at&t

I was browsing AT&T's site the other day after a salesman came to my door asking if I was interested in U-Verse now that it was available in my area. The cost for internet was too good to pass up- $35/mo for 6Mbit/1Mbit (even though the salesman sold it as 6Mbit/3Mbit).

Two days before the installation is to take place, I received a phone call from a woman who speaks extremely broken English telling me the install cannot be done for another week. Fine. I'll wait.

On the day of the installation, there was no tech in sight during the installation window of 2-4pm. I had received no word except an automated "We hope you enjoy your new service" call shortly after the window. I waited an hour to give him the benefit of the doubt, but my wife was getting anxious to go to dinner. So I placed a call to figure out where this guy was at. Ten minutes into the phone call, we were disconnected (AT&T has been shutting off towers in my area, so my service goes between G and Edge, sometimes gets 3G, but disconnects often). I called back, and fifteen minutes later I get a hold of someone that says the install tech will call me when he is on his way. Great.

Ifram (the tech) calls me shortly after and says he is about five minutes away. Cool. It's only been almost two hours since the install window closed. Ifram and I layout how I want the network to go, and where it needs to come in from the outside. Cool. The install itself takes a good hour and a half, but it works. TV is there, but I don't want the TV portion anyway (but I had to have it installed for a free install).

So I run a few speed tests and note that I'm only getting 1.5Mbit down, but 1Mbit up. I call their support, who is able to troubleshoot and fix the issue in about 45 minutes. Now I've got full 6Mbit down and 1Mbit up. This is 1/3 less than the 3Mbit up the salesman sold me on. It's not a deal breaker, but it certainly doesn't make me happy with the service off the bat.
I take a look at the router/gateway device, and notice that it 1) Doesn't allow for static addresses not in the DHCP scope and 2) Has a very poor implementation of port forwarding.

My wrt54gl running DD-WRT is plugged in behind the R/G, and since it is now set to be a DHCP forwarder, all my current static allocations are transferred to the 2Wire. It's not pretty, but it works.

Now, on to port forwarding. Port forwarding allows me to connect to my computers when I am not at home. I generally open up 1723 for VPN's, 443 to my server's webmin install, 8888 for gnump3d on my server, 10101 to the router, 10102 and 10103 to my server, and 10104 to my main computer. There are also a few more for Skype, and various video game consoles.

This all may sound complicated, but in reality it is necessary for my mom to connect to me (both for troubleshooting and to grab photos of my daughter), my father-in-law to connect to me (for the same), and for me to connect to my computers at home for troubleshooting and moving files around.

Right away, no port forwarding works. After a little tweaking, I am able to get 443 and 8888 to go to their respective services. But 10102 and 10103 just will not forward to my linux server. I tried changing the settings for a few days, but last night I broke down and called AT&T's support center. After talking to a nice gentleman for about an hour, he was unable to resolve the issue. In addition, we were disconnected and he didn't call back.

I waited ten minutes for a call back, and decided to call again. This time I spoke to a girl with an indistinguishable accent. In 20 minutes she is unable to resolve my issue, and unwilling to forward me to Tier 2 technical support. In her defense, I was rather stubborn at the beginning of the phone call and stated firmly that my only wish was to be forwarded on to Tier 2. About 30 minutes into this call, she is unable to fix my issue, unwilling to forward me on, and has offered to transfer me to their paid technical support.

U-Verse has been installed for less than a week and they are trying to get me to PAY to provide support on THEIR device. This whole issue, and my whole complaint with the U-Verse service lies solely with the 2Wire router/gateway device and the fact that DHCP and Port Forwarding are completely bass-ackwards and just do not work.
The Tier 1 tech support girl mentions she is unable to resolve the issue unless I pay for service, at which time I ask to speak to her manager. She then places me on hold, and comes back a few minutes later saying her manager has stepped out, and she will put me through to Tier 2. Finally.

I speak to a friendly english-speaking lady with Tier 2 who is MUCH more knowledgeable about the subjects I am talking about, and who, after 20 minutes, informs me that this just cannot be done. Satisfied with her answer, my only recourse is to disconnect U-Verse and go back to DSL (or way back to cable internet).



Here's my little pro/con list after using U-Verse for about a week:

So what would make U-Verse better?
Easy: Options. Let me use MY device as the router/switch/AP and AT&T's device as TV-only. I understand that this may require a little tweaking, but my DD-WRT is 100x more useful and effective than the 2Wire ever will be.
I don't imagine the service will change any time soon, so as a result I have contacted AT&T and canceled U-Verse and re-ordered DSL. That transition should go smoother, but I guess we'll wait and see.