Free WoW, courtesy of AT&T
by Eliah Hecht 
Nov 8th 2007 at 11:03AM
There are a few caveats, of course. You need to be a new customer, and as far as I can tell, you need to keep your account open at least a month to get the reward, and there was something about a $75 modem charge, but there was also something about $125 cash back (the fine print is a little confusing). The offer is open until January 31, 2008, so you have a little while to make up your mind. If you've got cable but don't like it, free WoW is never a bad thing. Did anyone take advantage of the DirecTV offer from a few months ago? If so, how did it go?
Filed under: Tips, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Dotixi Nov 8th 2007 12:51PM
lol i just switched from AT&T to TWC Road Running...just a warning AT&T moniters their traffic very closely.
John Nov 8th 2007 11:33AM
I had AT&T for a long time, and I don't care if they are giving out free steaks and BJs... Its NOT worth it. Their customer service, and the quality of the connection is so crappy I wouldn't recommend that anyone do this. That being said, if you have no other choice but to use AT&T in your area you might as well get some free WOW.
Markymark Nov 8th 2007 1:05PM
Lol commercialism at it's best!
Jalann Nov 8th 2007 12:08PM
DSL isn't much slower.
The max for AT&T is 6mb's. I know some cable companies offer 8mb, but that has to be shared. DSL is dedicated to the customer.
drz Nov 8th 2007 12:24PM
lol 'to the nsa' - please tell me that was intentional
Skrilla Nov 8th 2007 11:38AM
I would consider it, could have 2 accounts so I can run alts.
There is no way it can be worse than my Comcast service, which is off every day when I get home and usually d/c's once or twice before I go to bed. Several service calls and modems and nothing has changed.
Dave Nov 8th 2007 11:45AM
DSL is slower than cable?
In what reality?
I'm sorry, but cable providers are the most restrictive, lying, overselling companies providing internet access out there right now.
DSL providers at least don't bullshit you about what you're paying for. If you're subscribing to a 6mbt/512 line, you're mostly able to max that out at all hours of the day. Cable? Good luck at night! Yeah you're getting a "12mbit" connection, but if you can get 2 out of that from 8p-10p then you're on some magic undersubscribed node.
Speed isn't the only thing either, it's ping time. Cable networks are in my experience (5 providers in 4 cities) usually very very congested in peak times, so you enjoy a high ping time. DSL networks however, due to their structure mostly have a very small amount of hops to the internet. Comcast and Charter I was stuck at least 6 hops until I got to the internet, but with Speakeasy I'm 2 away. My ping times in peak time are 60ms or less. Can your "faster" cable do that?
Advertising propaganda is a pretty bad thing to judge a service on to say the least. I've had broadband for 10 years, and I've alternated between cable and DSL every time I've moved somewhere, always trying the cable for a while... and ultimately moving on to a superior DSL product. Every time.
That, and finding out the lovely packet shaping going on with Comcast lately, I can't imagine anyone intelligent choosing comcast over anything right now...
Dur13l Nov 8th 2007 11:48AM
NO!!!
Bad company...Bad service...Bad Deal
This deal is like getting a sucker at the dr's office right before he shoves his hand up your @$$
Eliah Hecht Nov 8th 2007 12:04PM
Dave: I'm just going off my own experiences. Personally, I've had much better BitTorrent bandwidth on cable than on DSL. Yes, Comcast is being a douche right now, so indeed I would stay away from them. It's Time Warner where I live, though, and they're OK.
As far as ping time goes, if I shut down my BitTorrent box, I generally get 40-50ms pings. All the time.
Dave Nov 8th 2007 1:50PM
I agree with commenter #3 above. I recently switched to ATT DSL after around 10 years on cable. I was very skeptical having nothing but problems, big problems with att at work (Director of IT).
Couldn't be happier. Whereas cable always had unexplined outages and very low bandwidth delivery at peak times, the DSL line has been stable ever since I started it up over 6 months ago, and my bandwidth has been steady.
I've never interacted with their customer service and I'm sure it probably stinks, but it couldn't be any worse than my cable company's. I'll trade the same lousy customer service for a much better product any day.
Oh, did I mention my DSL package is 1/2 the cost of what I was paying for cable and twice the bandwidth???
Eliah Hecht Nov 8th 2007 12:21PM
drz: yeah, I couldn't resist a bit of photoshop there ;)
ThorinII Nov 8th 2007 12:37PM
I recently switched from Time Warner Cable to Cicinnati Bell's DSL. Testing the connection on Cable my results showed anywhere between 6 and 8 mbps at any given time of day/night/week/weekend etc... ALWAYS between 6/8. With DSL it is always right about 4 mbps.
HOWEVER, this drop in connection speed has not made a noticable difference in my surf or game responce. I see no difference what so ever no matter what I am doing.
I can't explain how this could be possible, but it is. I can't speak for any other providers, but DSL in Cincinnati is technically slower than Cable in Cincinnati, but it hasn't slowed down my surfing or gaming at ALL!
Rob Nov 8th 2007 2:42PM
I use AT&T DSL (formerly SBC), in Texas. Its fine, almost never had any problems. Disconnects are very rare. WoW speed is fine, I get 150 ms latency while WOWing, and when my wife plays there isn't a hit either, we both get 150 ms latency usually. However I don't try to download stuff and do WoW, the lag is too bad. But DSL is fine for what you need, and we only pay $25 a month. (Versus, what $100 for cable + cable modem?)
PoliticalGamer Nov 8th 2007 12:52PM
From my experience, DSL isn't that bad. Then again, I'm the only one who plays games over it, so I don't know how well multiple WoW players will do on it.
But as I will always say, we need bigger "tubes". The US is doing crappy when it comes to broadband, where countries in Europe are getting three times the speed at half the price.
The problem with this deal is that it's AT&T. It's the largest, and worst, of all the telecom companies. If at all possible, I would avoid them. Three months of WoW won't be worth it if they just see the game as a bandwidth hog (ie: why we need net neutrality).
Eliah Hecht Nov 8th 2007 1:04PM
ThorinII: It's pretty simple. You're not coming close maxing out your bandwidth; therefore, it doesn't matter what the maximum speed of your connection is. And they (evidently) provide comparable latency, so there's no performance hit there.
Thepitt Nov 8th 2007 7:46PM
Seeing as how i've run this game on a dial-up connection at 56k... you are pissing in the wind over the difference between a 4mb pipe and a 8mb pipe...
Anything over 1mb and you can't really tell a difference in normal internet usage... people who need the larger pipes are usually running a lot of apps that stream massive amounts of data. like downloading movies, songs, and such... (not to moention porn)
Brian Carnell Nov 8th 2007 4:43PM
"DSL isn't much slower.
The max for AT&T is 6mb's. I know some cable companies offer 8mb, but that has to be shared. DSL is dedicated to the customer."
Depends on the cable company. I have Charter 10mbs/1mbs...I've downloaded >1 TB per month and have yet to be penalized in any way.
Also, at least Charter and Comcast are not letting the NSA illegally monitor your communications as AT&T did/does.
Ephiaa Nov 8th 2007 2:58PM
I work of an ISP that provides DSL service. I am also fortunate enough to live in a area that my employer serves. I have 8Mpbs/600Kpbs service and can run bandwidth test on speakeasy and actually see that I get what I'm paying for. Try that on Cable O.O
Keylight Nov 8th 2007 3:09PM
As far as gaming goes, speed is usually a non factor. Online games don't use 6Mbps when you play them. The important factor here is ping times (hence they reason the put a ping meter in the game). Like an earlier poster said, there is generally less hops to get out of a DSL network then a Cable one. Due to my job, I currently have both a DSL and a Cable connection. Cable is far more laggy playing WoW then DSL at my house, even though the cable company advertises a much higher speed. If you are comparing them for the purpose of downloading large files, then yes, the bigger pipe will win.
Shumina Nov 8th 2007 3:41PM
I think I'll pass. NSA has an easy enough time monitoring my Paladin as it is.