Horrendous AT&T cell service

[JHZR2]

Ive had ATT for a long time. We have a good plan, unlimited, etc. But more and more Ive found them to be completely unreliable.

Too often Ill have 2-3 bard of 5G or 5GE and I can’t get anywhere. I can’t get onto this site which loaded perfectly and fast with 3G data.

There’s one locstion, in a well traveled area, that the data is non existent. It says you have bars of 5G but it will absolutely not go out, and no app, Speedtest, etc all say the phone is offline. No internet data at all. Don’t do a single thing but drive a half mile in either direction and it all works.

Calling ATT in that one spot and theynsay that there’s more LTE coverage and to force it on my phone. No difference. Is there a way to complain about service issues in a particular spot?

I was someplace with my brother who recently changed to t-mobile. I wanted to check the weather. It wouldn’t load on ATT.. He got it instantly on t-mobile.

I travel a lot, this is the same everywhere… And Verizon isn’t much better…

is anyone else experiencing big issues with ATT?

 

[UG_Passat]

Nope. I have all my family's phones on 5G, with my ATT 5G plan

 

[JavierH19]

Are you sure it's not one of those awful deprioritized unlimited plans. Verizon would deprioritize me in the city so bad even the weather app would take 10 seconds to load and other things were impossible. I've since upgraded to a plan above since the suffering wasn't worth the small monthly cost saving for when i needed it the most. I would be just fine with a steady consistent 2mbps. But when deprioritized the worst speed i measured with fast.com was 51kbps and with 3 bars of 4g.

 

[MNgopher]

No changes in att service for me. Been a customer for a long time and also on an unlimited plan.

May want to check your phone device out as well.

 

[spackard]

Your phone should have *# codes you can dial to check what frequency you’re using and what reception is like. Try: *3001#12345#*

 

[brianl703]

Louis Rossmann on YT had several videos complaining about AT&T's data service within the last few months.

 

[GON]

Ive had ATT for a long time. We have a good plan, unlimited, etc. But more and more Ive found them to be completely unreliable.

Too often Ill have 2-3 bard of 5G or 5GE and I can’t get anywhere. I can’t get onto this site which loaded perfectly and fast with 3G data.

There’s one locstion, in a well traveled area, that the data is non existent. It says you have bars of 5G but it will absolutely not go out, and no app, Speedtest, etc all say the phone is offline. No internet data at all. Don’t do a single thing but drive a half mile in either direction and it all works.

Calling ATT in that one spot and theynsay that there’s more LTE coverage and to force it on my phone. No difference. Is there a way to complain about service issues in a particular spot?

I was someplace with my brother who recently changed to t-mobile. I wanted to check the weather. It wouldn’t load on ATT.. He got it instantly on t-mobile.

I travel a lot, this is the same everywhere… And Verizon isn’t much better…

is anyone else experiencing big issues with ATT?

No offense, but ATT has huge debt to service, most of their business are oligopolies. I would not expect them too ever be better then they are today. ATT will continue to spend billions on marketing and lobbyist though.

Unless someone (like Elon Musk) can provide a market disrupter- consolidation in the cell and internet delivery service will continue to see degradation of performance and increases in monthly charges.

AT&T spent 1.2 BILLION for the naming rights to Cowboys stadium. And who knows how many more hundreds of millions for private suites and club seats at the stadium. Sure they could have spent that 1.2 billion on infrastructure.... but this is what happens when your businesses are oligopolies.

 

[Soft Cars]

I have an AT&T land line. Costs me $11 per month. No issues.

 

[Zee09]

Yup
The last 6 months it stinks.
High priced and slow. It really sucks lately.
I want to get rid of it soon.
When I go to Oxford PA I can't even order most of the time at a drive thru...

 

[wwillson]

Ive had ATT for a long time. We have a good plan, unlimited, etc. But more and more Ive found them to be completely unreliable.

Too often Ill have 2-3 bard of 5G or 5GE and I can’t get anywhere. I can’t get onto this site which loaded perfectly and fast with 3G data.

There’s one locstion, in a well traveled area, that the data is non existent. It says you have bars of 5G but it will absolutely not go out, and no app, Speedtest, etc all say the phone is offline. No internet data at all. Don’t do a single thing but drive a half mile in either direction and it all works.

Calling ATT in that one spot and theynsay that there’s more LTE coverage and to force it on my phone. No difference. Is there a way to complain about service issues in a particular spot?

I was someplace with my brother who recently changed to t-mobile. I wanted to check the weather. It wouldn’t load on ATT.. He got it instantly on t-mobile.

I travel a lot, this is the same everywhere… And Verizon isn’t much better…

is anyone else experiencing big issues with ATT?

Go into your settings and turn off 5G. The 5G your phone uses is mid-band and C-band frequencies. The download speeds can be fabulous WHEN you are close to the tower. As you move away, the higher frequencies get attenuated by tree leaves and anything else between you and the tower. When you shut off 5G, your phone will not use the higher frequencies and you'll have a much better user experience.

 

[wwillson]

No offense, but ATT has huge debt to service, most of their business are oligopolies. I would not expect them too ever be better then they are today. ATT will continue to spend billions on marketing and lobbyist though.

Unless someone (like Elon Musk) can provide a market disrupter- consolidation in the cell and internet delivery service will continue to see degradation of performance and increases in monthly charges.

AT&T spent 1.2 BILLION for the naming rights to Cowboys stadium. And who knows how many more hundreds of millions for private suites and club seats at the stadium. Sure they could have spent that 1.2 billion on infrastructure.... but this is what happens when your businesses are oligopolies.

AT&T has spent about $20 BILLION on infrastructure every year for the last 20 years. The network has been almost entirely replace several times over the last two decades. I see the network performance reports and trust me, the performance today is far ahead of yesteryear.

 

[GON]

AT&T has spent about $20 BILLION on infrastructure every year for the last 20 years. The network has been almost entirely replace several times over the last two decades. I see the network performance reports and trust me, the performance today is far ahead of yesteryear.

Att may be spending 20 billion annually on capex, but for only one of three major cell phone national providers, not sure what that breaks down to. And for note, I use ATT for my cell service and have since 2015.

Att stock is at a near 30 year low. It's debt levels are monsterous. Att maybe be exposed to billions of dollars in lawsuits for alleged lead water table contamination from its buried cables.

Att is not the company it was 50 years ago. Att excels in lobbying and what I call trickery billing practices. It is not a leader in much if anything, nor is it a company I see a Warren Buffett looking to invest in.

I wouldn't be shocked if that annual 20 billion in capex is funny accounting. Move expenses into capex, and delay the hit to the bottom line, and make expenses look like assetts. Not saying they are doing this, but would not be shocked if a forensic audit determined that.

 

[Wrenchturner44]

I would add also from an investing POV, with the 3 major carriers it is a race to the bottom on profitability.

Listen to this podcast to find out more. https://www.grantspub.com/podcasts.cfm?podcastform=4

 

[GON]

I would add also from an investing POV, with the 3 major carriers it is a race to the bottom on profitability.

Listen to this podcast to find out more. https://www.grantspub.com/podcasts.cfm?podcastform=4

WT,

The site makes one provide information to access the podcast .

A quick google search showed ATT's CEO 2022 compensation was about 22 million dollars. Not to shabby- might be well earned with all the debt ATT is servicing.

 

[JHZR2]

Go into your settings and turn off 5G. The 5G your phone uses is mid-band and C-band frequencies. The download speeds can be fabulous WHEN you are close to the tower. As you move away, the higher frequencies get attenuated by tree leaves and anything else between you and the tower. When you shut off 5G, your phone will not use the higher frequencies and you'll have a much better user experience.

At my one property I called 611 to report/complain, thinking maybe something was down. This is what they told me to do. My iPhone never found LTE even with a reboot. It works to find LTE elsewhere when I’ve since done this trick so it’s not my phone, it seems. It’s a dead area. Yet the signal strength indicates otherwise.

It’s not clear how one reports major service issues to ATT for further investigation without waiting on hold for an hour with 611. And that may not even do it.

And that’s not to mention poor performance when I have service in many places. Here’s an example of miserable response times. A fine push of data speeds to download, but it’s almost like the requests can’t go out..

Quite often it just can’t connect to speedtest, BITOG, google, you name it. Even slower than this

Yup
The last 6 months it stinks.
High priced and slow. It really sucks lately.
I want to get rid of it soon.
When I go to Oxford PA I can't even order most of the time at a drive thru...

That was one of the things that has clued me in more than once. I’ve been at places with “rewards” cards on my phone and the apps have said I’m “offline”, even with multiple bars of service. No settings, restarts, etc. have fixed it. Leaving the area does.

 

[JHZR2]

AT&T has spent about $20 BILLION on infrastructure every year for the last 20 years. The network has been almost entirely replace several times over the last two decades. I see the network performance reports and trust me, the performance today is far ahead of yesteryear.

Download speeds when in a strong zone are indeed great. Connectivity in congested areas (eg, stadiums, cities) also seems to have improved quite a bit. When it’s connected well and fast, it’s fast.

But in more and more places, just connecting to sites like BITOG, which loaded perfect and fast on my iPhone 3s with whatever old network they had back then, are slow to load. Apps won’t load data needs to function. And it’s gotten worse in the last six months or so in more areas. And I’m rarely in the boonies…

 

[PWMDMD]

Att is a terrible company that has year after year been horribly mismanaged. As soon as they bought DirectTV it went downhill. I get one bar at home and the only thing that saves this is the phone over Wifi feature. Even their website is terrible. I can't believe in 2023 it takes 30-45 seconds to retrieve my account information. I haven't changed because I still get calls over Wifi and I'm not on their website all that often.

 

[jeepman3071]

AT&T is awful, but Verizon isn't much better. This is what happens when you have a few companies who own most of the market. Poor service? They laugh and tell you to kick rocks knowing you have limited options.

 

[CarDoc66]

I have AT&T my friends have Verizon. AT&T is terrible.

 

[Zee09]

AT&T is awful, but Verizon isn't much better. This is what happens when you have a few companies who own most of the market. Poor service? They laugh and tell you to kick rocks knowing you have limited options.

Most who have had Verizon here had to walk outside to make a phone call.