Help! ATT DSL Sales Weird Math

Jun 06, 2008 2 Replies

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Perplexed 18 years ago

Today I made the mistake of calling ATT to get a simple question answered before buying their "Basic" 768K DSL. After one of those nightmarish jack-arounds that lasted for nearly twenty minutes without getting my question answered, I hung up on the creep and didn't buy...but listen to what he told me, during what was one of the most relentless bait-and-switch efforts I have EVER encountered:

The 768K Basic DSL is "only slightly faster than dialup." [!!!]

ATT's site says "10X faster than dialup."

Who's lying at ATT?

But a nominal 768K DSL should be almost 15X faster than a nominal

54K v.90 modem (especially in advertising puffery), right?

Can anyone explain this mystery math?

Thanks!

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ps56k 18 years ago

- BTW, you do realize that ADSL download and upload have different speeds ? and that a modem is "usually" running at 33.6... unless one end is a digital termination.

So 10x is about right for upload, and 22x for download or 15x for combined :)

ATT website snipet ---->

Our AT&T High Speed Internet Basic is up to 10x faster than dial-up-at a great low price. A great package for those who use the Internet primarily for email and small downloads of 1MB or less. More customers have chosen AT&T than any other high-speed Internet provider.*

IP Address: 1 Dynamic Downstream Speed: Up to 768 Kbps Upstream Speed: Up to 384 Kbps

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Hactar 18 years ago

I think you're assuming "best case" and he's giving you "worst case" figures. Note also that (as others have said) a "56k" modem is only

33.6k _or less_ for uploading.

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