When I finally got a computer in my apartment last August, the first thing I did was consider what Internet Service Provider I was going to sign up with. I had been accustomed to broadband access prior to moving and I was not interested in going back to dial-up. That left me with two options, cable Internet or AT&T FastAccess DSL service. I was not impressed with the service I'd received from my cable company in the previous year or the price they charged for basic Internet service, so I decided to try AT&T's DSL service.

I signed-up online using a computer at work and was impressed with how easy it was to do. AT&T's website broke down the cost of everything and even included the appropriate local taxes when it tabulated what my monthly bill would be. I was also setting up phone service (not having had a land line previous to this) and was pleased to see that my phone service was activated in just days. The most annoying thing about the sign-up was that AT&T told me that it would be three weeks before they would send my self-install kit for FastAccess DSL. I wanted to get on the Internet quickly and I felt like I was paying for part of a month of DSL service that I couldn't use.

Finally my self-install kit arrived (very nearly on the exact day that AT&T told me it would). I eagerly opened the box, happy that I was finally going to get on the Internet. At this point, I'm sure you are expecting me to tell you that it took days and I had to call someone out to the house to get it set up. I expected something like that to happen, not have had great success with self-install kits in the past, but the directions from AT&T were simple and straightforward. I determined which filter I needed and how to install it on my phone line, plugged the appropriate cables in and inserted the setup CD into my disk drive. At that point I did have some issues, but they had nothing to do with AT&T's programs and everything to do with my hand-me-down computer system and its peculiar glitches. It took several runs of the setup CD but the actual setup was quite simple and in a reasonably short amount of time I was online.

When my first bill arrived, I was a bit confused because it didn't match what I'd been told, as far as how my modem cost was figured in, but I figured it out. The bill is absolutely the same every month, which is more than I can say about my cable bill. The other stark comparison to my cable provider is that I have never suffered through service outages caused by weather with my AT&T DSL, my cable seems to get weird whenever it rains. I have the lowest speed of FastAccess DSL but I have always been happy with both the up- and downstream speeds. I'm sure the faster speeds are more impressive, but they are out of my price range and unnecessary for what I use the Internet for.

In short, I have no real problems with my AT&T FastAccess DSL service and was, in fact, pleasantly surprised by the ease of install and use. I would have to say that it is a good deal for the price.

Learn more about this author, Ann-Katherine Souilliard.
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