On Sat, 2 Jan 2016 13:59:28 -0600
"Terry Coombs" wrote:

snip
AT&T has claimed (they tried to up-sell me when I went with a local
DSL provider) they can give me 6 Mbps U-verse. Neighbor's have been
begging them for it and they tell me 1.5 Mbs is all they offer out
here. Now who should I believe ;-)

Your neighbor . We had a long-running battle in Memphis with AT&T over
uverse . They were claiming they were providing us with 1.5Mb service and
billing for it . The best I ever got from their connection was under 768k ,
and more often was 350k or less . Even when their tech came out and verified
the rate , they tried to overcharge us . Demanded and got a reduction and
some rebate , then told them to shove their uverse service where the light
don't shine .

Those BIG companies can be a BIG PAIN when it comes to billing and
solving any kind of abnormal problem. Especially when it makes them
look bad or reduces their take.

I download stuff pretty regularly. In fact I had a goodly sized
download going just now. If the speed (my browser shows download
speeds) is running around 150 kbps then I know I have the 1.5 mb
connection I'm paying for. I don't leave my modem up all the time. If
I'm not using the net I unplug it. It only takes a couple minutes for
it to power up, come online so it's no big deal. About the same amount
of time for the computer to boot.

I have caught the modem/connection being downgraded to 768 kbps. When
that happens you have to either unplug the modem or get into its setup
page and force it to re-handshake (my term, forget the technical one
for it) the connection. I'm sure there are a lot of customers that have
no idea this is going on. Their modems are powered up 24/7 and their
applications don't display transfer speeds. I don't put much faith in
the "test your speed sites". They really have no way to know for sure
what is happening at your computer. Just what they are pumping out in
your direction...

My modem is an older model but capable of higher DSL speeds than
what is currently available to me here right now.

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
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