DSL outage

@Frannycakes

Try contacting the AT&T Customer Team so they can assist you with your service problems(and possibly account problems).

They can be contacted by clicking the link below(expect a response over the next few days):

https://forums.att.com/t5/notes/privatenotespage/tab/compose/note-to-user-id/192773

In the message body, please include the following:

- Name

- Address

- Account Number

- Phone number

- Email address

- The best time to contact you if needed

- The problem you are having (in detail)

Below is an image describing where to enter information within your message:

How you can properly determine if service is out or not, I can only determine by calling ATT customer service.

The lack of ability to log into your att account, is a head scratchier. If you are a brand new customer, well, it was almost three weeks before my account was "in the system" and available.  If you are one who's had ATT service for a while, then all i can say is, I have no clue why your data seemed to disappear.

I can say, that i've noticed that ATT,s IT people have been doing upgrades on the online software, and that may, or may not be related to the temporary accessibility loss you experienced.

But, you had to have been able to log in again eventually, as that is the only way you could have determined your usage.

I can only speak for my personal experience, and note, I'm another customer, and only speak for myself, but as best as i can tell, your DSL data usage is metered and billed on the calender month, separate from your actual billing cycle.

The usage reporting, for whatever reason, is always delayed by days behind the actual usage.

I can typically get a report of usage (accurate or not) up to about the last day of the month, or so (including data usage included AFTER the date of one billing cycle to the next). However, when the new calender month starts, it can sometimes be as late as the 10th day of the month before I am able to get metered data usage reports.  

Between the end of the month,. until about the tenth, I get the same, usage data not available that you do.

Sometimes, as long as you do not get charged for going over your data cap, it seems mostly a matter of faith that they monitor your data usage honestly.

I personally use a monitoring program from hootech called net meter, to track my data usage, but to be honest, I can't tell how accuratly it compares to ATT's monitoring. They determine usage a little differant, and suposedly, is a bit more generous on what they count. (about ten percent more that what net meter tracks.)

Fair disclosure, net meter is not free, and it's what I chose, I do not recomend it for others.  A lot of modems and routers have usage monitoring built into them and you can access it for free. I use it so I have at least an idea of actual data usage.

On the one hand, I don't want to unknowingly go over my cap, but by the same token, don't want to under utilize it either.

They are supposed to send you an e-mail (granted, often delayed up to four days) warning you when you reach your 65 percent and 90 per cent data limit thresh hold, but, if honest, have read accounts of folks who routinly get chared for going over their data limit every month, and not once getting the warning e-mails.

This is more from customers with cell phones than folks with dsl, but have read accounts of folks who have their phones powered off, and battery removed, and still get charged for data usage on their phones.

U-verse has a theoretical data cap of 250 gigs, but you never hear of data overages as unlike DSL, although it is on the books, is at presant, not enforced.

Sorry, I am a bit passionate about certain topics, and get a bit carried away with my posts about them.

Okay, my opinion on your experiance:  ATT's dsl equipment is old and obsolete. Accordingly, it breaks, just due to wear and tear. They will maintain it, to a point in markets where legacy DSL service already exists.

In your case, and this is only my specualtion, I am betting it went out, and they repaired it.

You pay for your service, flat rate, by the month. Meaning, your price is the same, if you only use 10 gigs, or 100 gigs.

Unless you make a fuss, they are not going to give you any credit for the time your service was out, but they are also not going to charge you for it either, since you litterally did not use anything. And too, there is that flat rate thing: same price no matter how much or how little you use it. (Up to your limit, of course.)

Billing internet usage on the clander month rather than billing cycle, while confusing, is not intentionally dishonoust. It is consistant, so they are not trying to pad the usage at the end of your month to try and inflate your actual data usage to intentionaly chage you for going over.

There are definatly "gotchas" in the contract, and reps always try to upsell you, but what you describe does not sound to me like anyone is trying to take advantage of you.

Good luck, hope your ATT experiance improves.

Yes, we also experienced a DSL outage for more than 5 days here in rural North Carolina.  DSL went down on Sat 14 Nov 2015 and did not go back online until Thurs 19 Nov 2015 at 11:23PM.  AT&T changed the estimated time of repair 5 times.

AT&T should be more transparent about what the issues are with customers who have DSL down for more than a few days. In this case, AT&T was pretty useless.  Tier 1 support says 'There is a network outage in your area with an estimated time of repair of...'.  Tier 1 also makes a point to tell the customer that their supervisors have no additional information about the outage, presumably in an effort to persuade customers not to escalate.  I escalated my case on Monday 16 Nov 2015 and was told by the Tier 2 support rep that 'we have no further information at this time'.  I called back on Tuesday 17 Nov 2015 and was told the estimated time had changed again.  The rep told me AT&T would escalate my case to the customer advocate and they would in turn call me with details about the outage.  Customer Advocate did call me but they were also useless... they told me the same info that I had previously been given thereby wasting my time and the AT&T rep's time.

AT&T must change it's policies so that customers can have SPECIFIC information about WHAT HAPPENED, WHY IT HAPPENED and WHAT AT&T IS DOING TO PREVENT THE ISSUE FROM OCCURRING AGAIN.  I spent another hour on the phone with AT&T yesterday and finally after being moved up the management chain 3 times, I was told what was going on.  WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG FOR AT&T TO DIVULGE THE INFORMATION ABOUT THE OUTAGE?  WHY DID I HAVE TO ASK TO BE ESCALATED THREE TIMES IN ORDER TO DETERMINE WHAT HAD HAPPENED?.

At this point, I am disgusted with the treatment of the customers who share our DSL line.  AT&T has no respect for the rural customers that it serves which is demonstrated by outdated DSL technology infrastructure in these rural areas that AT&T refuses to upgrade. 

BUYER BEWARE... if you have another option for high speed Interent in your area, you should consider carefully before subscribing to AT&T. Unfortunately in our rural area, AT&T is still a monopoly.

BTW, I am not complaining so vociferously because I am upset that I couldn't stream NetFlix or watch cat videos... I use my DSL to work from home as a contractor in the IT industry.  Without the DSL connection, I can't work so I lose money.

I agree with you, ATT should be WAY more transparent to their customers than they routinly are.

However, in this case, I think they were advising you as best as they themselves knew.

Their whole dsl network is old, and outdated. When it breaks, which is undoubtedly what happened here, they have to find parts to repair it, that might be hard to find. No doubt, that is why it took as long as it did to restore service.

Thankfully, they did NOT deceide it was easier and cheaper to just write it off as a loss and shut it down and keep it shut down.

They are planning to eliminate their whole legacy dsl network BY 2020, and are also working to shut down (they call it phasing out) as much as they can before that deadline.

There are locations when if a customer discontinues their service, the port they had is retired rather than re-assigned.

In any case, I am greatful to ATT that they were willing and able to restore your service. Lets hope, it stays up until (and unless) there is another system in place to take over their customers internet service needs.

For what it is worth (wish i still had the links, sigh) along with the old dsl networks, ATt also has plans of eliminating their old wired rural phone service as well. (See, as you know, dsl and home phone work on the same phone line.. get rid of one, and the other right along with it.)

Enough ramble for one post.

And, from your lips to the ATT CEO's ears.

I have the same issue.  I also work at home.  A T & T needs to start taking percentages off of customer's bills for the exact amount of time that me and others who work at hom agent lost 2 days of worth of very much needed income to pay monthly bills.  Don't let fool you.  If they can track how much internet usage each customer uses in order to print up our bills. They know exactly how to calculate and adjust out bills.