My Terrible Experience With AT&T Internet

Question

Me and my family felt that an upgrade from our cable internet that is 15 megabits a second was needed so in january of this year, we made the switch. Talking on the phone to a representative, they said we could purchase a 20 megabyte a second internet plan, a bunch of movie television programs for free for making the switch, and a home phone line. The representative told us if 250$~ (not sure if this was the exact number) was going to be our total including tax and he said yes, we "would not pay a penny more". We decided to do the complete switch from cable, and purchased internet, TV, and home phone services from at&t. A few days after ordering, we called again to make ssure of everything and yet again, we were promised 20 megabyte a second internet. A couple days later, a technician arrives and yet again, my mother asks and makes sure if it's 20 megabyte a second internet. I get home from school to check out the new internet and I run a speed test. I remember being really excited switching from a sub par 15 megabit internet to a better 20 megabyte internet. The speed test ends and sure enough, it was 20 megabit internet. It astonishes that not one, not two, but 3 at&t representatives did not know the difference between a megabit and a megabyte. Not only that, but the initial representative that told us that the free movie channels that adds no cost for making the switch added a ton of money to the bill and it was much more than 250$ even after deducting those channels. We called again and say that we were lied to about the frree channels and about the bill. The representative said they were sorry and would remove the channels. They then said "how long have you been using at&t phone services?" we responded with around 10 years or so and we had just made the switch to other at&t services. They said they could give us a family plan of 30gb a month because we had been with them for so long. We responded that we did not want to do that because 2 of us 5 have unlimited data and we didnt want to give that up. They said we could get a family plan for only the 3 that dont have unlimited data for a cheaper bill than what we pay for the month. We were happy we had fixed the initial issue and we were being given these 30gb a month for a cheaper price. A couple days later, my mother tells me that in the bill they had charged us more than what were paying before the 30gb plan that was addded in when we were promised that it would benefit us and that it would be cheaper. We call again and have it removed and put it back to the way it was originallly. After all of this, there are still problems. The internet is awful. Not only was I immensely dissapointed that it was 20 megabits instead of the promised 20 megabytes (for those of you that dont know, one megabit = 1/8 of a megabyte so I expected internet that was 8 times as fast than what we received), but also, it was extremely slow at times. Skype calls suddenly drop, internet fails, netflix quality buffers, online gaming freezes. Everything is extremely slow. Even when no one is using it, it's terribly slow. We have called over 3 people in the last couple of months to try and fix this and everytime they come they say it will be better or it will be fixed. And even after they "fix it" the internet quality is still horrible. The most recent time that someone had come to our house to check out what's wrong, as I explained to him that while I would play an online game my ping would be very high. For those of you that don't know what ping is, it is the following: "The ping is the reaction time of your connection–how fast you get a response after you've sent out a request. A fast ping means a more responsive connection, especially in applications where timing is everything (like video games). Ping is measured in milliseconds (ms)". Now, ideally you should never have above 100 ping as that will make the game very choppy. So I explained to the guy who came to our house that my ping while playing these games could literally reach the thousands (keep in mind, that above a hundred is already bad and I wouldd reach 1 thousand). My mother asked the man if he understood what I was saying and he said "no". So apparently, the man did not understand what ping was. This isn't a videogame term or anything, it's used very frequently when performing a speed test or troubleshooting internet issues. You would think that a guy who works for at&t would know this. And I know you must be thinking that maybe when a lot of people are using the internet then the internet quality might suffer and that's why my ping is high. Well, even when no one is home and I'm the only one using the internet and every other computer is off or unplugged, the internet still has random spikes of horrid connection and my ping still spikes to 500 and up to 1,500. I have friends who have different internet service providers and don't have more than 30 megabits a second (I have 25) and do not suffer from any of these issues. I'm honestly very tired of all the problems that we have been having and the lack of knowledge that the at&t representatives have. As soon as our contract is over we will be making the switch to another ISP.

Answer 1

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