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potentialcust1's profile

Tutor

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6 Messages

Monday, February 4th, 2019 4:59 PM

Please answer my questions, I want to buy internet service from you!

I'm sending these emails out to internet providers in Florida.  AT&T is one of them, but they don't seem to have an email address.  Also, on the question asking for an email address, the account that said to PM them instead seems to now have PMs disabled: https://forums.att.com/t5/Wireless-Account/Email-address-for-AT-amp-T-Customer-Service-Satisfaction/td-p/4821368

 

So, I'm posting the questions here.  Maybe others will find the answers to these questions useful, and others can feel free to chime in with more questions.  Thanks to the AT&T employee who answers all my questions!

 

I'm currently relocating to Florida and am partially deciding where to go
based upon the availability of good internet service. As such, I have
questions about your service, some of which are quite technical. Feel
free to reply with answers to the questions you can answer now, and get
back to me with the other answers later if you don't have all of the
information on hand.

 

1) What services do you offer, and where do you offer them? Maybe you
have a service map you could send me?

 

2) What last mile technologies are you using and where? e.g. VDSL2
Profile 17a, DOCSIS 3.1, etc.

 

3) What connection speeds are you offering? Is the speed symmetric? If
asymmetric, can I trade some down speed for up speed? (For example, if you
offered 100 Mbit/s down with 10 Mbit/s up, I would be happy to trade half
my down speed for half of the traded up speed i.e. 100/10 becomes 50/35)

 

4) Do you provide the on premises equipment or am I responsible for
providing it?

 

5) If you provide the on premises equipment, is it capable of operating in
a transparent mode? (Does it take the packet from the ethernet and put
it on your transport medium and vice-versa without mangling the packets in
any way? No NAT, for example.) This mode of operation is sometimes called
bridged mode.

 

6) Do you provide one or more public IPv4 addresses? Do they change? If
so, how often do they change?

 

7) Do you provide one or more public IPv6 addresses? Do you advertise
them? Do you require that I use DHCPv6? Do they change? If so, how often
do they change?

 

😎 How much does your service cost? What is the base rate? What is the
total cost including, but not limited to, regulatory fees, taxes,
and equipment rental fees? Please note that I'm not particularly
interested in services beyond fixed internet service. (e.g. television,
phone, or mobile service)

 

9) Do you preform any speed limiting, or do you allow the connection to
operate at whatever speed is available at the last mile? Is the speed
commonly limited by network congestion within or at the ingress and egress
points of your network?

 

10) Do you have any usage limits? Can I send and receive as much data as
I can with no change in service, or will I get cut off, slowed down,
charged more, or something else after transferring a certain amount of
data? If there are changes at different amounts of data, what are they
and at what amounts of data do they occur?

 

11) If you do have any limits as per question 10, how is the amount of data
calculated? e.g. Is it calculated at layer 2? Layer 3? Are headers
included or is it only the payload? Do you count data that doesn't leave
your network? (For example, a friend was hit by the bug fixed here:
https://git.openwrt.org/?p=project/odhcp6c.git;a=commit;h=5b98f902f616bd9b96a2128587bc6995555a43c1
which would cause odhcp6c to flood out link local IPv6 packets after
about 50 days due to an integer overflow. He was on Cox at the time and
they did not offer IPv6 service. Even though the packets were link local,
thus they do not, by definition, get routed anywhere, and the provider
didn't even offer IPv6 service, they still dinged him for exceeding his
usage cap.)

 

12) Do you zero rate any traffic? If so, what traffic? (Please be
specific, IP ranges, port numbers, protocols, etc.)

 

13) Do you throttle, shape, or otherwise prioritize or deprioritize any
traffic? (Again, please be specific, IP ranges, port numbers, protocols,
etc.)

 

14) Do you block any incoming or outgoing traffic? (e.g. can I receive
incoming TCP connections on port 25? UDP packets on port 53? Can I
initiate outgoing TCP connections to *any* host on port 25? send UDP
packets to *any* host on port 53?)

 

15) Do you redirect/hijack any traffic? (e.g. Redirect outgoing TCP
connections on port 25 to your own SMTP server, redirect UDP packets on
port 53 to your own DNS server?)

 

16) Do your DNS servers faithfully follow the DNS specifications? (e.g. Do
they respect the indicated TTL when caching records? Do they return a
record when the query should result in an NXDOMAIN return? (I can't
believe I have to ask this one, but some providers do return an address
to a web server to try and show you ads when you should have gotten an
NXDOMAIN response.))

 

17) Do you perform any higher level filtering or mangling? (e.g. Do you
block certain protocols? Do you block access to certain services or
websites? Do you block DNS requests or results containing certain names
or other data? Do you modify the results of HTTP or DNS requests? (I
can't believe I have to ask this one, but some providers do things like
modifying the pages returned by HTTP requests to insert their own
advertising or tracking.))

 

18) Do you log any traffic? If so, what do you log? How long do you keep
logs? What is your policy on providing logs to 3rd parties? Which
policies apply to which 3rd parties? What happens to the data if the ISP
is sold, merged, transferred, entered into receivership, etc? What do you
do to protect the data you log? (e.g. keep it offline, encrypt it with a
key that is not on a computer connected to the internet, encrypt it with a
key stored in a smart card or other hardware token) Can I opt out of any
logging? How will you notify me if the policy changes? Will I have an
opportunity to request that you purge all of my information before any
policy changes take effect? Will that request be granted? Will you pay
me for the use of my personal information? Will you purge any data
collected on me when I no longer pay for your service? Will you notify me
before any of my information is given to a 3rd party? Will you give me an
opportunity to decline that 3rd party have access to my information? Will
you notify me whenever any of my information has been given to a 3rd
party?

 

19) Do you sell your service monthly? Do I need to enter into an extended
contract? (e.g. 1 year of service) Under what circumstances can I end the
contract? (e.g. the quality of service has degraded, you decided to block
more ports, you've decided to change the terms of the contract, etc.)

 

20) What is your acceptable use policy?

 

21) Are you open to providing service via an unorthodox last mile
connection? (e.g. Service isn't technically available at my location, but
I have line of site to your head end / CO / equipment cabinet / etc and I
provide point to point laser or radio link equipment, would you be willing
to colocate one end?)

 

22) What access do I have to diagnostic information about my connection?
(e.g. My last provider provided equipment that actually showed a live
graph of signal to noise ratio in both directions across the available
spectrum. However, one of my past providers provided equipment which
exposed diagnostic information via SNMP, however they intentionally
disabled SNMP access for some reason and told me to call into customer
support and ask for signal strength information over the phone.)

 

 

I understand that many of these questions are very technical, but your answers will help me decide which is the company most deserving of my business.  Hopefully it can be you!

 

Thanks,

-A Potential AT&T Customer

Accepted Solution

Official Solution

Former Employee

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22.5K Messages

5 years ago

It is all about location....

If lucky will have a choice of a telco provider (ATT, CenturyLink, Frontier, Windstream, etc only one...) a cableco provider such as Comcast, Spectrum, other again only one and 2 or 3 satellite companies such as HughesNet, Viasat (exede), etc and possibly some local fixed wireless offerings.

 

If your in an area where ATT is the ILEC have 4 possible types of internet...

Most common is VDSL FTTN with either 8d or 17a protocol based upon card in VRAD. Single or bonded pair based upon port, terminal availability with internet speed of 100/20, 75/20, 50/10, 45/6, 25/5, 25/2, 18/1.5 based upon facilities and copper loop after the fiber feed VRAD. Over 30 million addresses in 21 states have this option including Uverse IPTV option.

 

Next most common is ADSL2+ from CO or RT with speeds of 18, 10, 5, 3, 1.5 and .76 based upon copper loop length up to 2.5 miles at .76. Upload will be 1M or less on all speed tiers of ADSL2+. Over 20 million addresses have this option.

 

The current direct fiber deployment has over 10 million addresses in 21 states as of end 2018 with another 3 million to be added in 2019. This offers 100, 300, 500 or 1000.

 

Note... Internet speeds 10-100 is $50 for 12 months, higher after. All of above have 1T data cap with unlimited available for extra $30 per month if not bundling with tv package. Overage charge is $10/50G up to $100 per month. $99 installation, 1 year contract promotion, $180 early termination fee pro rated $15 per month.

 

The 4th possible ATT internet option is Fixed Wireless, installed by DirecTv contractor requires an antenna with wiring to gateway. $99 installation, $60 per month for 12 months. 170G standard data cap, overage charge $10/50G up to $200 a month, no unlimited option other than max overage charge of $200 plus $60 for monthly service. Generally available in rural settings where ATT hardwired service is not offered. Scheduled for 1.1 million addresses in 18 states by end 2020.

 

The ATT internet TOS is worth reading concerning limits and network management. Port 25 is blocked by default, requires $49 charge to ConnecTech to unblock, generally only done do on business accounts with SLA.

Expert

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15K Messages

5 years ago

Some, if not all of that info can be found if you take the time to search it out.  Check the Availability page to see what offers exist as a function of location and thus some of your questions cannot be answered unless you choose a location.  Check the att web site.  You could also ask or find some of the technical stuff on the DSLReports att forum.

Former Employee

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32.9K Messages

5 years ago

this isnt at&t this is a customer forum we are all customers.

Tutor

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6 Messages

5 years ago

Yes, I see your disclaimer there...

 

So the question then becomes, how do I ask AT&T these presales questions and get answers in writing?  There doesn't appear to be an email address to send them to.  Do I need to snail mail a letter somewhere?  Call into customer service and record the call for posterity?

 

I'm simply trying to find out the parameters for the service they are offering so that I can compare them to everyone else available.  As I am choosing my location, I actually have some ability to comparison shop.

 

I've been lied to by customer service reps from different companies enough times to know I really need to get it in writing.  I don't want to get the wrong info and then be locked into service that doesn't meet my expectations.

ACE - Professor

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5.9K Messages

5 years ago

Click on the broadband details link and the legal policy center link at the bottom of any att.com page. 

 

https://www.att.com/shop/unified/availability.html

 

To to see what services available and costs per month. 

Former Employee

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22.5K Messages

5 years ago

I like broadbandnow.com to check ISPs by zip code with general coverage map for each. My zipcode has three different telco providers, the exact address determines if ATT is an option or not.

Tutor

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6 Messages

5 years ago

Thanks my thoughts, that's the most useful answer so far.

 

I thought I would update this thread with a bit of info.  In at least one market I'm considering, I have been able to get answers to all my questions from all the other major players besides AT&T.  I would expect this level of difficulty getting basic, but detailed, information about what exactly is being offered doesn't bode well for any ongoing relationship.

 

Do you think there is any possibility AT&T would be interested in matching or beating it's competitors in a particular market?

 

Former Employee

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32.9K Messages

5 years ago

the prices are the prices they dont do price matching neither deos charter,comcast etc.

Tutor

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6 Messages

5 years ago

If they don't want to negotiate and their service is slower and more expensive, I guess they'll lose my business.

 

I find it interesting that in most markets the big guys beat out the smaller guys due to scale. (e.g. Walmart vs. the local corner store) However, in this market, it seems the little guys often beat out the big guys in terms of price, speed, service, and performance.

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