AT&T Fixed Wireless Service

This is more of a warning than a question. I recently tried AT&T Fixed Wireless Internet service. The connection was advertised as "Up to 10 Mbps" speed. When installed, the installer and I checked the resulting speed and we were getting better than 10 Mbps down, and 8-9 Mbps up. This was great. The upload speed is great if you are looking in on security cameras (and gaming, apparently -- not familiar with that.)

However, we immediately had two issues. The first is that the service reports as a mobile hotspot. ip-address-mobile.att.net -- This was the unsolvable problem. Services that stream LIVE and LOCAL channels are not allowed to stream to a mobile hotspot. This is different than streaming to an tablet or phone. Hulu, Sling, etc. will not fully function. Hulu was the most helpful trying to solve the problem, but they ran into a brick wall with AT&T. Most AT&T support employees don't even know what Fixed Wireless is and we spent days (literally) trying to make it work. Until problem #2 happened.

The speed, after 2 or 3 days, dropped to a maximum of 3 Mbps. Upload speed was still 8-9 Mbps. AT&T's solution was to send a technician back to the cabin. Luckily in the chat transcript from a supervisor, he guaranteed me that the tech would get my speed back and make Hulu work. When the tech arrived, I showed him the issues and he, without hesitation, told me there was nothing he could do. "You're connected to the same tower that hotspots connect to, and they aren't willing to change the proxy settings to show you as anything else but a hotspot. It's never going to work until they change it." What about the speed? "All you are guaranteed is 1 Mbps down, and you are getting 3."

To AT&T's credit, they fully refunded everything. Installation cost ($99) and even the 3 weeks that I did use the service.

AT&T Fixed Wireless Internet is not ready for prime time. If you have this service, there is a 99% chance (according to the tech) that there is someone else providing the same service. In my case, he was right. Costs more, but there is also no data cap. It works great with Hulu and other live local tv streamers.