SBC DSL for $14.95

[Derektm]

Hmmm ... im 12,000 feet from the CO. They are sending me the 24$ deal Pro to test out for 30 days. If I dont get exactly 3.0 then its going back.

12,000 FT a lot?

 

[Muse]

OK, I did it. I went to order Express online and put in my phone number and it said I already had SBC DSL and should call Customer Service (800 #), which I did. Told her I wanted to downgrade from my current static IP SBC DSL and she set it up in around 15 minutes. I should save around $30/month. It will happen on September 8. I presume I'll have to configure my system to deal with the change - probably more than anything go into my router configuration utility and set it up to detect a DHCP connection -- D-Link router.

She said it was a one year term with a $200 cancellation penalty if I cancel in less than a year. I asked if there is a penalty should I want to upgrade during that period from Express to Pro, and she said "no."

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Derektm
Hmmm ... im 12,000 feet from the CO. They are sending me the 24$ deal Pro to test out for 30 days. If I dont get exactly 3.0 then its going back.

12,000 FT a lot?

I think you might be OK at 12,000. I think I'm 7000, and according to my notes, the limit is 2.5 times that.

 

[syco83]

I pay $30 for a 4megabit/512kilobit

 

[bigfil]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: Derektm
Hmmm ... im 12,000 feet from the CO. They are sending me the 24$ deal Pro to test out for 30 days. If I dont get exactly 3.0 then its going back.

12,000 FT a lot?

I think you might be OK at 12,000. I think I'm 7000, and according to my notes, the limit is 2.5 times that.

distance limitation for dsl is 17,500
found that out the hard way when i tried to get dsl at my condo previously
12k is not bad, i'm currently around 9k and im getting the pro service, pings are good dload speeds are good its all good hehe

 

[Rythan]

I signed up for the $14.95 1.5Mb/384k deal. I'm getting the speeds promised (after the 10 day warm up period... went from 384kb on day 1 to 768kb on day 8 to 1.5Mb on day 10), no complaints. I just wish my line had qualified for the Pro speeds

 

[13Gigatons]

Originally posted by: Derektm
Hmmm ... im 12,000 feet from the CO. They are sending me the 24$ deal Pro to test out for 30 days. If I dont get exactly 3.0 then its going back.

12,000 FT a lot?

3.0 is the sync speed you will only get 2.6 megabits of actual downloading speed. When Ameritech ran it the sync was 1800 and 3600 so you got the advertised speed.

SBC is kinda lame but at least it's dirt cheap.

 

[wchou]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: jadinolf

Originally posted by: c627627
Even if you're poor enough to qualify for benefits, I think the lowest priced phone line is $30-something after taxes and fees.

Yes there are ads for $20-somehting alternatives but they all end up being $30-something after taxes and fees.

EDIT: $12.95 Metered landline. Only 20 Phone calls per month though.

For the record, SBC's low income charge is $5.44 per month. Folks need to get their facts straight.

Yeah, I think they call it Lifeline. I have it. But the charge for my fixed IP SBC is killing me. I'm paying around $54/month for the Lifeline + DSL. Last month my Lifeline totaled $5.75 and the charge for Internet services totaled $47.47. I'm thinking of springing for this before September, when presumably the deal is dead... My DSLreports.com speed test looks something like this:

Your download speed : 2740056 bps, or 2675 kbps.
A 334.4 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 325732 bps, or 318 kbps.

Will I notice much slower speeds if I downgrade to the 14.99 deal or the 24.99 deal? I don't game online, or download music or movies. Just more or less typical browsing with the occasional big file download, of course.

the slow down will be noticeable, by at least half. if you're use to downloading at 300Kb/sec+ then you be better off sticking with pro speed. your download speed is a better then what I've got, it's 305kb/sec and 53kb/sec up.
I have pro speed with unlimited basic service and it still cost me 58-60 a month. If I have lifeline it would cost me 22 dollars less!

 

[gac009]

I had the regular service at 1.5 MBit and when I tested my bandwidth I consistantly tested at 1.7 Mbits so I got all exited at ordered the 3.0 Mbit service and now when I test I test at 1.9 Mbit ......so basically its not worth it, just pay the 14.95.

 

[IAteYourMother]

wtf... i have sbc dsl now, yet when i check for availability, it's not available in my area. WTF?? (408)

 

[Derektm]

I'm on cable now and SBC is giving me 3 months free service for switching from cable to their DSL. They said if I didn't like it I could send it back within 30 days.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: syco83
I pay $30 for a 4megabit/512kilobit

With whom? Where?

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Rythan
I signed up for the $14.95 1.5Mb/384k deal. I'm getting the speeds promised (after the 10 day warm up period... went from 384kb on day 1 to 768kb on day 8 to 1.5Mb on day 10), no complaints. I just wish my line had qualified for the Pro speeds

When they boosted me from 1.5 to 2.7 I didn't notice that much difference, except in speed tests! That's why I decided to save myself $10/month and get the Express. If I want to upgrade, there's no penalty - I'll just have to pay that extra $10/mo. I don't think I'll do that unless my dowload speed is significantly under 1.5. With the pro, they guarantee >1.5. With Express they only guarantee >384 k.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: gac009
I had the regular service at 1.5 MBit and when I tested my bandwidth I consistantly tested at 1.7 Mbits so I got all exited at ordered the 3.0 Mbit service and now when I test I test at 1.9 Mbit ......so basically its not worth it, just pay the 14.95.

I've been with them around 5 years - when it was pacbell.net and ever since SBC took them over. In my experience it's worth it to call the DSL tech support people. They can often tweak things and improve your service. Many of the people I have dealt with, those I get on the phone and the people they sent over early on (who installed filters, splitters and stuff) have been very helpful and cool. Of course, YMMV. I haven't actually dealt with them for a year and a half, except for an occasional tech support call probably fielded in India.

 

[pxc]

Bleh, they wouldn't give me the $14.99 rate for 1.5M/384k because I have barebones phone service but they gave me the $19.99 rate for the same speed.

That will only be around $36/mo total for local phone service + DSL + taxes, about $6 less than I currently pay.

 

[syco83]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: syco83
I pay $30 for a 4megabit/512kilobit

With whom? Where?

cox
I have all 3 services

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: syco83

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: syco83
I pay $30 for a 4megabit/512kilobit

With whom? Where?

cox
I have all 3 services

Hmm, my brother has Cox in San Diego. I haven't heard of it being available here in Berkeley.

What do you mean by all 3 services?

 

[syco83]

 

[CrimsonKing]

Has anyone tried this lately? I see the offer is still valid here in Ohio. My price just went from $35 last month to $58 this month. I assume my contract is up. I'm calling tomorrow to ask for the $24.95 deal.

Also, I looked back through my expense reports (I can expense up to $30/mo for work) and I never paid tax my first year with them. Then I re-upped when the new discounts came out last year (bumped up to the supposed 3MB plan) and I've been eating taxes on the DSL ever since. Anyone else see this change?

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: MisterCornell
What should I do now? SBC said they would give me the new price, but they didn't. Should I call them up and demand that they give me a $7 credit for the last two months?

You can try... good luck... godspeed...

At my former company SBC owed us. A lot. Usually took a minimum of 10 months of constant phone calls and proof that they didn't do what they promised, before they would refund us. Sometimes it wasn't a full refund either. Proof consisted of documenting who we spoke with and what time/day, plus email exchanges with our representative (business account, had a "new" dedicated rep every few months - go figure). It was worth our while to fight with them because the (IIRC) three times we had to do this, the lowest disputed dollar amount was somewhere over $5k and the highest dollar amount was around $70k. Those multiple business T1s and PRIs really add up.

 

[Muse]

I was supposed to be changed over to the Express service yesterday. How do I determine if this happened?

I still have Internet connectivity (obviously), and my DI-704P D-Link router is still configured to have a static IP with my _former_ IP address.

When I run IPCONFIG at my command prompt it doesn't show an IP at all for the ethernet adapter, just zeros, zeros for subnet mask, no gateway.

For the ethernet adapter Local Area Connection it shows the IP address I chose for the specific machine on my network. How do I determine if I'm on the new service or still have my static IP? Thanks.

Edit: I guess they changed me. Last speed test I'd done was this:

2005-07-11 12:57:45 EST: 2675 / 318
Your download speed : 2740056 bps, or 2675 kbps.
A 334.4 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 325732 bps, or 318 kbps.

Just ran it again:

2005-09-09 11:16:48 EST: 1285 / 319
Your download speed : 1316553 bps, or 1285 kbps.
A 160.7 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 327385 bps, or 319 kbps.

Is there any chance I can get them to tweak me toward 1.5 download?

Edit2: I haven't downloaded any files yet, but so far I haven't really noticed any obvious difference in my "normal" browsing, no obvious slowdown.

 

[KAIFS]

bunch of us here (neighborhood) Cable interent refugees ended up following this process:
http://www.SBC.com/1495 (it will give you option for 14.95mo or 24.95mo, but at higher speed tier) and place your order(s). Towards the end of checkout it will ask you for a promo or ref code or something like that, we were told to use: AM1612 and hit 'Apply'. Overall cost after instant and mail in rebates was $12.95, which is shipping cost for the new modem...
Cable rebates came a bit later as we had to submit copies of our Time Warner bills, but they all came (rebates). This was tested on about 2 dozen of folks so far without any problems. Also, it was the only sure way to get cheap DSL rates and NOT be signed for ANY additional services since this procedure has no requirements for 'two or more qualifiying services' in order to get a discounted monthly rate .
Good luck all, after all, can you really beat $15mo for broadband??? Time Warner was charging just over $40 for their crap service, not to mention advertised 2mb tier yield about 400-600kbps on the download side 95% of the time, meanwhile SBC is speedtesting at 1300kpbs EVERY time you go to http://chi.speakeasy.net speed test.

I believe this offer is ending end of the month. Anyone can confirm for sure?

 

[Ghettocowboy]

Max download is 150kb/s, almost 4 times slower than cable, pretty sad

 

[Moshi]

I know this is a bit late in the thread but for anyone who has heard bad things about SBC....

I think it all has to do with who you run into in customer service...as is the case for most companies some employees do everything they can for you, others could care less. When my contract expired this July I was real busy and didn't even notice that my DSL cost spiked up to 59.99 for the DSL Pro package....I called them last month and SBC:

1. Immediately signed me up for the new DSL Pro promotion at 24.99
2. Gave me credit back for the months I had paid 59.99

It's a real YMMV situation....unfortunately. The only time I did have a problem with them is when I did upgrade to a 3mb/sec download speed, I had to trace the problem to their backbone and apparently I was being restricted at my old 1.5, after things were corrected things worked fine.

 

[Cheapest]

I think it is about time for me to switch too! I am with DSL Extreme now until december this year. I call them up and they told me if I would have subscribe with them at this moment it would have cost ($24.99) for a express package (1.5M download - this is what I have now). I told them they were advertize on their site for $14.99 for the same package and two costomer service told me that it's only for new customer and need to register online.

Before I wait till the last minute could someone give me a suggestion? Cable for same prize? (Zip code 92129 and Area Code 858)