Some drops in service on my DSL occurred in the past few days. Considerable time was spent talking with/waiting for AT&T support techs, and I feel inspired to give some technical advice – a rare event, as technical is not the first adjective most people would apply to me.
Yesterday’s half-hour didn’t yield perfect progress, though the AT&T lady talked me into paying $5 more a month for a higher-speed DSL with home wireless network thrown in. The wireless part was what had been bothering me, as it simply wasn’t there sometimes to keep my laptop going. And, with hindsight, I also was sensing that the DSL service direct-wired to my desktop computer wasn’t always as hot as it was supposed to be.
So today, upon powerup, when the wireless was down again and the laptop therefore ineffective, I got on the phone again to the support crew, and 45 minutes later had been through the wringer of speed tests and rewiring two computers.
My technical advice is this: If you have AT&T DSL service, don’t accept sluggish speed or wireless networking that clicks on and off. This can be fixed. Call support. (888-321-2375) They will check with the line techs and test connections and speed. They said my circuit was showing some drops, and to fix it they gave my circuit a higher priority at the “Dee-slam.” What’s that? Well, part of the circuit where the signal is sent to me.
Check on Wikipedia for DSLAM and it’s revealed as Digital Subscriber Line Multiplexer.
Here endeth the technical advice for the day.
I’m glad to say that the accents of the AT&T support staff both days indicated that African-American women of the Deep South were fielding my requests, and they were good at their jobs.
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