentality of CSR and departments. Notes on order ignored."
 "You shouldn't have to fight for a service you want to pay for...."
| Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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My debacle with U-Verse started when I noticed my Dry Loop went from 23.99 for 1.5Mbps to 29.00 in just one month after I was told that I would have it for a full year at the 23.99 price. After speaking retentions on how/why my bill was inflated to this price I asked for U-Verse service which had been heavily advertised in my apartment complex almost since I moved in. The CSR did her best to try and sell me the TV package but I explained to her that DirecTV offered more HD channels and content then what she was offering. She then informed me I would have to pay for the 10/2 package just to get internet since DSL was available in my area. Livid, I asked for 3MB DSL which she promptly said was not available in my area which I knew was a lie since my neighbors have it. AT&T is trying desperately to get people off of the DSL line and move them to U-verse type service so if you are a DSL user take this as a warning.
The CSR then attempted to sign me up for u-verse service but her system software was having all sorts of issues and kept crashing on her while she was trying to place the order. She said she would call me back later in the day once she got the issue resolved and was able to talk to her manager to get my dry loop disconnected. Another thing they told me was that I needed to have my dryloop disconnected at least 24 hours prior to installation. Not that big of a deal but I do work in IT and I do get off hours calls where I need to VPN into work from home. Finally I get a call back from the CSR who finishes the order and makes the appointment for a tech to come out to my apartment on a Tuesday. I take a half-a-day of work on tuesday in order to wait for the CSR who is to show up between noon and 2pm. I was running a bit late because of a personal issue and I phoned AT&T to see if they had already dispatched the tech and to let him know I was 10 min away from home. Dispatch had no knowledge of an order and orders only saw a canceled order. No one could tell me who canceled the order because I sure had not canceled the order myself. By this time it is to late to send a tech out so I ask if there is another time slot available tomorrow in the morning to which AT&T responds "Yes between 8 and 10am". Perfect, so I call into work and say I will be out for the day. AT&T even calls me at 8pm in the evening to confirm my appointment in the morning. I wake up and get ready to wait for the tech to come out. 10:30 rolls around and still no call or sign of a tech. I call into AT&T and they have no record of a tech being dispatched at all today. I have them check the notes in the account which say there is supposed to be someone coming out today which they finally are able to do and say I've been scheduled for the afternoon...EVEN AFTER THEY CALLED ME THE NIGHT BEFORE TO CONFIRM A MORNING APPOINTMENT!
Finally the tech arrives in the afternoon. He is very nice and I feel bad because it is pouring down rain when he is at the loop (which is less than 500 feet away from my apartment). 30 minutes later he rewired my one and only phone jack and set up the gateway. I thank him and I do a speed test. I pay for 6MB, I get about 8MB since I'm so close to the loop. He said that at the loop they get 43% load, at my jack I got 45%. Set up was a breeze and I was able to use the firewall fairly easily to setup my port configurations since I had experience with a prior 2wire DSL modem/gateway.
Aside from dealing with a flaky ordering system and a CSR bureaucracy more inept than our present government I'm satisfied with the service I'm receiving. Though it did cost me an extra vacation day.
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