AT&T U-Verse problems

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j Paul

j Paul

PFG, Picture Framing God
Joined
Feb 23, 2004
Posts
7,299
Loc
Toledo,Ohio
Got to get this off my chest first - AT&T U-VERSE SUCKS

When we moved to our new location this past April we were told by AT&T that we had to switch to U-Verse as DSL was no longer available. (LIE) Since April our U-Verse connection has been spotty at best. I have had 4 or 5 in store service calls and although the problem seems to get fixed within hours or days it pops its ugly head back up.

My router looks like a Xmas tree with blinking green and red lights. Service will come on and off. The techs have changed things at some remote box / in the box on the outside of the building / at the box in the building / changed out filter on the back of their router. When they run tests, they can see a history of all of the outages - when they do their fix and run tests it all appears fine until the next time. Then even when I call the tech on his phone I have to submit another repair ticket and go through it all again. As I type this, I don't know if I will even have service when I hid submit.

Our local cable provider does not service my plaza. When I do a search for internet providers ( 43528 ) only AT&T comes up. Is there another way to get internet at the store other than through AT&T? My CC's run through my POS and I am afraid that I will have a customer in when it is down and no way to take their payment.
 
If your processor supports it, get a credit card reader for your cell phone or change to a provider that does. Paypal has a decent reader and so do other services. Google "cell phone credit card reader" or similar for all you can read.
 
Anything from AT&T seems slow and unreliable, at best. They used to represent quality about 20 years ago, not so much any more.

Is u-Verse their fiber/fios solution?

Verizon Fios is what we have at home and it has NEVER been down. It's really reliable.

We had Cox Cable/Cox Communications for about 20 years, and they were good until the past 5 or so years. They have become very unreliable with outages weekly at the shop. We suddenly lose phones and internet quite often, and I cant tell you how many times Ive had them out. The same happens at my other job in another city, also on Cox. The grumble is also on the Cox network, in yet another part of the state, and has had quite a few outages.

I dont think DSL has been available here for about 8 years. It was replaced by FIOS, which I believe they sell in 15/5 (but its actually 25/10), or 75/25 speeds. Theres also one that is over 100, but it costs a fortune.
 
Community ISP in Toledo may offer wireless internet via Motorola Canopy radios. If not, they may be able to point you towards someone who has a Canopy backbone in the area.

The other option is to do as Larry suggested or tether your smartphone into your POS computer
 
I don't have a cell phone, let alone a smart phone. I am always tied to either the land line here at the shop or home. When ever I really need a cell phone we have my wifes ( Don't Laugh ) old flip phone for $10.00 per month piggy-backed onto our adult daughters cell plan.
 
We didn't have more than a flip phone until we got the smartphone mainly as a backup to our current internet provider.

I would be surprised if there was not a wireless internet provider specializing in Motorola Canopy systems in the Toledo area. This is not a cellphone setup. It is fixed microwave system.
 
I don't know how expensive or fast it would be, but you should be able to get a Verizon mobile wifi access point. It would use a cell signal but provide data to local devices, kinda like sharing a data connection off your smartphone. When we were in Europe this spring we rented a portable one that provided WiFi directly for up to 4 devices at a time. Worked like a charm.

See http://www.verizonwireless.com/wcms/consumer/shop/share-everything.html
 
John, I am looking at doing something similar, but more from a cost savings mode. I have been looking at using a smart phone as my shop phone and internet provider. Using an app like FoxFi/PDAnet and Republic Wireless $40 unlimited everything plan. The smart phone would be $299.

I am waiting till Sprint finishes their upgrade to 4G LTE in the Columbus area.
 
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