DSL problems at different houses

I just discovered this forum and my hope is I can get pointed in the right direction as I'm about at my wits end. I'm the default IT repair man for my family. The members in question have 3 separate ATT accounts at 2 locations. My parents have phone and long distance service and my uncle has phone and 6mb DSL service at the same address above the garage. My grandparents live next door and they have Phone, Long Distance and 3mb DSL service.

They've have had both the 3mb and 6mb connection for many years, I'm guessing since 2008. We've had a few small problems here and there but nothing major. The tech has always been friendly and many of the visits were often the road department accidentally cutting a line. Last April we had a tech out when the service on the 6mb conncetion started having sync issues. I cannot recall what was done but the tech said we were too far for 6mb service but he managed to correct the issue. Fast forward to November and we again had sync issues and the tech that came out cleaned up what he called lazy wiring outside on the box attached to the house, switched out the modem and had us back up and running. I mentioned to him that the previous tech several months ago had said we were too far for 6mb and he did a quick test and said the guy wasn't correct and according to his data we were just barely in the limit.

In December we started having issues on both houses where they would lose and regain internet at the exact same time. It took a while to figure it out but it came down to when it would rain after the ground had long enough to get a good soaking both connections at each house would completely lose sync and render the connection useless. When service calls were placed naturally when they arrived the service was fine which was usually a couple of days after the rain, long enough to dry out.

Then in January both houses basically stopped working. You might get lucky and have 50% uptime on a good day. The only thing that didn't change was when one house works, so does the other and vice versa. Since then we have had countless technicians out all with different theories. Some say it is the distance and the measurement on the line isn't the correct way to do it but we should be able to support 3mb. Others have said they don't see a reason why we shouldn't have 6mb. One guy has said he has never seen a problem like this and it's going against all his training and experience. Two technicians both agreed that they see the problem in there is a massive fluctuation in our max speed regardless of the speed profile we are set to. None however have been able to fix it.

They have run temporary cable from across the road to the drop on the pole and then to each house. They have done a homerun and inspected each splice on our road. They've swapped trays and cards. Nothing has improved.

The last visit was on Friday and the tech again said we were too far. He then went on to say he's seen DSL just cease to work for no reason after many years of working fine and that if we can't accept the speeds they think they can give us then they'll cancel us. They also want to try a Uverse connection on the line that doesn't have DSL service to see if a switch over will improve and they did put in a referral however when the person from ATT called to set it up we were going to be charged with installation fees, etc. I was also told to stop calling in to the service line because the techs were getting into trouble however when I call them locally nothing gets resolved. On Friday they had turned the profile on the 6mb connection down to 1.5 to see if it would hold over the weekend and as they were getting ready to leave I brought it to their attention about the 3mb connection so reluctantly they began to work on that as well. Being late they came to a stopping point and said they would continue first thing Monday. They never showed and after getting a message to a tech this afternoon I got a reply back that he thought they were still working on it but he'd have to check with his boss. I have the area managers number so I left him a message for a status update to which I never recieved a reply. 

I will say that we are probably too far for 6mb being at 2.7 miles by the road. I just however don't buy the "I've seen DSL just stop working for no reason" after we've had it for 7 years now. There was another house that is 1 mile closer who experienced the same problem up until ours started and it could be just coincidence that the week his was fixed, ours broke but it's definitely odd.

My parents are elderly so it's a given that my grandparents are as well. One of the biggest enjoyments my grandmother has is being able to skype with her friends since she has great difficulty getting out of the house for long periods and my grandfather being able to chat with his old army buddies after a 30yr military career. They enjoy Nexflix, Hulu, etc and it's very difficult for them to swallow they are going to lose many of the joys they love.

I'm at my wits end. I don't buy that things just happen when both houses started having problems at once. What's even more annoying is they keep focusing on one house as if the problem is localized there. I work have an electronic engineering degree and work in IT. While I don't completely understand all the aspects of the details what I feel is happening is that some infrastructure changed with an unforseen side effect of essentially shutting their DSL off. All my family members are very upset in that they continue to be billed for service that is inoperable and the fact they wanted to charge upwards of $200 just to Test and see if Uverse would work there infuriated them more.

Like I said we have 3 accounts totaling about $200 a month just for landline and counting myself there's $300 a month in cell plans. At this point everyone at those residences is ready to cut ties with AT&T if this problem isn't resolved soon. If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated.