A tale of two companies: AT&T can you hear me?

I have been a satisfied AT&T wireless customer since car phones were installed in your car.  When we moved, it was easy to recommend them to Frank for our new home…  

Frank and I decided about 3 months ago to make a move in our lives.  We sold our house in Austin and the plan is to split our time between closer to family splitting our time between Longview, TX where his family lives and mine in Savannah, GA.  The house is very nice, about 1800 sq. feet and close to Frank's Mom who has been very welcoming and helpful in our move.

This email is about something simple, that went off the rails, all we wanted was to setup TV and Internet service at our new home in Longview.   In the last few years due to changes in homes from Florida to Austin, and now to Longview we have done this more times than most so you would think this would be easy?  Well, not so... we chose AT&T as what we thought we would be a reliable service and DirectTV for TV service.  My parents have DirectTV and are happy, so this seemed like a logical choice as compared to the local cable company.

Well, this all started back in Austin.  Frank got online with an agent to request TV Cable and Wireless Internet.  We thought wireless internet meant setting up the connection at home with a Wi-Fi router as it was to Spectrum and Comcast.  This is where the problem began, see AT&T doesn't have a broadband or wired internet service in Longview.  But, guess what, they have what they call Wireless Internet service which is a faster modem cell connection to the Internet.  We got the device via FedEx and connected it to the phone jack (as it has a phone line) and from that experience you would never know this wasn't a traditional internet service to your home until you get a bill that shows it has an actual phone number.  (Only on the bill did it say AT&T does not provide internet service to Longview).

So, on one side, this is exciting the service is slower than normal cable access but it was acceptable and as a potential two home family, if it worked from both homes, this would be something interesting down the road but this not what we thought we purchased.  In the future of 5G this would be exciting but today where we both work from home and enjoy streaming music and Netflix and you can imagine how quickly we would burn through a 50GB monthly limit.

So, frustrated already that what we thought we were sold was something totally different.  The rep online never mentioned they did not have traditional internet service in Longview and went ahead and sold the Wireless Internet service they provided to bundle with DirectTV.

Let's move on to DirectTV.  We had installed this week.  To start with, the installer could not get a cable to connect to our cable outlet in the living room.  So, to provide an outlet they had to add another hole to the wall and never asked if that was OK with us.   His job was to give us TV service, and until he was ready to leave didn't speak too much other than to show us how to use the remote control.

So, we have an Internet Connect that is wireless with a 50GB data limit and DirectTV that is supposed to have comparable services as cable such as DVR and On-Demand video.  We thought this was all through their satellite, but guess whatt DirectTV uses for the DVR and on-demand services?    They use your home Internet connection and not the Satellite.  So, that cellular modem is our access to the Internet that AT&T sold us as part of the package with a 50GB limit and moving at cell phone speed.  When Frank accessed DirectTV trying to access On-Demand services he got an error message that our internet speed is not fast enough for their on-demand video services.  So, we were sold a service and package that will not work as ordered and installed.

We get it, maybe were said "wireless" and they took it to mean their "wireless internet" branded offering.  But  how can you sell a packaged offering that you know can't possibly work as delivered.  The connection is quick but not nearly fast enough to stream video that their own DirectTV service will need to work smoothly and will obviously burn through a 50GB data limit quickly.  So, bad internet connectivity that makes the DirectTV service sluggish and unusable should not have been sold in the first place.

Now, you think this would be easy to remedy. Call AT&T and cancel the order and service.  The Internet service was after we closed two weeks ago.  We didn't get here till Sunday so our experience with both services has been horrible and we just want out.  Frank called a few times yesterday and got nowhere as they had entered the wrong pin number when he ordered the service.  You would imagine that in today's world they would have another way to validate a person by phone but no, he had to go to the AT&T store and have someone change his pin number in person, but get this they couldn't handle the cancellation so he had to come home and start out with the phone calling again.   Again he had to speak to someone at AT&T who wouldn't agree to cancel the services without him speaking to technical support first.  So he called the tech support line, and first you have to try their voice prompted testing of the service.   Once he did that and still said it wasn't working, then the next person he spoke to finally routed him to a cancellation desk where there was finally a competent person who understood the challenge and helped us cancel the AT&T Internet service and DirectTV.   

I have never ever experienced this low class of service and would have expected this from other companies but not AT&T.