🚀 go-pugleaf

dye <dye@adsl-64-108-195-217.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net> wrote:
> Recently, I had my DSL Elite bill go up to 43 dollars, and in calls to
> customer billing and finally customer retention, both of them
> tried to get me to switch to Uverse, which surprised me since Uverse
> isn't in Park Ridge (TV Uverse, at least - WOW and Comcrap are the
> only companies w/the franchise in PR.)
> 
> I wondered why they are pushing for this transition and remembered
> others here wondering the same thing.
> 
> (as an aside, they dropped me down $10 for a year, but that is still
> 8 bucks more than I was previously paying)
> 
> I got my phone line repaired (&%$%^#@%@^@Y#$ ATT customer service
> procedure) for static and dial tone drops (as well as horrible DSL
> outages/syncrates), and after the very competent tech fixed
> the problem, I asked him to investigate a DSL slowdown (the repaired
> line synced back at 6+, but I was only getting 2.7 down.  After 
> removing everything but his laptop, and getting the same datarate
> he was leery of my Westell Tri-Link modem.  I dragged the still-in-
> plastic-bag-piece-of-garbage Siemens/Efficient out, hooked it up,
> and got the same results.
> 
> At this point I asked him about Uverse in Park Ridge.  He said
> it would not be true uverse, but a new kind of customer location
> modem and central office DSLAM that used something other than ATM
> for data transfer.  This uses only a single pair of wires, not
> 2 pairs as "real" Uverse has, so no bandwidth for video.

I forgot to tear open the bad uverse modem to see if it had 2 or 4 wires. 
I've heard about the two pair stuff, but it's vague.

> I forgot to ask him if my voice sevice would be analog over the
> single pair, or converted to VOIP on the modem.
> 
> Oh yeah, he did mention one thing that is probably a big reason
> for AT&Ts push to U-verse everything:  The techs who install and service
> it are on a different pay grade!!!
> 
> "if you get uverse, it will probably be installed by some Polish guy".
> 
> #$&(^%^# union busting?

sounds good to me. Nobody needs union phone company assholes.

hell, fire everybody at the phone company, then shut that shit down.

> So they are using DSL price increases to get customers to switch
> to uverse so they can lay off the expensive DSL techs.

works for me.

dye <dye11@adsl-64-108-195-217.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net> wrote:

>Recently, I had my DSL Elite bill go up to 43 dollars, and in calls to
>customer billing and finally customer retention, both of them
>tried to get me to switch to Uverse, which surprised me since Uverse
>isn't in Park Ridge (TV Uverse, at least - WOW and Comcrap are the
>only companies w/the franchise in PR.) . . . 

>I forgot to ask him if my voice sevice would be analog over the
>single pair, or converted to VOIP on the modem.

I got forcibly converted to Uverse from DSL, which I didn't want. Like you,
I'm in a "fake" Uverse area.

I still have my analog telephone line.

A friend just had Uverse installed. His neighborhood has real Uverse; I've
seen the VRADs. However, he just got data (they wouldn't give him
old-fashioned DSL). He kept his analog telephone line, too.

So, for the moment, subscribers aren't yet forced to convert to Uverse VoIP.

When I had DSL, it was billed to my home phone bill. Uverse is billed
separately.

On 5/24/2012 12:19 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> dye<dye11@adsl-64-108-195-217.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net>  wrote:
>
>> Recently, I had my DSL Elite bill go up to 43 dollars, and in calls to
>> customer billing and finally customer retention, both of them
>> tried to get me to switch to Uverse, which surprised me since Uverse
>> isn't in Park Ridge (TV Uverse, at least - WOW and Comcrap are the
>> only companies w/the franchise in PR.) . . .
>
>> I forgot to ask him if my voice sevice would be analog over the
>> single pair, or converted to VOIP on the modem.
>
> I got forcibly converted to Uverse from DSL, which I didn't want. Like you,
> I'm in a "fake" Uverse area.
>
> I still have my analog telephone line.
>
> A friend just had Uverse installed. His neighborhood has real Uverse; I've
> seen the VRADs. However, he just got data (they wouldn't give him
> old-fashioned DSL). He kept his analog telephone line, too.
>
> So, for the moment, subscribers aren't yet forced to convert to Uverse VoIP.
>
> When I had DSL, it was billed to my home phone bill. Uverse is billed
> separately.

They've been slowly wiring up a VRAD behind my place for the last two 
months. I'm curious to see what flavor of U-Verse they're actually going 
to offer out of it.

-- 
smr

On 5/24/2012 9:00 AM, smr wrote:
> On 5/24/2012 12:19 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>> dye<dye11@adsl-64-108-195-217.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Recently, I had my DSL Elite bill go up to 43 dollars, and in calls to
>>> customer billing and finally customer retention, both of them
>>> tried to get me to switch to Uverse, which surprised me since Uverse
>>> isn't in Park Ridge (TV Uverse, at least - WOW and Comcrap are the
>>> only companies w/the franchise in PR.) . . .
>>
>>> I forgot to ask him if my voice sevice would be analog over the
>>> single pair, or converted to VOIP on the modem.
>>
>> I got forcibly converted to Uverse from DSL, which I didn't want. Like
>> you,
>> I'm in a "fake" Uverse area.
>>
>> I still have my analog telephone line.
>>
>> A friend just had Uverse installed. His neighborhood has real Uverse;
>> I've
>> seen the VRADs. However, he just got data (they wouldn't give him
>> old-fashioned DSL). He kept his analog telephone line, too.
>>
>> So, for the moment, subscribers aren't yet forced to convert to Uverse
>> VoIP.
>>
>> When I had DSL, it was billed to my home phone bill. Uverse is billed
>> separately.
>
> They've been slowly wiring up a VRAD behind my place for the last two
> months. I'm curious to see what flavor of U-Verse they're actually going
> to offer out of it.
>


We've got one of those in the alleyway, got it about 18 months ago. 
Still no Uverse TV, just DSL.

Oh wait.  They upped our speed 10 percent a few weeks ago.  Woo. 
Fucking.  Hoo.

smr <me@shawnritchie.com> wrote:
> On 5/24/2012 12:19 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>> dye<dye11@adsl-64-108-195-217.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net>  wrote:
>>
>>> Recently, I had my DSL Elite bill go up to 43 dollars, and in calls to
>>> customer billing and finally customer retention, both of them
>>> tried to get me to switch to Uverse, which surprised me since Uverse
>>> isn't in Park Ridge (TV Uverse, at least - WOW and Comcrap are the
>>> only companies w/the franchise in PR.) . . .
>>
>>> I forgot to ask him if my voice sevice would be analog over the
>>> single pair, or converted to VOIP on the modem.
>>
>> I got forcibly converted to Uverse from DSL, which I didn't want. Like you,
>> I'm in a "fake" Uverse area.
>>
>> I still have my analog telephone line.
>>
>> A friend just had Uverse installed. His neighborhood has real Uverse; I've
>> seen the VRADs. However, he just got data (they wouldn't give him
>> old-fashioned DSL). He kept his analog telephone line, too.
>>
>> So, for the moment, subscribers aren't yet forced to convert to Uverse VoIP.
>>
>> When I had DSL, it was billed to my home phone bill. Uverse is billed
>> separately.
>
> They've been slowly wiring up a VRAD behind my place for the last two 
> months. I'm curious to see what flavor of U-Verse they're actually going 
> to offer out of it.

you'll have everything available.  They're still AT&T though, so it's
nickel-and-dime for everything.  when I went on their website and spec'ed
out what I wanted, the nickel-and-diming added a shitload to the advertised
rates.

Michele Goudie <dont.even@trythisathome.com> wrote:

> Oh wait.  They upped our speed 10 percent a few weeks ago.  Woo. 
> Fucking.  Hoo.

From what, to what? The numbers.

The last guy that was out mentioned something but I wasn't sure if he was
making stuff up.

He said some time soon, I should see a speed increase on the download side
from 6mb to 9mb and the upload from 784k to 1mb. I mean thats closer to 25
or 30% increase, but it hasn't happend yet. Probably won't.

Just curious if your 10% went over 6mb from the normal fastest dsl or if was
just some slower speed that picked up a bit for no reason.

-bruce
bje@ripco.com

Geoff Gass <glg@tanzenmb.com> wrote in
news:slrnjrsv34.gkq.glg@ftupet.ftupet.com: 

> smr <me@shawnritchie.com> wrote:
>> On 5/24/2012 12:19 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>> dye<dye11@adsl-64-108-195-217.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net>  wrote:
>>>
>>>> Recently, I had my DSL Elite bill go up to 43 dollars, and in calls
>>>> to customer billing and finally customer retention, both of them
>>>> tried to get me to switch to Uverse, which surprised me since
>>>> Uverse isn't in Park Ridge (TV Uverse, at least - WOW and Comcrap
>>>> are the only companies w/the franchise in PR.) . . .
>>>
>>>> I forgot to ask him if my voice sevice would be analog over the
>>>> single pair, or converted to VOIP on the modem.
>>>
>>> I got forcibly converted to Uverse from DSL, which I didn't want.
>>> Like you, I'm in a "fake" Uverse area.
>>>
>>> I still have my analog telephone line.
>>>
>>> A friend just had Uverse installed. His neighborhood has real
>>> Uverse; I've seen the VRADs. However, he just got data (they
>>> wouldn't give him old-fashioned DSL). He kept his analog telephone
>>> line, too. 
>>>
>>> So, for the moment, subscribers aren't yet forced to convert to
>>> Uverse VoIP. 
>>>
>>> When I had DSL, it was billed to my home phone bill. Uverse is
>>> billed separately.
>>
>> They've been slowly wiring up a VRAD behind my place for the last two
>> months. I'm curious to see what flavor of U-Verse they're actually
>> going to offer out of it.
> 
> you'll have everything available.  They're still AT&T though, so it's
> nickel-and-dime for everything.  when I went on their website and
> spec'ed out what I wanted, the nickel-and-diming added a shitload to
> the advertised rates.

Sometimes a phone call will get you a better deal. While the advertised 
web site prices have to be low, they still have to have a spiff for the 
CS people. 

-- 
Coming to you from the beautiful Chicago suburbs

Eric <ericw2000@gmail.com> wrote:
> Geoff Gass <glg@tanzenmb.com> wrote in
> news:slrnjrsv34.gkq.glg@ftupet.ftupet.com: 
>
>> smr <me@shawnritchie.com> wrote:
>>> On 5/24/2012 12:19 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>>> dye<dye11@adsl-64-108-195-217.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Recently, I had my DSL Elite bill go up to 43 dollars, and in calls
>>>>> to customer billing and finally customer retention, both of them
>>>>> tried to get me to switch to Uverse, which surprised me since
>>>>> Uverse isn't in Park Ridge (TV Uverse, at least - WOW and Comcrap
>>>>> are the only companies w/the franchise in PR.) . . .
>>>>
>>>>> I forgot to ask him if my voice sevice would be analog over the
>>>>> single pair, or converted to VOIP on the modem.
>>>>
>>>> I got forcibly converted to Uverse from DSL, which I didn't want.
>>>> Like you, I'm in a "fake" Uverse area.
>>>>
>>>> I still have my analog telephone line.
>>>>
>>>> A friend just had Uverse installed. His neighborhood has real
>>>> Uverse; I've seen the VRADs. However, he just got data (they
>>>> wouldn't give him old-fashioned DSL). He kept his analog telephone
>>>> line, too. 
>>>>
>>>> So, for the moment, subscribers aren't yet forced to convert to
>>>> Uverse VoIP. 
>>>>
>>>> When I had DSL, it was billed to my home phone bill. Uverse is
>>>> billed separately.
>>>
>>> They've been slowly wiring up a VRAD behind my place for the last two
>>> months. I'm curious to see what flavor of U-Verse they're actually
>>> going to offer out of it.
>> 
>> you'll have everything available.  They're still AT&T though, so it's
>> nickel-and-dime for everything.  when I went on their website and
>> spec'ed out what I wanted, the nickel-and-diming added a shitload to
>> the advertised rates.
>
> Sometimes a phone call will get you a better deal. While the advertised 
> web site prices have to be low, they still have to have a spiff for the 
> CS people. 

yeah, my m-i-l has gotten that to work a bunch of times (she has all 3 on
uverse), but when it's coming up $40-50 more than I'd pay RCN, I doubt
they're going to be able to cut it that much.

On 5/25/2012 6:15 AM, Bruce Esquibel wrote:
> Michele Goudie<dont.even@trythisathome.com>  wrote:

>
> Just curious if your 10% went over 6mb from the normal fastest dsl or if was
> just some slower speed that picked up a bit for no reason.
>


It would be the latter.  Things were maxing out around 3mb, now it's 
pushing 340k with some bursts up to 360k.  I'm not the one in charge of 
the DSL around here, so I have no idea if we're capped or if we're stuck 
with slow speeds in general.

Never think to ask because the DSL's rarely under heavy use and there's 
no streaming video going on except from the intranet.

Michele Goudie <dont.even@trythisathome.com> wrote:
> On 5/25/2012 6:15 AM, Bruce Esquibel wrote:
>> Michele Goudie<dont.even@trythisathome.com>  wrote:
>> Just curious if your 10% went over 6mb from the normal fastest dsl or if was
>> just some slower speed that picked up a bit for no reason.
>
> It would be the latter.  Things were maxing out around 3mb, now it's 
> pushing 340k with some bursts up to 360k.  I'm not the one in charge of 
> the DSL around here, so I have no idea if we're capped or if we're stuck 
> with slow speeds in general.
>
> Never think to ask because the DSL's rarely under heavy use and there's 
> no streaming video going on except from the intranet.

sounds like you have the "marketing" uverse like bruce does as opposed to
anything coming out of one of those VRAD boxes.

Geoff Gass <glg@tanzenmb.com> wrote:
> Michele Goudie <dont.even@trythisathome.com> wrote:
>> On 5/25/2012 6:15 AM, Bruce Esquibel wrote:
>>> Michele Goudie<dont.even@trythisathome.com>  wrote:
>>> Just curious if your 10% went over 6mb from the normal fastest dsl or if was
>>> just some slower speed that picked up a bit for no reason.
>>
>> It would be the latter.  Things were maxing out around 3mb, now it's 
>> pushing 340k with some bursts up to 360k.  I'm not the one in charge of 
>> the DSL around here, so I have no idea if we're capped or if we're stuck 
>> with slow speeds in general.
>>
>> Never think to ask because the DSL's rarely under heavy use and there's 
>> no streaming video going on except from the intranet.
> 
> sounds like you have the "marketing" uverse like bruce does as opposed to
> anything coming out of one of those VRAD boxes.

maybe this explains the normal sized modems and the 1970s sized piece of 
shit I have. "real" uverse people get the stupid sized device?

Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> wrote:
>Geoff Gass <glg@tanzenmb.com> wrote:
>>Michele Goudie <dont.even@trythisathome.com> wrote:
>>>On 5/25/2012 6:15 AM, Bruce Esquibel wrote:
>>>>Michele Goudie<dont.even@trythisathome.com>  wrote:

>>>>Just curious if your 10% went over 6mb from the normal fastest dsl
>>>>or if was just some slower speed that picked up a bit for no reason.

>>>It would be the latter.  Things were maxing out around 3mb, now it's 
>>>pushing 340k with some bursts up to 360k.  I'm not the one in charge of 
>>>the DSL around here, so I have no idea if we're capped or if we're stuck 
>>>with slow speeds in general.

>>>Never think to ask because the DSL's rarely under heavy use and there's 
>>>no streaming video going on except from the intranet.

>>sounds like you have the "marketing" uverse like bruce does as opposed to
>>anything coming out of one of those VRAD boxes.

>maybe this explains the normal sized modems and the 1970s sized piece of 
>shit I have. "real" uverse people get the stupid sized device?

Yes. My friend is in a Real U-verse area. I'm in a Fake U-verse area.
We both have the same device you have.

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
> Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> wrote:
>>Geoff Gass <glg@tanzenmb.com> wrote:
>>>Michele Goudie <dont.even@trythisathome.com> wrote:
>>>>On 5/25/2012 6:15 AM, Bruce Esquibel wrote:
>>>>>Michele Goudie<dont.even@trythisathome.com>  wrote:
> 
>>>>>Just curious if your 10% went over 6mb from the normal fastest dsl
>>>>>or if was just some slower speed that picked up a bit for no reason.
> 
>>>>It would be the latter.  Things were maxing out around 3mb, now it's 
>>>>pushing 340k with some bursts up to 360k.  I'm not the one in charge of 
>>>>the DSL around here, so I have no idea if we're capped or if we're stuck 
>>>>with slow speeds in general.
> 
>>>>Never think to ask because the DSL's rarely under heavy use and there's 
>>>>no streaming video going on except from the intranet.
> 
>>>sounds like you have the "marketing" uverse like bruce does as opposed to
>>>anything coming out of one of those VRAD boxes.
> 
>>maybe this explains the normal sized modems and the 1970s sized piece of 
>>shit I have. "real" uverse people get the stupid sized device?
> 
> Yes. My friend is in a Real U-verse area. I'm in a Fake U-verse area.
> We both have the same device you have.

So real and fake uverse people al get the large stupid device? Bruce has a 
normal sized device though.

Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> wrote:
>Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>>Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> wrote:
>>>Geoff Gass <glg@tanzenmb.com> wrote:
>>>>Michele Goudie <dont.even@trythisathome.com> wrote:
>>>>>On 5/25/2012 6:15 AM, Bruce Esquibel wrote:
>>>>>>Michele Goudie<dont.even@trythisathome.com>  wrote:

>>>>>>Just curious if your 10% went over 6mb from the normal fastest dsl
>>>>>>or if was just some slower speed that picked up a bit for no reason.

>>>>>It would be the latter.  Things were maxing out around 3mb, now it's 
>>>>>pushing 340k with some bursts up to 360k.  I'm not the one in charge of 
>>>>>the DSL around here, so I have no idea if we're capped or if we're stuck 
>>>>>with slow speeds in general.

>>>>>Never think to ask because the DSL's rarely under heavy use and there's 
>>>>>no streaming video going on except from the intranet.

>>>>sounds like you have the "marketing" uverse like bruce does as opposed to
>>>>anything coming out of one of those VRAD boxes.

>>>maybe this explains the normal sized modems and the 1970s sized piece of 
>>>shit I have. "real" uverse people get the stupid sized device?

>>Yes. My friend is in a Real U-verse area. I'm in a Fake U-verse area.
>>We both have the same device you have.

>So real and fake uverse people al get the large stupid device? Bruce has a 
>normal sized device though.

We won't mention that he's been without service since the 4th and how
many times AT&T has been out there.

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

> We won't mention that he's been without service since the 4th and how
> many times AT&T has been out there.

Pfffft.

Remember Casa del Ripco has both Comcast and At&t so outages are dealt with
a quick click on a control panel.

Honestly, so far no problems with the fake-uverse since the last tech visit.
There still are those random, middle of the night reboots on the router, but
maybe once every couple weeks at best.

I'll tell ya though, that Comcast really can't be beat for speed. Melissa
needed like 6 or 7 iso images downloaded (400-600mb each) for some shit she
was working on and maybe tops, 20-25 minutes to grab all of them.

It's too bad they aren't straight forward with pricing and jack around
people with random rate increases, but if this is really the basic, entry
level internet service they have, it's still impressive. There was some
story going around last week that they discontinued the 250GB/month cap
until they do some research.

I guess it was a 3 strikes and you are out rule, now they are considering a
structured rate like at&t is doing where 250GB is included and it'll be $10
extra for every 20 or 50GB over.

Either way, it's supposed to be no cap enforcement until they figure out the
new policy.

-bruce
bje@ripco.com

Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> wrote in
news:jq1hk0$ppn$5@reader1.panix.com: 

> Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>> Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> wrote:
>>>Geoff Gass <glg@tanzenmb.com> wrote:
>>>>Michele Goudie <dont.even@trythisathome.com> wrote:
>>>>>On 5/25/2012 6:15 AM, Bruce Esquibel wrote:
>>>>>>Michele Goudie<dont.even@trythisathome.com>  wrote:
>> 
>>>>>>Just curious if your 10% went over 6mb from the normal fastest dsl
>>>>>>or if was just some slower speed that picked up a bit for no
>>>>>>reason. 
>> 
>>>>>It would be the latter.  Things were maxing out around 3mb, now
>>>>>it's pushing 340k with some bursts up to 360k.  I'm not the one in
>>>>>charge of the DSL around here, so I have no idea if we're capped or
>>>>>if we're stuck with slow speeds in general.
>> 
>>>>>Never think to ask because the DSL's rarely under heavy use and
>>>>>there's no streaming video going on except from the intranet.
>> 
>>>>sounds like you have the "marketing" uverse like bruce does as
>>>>opposed to anything coming out of one of those VRAD boxes.
>> 
>>>maybe this explains the normal sized modems and the 1970s sized piece
>>>of shit I have. "real" uverse people get the stupid sized device?
>> 
>> Yes. My friend is in a Real U-verse area. I'm in a Fake U-verse area.
>> We both have the same device you have.
> 
> So real and fake uverse people al get the large stupid device? Bruce
> has a normal sized device though.

I have the huge device at home with the battery backup for the phone. At 
work I have a motorola device that's about 9 x 6. 

-- 
Coming to you from the beautiful Chicago suburbs