New Member
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5 Messages
Pre-paid wireless internet not working
I prepared this as an E-mail to AT&T, but it seems they do not do E-mail!
My prepaid wireless internet stopped working the morning of Friday (9/11/2020). I tried again that night, and found I could check my account, though it was glacially slow, but any other website I tired timed out. I could see I have over 16 GB left on the 17 GB. Naturally, I tried power cycling the hotspot. It had bee working since June.
The next day, it was the same, so I took into town, thinking a cell tower was down. No joy. My laptop connected fine to a coffee shop Wi-Fi.
I took to the AT&T store. They tried taking out the battery (I should have thought of that!). No improvement. They put a new SIM into the hotspot. Not change. They concluded I needed a new hotspot and sold me one. They put a SIM card into that. Same problem. They got on the phone and texted AT&T tech support. No solution except to suggest I sign up for another wireless program. They concluded that it was a wide-spread problem (I was about 13 miles from home in the store) with the prepaid network.
I had seen (and see) no indication of that online.
Before spending more money, and since I did not absolutely need it right then, I was advised to take both hotspots home. I could try the new one periodically for few day and see it started to work. If it did, I could try the SIM in my old one, and, if it worked, return the new hotspot.
Not a productive afternoon.
It is not working today.
None of this is very reassuring since I really will need it if I get sick or have to quarantine.
Any help would be appreciated.
sandblaster
ACE - Expert
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64.7K Messages
4 years ago
This forum is not customer support. Sorry, no one here can help you. Whether it’s actually a wide spread problem or an issue with your account and plan, only customer support can determine. There was a similar post from another hotspot user with that same 17GB plan, it could be a plan issue.
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roaduser1234
New Member
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4 Messages
4 years ago
There are several other threads now describing the same problem right now. Find the longest thread and add your complaint to it. I am having the same problem, as are several colleagues around the country. If you buy the 2GB add on package after a few minutes your device magically works again but only for those 2GB. The regular amount of data you paid for for the month is lost at the moment. ATT is charging us for our prepaid data service but has our accounts marked internally as unpaid.
The very slow loading of the prepaid portal is because when your account is unpaid, ATT throttles your device extremely aggressively even though the only page you can load is the prepaid portal - ironically making it very hard to pay for more data to resume service. I assume this is the same incompetence as that which has everyone's 18GB prepaid data service accounts marked as unpaid part way through their billing cycle and regardless of how much data they have used.
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jjconnell
New Member
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5 Messages
4 years ago
I am putting this into both my thread and the other thread about this hotspot problem.
I called the AT&T store I referenced in my post and talked to the manager yesterday, explaining what I had learned on this forum and suggesting she contact AT&T and urge them to do something. She said she would call back, but I have no update at this time.
As of this morning, the problem remained.
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jjconnell
New Member
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5 Messages
4 years ago
On Thursday morning the wireless was (after 6+ days) finally back up. It has (so far) stayed up.
Today (Sunday) I finally had a chance to try the SIM in my old hotspot, and it worked fine. Took the new hotspot to the AT&T store to return it (as recommended when I got it). They wanted a $55 “restocking fee”! I explained what had happened, that they had sold me the new claiming my old one did not work, even though it did -- it was their network that was the problem. I also pointed out that no mention was made of this restocking fee when I was told to take it home in hopes the network would come back up. I was told I would have to come back and talk to the manager.
Is the emotional satisfaction of taking a hammer to the thing worth the $145? Of course, I would get a friend to film it. Hello YouTube!
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