Internet Options - AT&T Fixed Wireless Internet

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"Fixed Wireless" is an OXYMORON! I'm sure AT&T will be changing the name of this service since I'm providing new meaning to it. I have communicated to a few of you directly after some of my posts. I have been eternally optimistic about this service until now. Since January of 2001 I have been in the pursuit for broadband where I live. There has never been Dsl or cable available to me. 13 of those years I have been getting broadband to me by paying someone's cable bill and shooting a wireless link to my location. My first link was 5 that's FIVE miles away. I had 20k initially involved. 120 foot tower and radio wireless link. For six years everything was great until lightning blew up equipment. Verizon Home fusion became available and I jumped on board. Great service until you realize how much monitized data cost. $120.00 for 30GB data and if you should go over 1 byte you get another GB for $15.00 Oh how generous!!! I learned about grounding tower properly and moved on now with a link 2.5 miles away to my in law's. That worked until water found its way into cabling and froze. 4 years that link lasted. My last link I found a neighbor 1 mile down the street that let me pay cable so I could wirelessly link to him. Property was sold and land combined house levelled. All along the way with AT&T being the incumbent where I live I would call them and ask when I could get service and it was always 2 years away when DSL was being deployed. Of course I asked the cable company, same same. NOW October 20th 2017 big grandstanding artical in the paper about AT&T's so called Fixed Wireless. Lost count on how many calls I made after that announcement. Anyway after 8 install attempts it was determined I can't get it. To even get them to my home I had to contact the FCC! I have had outside information provided to me by a company that services the towers and there is an outstanding repair ticket order for the tower they say I can't get service because of foilage. How can a multi billion dollar company not do what I did with 20k!!!!!!I have attached a photo of something I got in the mail. I call it harassment! Also anyone that has Direct TV and is not in contract switch to Dish I did I was with DTV since 

Fixed Wireless Internet

AT&T accepted millions of dollars from the Federal Government to provide high speed internet to ALL rural customers but what they are doing is picking and choosing who qualifies. My next door neighbor qualified because he has never subscribed to internet, therefore AT&T said he qualified for Fixed Wireless Internet. I already had a different kind of internet access, therefore AT&T declined to offer Fixed Wireless Internet to me, telling me I didn’t qualify and blamed it on the FCC.

Franklin County, Alabama

To all those complaining about AT&T, give Hughes.net a try and you'll realize just how horrible an experience you can get. Here's a comparison of costs as of the date of this comment:

Hughes.net: 50g plan (highest available) $139.99/month or $99.99 with 24-month contract - $250 early termination fee

AT&T fixed wireless: 340 GB ($10 for each 50g over that) $70/month with no contract, $60/month with 12/month and $10 off if bunded with DirectTV. - $120 early termination (prorated at $10/mon for unpaid months).

Here's more info:

Hughes.net - OUT every time it rains or wind blows, customer service is deplorable, and don't believe them when they say an upgrade won't extend your contract - trust me, it will

AT&T - Fast 10mbps as LOWEST you'll experience but far more when rural and few in the area using it; stays on in most any weather because it locks onto a tower instead of satellite, small antenna instead of much larger dish.

For those fussing about availability while having a cell tower nearby, know that the towers for internet are different towers and it is taking time to get them installed everywhere. We just got it and I'm dancing happy dance and as soon as I can gather $250 cancellation fee, I'm telling hughes.net where they can stick theirs.

it would be nice if there was a coverage map and rollout timeline

I've been a HughesNet subscriber for 4 years. I have received about 7 postcards from ATT advertising Fixed Wireless being available in my area. I have received 4 letters from ATT stating that I am eligible for fixed wireless. I have received 4 additional letters from ATT confirming that fixed wireless is available to me. 

When the fixed wireless installers finally arrived at my home, they said there is no way Fixed Wireless would ever be available where I live. 

At least with HughesNet, it is possible to get answers to questions about the service and the hardware.  All of my questions regarding ATT fixed wireless have gone unanswered. As horrid as HughesNet customer service is, it is still far better that ATT.

Yeah, right. I can't get any of these things in my neighborhood. I actually have AT&T Internet, and I've been considering upgrading, but the AT&T site cannot find my address. I've been told it's because my neighborhood has some kind of "matrix box" thing, and there are no more spaces left. I've also been told that's why my Internet is so slow, too.

So unless I go with a different ISP (and my options are already limited), I'm pretty much out of luck.

I do think a few in my neighborhood are going to fixed wireless (I see transceivers going up in houses in the neighborhood), but right now my wife doesn't want another dish on our roof.

Don't count on getting service just because they say you can.  It's a prayer, not a promise.  

Agree, its a scam for the CAF money (also called Universal Service Fee).  They were set up to install yesterday for my mother.  They said sorry, no signal.   Yet they will still get "credit" for covering the area.  She is not in a valley, she is not on a hill.  She is not on a fringe area.  I questioned if I could put receiver on an existing pole to get more height.  Sorry, no can do.  I am not sure that this program was ever intended to work over a large area.  It appears they put in no infrastructure other than adding some equipment to existing cell towers and hoping it worked.  Her cell tower was 2.1 miles away.   I asked if he had a GPS reading, he gave me a compass heading.  That's how they point.....  

Anyone know if they have ever considered better receiver/transmitters. 

They suggested she go with AT&T hotspot

(She actually did have DSL but it quit working some time ago and they would never fix as they said it worked great (just like Fixed Wireless still shows as working great in her area.)  

Gov.  Deal (GA) did made some nice comments about how important it was to bring broadband to rural Georgia when this "service" was rolled out in Georgia in the fall of 2017..  He talked about how much money AT&T had spent (ratepayer service tax money I believe).  Now that the money has been taken, don't expect any upgrades.