You’re wondering why you didn’t see a blog yesterday?...

Tuesday, January 22, 2008
You’re wondering why you didn’t see a blog yesterday?...
You will recall I blogged Sunday about my terrific experience with the sweet little automated lady from the power company. Problems with my internet server, AT&T, pales in comparison. At least the power company has more to lose by me not being connected than AT&T does as my server for the internet. DSL internet, I might add. That means it’s supposed to be much faster than the old dial-up we had years earlier. My internet was down yesterday and so far again today. Sometimes the screen says I have it back, but no, in real life, I don’t have it at all.

We had slow dial up for many years (did I mention my carrier then was none other than AT&T?) until my husband decided we had to have DSL under Bell South. We fired AT&T and found Bell South to be the greatest even with dial up, but hubby still wanted faster DSL.
We were so excited to have fiber optic installed in front of the house a few years before we decided to connect to DSL. This was supposed to be a "no problem" way the company had to connect to the internet. Modems sometimes gave lots of problems.

Everything went fairly well to begin with when we still had Bell South. On a rare occasion when it was first in the start-up stage we did have down time, and even then they fixed it fast. They would send someone out to fix the problem or fix it from their office and we were back on once again with a minimum of inconvenience.

Within the past year, maybe a little longer, AT&T was allowed by the FCC to acquire Bell South. Big mistake in my opinion, for the consumer. Since then it has been down hill all the way. I can’t even count the number of times we’ve been without service and had to call, spending countless unnecessary hours, yes, hours on the phone talking to the tech support team, in who knows what country. (All time tolled it was a minimum of an hour and probably even more.) All with these people with their little books spread in front of them with questions for my husband. Is this plug plugged in behind the computer, can you see a light, unplug and replug XX plug, re-boot the computer, and on and on until finally they determine the must send a service man out to check it out. Good, that’s the only solution to the problem, it seems. The only hitch here is WE have to be inconvenienced by being home, (what if we both were employed, would we have to wait until a Saturday? Or take time off, half a day to meet them?)because they will have to come into our house and check our lines, etc., etc. blah, blah, blah. And more blah, blah, blah. They will make us an appointment for a window of (insert any four hour period most convenient for them). We’ve learn to tell them up front, this is the typical problem you guys have quite frequently, we don’t have a problem in our house, nobody needs to come in, and no, we will not pay for a service call. Yes, there will be a service call charge. No, there won’t be a service call charge. Finally, always a second call is necessary to make sure they understand we will not be paying, and to cancel the appointment. They must teach them to argue until you finally have to hang up and call back to get another dummy to deal with your problem. Another large amount of time on the phone with someone else who has to read from that same book you’ve been read from before. Finally, miraculously you’re back on the air while you’re talking to them. Cancel the service call, hang up, leave the house, come back and find you still don’t have internet service. For the rest of the day, or at least the biggest portion of the day.

Did I mention that upon leaving the house this morning, what was sitting in the driveway down the street? Yep, an AT&T truck. And did I mention this place was swarming with AT&T trucks when we returned. Oh, I forgot, they're out working on our line. Fat chance!

And we still don’t have service. The computer indicates we do, but we can’t get through to any lines or to our e-mail. Guess they’re repairing the lines of all those people who called to complain and got hoodwinked into paying a service call.

Anyway, as I sit here at 2:00 in the afternoon on Tuesday, we are still without service. If you get this a week from now you’ll be lucky. I can’t tell you how very irritating this is to me. If you can’t take care of your current customers why in the world would you want to keep adding more and why would the FCC allow them to you to take on more customers?

If only they had to suffer for the exact time our service is down and not get paid for it like the power company does, but alas they don’t. They’re not accountable to anyone for it, apparently. I certainly don’t want to take on their partners in crime, Com****, because we’ve also had our experience with them in hotels, but I certainly think we should consider firing AT&T again, for the second time. With my luck we would chose a server that is being bought out by AT&T again.
And I did mention, didn't I, that at the end of the last conversation with the tech support they gave my husband the website to call next time we have a problem. Umm, I’ll be sure to use it. As soon as they connect the internet so I can, ok?

Don't you know those tech people must feel awfully stupid having to relay such information to their patrons! I think I would be forced to admit it, because it sure makes one appear plain ignorant. This isn't the first time we had this message relayed, so it is definitely in the book.