It's time to take accountability, AT&T

AT&T, I know you are aware of some of your fiber customers bypassing the gateway completely by means of an unmanaged (dumb) switch. I know this because I have even seen instructions for the bypass on these very forums. It's well past the time to stop pretending like you have no idea why many of your customers are leaving for your competition. The fault is 100% on you, and you should feel ashamed to even hint that it's not. No more "unplug your equipment for 30 seconds". To offer that as troubleshooting is insulting. 

How do I even start describing my experience? It's painful to say the least. I have had Gigabit Fiber service since late April/early May of this year (2020). I also have AT&T TV. All I'll say on the latter is that I'm pretty let down that you literally just renamed DirecTV to pass it off as something new. Doing things of that nature is where you lose customers' trust. After losing trust, people start to keep an eye on you. Ironically, you still participate in questionable practices. 

So, this glaring problem. The first week or two, maybe, everything was what it seemed it should be. I'm guessing here. I honestly can't remember, but I know it wasn't anything spectacular. Then, I started experiencing something very strange. Every few minutes, I would notice the connection dropping, whether hardwired to the gateway or connected wirelessly. If playing a game, the constant drops would basically make it unplayable. If browsing the internet, every other page I would attempt to load would fail, no matter the browser, with an error showing NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID or Your connection is not private. Customer service was not much help, not because of the people personally, but because there was not really any solution offered except sending out a replacement gateway. This, even from talking to technicians on the elevated service line. 

I had read about splitting the Wi-Fi bands, but that didn't address the issue of connection dropping through ethernet hardwired to the gateway. As time went on, I searched high and low, and I finally stumbled upon the method of bypassing the gateway completely using an unmanaged, or 'dumb' switch. I had no idea how drastically different my experience would become after setting this bypass up. Night and day difference. 

For anyone reading this, employee or customer, yes, the result of this dumb switch method results in the AT&T gateway collecting dust while not plugged in as I enjoy the internet speed that I thought I was getting when I first had the service installed. I am no computer genius, but I am pretty well-versed in how everything works. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what I obviously saw. From July up until a few days ago, I never experienced any issues whatsoever with the connection. Anyone can see that your equipment, whether intended to or not, is completely 100% of the problem. 

To add, during the entire disconnection period, I also experienced the TV connection doing the same thing. It would show a buffering icon/animation and either completely go out or the sound would drop. Changing the channel, waiting for the sound to kick in, then changing back to what I was watching would usually fix it, but not always. Using the dumb switch bypass, I never saw an issue with the TV service again. 

Well, recently Hurricane Sally came through my area, and I lost power. Losing power forces the setup again in order to bypass the gateway. Any time up until now, I could unplug the equipment and set the bypass up again with no issue. It only took maybe 10 minutes at most, and the majority of that is waiting for the equipment to power up and authenticate/stabilize. Now, it's not working, and I have discovered from others with the same issue that it is due to something that you have updated in the authentication process with the ONT.

To sum this long post up, I'll say this. I don't understand what motive you would have to where you would want to hinder your customers' from getting what they are supposedly paying for, but regardless of there being a motive or not, all eyes are on you, AT&T. The ball is in your court. You gonna step up and win, or are you gonna ignore this and hope it goes away? I personally think if everything was looked into with full transparency, we would find something potentially illegal and at the very least, morally and ethically wrong that you are guilty of. 

I say this with great confidence because I notice the details. When a simple speedtest.net run shows anywhere from 150Mbps to 600Mbps, but a speed test through the gateway's interface ALWAYS shows 998Mbps or higher, I find myself thinking, "Hmmm...." an awful lot. Then, with the bypass in place, I see the unhindered speed of 800Mbps or better. 

Remember AT&T: All eyes on you. What's your response gonna be?