As AT&T provides my phone service, I decided a few months ago to sign up for DSL internet (after a couple months with dialup, no less) with their Pro Package, which provides connection speeds of up to 3.0 Mbps--what I had at my old home.

When I first got the service, it was practically the same as when I had it before: reasonably fast internet that I was definitely satisfied with. But for two or three months now, speeds have dropped down to barely a crawl. When before I could watch a YouTube video just by clicking on the link leading to its page, now I have to pause the video for a few minutes (even hours, depending on the length) to let it 'buffer' so that I can watch it without it stopping every three or four seconds to load.

Customer service has been polite, but unhelpful. All that they suggest is powercycling the modem and rebooting the computer (which I've done numerous times), checking the filters and phone cables (I've replaced both, to no avail), and scanning for viruses and other malware (which I've also done several times).

At times, the connection feels slower than dialup, and I can't work with subdialup speeds.

I would appreciate any help, and thank you in advance.

I have run AVG Antivirus, Spybot Search and Destroy, Ad-Aware, and SUPERAntiSpyware, but no improvement.

A speed test at http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ says my download speed is from 76 to 120 kbps, and my upload speed is 431 kbps.

If there is any other information I should provide that could be useful, please let me know.

Again, thank you for your help.

First off you might as well post a HijackThis log to our Pros in that section. Not here please. See this post:

http://www.d-a-l.com/help/showthread.php?t=32403

If they find nothing amiss we can try other ideas but it is definitely worth a shot to see what they do or don't see.

Are you using an USB modem or Ethernet? Any routers in the mix? Have you tried different outlet jacks in your home (if available)? Do you have filters on every phone jack in your house?

I've used BellSouth (AT&T) for years and have had a few encounters with their polite techs. Once beyond their standard 20 questions they don't know where to go. Hopefully we can do better.