I am so sick of technology. I am sick of the things that are supposed to make our lives easier causing immeasurable stress when they don’t work properly. I’m sick of poor customer service from those who are supposed to help alleviate the stress. I am sick of having someone in Calcutta tell me “everything looks fine, your wi-fi is operating as it should” even though it’s NOT.
AT&T, I’m talking to you. We have had increasingly poor internet service for several months now. After several calls to Calcutta, a service tech was dispatched to our house a couple of months ago. He decided it was our modem. Of course, AT&T has changed their policy – now you lease the modem from them. There’s been very little change in the quality of service and to add insult to injury, they are making more money off our dissatisfaction.
Last evening and into the early morning hours, I wasted hours on pages that wouldn’t load, chat windows that kept shutting down, and bluetooth connections that wouldn’t last. (Granted, the bluetooth connection issue probably has nothing to do with AT&T, but I have to mention it in order to convey my utter and complete tech misery.)
I have an article to write that is due Sunday and I’m in such a foul humor because my technology is being difficult, and technology is required to get the job done. I actually wrote this blog post on a piece of paper with a pen last night after I shut my computer down so I wouldn’t throw it across the room. I can’t do that with my article.
I guess I’d better suck it up and see if I can get something done.
A Scribbler & A Shutterbug 
I’m sorry you are having such a hard time and such poor customer service. Would you mind posting a picture of your router from AT&T? It’s very well possible that upgrading your hardware could significantly improve your bandwidth. I just so happen to have an extra Neargear Nighthawk that is less than a year old. We don’t need it anymore because our local cable company in SC provides really nice gear. Talk to AT&T and see if you can stop leasing their equipment and use your own router. If you can, it’s yours.
http://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-routers/R7000.aspx?cid=gwmng
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Our router is a AT&T U-verse NVG589 … (http://stopthecap.com/2015/12/15/att-u-verses-magical-morphing-modem-fee-yours-or-theirs-its-still-7-a-month/)
The article discloses AT&T’s rip off regarding the monthly fee for modem rental (or a service fee if you use your own) — basically, you’re going to pay that fee no matter what.
Let me know how much you’d like for the modem — AJ mentioned we may need something a little more “high-powered” and that surely looks a little more serious that what we have right now. Thanks!
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We had a similar box when we were in Frisco. The nighthawk plugs into your box and acts as your home network router. Have you tried plugging into the modem and testing the speed? That will give you your true Max speed. You lose some when you go wifi. Cost to you is your continued friendship.
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You are so funny! No – I have not tried that (plugging into the modem to test the speed). We all have laptops, so plugging in for max speed is not really an option. We appreciate the gift of the nighthawk, and you can be assured of our friendship with or without “extras”. 😀
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Also, what are you running speed tests? What kind of speeds are you supposed to be getting from AT&T and what are you actually getting?
http://www.speedtest.net/
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I tried to do that last night and could not even get the speed test to load to run! That’s what’s been so frustrating about our service — we wait f o r e v e r for pages to load, but then they run the speed test and say, “Oh, it’s fine!” 😡
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Ran the speed test. First time results were 9.87 Mbps download and 0.85 Mbps upload. Second time results were 8.13 Mbps upload and 0.97 Mbps download. I think we are supposed to be getting 12 Mbps download… And when I clicked on your link to run the test, initially it took at least two minutes for the page to load. 😡
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