All Narfed Up words and photography by Bryan Villarin

DSL

AT&T broadband price increase?

In Business, DSL, Money on 11 March 2010 tagged AT&T, DSL, Internet, Service with 8 comments

I read my AT&T bill for the February 2010 and got freaked out:

PRICE CHANGE NOTICE

Attention AT&T High Speed Internet Members: Starting with your March 2010 bill, the monthly rate for your AT&T High Speed Internet Express, Pro or Elite plan will increase $3 (or $3.01) per month. For details and rate information for your specific plan, please go to http://support.att.com/dslupdate or call 1.866.417.6819.

(My emphasis added in bold.)

I have the Pro service for $30/month. So, twelve months from when it starts increasing, it’ll be $66?!

The text is unbelievable. Someone please clarify.

Related: FCC Commissioner Calls For Examination Of Broadband Price Hikes (MediaPost, March 10, 2010)

Easier than you thought

In DSL, Gadgets, Life on 3 May 2009 with no comments

I received my replacement DSL modem¹ on Thursday, but didn’t plug it in until tonight.

When I was trying to get my temporary 2Wire DSL modem/wireless router to work with my Linksys WRT54GL, I failed miserably. It was in the back of my mind.

Tonight, I plugged in the new DSL modem. All I had to do was change its configuration to bridge mode. After plugging it into my wireless router, I was connected and back to normal.

It took less than 10 minutes, most of which was spent plugging and unplugging cords.

Sometimes, you just gotta dig in.

*****

Afterward, I found this guide: “How do I properly setup a Motorola 2210 modem with a Linksys router?” Nice.

Rant and gripes about AT&T

In Business, DSL, Review on 1 August 2006 with no comments

I try to stay positive, but it’s times like these when I don’t have an internet connection that I get ticked off.

I got home last night and found out that our landline and DSL connection were down. No dialtone, no connection – nothing. So, I called technical support to see if there were any network status updates. (There weren’t any.)

The phone call was redirected overseas to “Nick”. (Great.)

In the course of the “conversation”, I believe I said that I had no dialtone about five times. He informed me that there’s line issues outside and they would send a technician. I was assigned a trouble ticket and that I would get a phone call between 8am and 5pm tomorrow [on my cell phone].

Today came around, and no phone call. Around 4:15pm, I called to follow up. Since it was on existing ticket, I spoke to someone locally. In California. (Yay.) When I said, “no dialtone”, the CSR told me that I need to speak to 611. (I can’t call 611 from a Verizon Wireless phone for AT&T support.) Anyway, I got transferred. After about 2-3 minutes of being put on hold for line testing, I was told that the earliest I could get a technician visit was August 3rd. On top of that, they prefer I be home between the hours of 8am and 4pm in case they need to get inside.

So, I’m without a landline or DSL connection at home for two days. Then, when they do come, I need to excuse myself from work and wait for them, without pay or compensation? Lame.

I’ll be callling AT&T again when I get home from work to make sure I’m not hearing things. I hate lack of consistency, you know, when one person promises one thing then the next person I talk to contradicts that.

Do I have a right to be upset at AT&T, in regards to the turnaround time and the lame customer service reps overseas?

I’ll try to turn this into something positive. I’ll probably go to Bill’s house when I need to get onto the internet. However, I’m sure the downtime is good for me so I can clear out my inbox and make sure I’m on top of things. (Refer to 43Folders “Back to GTD”)

Note: I didn’t reread or edit this post. I’m too ticked, and I just wanted to get this out there.

Update 7pm: Earlier this morning, I called to find the status of the repair. Apparently, a lot of people were affected. At the latest, it would be repaired by 9am on August 9th. What!?! Luckily, I just home and saw that the “Ready” light on my DSL modem was lit and not blinking. I checked my phone and there was a dialtone. I load Firefox, and boom – there’s my blog! Yes!

DSL upgraded

In DSL on 1 March 2006 with 1 comment

I upgraded my SBC Yahoo DSL connection to AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Pro Package. I’ve been paying over $40 because I didn’t renew my contract, but I finally did 2 1/2 weeks ago. Today, it finally took effect – sweet! $17.99 for 1.5-3.0Mbps DL and 384-512Kbps UL speeds feels much better.

Phone line back up

In DSL, SBC on 2 June 2005 with no comments

The SBC technician just fixed the phone line. He said the line broke, so he switched me to another line. A speed test from Broadband Reports gave me 1277 kbps / 321 kbps. I believe that was basically a 35-hour turnaround. Not bad, I guess. I hope it’d be different if I was a business. Now I need to clean up around home, since I can’t go to work for today. It’d be a waste of time, especially with the commute.