I want to drop Time Warner Cable for AT&T DSL Elite... good idea?

I have heard terrible stories from friends about AT&T. They all report that their actual cost is more than what was quoted to them. If you go to AT&T get everything in writing and understand the costs. Check http://consumerist.com for some of their tricks.

Kill your TV, I threw mine away about 3 years ago, my life is much better, healthier and more productive. Why don’t you cancel all the service to save money for rises gas prices, or go by a gun for when all hell breaks loose. :)

I have had both. I thought cable modem was faster. Mine was also mostly trouble free. I switched because of price and because I knew the cable company was tracking what I watched on TV (because they were marketing to me based on that and letting third parties market to me) so I was afraid they were doing the same with my Web surfing.

1. It is cheaper. 2. It is not as fast, but certainly fast enough for my purposes. 3. It goes out more. Their customer service offshore is awful (the people in the US are good.) Usually, I have never been without for more than an hour. I have a splitter on my line that allows me to use the computer and talk on the phone at the same time.

Give it a try. You could always go back. It sounds like you have a worse cable provider than I do.

@marina: Switching back actually might be a pain since DSL typically requires a one year contract.

Time Warner is usually pretty good about making things right once you can get to a high enough level. Another thing to do in the future is to get the cell phone number of the technician—that way many times you can just call them directly.

Hmm, I don’t think I had a contract. I did not sign anything, but I got it through Bellsouth which then bought AT&T.

Marina: the telco and cable companies are most definitely watching your web and tv habits. This info is like gold to them. Check your contracts or AUPs with them as most will disclose that they collect metrics.

There are several anonymizers out there. I happen to use the tor network with pretty good success.

@tekn0lust Do you have a link to info on that anonymizer? I would like to read about it.

http://www.torproject.org/

There are others even some subscription based ones but I don’t use them personally.

Thanks very much, tnl!

Hi—I’m really sorry to hear that you are so frustrated with Time Warner Cable—If I were in your shoes, I would be, too. I’m the director of digital communications here, and I may be able to help solve some of your problems. Please e-mail me at jeff.simmermon@twcable.com—please let me know your phone number and location in the e-mail and I should be able to cut some red tape for you.

@jeffsimmermonTWC great marketing move! Welcome to the collective.

I know Mr. Simmermon has publicly posted his contact info before, so I may take him up on that, even if this poster here turns out to be a fake.

There’s quite a few historical issues with the service… but really, what could be done about it?

@lovelocke: Yup, it’s valid. There’s a real person on the other side.

I’ve had time warner also and it was pretty good for the most part. But back in June my service went down and it took them a month to get the problem resolved. Their tech support had to be the worst. I canceled the service during that month, only to find out it later that they did not follow through with the cancellation.

So I kept it. Until last Sunday, where it went down again for 2 days straight. Fed up, I called and canceled again. Only to be able to login to the Time Warner again the next day. Meaning again, they did not follow through with the cancellation. By I have already ordered AT&T’s DSL Elite and it was setup today.

So far, AT&T’s DSL Elite package is not as fast as Time Warner’s. But it is working. I liked Time Warner’s speed and downloads when it is working, but I hated their customer service. I will probably continue to try both for a month and then end up cancelling one.

For basic surfing the web and stuff like that AT&T DSL Elite isn’t bad. TWC is alot better for downloads, but only if its up…