from Kate in Simsbury
I wanted to share with you the following complaint that my husband is submitting to the attorney general. It goes to net neutrality.
We are paying top dollar ($59/mo, including a $10 discount for the first year) for the maximum internet speed available from AT&T through their U-Verse service. When we run speed tests, we are getting close to the advertised 24 Mbps, usually between 18 and 22. When we browse the internet, download music from iTunes, or when my wife works from home, the speed is just fine.
I play online games, and even when I play them, the speed is usually okay. The one problem we have is when there is an update (or patch) that I need to download for one of my games. Then the speed goes from 18 – 22 Mbps, down to 50 – 200 Kbps. That’s a reduction of approximately 99%!!
Every place we’ve lived elsewhere, where we paid for slower internet speeds, these downloads still ran at 1-2 Mbps. The other day, an 80 Mb file took 22 minutes to download, implying an average speed of 60 Kbps. A 7 G file took almost 6 hours, implying an average speed of 330 Kbps.
My wife called AT&T to complain, and was told that it must be the server that we’re downloading from that is the problem, that they’re slowing down the output. That’s not plausible, since (1) my friends who used to take longer to download patches now download them faster and (2) we never had a problem until we got AT&T service here. I would have to believe that these game companies decided to slow down MY downloads AFTER I moved. It’s just not logical, versus the alternative explanation that AT&T is trying to preserve bandwidth and is selectively slowing down large downloads.
She asked to speak to someone who could resolve the issue and was told that no one could help. When she said that she would have to ask for help from the Attorney General, they initially said that if that was what she wanted, they couldn’t speak with her anymore. When she pointed out how unhelpful that stance is, they agreed to talk with her further, but essentially just stonewalled.
I believe the burden of proof should be on them to show that they’re not intentionally slowing down certain downloads.
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Many of the online games utilize p2p for updates with a very throttled public server to kick in if no one is sharing their update files. I think your barking up the wrong tree on this one.
I fully support net neutrality, and am happy you’re being proactive, but when you start claiming who should bring burden of proof, that has always been the accusers job in the U.S.; remember, innocent until proven guilty.
I have the atrix and with full bars of hspa+ I get .36mbps
Which sucks
I completely agree. ATT sucks. I used verizon for 11 years and never had issues. Now I am using ATT service and have complained 100 times in past 6 months. Their service is not reliable at all. They give tech time 8-12, the tech never show on time. On top the tech don’t know how to resolve the issues. They keep on passing the dice to one another. today I spent 10 hours on call with ATT, first they sent inside tech, he replaced router, then outside tech to replace ONT. I am completely out of service and no one from tech support or other are able to resolve the issue.
I was over ruled by my family to install U-Verse in August,2011. I still do not have my fax line connected. BellSouth points to ATT. ATT points the finger of blame to BellSouth for connectivity. . I have the same issue for other things I had to figure out for myself. I searched for the onscreen caller ID and finally found it by searching site after site for the answer to my question as a floundering fish out of water. I was initially told by U-Verse reps that all would be working in 24 hours. It started in August as I said, and now Dec 15 and still issues remaining.. I want to throw the equipment out and forget U-Verse. They are like two different companies inside the same box. Thy combined answer is that U-Verse needs to get their s**t together. . I absolutely hate what they have pulled on us for these past three months and then want me to pay for “Pay For Tech Support” from ConnectTech @ aTT.com. I don’t think that they should be able to do this. I only expected the system to be implemented
without incident. . To date I have to say it sucks!!!!
I have the top tier Uverse internet package and can still not watch a utube video in HD during evening hours. In fact some times dial up is faster! Whatever you do, do NOT go to the speed test site that their call takers tell you to use. Go to an independent site like speedtest.net and see how the speed is your self. I should be getting 24mbs and as of right now I am only getting 1mbs!!!
For many Connecticut residents there will be no choice if your a dsl user. Where I live I get the max or near max speeds both up & down. And 90% of the time slower then usual streaming is do to servers. With the automatic switch to U-verse, can only hope things at the least, stay the same or improve.
I don’t use U-verse for anything else, except land line phone. But it’s a no choice switch to fiber optics. How bad can that be?
At&t is not very reliable. I’ve seen extreme differences in speeds, sporadic service & freezing. I have also experienced 3 complete internet service outages in the last 2 weeks. Their customer service is useless. Dont worry though, I have it on very good authority that Verizon services will be here soon. At&t better get their act together.
U-VERSE. HAD SAME PROBLEM, ATT RAN “CAT5″ CABLE FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE REPLACING THE COAX CABLE. PROBLEM FIXED!