AT&T Broadband Local Phone (Their Digital Phone Service) vs. Verizon For Local Phone ?

Edwards Finance > Phones

Q. My son is about to move to Canton, Mass., and was about to sign up for local phone service with Verizon. Guess it's almost a reflex; you automaticall plan on getting your local, and possibly long distance, with Verizon. Anyway, we noticed that AT&T Broadband has what they call their Digital Phone Service; for local (and long dist., too, of course) Never knew anyone who used them with this for local phone service. Any comments regarding their digital service vs the normal Verizon ones for local phone service would be most appreciated.

A. Having once been on the receiving end of AT&T's "customer service", my advice to you is to throw up your arms and run away screaming from AT&T as fast as your legs will carry you. All of the telecomm companies suck in their own special ways, but AT&T doesn't deserve your business, at any price for any service. Probably only cost effective if you have two lines. That was the cost decision issue for me. I don't live in a Verizon service are, but AT&T was about the same price as SBC on a single line. The second line was dirt cheap, like $6 a month with the same features. Billing was a SNAFU. They billed at the wrong long distance rate for the first two months I had their service. I had to make more than one phone call to get them to correct the amount each month and finally get the rate correct. Then in October, they changed their billing system. Apparently they were not ready to move the long distance portion of the service to the new platform at the time. Instead of waiting to make one smooth change, they moved the local service billing to the new system, moved long distance two months later. This meant I got two bills. This caused some confusion as I was paying bills on line. The result was I overpaid my long distance, and didn't pay the local portion. It got all #@*&% up. They raised my high speed internet access charge, and the writing is on the wall for more increases. AT&T Broadband "merged" with Comcast. Actually, Comcast took over. They have already announced that they will not be expanding the digital phone service into new markets, so I question their commitment to it. Comcast is just a cable TV company - you can trust that they will start treating their phone customers just like cable customers. Someone pointed out here a while back - - If AT&T had someone standing on the street handing out $100 bills, you should run in the opposite direction. I "fired" AT&T as both my phone and internet provider in December.

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