Sadly AT&T DSL is my only option for high speed internet in my area.
For most things, including VPN for work and gaming it works well. It has, however, become so unreliable I'm about to smash kitten and take a dump on a butterfly.
It will go along for a period of time, maybe hours, just fine. Then suddenly it will drop service for just a few seconds. Just long enough for the red light on the modem to turn on. Then service comes back and I'm back in business. Only problem is this service interruption is long enough to kick me out of online games or a VPN. Screws up video conferences and internet phone calls too.
AT&T has come to the house a few times now. They swear service into my house is 8 to 12 megs when I'm paying for 6 (or whatever their "top end" DSL is called). They can see the dropped service on their end and I've gotten credits off the bill because of it.
Here's some of the things I've done in an attempt to solve the issue.
* New modem. Tried a Netgear N6000 and now using the AT&T standard Netgear 7550.
* Disconnected every other phone line in the house except the one leading to my computer
* Had AT&T "clear the line". This typically helps for a day or two then the disconnects happen again.
Figured I'd check with the arfcom experts especially after seeing another thread tonight mentioning changing from shitty ISP DNS servers to google. Not sure if this would solve my problems, or is even remotely related in any way.
Next step is to call the facility technician back and have him start crawling my attic and/or the aforementioned duce on a butterfly. I will hound them to the point they either identify the problem or disconnect my service for being a PITA customer. Just thought someone here might have a simple answer.