[ale] ATT internet black hole. Any advice?

[Stephen Towler]

Anyone have advice on how to motivate ATT to make good on residential
internet claims? I moved from Atlanta to Florida in November only after ATT
assured me that our rural Florida home qualified for 12 MB service (per
line characteristics, not just geographical estimates).

It's now obvious their reps lied/misunderstood about qualifying the house
via LQS/Loopy/whatever it's called today. Troubleshooting reveals that we
actually have 12-17k of coper between us and ATT's electronics. Our UVERSE
modem barely syncs at 3.0/0.5 MB, and round-trip latency grows to > 4
seconds during uploads, dropping packets everywhere. We have to turn off
our cell phone WIFI because the incidental two-way traffic destroys even
web browsing for the laptops/desktops. Working over VPN is basically
impossible.

Anyone have advice on where/how to escalate? I believe that there are
solutions with engineering feasibility, including a fiber drop from the ATT
arial fiber that is adjacent to our property. Or build out of a UVERSE
remote terminal for this neighborhood, fed by that fiber. The trick is
finding a sympathetic ear at ATT so that we can get the fiber drop
discounted or the RT built.

It's notable that our property is on ATT's  FCC Connect America map for
2020. This means ATT is legally required to provide 10 MB service here by
2020. I don't know what's planned for the underlying technology, but maybe
the right folks could be motivated to build out early given that their
construction costs are already on their calendar AND have been paid for by
the $500 million USF payout they accepted from the FCC in 2015.

Would love advice on how to appeal to the right group or contact within
ATT. I quit my Atlanta job and moved down here to go indy, and three months
later I still can't maintain reliable connections to my EC2 sessions or my
collaborators' campuses.


Thanks in advance,
Stephen


--
Stephen Towler stowler at gmail.com
voice and txt: 352-358-1110
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