For a long time, I have been a big fan of AT&T’s cell phone service. I have been with AT&T (then Cingular) since 2002 and have been extremely pleased.
However, I do not share the same opinion about AT&T’s DSL offerings. Here in Chicago, my broadband options are more diverse than what I had in Brooklyn several years back (Verizon DSL or nothing). When I moved to Chicago, I had three options: Comcast, RCN, and AT&T. I loath Comcast. My opinion of that company could fuel a whole other entry by itself, so I quickly dismissed it. I had never heard of RCN, so I dismissed it as well, and that left me with good ol’ AT&T.
Since signing with AT&T, I’ve had random outages, suspected a few incidents of bandwidth throttling, and read a lot of stories about the company sharing customer information. But, in truth, I have not once have I needed to call customer support, so my opinion had been neutral thus far. However, last night, my internet dropped out without warning when I really needed it. Quickly a friend on Twitter confirmed that the outage was seemingly citywide. The outage was short but it was enough to screw up my plans and leave a sour taste in my mouth. Then I read something while updating my Flickr profile. One sentence changed my opinion:
You have a Pro account, at no cost as long as you keep your AT&T Yahoo! service.
Okay, so Flickr Pro is only around $20 a year (and probably the best deal on the planet,) and it’s a small contribution when you boil it down. But that said… it was enough to make me smile, bring me back to the neutral ‘meh’ I was at before, and almost turn me into a promoter.
They found my weak spot. Photography is the key to my heart.