[NTLUG:Discuss] SBC Yahoo DSL and Linux...

[Wayne Dahl]

On Mon, 2003-06-02 at 13:23, Chris Cox wrote:

> Summary of my support requests to attbi.com (which were not
> honored until I started emailing some folks at attbi.com
> DIRECTLY!!)
> 
> Me: Your email pop no longer works with Mozilla.
> 
> Them: (standard form reponse stating that it's ALL your fault)
> 
> Me: No really, there is a problem.
> 
> Them: Use the online chat and talk with a rep.
> 
> Me: Ok
> 
> (chat)
> 
> Me: Your email pop no longer works with Mozilla.
> 
> Them: We only support Outlook Express under Windows.  Does it
> work ok with Outlook Express.
> 
> Me: I did test with plain Outlook, and it seemed to work.
> 
> Them: Sir, we only support Outlook Express.
> 
> Me: Whatever... it used to work fine with Mozilla.  If you check
> your forums you'll see people complaining about Mozilla, Eudora,
> etc.
> 
> Them: Sir, we only support Outlook Express.
> 
> Me: Thank you for providing ABSOLUTELY NO SUPPORT.
> 
> Them: Thank you, hope you choose AT&T support in the future.
> 
> (direct emails to attbi)
> (many phone calls... yes, PHONE CALLS, from attbi saying
> they want to meet with me!!)
> (leave early from work to talk directly to a TECHNICAL support
> rep... my hopes are high!!)
> 
> Me: Your email pop no longer works with Mozilla, it used to.
> 
> Her: What's Mozilla?
> 
> Me: It is a web browser and has integrated email client.
> 
> Her: We only support...
> 
> Me: YES... I KNOW!!
> 
> Me: There are many MUAs available....
> 
> Her: What's an MUA??
> 
> Me: An MUA is a mail client.  There's...
> 
> Her: Like Outlook Express??
> 
> Me: Yes, like Outlook Express.  Like Eudora.. you know...
> 
> Her: And Eudora is...??
> 
> Me: Another mail client that is very popular on Windows.
> 
> Her: Do you suppose I should ask my supervisor about getting
> some of these to test with?
> 
> Me: Sounds like a good idea.
> 
> Her: Not sure if we have the budget...
> 
> Me: Free.  They're free.
> 
> Her: Oh.  Well officially we only support Outlook
> Express under Windows.
> 
> Me: I've moved ALL of my email AWAY from attbi's server.
> Do you supposed I could get a discount from attbi?  Maybe
> like $4-5/mos??
> 
> Her: Email is free.  You don't pay for it at all with
> attbi.  It is free value added add on.  Perhaps if you moved
> your email to attbi it would work better.
> 
> Me: Argghh..attbi is not of any value to me.  I can't believe email
> is "free".....
> 
> Her: Sir, it is.  I can show you...
> 
> Me: I think we're done... goodbye.

It would be funny if it weren't so TRUE!!  AT&T double billed me for 2
accounts when I only had one.  I had moved from an apartment into a
duplex with my new wife, had trouble and had an AT&T tech out to fix
it.  He took my old modem, which was bad, and left me a new modem.  They
continued to bill (I was being billed by bank draft at the time) because
they said I had not turned in the old modem.  By the time I found this
out, we were packing up to move to the house we now live in and I
couldn't find the paperwork with the serial number of the old modem on
it to prove to them they had their stinking modem!  I had to pay $25 to
my bank to stop the payments to AT&T which they continued to attempt to
get.  When I asked for a refund of the double billing, I was told I
would get nothing without proof.  When I asked to speak to the billing
department, I was told they had no one in billing I could talk to.  When
I asked to talk to a supervisor, the rep (and I use that term VERY
loosely) told me there was no supervisor I could talk to.  

I work for Verizon in the Garland VRRC and if ANYONE at our office
talked to a customer that way, they'd be walked out the door and very
probably fired.  They MIGHT get discipline (a years probation with
instant dismissal for the LEAST infraction, i.e. coming back late from a
break, sneezing the wrong way, etc.), but the fact is they could get
away with it.

AT&T could get away with it because they are really not responsible to
anyone yet.  They are considered a CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange
Carrier) and until they are in a particular area in Texas for 5 years,
they are not bound by PUC rules.  Verizon and SBC, on the other hand,
are ILEC's (Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers) and we ARE bound by PUC
rules and regulations.  In short, we get fined if the PUC finds we
aren't taking care of the customer and AT&T and any other CLEC less than
5 years old in a particular market can get away with murder and the only
way they can be held accountable is by the customer taking his dollars
away from them, which I did when I moved to Sachse and got Verizon DSL. 
<rant mode>

I will have nothing ever again to do with AT&T.  I never had ANY trouble
with my cable when it was TCI, only one cable TV outage and the only
cable modem outage I had was when they were upgrading the servers I was
attached to that lasted only a few hours.  That was only one time in
over a year.  After AT&T took over, our cable TV was out all the time
and the cable modem went down over and over and over again.  I had a
tech tell me they got some new hotshot manager in the Garland office
that took out all the stable TCI equipment and put in a HIGHLY unstable
network.

I have DSL for my internet connection and DirecTV for my TV.  I will
never go back to the cable for television viewing (not in the forseeable
future).  Yes, I lose my tv during a severe thunderstorm, but as soon as
it passes, my tv comes right back.  During a severe storm last year, we
lost tv service for about 30 minutes during the storm, but my
brother-in-law, who dumped DirecTV because he didn't want to have to pay
for the kiddie channels and went back to AT&T cable, lost his cable
connection and they didn't have it fixed for 4 days.

</rant mode>

Wayne