At first ATT salespeople called to say I’d need to switch to U-Verse by a certain date or I would lose my internet service.
Making some enquiries, I found that this was not the case. Eventually, an ATT rep. from Texas confirmed that what I’d been told initially was completely false. I was also told that as I stayed with DSL, my service would actually speed up as people moved to U-Verse!
Fibre optic is wonderful, I’m sure. But my deeper concern was that switching to U-Verse meant losing land-line capability in the event of a power outage. Yes, there is a battery back-up for a few hours, but last time we lost power, it was for days. I made, and received, several critical phone calls during that time period via the reliable land line feeding the simple phone on the wall.
Since then, here’s the pattern that’s emerged… My internet connectivity slows to a crawl. I call DSL tech support, and the rep. says “my account” has to call the “migration” phone number. I then insist on having my DSL restored. It’s then restored to normal connectivity. Then, after a week or so, the connectivity ceases, I call, receive the “migration” number, have to insist on re-connectivity, get my connection restored, and resume the pattern.
Perhaps the move to Fibre Optic is irresistible. Fine. Say so. At least I can move to a much faster system using COMCAST/xfinity.
But, playing games with a decades long paying customer, and forcing migration to a new product by withholding existing tech support is terrible customer service.
Companies need to remember that customers needing support aren’t competitors, they’re the first line of loyal support.
BillKeane Perceptions 
Hello I’m a uverse tech and I agree that we haven’t handled this the best way possible. The migration is essentially forced through lack of support for the outdated DSL infrastructure, and that’s not exactly how it was pitched to consumers. I don’t have the slightest say in marketing but we definitely used the playbook of many companies and just stopped supporting something until it was so unbearable to use that consumers would have to move. That said, you can still purchase land line POTS (plain ol telephone service) on the uverse platform as that infrastructure is in place and is cheap to repair and maintain. The rub is that it runs you POTS prices on a separate bill instead of bundling VoIP on uverse and getting it for a fraction of the cost. You are right about the battery however. I’m guessing we don’t see the battery as much of a problem as most people have a cell these days. The real push for the migration is to propel customers towards a platform that can support higher overall bandwidths allowing for many other multimedia uses than just DSL or POTS. The communications market has expanded so rapidly that our DSL had outlived its usefulness and market viability and thus we’ve tried to move people off it; gently at first and now more forcefully. I know it’s not fun to be forced to change a service you’re familiar with but I promise that this is where the future is and uverse can and will do things unimaginable just a short time ago. Please stick with us. Thanks
Hey Thanks for the comments! The original post is from quite sometime ago, and indeed, we stayed with ATT. Since then, Frontier has taken over…
To your points, the issue with ATT was over the fact that for about two years we were given false information about the ability to retain a discreet, non-battery dependent land-line, while moving to U-Verse for internet.
When an ATT employee straight out said, “They’re lying to you,” believe me, I took that seriously. Lo and behold, what were were told wasn’t possible, was easily done.
I LOVE digital internet, but having worked in two disaster areas, and having no power for several days at home, cell-phones aren’t the final answer in secure communications.
In any case, thanks again. We did stay with your company, but your company was bought out in our state.